Live Out God's Will
Notes
Transcript
We are talking about the reality that the Gospel is the power of God to save sinners from God’s wrath; that God gives righteousness to all who believe the good news about Jesus. The wrath of God will be poured out someday on all wicked people, to balance the scales of justice. But you don’t have to wait that long to see God’s wrath to some degree. God presently shows his anger against sin by letting people destroy themselves and others by their sin. The moral person isn’t exempt from this charge, since even relatively upright people still do things they know they ought not do. It is vital that everyone realize they are morally bankrupt before a holy and righteous God, for only by acknowledging your sin is true forgiveness possible.
So Paul lays it on a bit thick. His sarcasm comes through when he mocks the non-Christian Jew for thinking they are so superior merely because they are instructed in the law and have been circumcised. This was a common way of thinking for them back then. But that is because it is human to believe you are going to be fine. Most people today don’t think like Jews, but they too think they are mostly alright, because they “try to do the right thing.” But knowing what you are supposed to do does not give you anything; you need to actually do what you know.
Misplaced Pride in Knowing the Law
Misplaced Pride in Knowing the Law
Paul first calls out those Jews who take pride in their knowledge of the Law. This isn’t valuing the Word of God per se, but rather thinking that because you know the Bible, the mere knowledge of the Scriptures makes you morally superior to those who lack this knowledge. Make no mistake, knowing the Bible is immensely valuable; but just knowing what the Bible says does not make you acceptable before God or make you morally better than the others. If you know the truth but don’t live it, then your knowledge does not put you closer to God. If anything, knowing the truth without doing it makes you worse, since other people can use the excuse of “I didn’t know.” The person who knows God’s Will cannot use that excuse, so their lives better be morally superior to those who do not know God’s will.
Five identities
Five identities
Paul lists five identities in v.17-18 where the person wrongly believes their knowledge of the law makes them morally superior to Gentiles. First, He calls himself a Jew. There’s nothing wrong with identifying your people-group of course, and Jews should not have to be ashamed for being Jewish. But I don’t think that’s what Paul means. Do you catch the tone behind this label? “And you call yourself a Jew,” meaning, “you don’t deserve to think of yourself as Jewish.” The idea is that this person believes that just because God has chosen his people to be a unique possession and treasure, that automatically means he as an individual is also especially accepted by God. That’s not how that works.
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”
Second, they rely on the law. Again, turning to the Law as a source of knowledge about how God wants you to live is a good thing.
Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.
Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it.
The Psalmist delights to know God’s Law, but he uses the law the way it was meant to be used. The Law was never supposed to be the way people gained salvation and acceptance with God. It was supposed to be a source of knowledge about how God wanted you to live. Even in the Old Testament, your relationship with God could only happen by faith; you could only be righteous by faith. But by knowing God’s Law, you could learn how God wanted you to live. You were supposed to believe the law first, meaning, that you accepted God’s moral standard and realized that blessing in this life could only be attained by doing what God said. If you accepted God’s Word by faith, you would be accepted with God. Then, the more you applied God’s Word to your life, the more blessed you would be in that life.
Paul is talking to Jews who don’t rely on the law that way. Instead, they consider their knowledge of the law to be the thing that makes them better. They believed they were accepted before God just because they knew more about what God wanted than the Gentiles did.
Third, they boast in God. Again, to boast in the Lord is itself a good thing.
Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
To glory or Boast in God is a good thing, something we ought to do. That’s not the problem. The problem is that this Jew believes that he has a relationship with God, and is so confident of this that he boasts about it. Yet he does not actually have a relationship with God. God does not actually accept him, because he has not actually done what needs to be done for God to accept him.
The next two items are that they know God’s Will and approve what is excellent. Again, it’s not the thing itself that’s the problem. The idea is that because they have the Law, they know what God wants them to do, and can make superior moral judgments. They aren’t wrong about that, for the point of the law was to provide moral instruction. The problem with that is when someone knows what God’s will is, and immediately takes an air of superiority without actually doing what he knows.
