Outward Conformity Only, or Internal Reality?

PRAY & INTRO: Put yourself in the shoes of the Jews at the time of Paul’s writing. Imagine that for 2,000 years, your people group (descendants of Abraham through Isaac)—the people with whom you identify ethnically, nationally, and religiously—have known that you are a people uniquely chosen by God out of all the peoples of the earth.

Even as a descendant of Israel, is your need for Messiah’s deliverance only temporal and material, or is Messiah’s provision even greater—a righteousness that is spiritual and eternal?

For both his fellow Jews and for all of us, Paul makes clear in these early chapters of Romans that we are all held captive in sin and need a greater deliverance. We need to be right with God, to be delivered from he judgment that we justly deserve for our sin against God.

Paul aims to make sure his fellow Jews include themselves in this need, leaning further into the argument he began earlier and then aimed directly at Jews in v. 17… Rom 2:17

Romans 2:17 ESV

17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God…

Paul proceeded to show that merely possessing the law, even knowing it well enough to teach others is of no value unless you live up to it… completely. Similarly now, he explains that physical circumcision likewise will not exempt Jews from God’s judgment.

Romans 2:25–29 ESV

25 For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. 26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. 28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

To be right with God, are you depending on outward conformity only, or on internal transformation by the Spirit?

This is where we need to go with application to our own situation today, but to get there, we will first need to trace Paul’s argument to his target in this portion of the text. Paul knows full well that he has readers in the church in Rome who are both Gentiles and Jews, so he’s expecting that they all grow in this clear understanding of the gospel. But at the present spot in this diatribe style that he is employing, the target opponent is a fellow Jew trusting in the wrong things to think he will escape God’s judgment. (Being a Jew? Having the law? Being circumcised? Will you escape God’s just judgment by these things in themselves?)

After tracing Paul’s specific argument, we can then take that understanding as a bridge for our own application. This is what we must always do with God’s word, and a text like this for today serves as a really good example of that for us.

To the Jew, Paul says…

(verse 25) The token of physical circumcision is profitable if you practice the law but pointless if you transgress the law.

Now what about this physical sign of the Abrahamic covenant by circumcision?

Before God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision for all the males in his household and changed his name to Abraham, God had already made a covenant with Abram (Genesis 15) that his offspring would be multitudes and that his heirs would possess the land he was on. God even graciously explained to him how his descendants would come to possess the land after many years of slavery in Egypt.

Now, Abram’s wife Sarai was old and had no children. So, thinking to help God out with his promise of offspring, Sarai hatched a plan for Abram to have a child with Sarai’s Egyptian servant, Hagar. Abram went along with it and had a son by Hagar—Ishmael—when Abram was 86 years old (Genesis 16).

But when Abram was 99 (Genesis 17:1-14), God reaffirmed his covenant with Abram, changing his name to Abraham (“father of a multitude”), and telling him that he would be the father of many nations, and that kings would come from him. God also confirmed again that Abraham’s offspring would possess the land of his sojournings, “as an everlasting possession.” Most importantly, God covenanted “to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen 17:7).

God also added a covenant responsibility on Abraham and his descendants, to be a sign of their covenant commitment to God, which was that every male in his household (even those in his household who were purchased slaves), and his descendants thereafter, were to be circumcised in the flesh of their foreskin. Again, they were to continue doing this as a token of their commitment to the covenant God made with Abraham, by God’s own choosing and for his own glory. At least part of the intended imagery can be found in Gen 17:14, and there it is intended to be a warning to anyone unwilling to keep this sign of their commitment to the God of Abraham:

Genesis 17:14 ESV

14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Now right after this, God also told Abraham that he would in fact have an heir through Sarai, and he changed her name to Sarah. Although Sarah was now 90, she would have a son and they were to name him Isaac. And although God would also bless Ishmael, the covenant God made with Abraham would continue specifically through Isaac. (Gen 17:15-21) So Abraham immediately obeyed and circumcised himself and Ishmael and every male of his household, including the foreigners (Gen 17:22-27).

So all Jews have continued in this circumcision of their males right into the time of Paul writing, and right up to today. But the question Paul raises is to the efficacy of that sign of the Abrahamic covenant, if the Jews in daily living transgress the law covenant God made with them through Moses.

If you don’t live up to God’s law, Paul says, your law-breaking is the same as being uncircumcised, being separated from God’s covenant just like any Gentile who is not of the covenant.

(verses 26&27) On the other hand, if a physically uncircumcised person (Gentile) were to conform his practices to God’s law, wouldn’t that be counted to him as spiritual circumcision? Such a person will condemn you (fellow Jew) as a transgressor even though you have both the Mosaic law in writing and the Abrahamic sign of circumcision.

