Privileges & Problems Romans 2:17-24 10/5/2008 Copyright by Mark Vaughan 10/2008 Keywords gospel, assurance, faith, pride, sin, law As the stock market fell this week, many people felt their hopes for the future were crushed as uncertainty replaced past false assurances. And though it is unsettling, it is a good thing for our country, especially Christians, to experience a shakeup & face reality. We need to be freshly confronted with the reality of how much more secure it is to store up treasures in heaven and not on earth. Times of crisis also show us the reality of how we ve misplaced our hopes on foundations that won t hold. It is good to have the curtains of our hearts peeled back to see what is really going on inside of us and what we really are trusting. And we should want that because we don t to be fooled. We don t want to think of ourselves as solid when we really are shot through with holes and on the verge of crumbling. We especially don t want to be self-deceived about what we are like spiritually. But the sad reality is that we are all self-deceived at some level. In some areas, we are blind to what really controls us or why we really do what we do. So it is valuable to have friends who tell us the truth, who say it gently but straight up, and strive to help us open our eyes. From what I read in Scripture, the Apostle Paul was that kind of friend both to unbelievers and to fellow believers. And by the Holy Spirit, I believe we can find the words of the Apostle Paul to be that kind of straight-talking friend to us today too. We find in Romans 2:17-24 some direct words that can shake us up and show us what we may really be like. In Romans 2:17-24, we come to the place in Paul s argument where he specifically addresses the Jew of his time and pinpoints problems that resulted from their misuse of spiritual privilege. And just as when we discussed Jews or those who had the law before, the applications we make about that group in today s context are to people who have the Bible like us. So as we listen to Paul we should expect to see problems of spiritual privilege in our day that are analogous to those in his day. For you teens and kids who get the privilege of growing up hearing God s Word, these truths can be very helpful. You are so blessed by God with spiritual privileges and we want you to enjoy all those privileges and not let them become problems. And we adults who have grown up in or absorbed a culture of Christianity can also be helped much as we hear the warnings Paul gave to the Jews of his time. Spiritual privileges are wonderful it is grace from God to have His Word and hear His Word and have knowledge and understanding. But there are dangers that can come subtly in the setting of spiritual privilege and create problems for eternity. So we must be warned and we must warn our children and others lest the environment of spiritual privilege birth problems of eternal cost. Remember, the eternal truths of sin and salvation are what Paul is covering here in this section of Romans. 1
Paul explained in Romans 1 how pagans fail to honor God and are without excuse for their many sins and therefore they need forgiveness and righteousness from God. Then he turned to the moralist in chapter 2 and showed how he is also without excuse if he tries to reach God on his own merits because he sins and fails even his own standards. To get out of this sin problem, verse 4 requires repentance and verse 7 requires seeking God s glory by persevering in doing good. That points to the need for faith in God as the one who gives good things and the one that each person needs. And while no good works will ever reach God s perfect standard, verses 1-16 also teach us that seeking God must result in good works. The faith in God to give eternal life is always proven through good deeds that obey God. It doesn t matter what you say believe it matters what your life proves that you believe. And the more I study the NT, the more I see how many people who think they are headed for heaven who will end up in hell. I don t want any of you to be that kind of person, so I urge you to examine yourself as we see how people with God s Word today can be like many of the Jews of Paul s day were. And I also want Christians to examine ourselves today because I want us to have the fullest pleasure in the Gospel possible and I want us to beware of giving others wrong ideas about God. With that in mind, let s read Romans 2:17-24. [READ] So these passionate words were with humble affection and not any hint of ethnic hatred or anti-semitism. He had taught principles for God s judgment of everyone in verses 1-16 & now he simply applies those principles to Jews. And since Paul was a Jew, he was keenly aware of the potential problems of spiritual privileges that he confronts in this passage. I ve outlined those potential problems as 3 applications for today that are analogous to the context Paul was addressing. I don t know what s in your hearts, but I know all of you have spiritual privileges because you have access to God s Word and Christ s church and many more blessings. All of that sets