The Disadvantage Of Advantage (Rom. 2:25-29)

Romans 2:25 NKJV

For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

The Disadvantage Of Advantage

Romans 2:25-29

Intro:

Long before the giving of the law ratified the covenant at Mount Sinai, the rite of circumcision ratified the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:9–14).

Now that Paul has demonstrated that the disobedience of the Jews has nullified the effects of the law (Rom 2:12–24), he shows that their transgressions have also nullified the value of circumcision.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 74.

1 Ritual will not produce Reality (Rom. 2:25-27)

A. The Purpose of the Ritual (Gen. 17:10-13)

B. The Practice of the Ritual (vs. 25)

One cannot state too strongly the importance of circumcision to the Jewish people. In the intertestamental period the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes banned circumcision in Palestine as part of his attempt to outlaw Judaism (1 Maccabees 1:48–61).

As a result it became even more the definitive sign of Jewishness, and by Paul’s time it was the final step in making a Gentile a full Jewish convert.

Paul is arguing that “circumcision has value [only] if you observe the law,” a point he made in verse 23 about the Torah.

The verb “has value” (ōphelei) means it “is of profit” to them in terms of their relationship to God.

Disobedience to God’s demands breaks all covenant relationships, so their unfaithfulness to God means they “have become as though [they] had not been circumcised.”1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 74.

C. The Perversion of the Ritual (vs. 25)

A point must be made about Paul’s demand to “observe” or “practice” the law. Most Jews understood observing the law as a sincere attempt to follow it faithfully, recognizing that no one could keep it perfectly.

But that is exactly what Paul is demanding. In the old covenant the sacrificial system had been given so that when people broke the law they could find forgiveness.

But Jesus the Messiah had come, and that system no longer sufficed. To find salvation, the law would have to be followed perfectly now (Gal 5:3, “obey the whole law”).

Paul is saying that neither the law nor circumcision can bring salvation, for no one can obey it perfectly enough for that to happen. Faith in Christ is the only sufficient basis for salvation.

Those who turn to circumcision negate their salvation by inevitably disobeying the law and thereby becoming as if they were uncircumcised.

Paul will say in 3:20 that “no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law” because they cannot keep it perfectly enough for that to happen.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 75.

D. The Paradox of the Ritual (vs. 26)

In verse 26 Paul discusses the opposite issue. If the Gentiles (“those who are not circumcised”) do practice the law and keep its commands, then they should be regarded as Jews (“as though they were circumcised”) and as saved.

If breaking the law turns the Jews into Gentiles, then obeying the law turns the Gentiles into Jews. Paul is not here advocating works righteousness; Gentiles cannot be saved by following the dictates of the law.

He is saying only that Gentiles stand equally before God with the Jews because they too keep the law. In this new era of salvation history, Jew and Gentile stand before God in need of salvation on an equal footing.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 75.

E. The Provocation of the Ritual (vs. 27)

For Jews under the old covenant, circumcision and having the law of God were an undeniable advantage that demonstrated the superiority of being a Jew over being a Gentile.

In this new salvation-historical reality, that advantage has disappeared. Not only do Jew and Gentile stand equally before God as guilty, but also the Gentiles will condemn the Jews at the last judgment.

This is unusual, as God is the final judge, yet several passages say the saints will participate in the judgment against sinners.

The difference is that the Jewish people thought they would judge the pagan world, not vice versa.

This is in keeping with Matthew 12:41–42, where Jesus claims that the people of Nineveh and the queen of the South (the queen of Sheba from 1 Kgs 10) will rise in judgment against those Jews who had rejected Jesus their Messiah.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 75–76.

2 Reality can prove Ritual (Rom. 2:28-29)

A. The Outward appearance (vs. 28)

B. The Inward approval (vs. 29)

3 The Proper Place of Ritual

A. Rituals are Important in Life

B. Rituals are Impotent to produce Life

This section has a great deal of relevance for us today. We too are prone to seek external praise from others more than from God.

Since Christ has come and brought the true kingdom with him (Mark 1:15), it is the internal reality that matters. I ought to live to please God rather than those around me.

In a larger sense I want to please both, but the ultimate criterion is God, looking forward to that final moment when I give account to him for my life.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 77.

Though they boasted in the law and in their relationship to Yahweh, the Jewish people dishonored God by failing to honor his law and covenant obligations.

Therefore, they gave the Gentiles reason to mock the kind of God who could not control his own followers.

This also continues today, as we frequently hear about Christians who have brought dishonor on the church and the God we follow.

The key, as we will see in every chapter of Romans, is the internal life of the believer. We fall into error when we are satisfied with the external trappings of looking like a Christian and ignore the internal realities of actually living like one.

Since so many of those around us are satisfied with external appearance, we too easily forget that God looks on the heart.

We must live at all times to glorify him and not ourselves—something that is very hard to do in our culture of appearances.1

1 Grant R. Osborne, Romans: Verse by Verse, Osborne New Testament Commentaries (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 78.