Although this part of the argument is pretty straightforward, interpreters can disagree here again (as earlier in ch. 2) on whether or not the pious Gentile who keeps the law is one who literally does so or is theoretical for the purpose of Paul’s argument. If this is to be understood as someone who does indeed fulfill the righteous requirement of the law, then it must correlate to Paul’s later argument that this would be a Gentile who is saved by grace through faith in Jesus and thereby fulfills the law (keeps the moral norms of the law) through the work of the Spirit of God.

But I still take this to be one who, in theory, if he were to keep the righteous requirement of the law even though uncircumcised, would be regarded as spiritually circumcised, and would thus stand in judgment over circumcised Jews who do not keep the law. Even though this is the closest we get to Paul’s later discussion with his references to the Spirit and the heart, as we shall see in a moment, this is not new language to the Jew (circumcision of the heart by the Spirit). Most significantly, Paul is still coming to the fact that all, both Jew and Greek, are under sin and stand justly condemned (Ro 3:9ff). He will then approach his primary assertion that we therefore need God’s righteousness through Jesus the Messiah, a justification that comes by faith alone (Ro 3:21ff), which Paul will argue has always been true, even for the likes of Abraham and David (chapter 4).

In other words, who is the righteous Jew who has kept the law sufficiently to merit salvation, and who is the sufficiently righteous Gentile? No one. That’s why every single one needs Jesus.

Before we move on from this middle section, as Paul here begins emphasizing the spiritual significance of circumcision as opposed to the outward sign, I ask you to consider three practical reasons why Jews shouldn’t put their trust in the physical sign of the covenant:

-Did you know that circumcision wasn’t unique in history when God gave this sign to Abraham? There is historical evidence that it was being practiced in ancient Egypt (and probably other cultures as well) before God made it to be the sign of the covenant with Abraham. This should make us realize that it was a token, a sign, that was to be remembered by Jews as their commitment to God, but was not to be equated with what would meet God’s approval. True spiritual commitment to God was what counted.

-Secondly, even this outward sign of commitment is something mostly hidden, known only (for certain) to God and a few intimate acquaintances. It was carried out, but then remained under cover. It wasn’t really a public sign, but a reminder to each individual male that he needed to be committed to Israel’s God.

-Finally, and this aspect is one I’m mostly telling to the men in the room, because it is patently obvious to those who are of the opposite sex: More than half of the population made in the image of God is female, not male. (The same is true for the descendants of Israel.)

Paul makes the point clearly that what we are dealing with is an individual’s right relationship to God through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, the spiritual significance of faith’s commitment counts for more than any outward sign. In fact, one can be circumcised and not be saved, and one can be uncircumcised but be saved. Although there are many important benefits and even instructions for Christians as a collective—in unity—we are only saved individually by personally relating rightly to God through faith in Jesus the Messiah.

(verses 28&29) Just so, external Jewishness and circumcision are insufficient. A true Jew (of the covenant promise to Abraham) is one who is circumcised in heart (by the Spirit, not by the letter of the law).

As I mentioned, circumcision of the heart was not new news to the Jews. In Deuteronomy, when Moses was calling a new generation of Israelites to the be faithful to God’s covenant with them, he said, Deut 10:12-16

Deuteronomy 10:12–16 ESV

12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

By faith be committed and obedient to God’s covenant with you. But Moses warned that generations after them would fall into sin and suffer the consequences of the curses for not keeping the law, and they would be judged by God and driven into captivity away from the land. When these things would come upon them, if they would repent and return to God, he would restore them to the land and the blessing of their forefathers.

And evidently this spiritual need was not something they could accomplish on their own, but that God himself would have make it happen.

Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV

6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Paul picks up this same line of reasoning for present-day Jews, reminding them that true Judaism is a matter of heart circumcision. He also continues that this is a work done by the Spirit of God, which cannot be accomplished by the letter (the written code, the law). In Rom 7:6 he will similarly make this contrast:

Romans 7:6 ESV

6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Again, it is here in 2:29 with reference to the Spirit (and contrast to the law) that we see Paul foreshadowing later parts of his argument about what God does in us by faith, apart from the law.

So in the flow of Paul’s argument to the Jew who might think he is exempt from judgment due to participation in the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, Paul says that none of that counts without circumcision of the heart. And significantly, to the one who is circumcised in heart: “His praise is not from man but from God.” Again the focus is on what God sees, which is whether or not we are genuinely, sincerely, submitting to and obeying him from the heart: “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7).

Here’s the overarching question Paul raises for fellow Jews: Can we Jews be saved without believing in Jesus the Messiah? Can we be saved by our Jewishness, by our circumcision, or by keeping of the law?