you and me up for these 3 potential problems of spiritual privileges that Paul confronted in the Jew of his day. If you have spiritual privileges like the Jews did and I believe we all do then, 1 st, you may have a misdirected trust. That s the 1 st potential danger for us that Paul saw in the Jews he showed that you may have a misdirected trust. Paul confronted the misdirected trust of the Jew in verses 17-18. Note in verse 17 that he first said if you bear the name or are called by the name or call yourself by the name Jew. That points to the pride of ethnic heritage, the privilege of being a descendent of Abraham and the 12 tribes of Israel. The term Jew originally referred only to those in the southern kingdom Judah after the nation was split. Paul deeply loved his fellow Jews & longed for their salvation. But after both kingdoms were exiled, all Israelites were called Jews. 2
And it was a great privilege to be a Jew because God had chosen that nation to be His special people out of all nations. What s ironic about everything Paul mentions in this section is that it can be viewed in a right way and a wrong way. In Romans 3:1-2, Paul affirms the advantage of being a Jew. But it was a blessing that flowed all from God s sovereign initiative and grace and not from anything that the Jews had done right. Throughout the OT in passages like Deuteronomy 4, God affirmed that He had only chosen Israel because of His grace. So being an ethnic Jew was a reason to praise God for His grace; but it was not a reason to assume you were accepted by God from birth. And that s how a spiritual privilege could turn into a problem. If a Jew thought that God owed him blessing merely because he was a Jew, then his privilege had become a problem of misdirected trust. Rather than trusting God, such a Jew was trusting himself and his own birth and heritage. That was 1 of 5 sources of misdirected trust for Jews in verses 17-18. Note the next two by reading verse 17. [READ] The Jew had the privilege of having God s law, but the temptation was to rely upon or rest in the Law as if having or hearing it was enough. Of course, the Jews should have relied upon the law as God s revelation of Himself and His way of life. So surely it was right for a Jew to rely upon the truth of God s law as the way into a right relationship with God. But they also had to respond in faith in the God revealed in the law rather than live with a misdirected trust in the law itself. As a similar privilege and potential problem, Paul mentioned boasting in God. It could be a good and right thing to boast in God if that meant a thankful praising of God for His grace. For example, in Jeremiah 9:23-24, God says, Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things. Paul also encouraged and spoke of boasting in God and in Christ and in the cross often in the NT. But a Jew could wrongly boast in God by proudly bragging about God s blessings as if they deserved them. Such boasting in God was really a boasting in self or a boasting in Israel rather than a true boasting in God. Such boasting also forgot that God had chosen Abraham in Genesis 12:3 as a means of all nations being blessed. So having God for your nation was not to be kept for yourself. But these privileges could subtly be twisted into problems. That law included truth about God s way of salvation through faith in God s coming Savior and the sacrifices that pointed to the Savior. How easily trust was misdirected to self or the law & not God! 3
Verse 18 shows further how possessing truth could be a source of pride rather humble faith read verse 18. [READ] Literally the Jew with God s law would know THE will, the only right will of God, and therefore he could test and discern and approve the things that are essential or excellent. Those are good things, aren t they? Of course they are Paul even prayed for Christians to be to able to approve the things that are excellent in Philippians 1:10. And verse 20 says the Jew could do so because he had been catechized out of the law. We get our English word catechize from this Greek word for repeated, oral instruction that schooled them to know truth & error. What in the world could go wrong with that privilege? I mean, teens and kids, as we teach you, don t we spend a lot of time training you to know the difference between truth and error? Don t we all strive to know and teach the truth so we can know God s will and choose what s best? Of course we do. That s why this is listed as a spiritual privilege. But Paul s point here is that good, desirable, valuable spiritual privileges can become problems if they are viewed wrongly. And the problem here came if a Jew trusted in knowledge to save him, even if that knowledge came from years of instruction and resulted in precise ability to categorize what mattered most. The Jew who trusted his knowledge had a misdirected trust. He had the privileges of being taught God s Word and knowing Gods will and discerning God s best. But if he trusted any of that instead of the God revealed by it, then he had a misdirected trust that would not save him. Think with me about how this 