Four Roles
Four Roles
Paul continues laying it on thick with four roles that his hypothetical Jew believes he can fill because of his knowledge of the law. The Jew believes he is a “guide to the blind.” In other words, he thinks that he effectively replaces the law for the Gentiles, who are morally blind by comparison. He believes that he is a light for those in moral darkness. Now the problem here is not that such a thing is impossible, but that this Jew appropriates this role without earning it. He does not actually follow the law, yet because he has it, he thinks he is morally superior. Paul actually claimed to be the same thing.
For so the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, That you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”
And we too are supposed to be a light to others.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Jesus commands us to similarly be a light to those in darkness; but notice that our ability to be that light isn’t just because we know the Bible; it’s only when they can see our good works that we can be a light to others.
The next two roles are similar. “Instructor of the foolish.” by “foolish” he means those who are without good sense or sound judgment. The Scriptures do indeed instruct the foolish or simple.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
But here again, it’s one thing to recognize that if the fool listens to the Scriptures, he will become wise. It’s another to think that you yourself are the embodiment of the Law just because you know it.
A “teacher of children.” Here probably the “children” aren’t literal kids, but rather the Jew thinks of himself as an instructor to Gentiles who by comparison are no more wise than children.
And the reason the Jew thinks he is the very embodiment of God’s will is simply because he has the knowledge of the Truth that God gave Moses. It’s quite the arrogant leap to think that because you have received the truth, you effectively become the embodiment of the Law to others, especially when the life does not match the claimed moral superiority.
Four Questions
Four Questions
Paul asks four rhetorical questions to bring up this hypocrisy. First, “Do you teach yourself.” Meaning that they don’t live by the standards they proclaim to others. Second, he claims that those who preach against stealing, steal themselves. It’s not that every Jew was also a thief; Paul is bringing up common failures among his own people. It was a pattern he had observed that some of those who shouted the loudest against thieves actually were themselves thieves. Some of those who shouted loudly against adultery were themselves unfaithful to their spouses. Some of those who shouted loudly against idol worship “robbed temples.” Looting temples was a frequent problem in the ancient world, because pagan temples had a lot of valuable things in them; It would seem that some Jews would go into those temples and steal stuff at night, while shouting loudly during the day that pagan idols are an abomination.
Notice that the problem isn’t that there is a problem with their moral outrage. Stealing really is wrong. Adultery should be condemned. Pagan idols really are an abomination to God. The problem is that they said all that, and still thought they could get away with doing the opposite in private. He sums it up by saying that they “boast in the law.” Meaning that they boast in their knowledge of what the Law says, and yet they dishonor God by breaking it.
Paul quotes from Isaiah 52:5 here, though it is not a precise quotation. The idea is that Israel has been exiled because of her sins, but that exile looks like defeat and therefore God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles as a result. The same idea is more directly found when Nathan confronted David over the Bathsheba incident.
However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you shall surely die.”
So Paul wants to call out misplaced confidence in the knowledge of the Law. This is for people who believe that they are morally superior just because they know the source of moral wisdom in the Law of God, yet they do not do that law themselves. The problem isn’t that they loudly say the right things. The problem is that they don’t do them. Our broader culture finds such religious hypocrisy disgusting. They should. But they have the wrong answer about how to solve hypocrisy. You don’t solve hypocrisy by abandoning the Scriptures to loudly shout that evil is good and good evil. Someone who loudly proclaims that theft is evil is correct; the solution is to stop stealing, not to stop shouting that theft is evil. Otherwise you fall into the same condemnation as in Romans 1:32.
But knowledge of the Law isn’t the only source of misplaced confidence. The other one is circumcision.
Misplaced Pride in Religious Identity
Misplaced Pride in Religious Identity
Now Paul’s point is to address misplaced pride in the Jewish rite of circumcision. Now if we are to understand how this passage applies to us, we first must understand the meaning and place of circumcision. By the first century, circumcision was the defining ritual that identified (male) Jews as Jewish. But what was it supposed to mean?
What was Circumcision supposed to do?
What was Circumcision supposed to do?