The answer is an emphatic “No!” (which is why he will then anticipate them asking the question, at Romans 3:1 “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?”) There is great advantage and blessing to having these things, but in themselves they will not save you.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum, a messianic Jew (meaning a Jew who does believe that Jesus is the Messiah), summarizes this way: “A rite without reality is useless. Physical circumcision does not equate to spiritual circumcision. On its own, circumcision was never able to save a man.” (Fruchtenbaum, Romans, 77.)

Furthermore then, my understanding of this is that Paul applies the imagery of Judaism to the work God does spiritually in Gentiles as well, without conflating which people are Jews and which are Gentiles. In many cases at least, the categories remain plainly distinct. This immediate context does not seem to be an exception. (2:17, 3:1, 3:9)

Once more, then…

How should we apply what Paul says to fellow Jews in Romans 2?

There are a couple of key things I want to point out by way of application. The first is one derived from this text in its broader context that we have been studying for several weeks in chapter 2, combined with where Paul is heading in Romans.

Judgment is according to works. Salvation is by grace through faith.

Why do I say this here? Because the whole point of the section we are in now is Paul demonstrating that we all (Gentile and Jew) are deserving of judgment, in order that we may see our need as it really is and respond in faith to God’s grace in Jesus the Messiah.

Judgment is according to works. The problem for the Jew in particular, Paul claims, is that relying on the law (vv. 17-24) and on circumcision (vv. 25-29) themselves (privileges of the covenant) are futile if one fails to be true to them. Those who have the law fail to keep the law; those who are circumcised in the flesh fail to be circumcised in heart. The privileges of God’s covenant will not, by themselves, automatically exempt one from God’s judgment. You must live up to them. - Paul says, since we do not live up to the law we have (which represents the standard of God’s own righteousness), we are subject to judgment.

Salvation, on the other hand, has always been according to faith. Salvation has never come by works but has always been by grace through faith. Paul will show in chapter 4 that such was true for Abraham, that it was faith which was counted to him as righteousness (Ro 4:3), which in fact preceded the sign of circumcision (Ro 4:10).

In Paul’s present and our present, because God has sent Messiah (who fulfilled God’s promise, in which earlier generations put their faith)… salvation is now specifically by faith in God through the Lord Jesus Christ. - If salvation were according to works, no one would be saved.

Romans 3:20 ESV

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Instead of justifying us, the law makes us aware of our sin. And our sinful works are cause for God’s judgment. Judgment is according to works. Even the law is no help (for salvation!) because it reveals the perfect standard of God’s righteousness, which we do not keep.

But praise be to God, for the indescribable gift of his grace through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

Romans 3:21–22 ESV

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:

Romans 3:23–24 ESV

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

What are you counting on to be right with God? Your good works, or are you counting on his grace to you because of faith in Jesus alone for salvation?

See, we can apply Paul’s warning to the Jews here to our own situation in terms of trusting too much in external religiosity…

The Danger of Cultural Christianity: The fellowship and practices of Christianity are pointless unless you have genuine faith in Jesus, an internal transformation by the Spirit that leads to following Jesus from the heart.

This also points to the exclusivity of the gospel of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ. If not even so-called “Christian” practice can lead to God without true faith in Jesus, then other religions certainly do not and cannot lead to God. They are a deliberate deceit of the devil and of our own depravity, drawing us away from God to the worship of self and false gods.

Not even the most religious and altruistic person on the planet can be saved apart from faith in God through Christ Jesus. We cannot and must not trust in our works, but only in the work of Christ. True, Paul will agree with James that a faith that has no works is not a true faith; it is dead. But Paul’s primary point is that it is faith alone which saves, not our works.

- Be sure you are a Christian from the heart. Be sure the outward activity springs from the internal reality.

Be sure you are submitting to the Lordship of Jesus.

Outward religious conformity is of no value without internal spiritual change. This is true not only for the Jew but for the whole world. For if outward conformity remains the standard, we are all condemned by it. But Paul is leading us to understand that the righteousness we need must spring from within and can only come by grace through faith, a faith that is now specifically in the righteousness of Messiah, the Lord Jesus.

Have you repented of loving your sin, repented of trusting in yourself, and sought God’s salvation through putting your faith entirely in Jesus the Messiah? Will you begin this commitment today?

And if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, can you tell now (is there evidence) that your life is different because of the work that God has done inwardly by his Spirit when we truly belong to him by faith?

You can be sure of new standing with God and of your future salvation and of your ongoing sanctification, IF your trust is in God and not in yourself. That is the point of the gospel.

LET’S PRAY.

———