1 st point may apply analogously today. There are nations in the world that people consider Christian nations because their predominant religion preaches of Christ. And the danger in those countries is that people may trust that their citizenship is their salvation. But you are not a Christian simply because you were born American or in any other supposedly Christian nation. And neither are you a Christian merely by growing up in a Christian family or in the church or marrying a Christian. You are not a Christian merely by hearing or reading God s Word or memorizing verses or being in Bible studies or Sunday School or AWANA or other ministries. You are not right with God simply because you know the right Christian answers about how to be right with God. Knowing John 3:16 and being able to explain how Jesus is the Savior of sinners does not make you a Christian. Knowing doctrine and understanding how to make right choices and having right moral and political views does not get you into heaven. All those things are good things and we can all thank God for every blessing like those we have. But if you trust in any of those blessings or experiences or abilities or understandings to get you right with God, you have a misdirected trust. 4
That is, you are trusting the wrong thing. All those things should lead us to trust in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. No amount of our works or efforts or privileges will force God to favor us and let us into heaven. The broad main point of this whole section is to lead up to Romans 3:9, which says that we are all under sin. The point is that we all lack the righteousness we need to get to God and we all deserve punishment because we are all sinners. That s the main gist to get and that should guide us to the glory of the Gospel that God forgives sinners through Christ. We must receive grace from God as we trust Him to provide all we need to reach Him through Jesus. Jesus is the only one who obeyed God s law perfectly and who can give us the righteousness we need to be in God s presence. And Jesus is the only one whose death paid sin s full penalty for others so He can count sinners forgiven if we trust Him. Only Jesus came to earth as God and man to be the Savior who could lead others into a right relationship with God. And only Jesus proved His victory by rising again. But knowing all those facts is not enough to save anyone. We must respond with faith in the Person revealed by those facts we must turn from self and sin to trust and follow Jesus. So I plead with all of you spiritually privileged people not to let your privileges turn into the problem of misdirected trust. Whether you are a dearly loved child or young person or adult, please respond to the truth you hear by God s grace. And then please respond to other people in the right way also. Please view yourself as a thankful receiver of God s grace who is just as sinful and needy and undeserving as everyone else. Please view ministry to others as something you do out of love for God and others to allow Him to change them. Please don t allow your experience of God s grace to become a reason to puff you up with pride toward others. That is the 2 nd potential problem with spiritual privileges. 1 st we ve seen that if you enjoy spiritual privileges, then you may have a misdirected trust. Then 2 nd ly note that you may have a misguided role. Those with spiritual privileges may have a misguided role. Read Romans 2:19-20 to see this. [READ] Again these verses give the cause of these privileges as having the Word of God. The NIV rightly interprets the end of verse 20 as saying because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth. Because of having knowledge and truth in the law, it was right for the Jew to embrace the role of spiritual guide and light and corrector and teacher. 5
God has always designed for His people to be a channel to spread His truth to others. He told that to Abraham in Genesis 12 and to Israel in Exodus 19 at Mount Sinai and again in Isaiah 42 & 49. So on one hand it was right for Jews to be persuaded or convinced that they should be leaders guiding the spiritually blind to the path of truth. It was right to shine the light of God s truth to those who were in the spiritual darkness of lacking God s Word. It was right to want to instruct and correct the foolish so that they might be rescued from their folly. And it was right to strive to be a teacher to Gentile proselytes who were immature and needed instruction in truth. As with the privileges of verses 17-18, all these things could be understood and practiced in a right way. But the reason Paul brought up these privileges was because they were often viewed and handled wrongly. As one who had received truth, the Jew should have been thankful and humble and gracious in passing on truth to others. But instead, those Paul was confronting had let their knowledge go to their heads. They thought they were better and forgot that everything they had was a gift they had received. These privileged roles turned into problems when the Jew elevated himself in his own mind as more