Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Masquerade

When going to a masquerade ball, one can put on a show to everyone else that he or she is something they’re really not.

It’s a time of camouflage where one can assume the identity that they desire.

But eventually the mask comes off and what is underneath is seen by all.

In the book of 1 Samuel, Jesse masqueraded his sons before the prophet Samuel, sons who, on the outside presented a show of strength, bravery, and nobility.

But when Goliath came and brought war with him, when Goliath blasphemed the name of God, when Goliath called for a man to fight him, these brothers were hiding in their tents along with their own tall-man, king Saul.

What did God reveal to Samuel on the day he announced Israel’s next king?

“the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

God, being God, knows the hearts of men and he knew David was a man who truly worshiped Him, feared Him, loved Him.

Which is why, when David heard Goliath’s blasphemous words, he could not abide.

He fought, fearing God and not man, trusting in God and not in his own strength or lack there of, and he won.

Unlike Saul, unlike his brothers, He was faithful in his heart to God.

And on that day what was evident to God became evident to the entire nation.

And here’s how this all connects to our final sermon in Romans 2, the unbelieving Jew was masquerading as a true Jew, proudly wearing the mask of a member of Gods covenant family, but underneath that mask was the heart of an uncircumcised gentile.

He was a fraud who was not fooling God.

Context

So far in this chapter, Paul has shown the unrepentant Jews in Rome that they could not cling to their ethnicity to save them from God’s wrath.

Nor could they point to their possession of the Law, to merely being hearers as a grounds for their justification.

And in this last passage, Paul makes one more argument to show them their sin and need for faith in Christ alone.

For the Jew, the divinely commissioned role of teacher and priest of God and his sign of circumcision were the strongest evidences of a covenant relationship with God.

They were given a role and they were given a sign that they were Gods people and thus recipients of His favor.

These two things are what the Jews held dearest, what gave them the most sense of pride and what Paul sought to dismantle.

Main Idea and Structure

In verses 17-24 Paul is going to show that the Jews utterly failed to rightly bear the name of God to the world.

I will name this section The Counterfeit Jew’s Dishonor.

And in vs 25-29 Paul will destroy their faulty reliance on circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant blessing and instead point out the reality of true circumcision.

I will call this section The True Jew’s Praise.

So then two sections to conclude our study

The Counterfeit Jew’s Dishonor - vs 17-24

The True Jew’s Praise - vs 25-29

And the main idea in these two sections is this: Hypocrisy dishonors the Divine, but the Divine praises obedience flowing from a Spirit circumcised heart.

(repeat)

With that, let’s begin with The Counterfeit Jew’s Dishonor

The Counterfeit Jew’s Dishonor - vs 17-24

Law’s Privilege

In the book of Exodus God delivers the descendents of Abraham from slavery to Pharoah.

He leads them in a Cloud by Day and a Pillar of fire by night, guiding them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and to the base of Mount Sinai.

And it is there that the God speaks to His delivered Ones to define His covenant relationship to them.

Listen as I read from Exodus 19:5-6 “5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’

These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.””

So Israel was God’s Holy Nation, set apart to be his treasured possession and set apart to be a kingdom of priests.

And in the very next chapter, God reveals His law to them.

So then it was through their obedience to God’s law, that Israel was to show the nations around them the wisdom and the character and the truth about God.

It was because of this covenant privilege of the law and this priestly position that the Hebrews considered it a great honor to be called a Jew.

Which is what Paul addresses, beginning in verse 17, Romans 2:17-18 “17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law;” In these verses Paul lists 4 distinctives of being a Jew, “ (1) they rely on the law, (2) they boast in God, (3)they know his will, they (4) approve what is excellent.

And the basis for these distinctives is seen at the end of verse 18, “because they are instructed from the law.”

Let me restate that so you can see Paul’s logic - The Jew has the covenant privilege of being instructed from the law, and because they are instructed from the law, they rely on this law, they boast in the God of the law, they know His will from the law, and from the law they have learned how to approve what is excellent.

