Romans - Lesson 11
Romans 2:17–3:20
Paul addresses the importance of obeying God's law and not just boasting in it, extending his critique to circumcision for the Jewish audience. In chapter 3, he acknowledges the advantages of being Jewish but warns against presuming salvation based on heritage. Paul stresses that religious rituals won't save you; genuine faith is essential. He emphasizes that righteousness comes through obeying the Law, highlighting the universal human condition of being enslaved to sin's power. Observing the Law or relying solely on works can't bring righteousness.
Romans 2:17–3:20
II. The Heart of the Gospel: Justification by Faith (1:18–4:25)
A. The Universal Reign of Sin (1:18–3:20)
1. All Persons Are Accountable to God for Sin (1:18-32)
2. Jews Are Accountable to God for Sin (2:1–3:8)
a. The Jews and the Judgment of God (2:1-16)
b. The Limitations of the Covenant (2:17-29)
c. God's Faithfulness and the Judgment of Jews (3:1-8)
3. The Guilt of All Humanity (3:9-20)
B. Justification by Faith (3:21–4:25)
1. Justification and the Righteousness of God (3:21-26)
2. "By Faith Alone" (3:27–4:25)
a. "By Faith Alone": Initial Statement (3:27-31)
b. "By Faith Alone": Elaboration with Respect to Abraham (4:1-25)
Dr. Douglas Moo
Romans
nt620-11
Romans 2:17-3:20
Lesson Transcript
Romans 2:17; 3:23-26; 3:1-8
Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God. You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God. What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say— “Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!
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A. Obedience is the critical Matter:
In verses 2:17 and following, Paul turns to the issue again of the Law and circumcision. Now he is clear about addressing the Jew for the first time. Now he is explicit in verse 17, ‘you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God.’ There is that typical attitude of the Jew in Paul’s day, relying on God, we’ve been given God’s law. We can boast in God because He is our God. Paul basically says that those are great things, but you have got to do what God says. That is the key point again. He criticizes the Jews for boasting in the Law in verse 23, but dishonoring God by the breaking it.
In verse 25 to the end of the chapter, he says basically the same thing about circumcision, this central, fundamental mark of being a Jew. It is great to be circumcised, Paul says; it is a mark that God gave His people, a sign of His covenant with them. But, again, what matters is whether you are obeying God as one who has been circumcised. That is the critical matter.
B. Being a Jew is not Going to Save You:
In chapter 3, Paul asks a question now – ‘What advantage is there of being a Jew. What value is there in circumcision?’ Again, here is a typical device that we see Paul using a lot in Romans. He asks himself the question to move his argument to the next stage.
In light of what Paul has said in chapter 2, Paul asking that question in verse 1, we might expect simply give the answer, ‘none at all.’ Paul, we understand what you’ve been saying: There is no more favored nation clause, Jews are the same as Gentiles. They sin just like the Gentiles do; they are judged by God for it. So, no, the Jew has no advantage. Well, Paul confounds us with his response. ‘What advantage is there in being a Jew? What value is there in circumcision? Much in every way!’ he says in verse 2.
What we have here is what we talked about earlier; the balancing act that Paul is working at throughout the letter to the Romans. On the one hand, he wants to say to Jews, you can’t presume on your heritage to expect to be saved. But on the other hand, he continues to want to affirm that there are advantages to being Jewish. It is a good, rich, valuable heritage.
When I have thought about preaching Romans 2 to contemporary congregations, and I’d be interested to hear what you think of this, one of the applications I thought might be appropriate here would be an application to those who have been baptized as infants in a particular church or denomination. In which I would want to say to that person if you are relying on your baptism into your own denominational community for your salvation, you are in trouble. Because it is what you have done as an individual human out of that situation and on the basis of that experience that God is going to look at. Your baptism, by itself, is not going to save you, any more than circumcision, by itself, would save a Jew.
But I might also want to say to that person, nevertheless, that heritage you have had, that experience of being raised by godly parents, perhaps; that experience of being exposed to Christ in the church is a good heritage to have. There are good things about it that are not to be thrown away or treated lightly or with disrespect. But just don’t think that is going to be what saves you.
C. Being Religious is not Going to Save You:
It seems to me the sort of thing that Paul is saying to the Jewish people of his day. Paul says that I am a Jew, too. I have a great heritage; I was raised in an environment where I was taught the Scriptures. I have a great foundation. But the tendency and the problem in those kinds of contexts is precisely that I would begin relying on the fact that I was circumcised or the fact that I was born in a certain kind of home or the fact that I was raised in a certain kind of religious community; that I would rely on those things for my standing before God and there I am tested by the works that I have actually done, and those works always fall short. That is the sort of thing Paul is trying to say. Of course, the parallels aren’t exact; the Jewish people because of the Old Testament heritage stand in a unique place that no other group can claim. But there are those parallels to some of the situations we face in our day.
I was raised in a Lutheran church, baptized, and confirmed. Whatever your theology of these things is, in my case I have to be frank and say I don’t think they worked. It wasn’t until I was a senior in college that I came, in my view, to genuine saving faith in Christ. I remember coming home and telling my dad that I had become a Christian. My dad, good Lutheran that he was, said that I had become a Christian when I was confirmed. I replied, no, I don’t think I was, Dad, I don’t think that ceremony did it. But that is the attitude, that’s the assumption that we can so easily make precisely when we have been exposed to a ‘Christian Environment.’
It is like having an inoculation. You get a very mild case of the measles so that you don’t get a major one. A lot of people in our culture, sadly less and less, have been inoculated, have had a little bit of religion that they think is adequate. Paul here in Romans 1 to 3, among other things, is trying to expose precisely that problem of religiosity, that doesn’t come to grips with the Gospel, doesn’t come to grips with Christ, doesn’t involve a genuine commitment of the heart but simply, a superficial experience. A lot of the Jews in Paul’s day were exactly in that situation. That is why he writes what he does here.
D. Everybody is Under Sin’s Power:
In 3:1-8, Paul’s purpose is to say, Jews do have an advantage but please, understand it is not by any means, an absolute advantage.
Here’s what I find to be the basic summary of the argument of Romans 2 and 3: those who obey the Law are the ones e who will be declared righteous. Verse 3:9 is a very important statement on Paul’s part: Jews and Gentiles alike are all (note the ‘all’ there) under the power of sin. This is the NIV translation; ‘under sin’ would be another way to translate this. Paul uses the language of ‘under’ with the sense of power, so I think the NIV gets the sense of what Paul is after here.
It is a very important diagnosis of the human condition. I talk about that in the commentary but central for us to understand. For Paul the problem is not that human beings sin; the problem is that human beings are under sin’s power. So, the whole problem that human beings face is far more significant, far more fundamental than just doing bad things. Rather the problem is that we are helpless slaves to doing bad things and can’t rescue ourselves. What that means then is people cannot be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the Law or by the works of the Law.
This is what I want to talk about next. It gets us into this whole ‘New Perspective’ thing. I’m hesitant to take us too far afield into this issue, but we need to be at least aware of this approach a little bit and understand its significance.
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