important and forgot that he had these opportunities only by God s grace. By exalting themselves and trusting their own thinking, the Jewish leaders of Jesus day had made a mockery of these roles. That s why Jesus said of them in Matthew 15:14 that they were blind guides of the blind who would lead others into a pit. Jesus called the Jewish leaders blind 5 more times in Matthew 23. I wish we had time to do it this morning, but read Matthew 23 later to see Jesus preaching the same truths as this passage with even greater force read Matthew 23. The Jewish leaders had exalted themselves in order to lead others to follow them as the standard rather than leading them to God and His Word as the standard. And that s why Jesus and Paul both confronted them for having a misguided role. They had a mistaken or misguided understanding of what their role was to be as people who possessed God s Word. They were not humbly, gratefully guiding people to God by sharing His Word and asking Him to change them. Instead, they were proudly looking down on other people and exalting themselves as the great ones to follow. The Jews had a misguided role that means they had a wrong idea of what God wanted them to do since they had His Word. And that is the 2 nd potential problem with spiritual privileges. Think of how that might apply in our context today. Those of us who have God s Word and know right doctrine and embrace biblical morals are blessed with great privileges. 6
And we should see that as a responsibility and opportunity to pass on those blessings to others. We should want to guide and shine light and train and teach others. If we don t try to do those things, we are sinning against God and misusing the privileges He s given. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 to let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. We re only blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. So it s right to view ourselves as channels through which God pours His truth and love and grace. That was God s design for Israel then and for the church now. But as we spread God s truth, we must be humble and thankful and dependent on God to use it as He wishes. If we elevate ourselves or assume that our expertise or forcefulness will change people, we have mistaken our role. Whereas the first danger we considered addressed pride before God, this second danger addresses pride toward others. So let me urge all of you spiritually privileged people to cultivate thankfulness for all God given you and be on guard against proud attitudes toward others. Then lastly today, let s note what happens if these privileges we ve covered really do turn into problems. Verses 21-24 confirm to us that Paul is not merely listing privileges of Jews in verse 17-20, but privileges that became problems like those we ve discussed. Verses 21-24 is where we see that the privileges of verses 17-20 had become problems for those Paul was addressing. So let s note a 3 rd potential problem for those with spiritual privileges by saying you may have a misrepresented Savior. The poor testimony and hypocrisy of the Jews had led other nations to misunderstand and misjudge their God. The result was that they had a misrepresented God & Savior. Read verses 21-24 to see this. [READ] Verses 21-22 can be statements or questions, but either way their point is to accuse the Jew of his disobedience. Referring back to the privileges of teaching others in verses 19-20, Paul points to the main problem that had resulted. And though Paul seems to be speaking directly to one Jew, his purpose was to make every individual examine himself. The broad indictment of hypocrisy is stated first you who teach another don t really teach yourself, do you? The implication is that if he did teach himself, he would obey God s law by faith and he would practice what he preached. But Paul was repeating what Jesus had said in Matthew 23:3 of the Jewish leaders, that they say things and do not do them. They may love to talk about the law and debate and tell others what to do, but they spent no time meditating over how truth should be applied to change them. As Jesus said in Matthew 7, they must get the log out of their own eye. 7
After that broad statement, Paul then gave 3 specific instances of hypocrisy to prove his point. The first area of hypocrisy was stealing. Everyone in that time knew of how rabbis and Jewish leaders had written loopholes into their application of the law so that small stealing would be ok for them to do. A little use of dishonesty, pilfering, unjust scales, usury, or other cheating could slide by as acceptable. Or when they spiritualized their purposes they could rationalize making the Temple into a den of robbers until Jesus came and confronted them about it. [John 2:16; Matthew 21:13] So Paul called attention to the reality of such stealing. Similarly, Jesus dealings with the woman caught in adultery in John 8 show how prevalent adultery also must have been. When Jesus said for those without sin to cast the first stone, everyone left because they knew they were sinners. And the men especially knew they were guilty