Now, being taught from the law is a true and genuine privilege.

As Paul says in the very next chapter of Romans,“what advantage has the Jew?

Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much in every way.

To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.”

So then, we can ridicule the Jew’s since of pride in these verses, but that’s not what Paul is after.

These four distinctives in 17-18 are not condemned by Paul and so they are not at all bad.

Last week, I told you that the Law has the function of a teacher, a teacher that reveals our sinfulness to us and points us to our need for the atonement of Christ for our sins.

But I left out the very true reality that the Law teaches us about God.

It guides to know His holiness, His transcendence, His sovereignty over His creation, His kingly authority, His value of life, His purity, His goodness, His wisdom, His justice, His wrath and His lovingkindness.

We can learn all of that from the Law of God.

And so it’s true to say that from the Law the Jew learned to rest in theLaw, to Boast in the God of the Law, and to understand and learn God’s will and God’s standard for excellence from the law.

Let’s keep reading.

Role as Priest

In verses 19-20 we see the same pattern of four distinctives followed by a statement that acts as the basis for those distinctives.

Verse 19, “19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,”

Paul moves from describing the Jew’s privilege relative to the law in verses 17-18 to describing Israel’s role in sharing that Law to the Gentile world.

At the end of verse 20 we see the basis for this role.

Because they had the Law which embodies knowledge and truth, (1) they were to guide the blind with this law, (2) they were to light the dark world with this truth, (3) they were to use its wisdom to correct the foolish, (4) and they were to teach the immature with its knowledge.

Again, this is not a negative thing that Paul is condemning Israel for.

It is certainly true that God’s law is the embodiment of knowledge and truth.

And it was their role to guide and shine and correct and teach.

God made His law known to them and they in turn were to make God known to the nations.

This was a priceless privilege and and honored position.

So what is wrong here Paul?

Divine Dishonor

We find out in verses 21-22 where Paul gives a final set of 4, this time in the form of rhetorical questions, “21 you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself?

You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?

22 You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” See that Paul is not condemning their teaching of others, he is implying that they failed to follow their own teaching.

As Jesus said of the Pharisees, “they preach, but do not practice”

Now some argue that the accusations that Paul makes in these verses are unfair.

Certainly, not everyone in Paul’s audience was an adulterer, or a thief, or plundered temples, which was a common practice in that day.

Certainly, Paul himself, the Hebrew of Hebrews, never engaged in these practices.

But what Paul is doing here is using a rhetorical device found in the extrabiblical Jewish literature of his time where one would indict his whole audience of sin by exposing the most egregious and appalling sins of a few.

He uses blatant and shocking examples to illustrate the reality that they had all violated the law they taught.

These horrifying acts of hypocrisy were gross demonstrations of what was rotten at the core of the entire community.

And even if a Jew could say, “No Paul I have never stolen, I’ve never commited adultery, I’ve never robbed a Temple, and it’s unfair of you to lump me in with them.”

Their mouth would have been shut upon hearing Paul’s final question, look down at verses 23, “23 You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?

Notice that Paul does not repeat the same pattern of verses 21 and 22.

He does not ask them if they break the Law they boast in.

It’s assumed that they are guilty as charged.

The rhetorical question is a stinging one, “do you dishonor God?”

They were the ones who boasted in God, they were proud to know the name of YHWH, to tell of His mighty deeds, to celebrate His feasts, to sacrifice to Him, and yet they brought His name shame.

Paul continues his indictment in verse 24, “24 For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.”

The dishonor that they bring is tantamount to the violation of the third commandment.

“God’s name is not praised because of you.

No the Holy name of God is blasphemed because of you.”

Remember that at the core of Paul’s condemnation of the unbelieving gentiles was that they even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.

And Paul’s point here is that the unbelieving Jew is guilty of the same exact sin.

And they failed because they did not practice what they preached.

They were supposed to be a blessing to the Gentiles.

They were supposed to cause the gentiles to marvel at the wisdom of the Law.