Fundamentally, Circumcision was supposed to identify a people group as being God’s special people. It didn’t mean that any one individual Israelite believed in God or was acceptable before him. That’s why God chose a ritual that only men could undergo, and why it was done on the 8th day after birth. Infants cannot believe, so why circumcise them? Because it wasn’t about the individual’s faith; it was about a people group identifying with Yahweh. Circumcision did not guarantee salvation, for it wasn’t an individual thing to begin with. Also, God could have picked something that both men and women could do, but he didn’t. That’s because God was planning for men to be the leaders of their individual household, so circumcision was supposed to identify the family that the father leads as being part of God’s special people. It wasn’t done to provide a spiritual benefit to the infant.
This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
It is clear that the ritual is about households, because the instruction is given to the male head of those households, to circumcise everyone. It is not a sign of faith, but a sign of participation in the Abrahamic Covenant as the people of God. Those who refused circumcision were to be no longer recognized as part of God’s People.
So What exactly is an “Inward” Jew?
So What exactly is an “Inward” Jew?
This helps us understand what Paul means then when he says that circumcision is valuable if you obey the law. Since it wasn’t a ritual that marked your individual faith, your personal relationship with God was the important factor. If the individual fails to demonstrate faith by following the law, they exclude themselves from God’s Kingdom in the end times. Thus, failing to believe God excludes the unbelieving Jew from the world to come just as effectively as the unbelieving Gentile.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out.
The reverse is also true. If a man who is uncircumcised demonstrates he believes by keeping the law, he will participate in the World to Come as a Gentile. Thus, he would not be excluded from God’s people. Paul isn’t innovating here.
Do not let the son of the foreigner Who has joined himself to the Lord Speak, saying, “The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”; Nor let the eunuch say, “Here I am, a dry tree.”
“Also the sons of the foreigner Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants— Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And holds fast My covenant—
Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
Notice that the Lord emphasizes that the foreigner will not be separated from God’s people, if he truly worships the Lord and keeps his Sabbaths. So this applies to Old Testament saints. In the present era, believers do not need to keep the Sabbath, but in the Old Testament, they did. And also notice that the foreigners do not become Jews - they do not participate in circumcision and therefore they do not become marked as God’s people. They are still not Jewish, and they live before Jesus abolished the Old Covenant. Yet they still participate in the people of God.
In other words, the person who keeps the Law without being circumcised gets all the benefits of being part of God’s people.
Thus, the idea that a Gentile could be accepted into the people of God even in the Old Testament without being circumcised, if he demonstrated genuine faith by obeying the Law. That further means that (theoretically) an obedient believing Gentile could put to shame the unbelieving Israelite, since the unbelieving Israelite will be excluded from the World to Come, while the believing Gentile is welcomed into God’s people even under the provisions of the Old Covenant - the one that is now obsolete.
This means that ultimate acceptance into the Old Testament People of God was about the inward relationship with God, not about the external ritual. The External Ritual might temporarily mark someone as being Jewish, but unless that external symbol was followed up by genuine faith, the individual would find themselves excluded. The Holy Spirit regenerates people, and it is regeneration that is the ultimate standard of inclusion in the Kingdom People of God.
Conclusion
The point of all of this is that for the purpose of application we can replace “knowing the Law” with “knowing the Bible.” After all, the Law of Moses is still in our Bibles, isn’t it? Is it a great advantage to know the Bible? Yes, absolutely. If you do what it says. But having the Scriptures doesn’t make you better, just because you know more. God wants Christians to be a light to the world. But you don’t become a light just by knowing more things. You are a light to the world when the Scripture is so part of your soul that you live it. Only when your life and your lips say the same thing can you unironically be a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of children.
People also like to make lists of things that show their moral superiority to others; very often, these lists aren’t completely detached from reality, but they are still wrong. In the first century, circumcision was first on that list. God did command it, but he never intended it to be a sign of an individual’s standing before God. In our day, people make different lists, because of the influence of 2000 years of Christianity - baptism, church attendance, Bible reading, singing special music in church. None of these things has exactly the same meaning to the church as circumcision did for Israel, but they are all similar - they are outward symbols that sometimes are a convenient shorthand for someone’s real relationship with God. Not that you shouldn’t do these things, but don’t make them an outward external validation to substitute a genuine relationship with God from a true heart of worship.