because that woman was arrested while the adulterous man was let free. There was a double standard in Israel that allowed men to get by with adultery and to marry and divorce for no reason other than to chase their adulteries. [Matthew 5; 19] Considering Jesus interaction with the Jews, it s no surprise to find Paul implying that Jews committed adultery. And Jesus had also made clear in Matthew 5 that adultery could be committed in the heart merely by lusting after a woman. With that internal standard, surely all Paul s listeners should be convicted of both stealing and adultery. And an internal heart idolatry of lust for money could also be what Paul referred to when he mentioned robbing temples. What else could robbing temples have to do with abhorring idolatry have you ever wondered that? It may have involved stinginess in not giving to God at the Temple like Malachi 3 refers to as robbing God in tithes and offerings. But since the Jews had hated external idolatry since they returned to the land after the exile, Paul was probably speaking of pagan temples and their idols made of precious materials. So this probably meant they were doing some type of business or trade or thieving that profited from idolatry in pagan temples. Since acts 19:37 mentions a town clerk defending Paul from this charge, it must have been something Jews did. Most likely it referred to stealing idolatrous statues or objects or using the precious metals from them to make money somehow. Deuteronomy 7:25-26 prohibited Jews from keeping such idols or using the metals of idols, so this was clearly sinful. But the Jews had been willing to bend the rules a bit to make some money, even if it meant dealing with idols. With 3 cases of law-breaking like those as the norm among Jews, it is no wonder that verse 23 calls them law-breakers. And verse 23 is stated differently than the questions of verses 21-22, so it is probably a summary statement of the hypocrisy described. The worst part of this hypocrisy was that it dishonored God. 8
That is really the absolutely worst part of sin it dishonors God. Transgression against God s law insults God. And as verse 24 says, it can also give others reason to blaspheme God. That is what the sins of the Jews had done, not only in Paul s time, but in Isaiah s and Ezekiel s times. Verse 24 probably quotes Isaiah 52:5 or it may come from Ezekiel 36 or it may reference the thought of both passages. The thought is found throughout the OT that Israel s sin made them a reproach to the other nations, especially when God used those nations to punish Israel. As pagan nations were allowed by God to conquer Israel, those nations reviled Israel s God as lacking power or love to help them. Even though God purposed the punishment by other nations, it was Israel s sin that led to God being dishonored. And therefore, Israel had a misrepresented Savior they had a Saving God who was not represented before the nations as the powerful, loving, faithful, good, gracious God that He is. Israel had presented a wrong view of God. Sin by God s people especially the sin of hypocrisy causes God to be misrepresented to others. And that is a 3 rd potential problem for those with spiritual privileges they may have a misrepresented Savior. I think the application of that today should be fairly obvious, right? Practice what you preach and don t be a hypocrite, right? And when you do sin, repent and seek forgiveness from others. Realize that hypocrisy may be the #1 thing that unbelievers today claim is keeping them from Christ and His church. That may be a copout or lying excuse, but too often it is still true. So remember the words of Jesus in Luke 6:46, why do you call Me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? And if you are going to call Jesus your Lord and Savior, then do what He says and don t misrepresent Him to others. Don t give people a chance to drag down the Savior. To pursue that goal, we must always be humbly examining ourselves and applying the Word to our lives. So I urge you again to examine yourself as a person of spiritual privilege and consider how you are like the Jew Paul spoke to. In what ways might you have a misdirected trust, a misguided role, or a misrepresented Savior? Consider some analogous questions for today. You who boast in the Bible, do you study to apply & obey it yourself? You who value integrity, do you always live with integrity? You who oppose financial corruption, do you spend more money than you earn? And do you give more than you waste? You who oppose the values of Hollywood, do you support such entertainment industries more than you support God s work? 9
You who uphold Christian morality, do you sell, promote and support stuff you say you oppose? You who oppose gay marriage, do you cultivate biblical roles and love in your own marriage? You who oppose adultery, do you watch adultery on TV and in movies or do look at porn on the Internet? You who teach your children high standards, do you violate those standards when they are away or in bed? Do you indulge in what you prohibit for your kids or others? You who hate abortion, do you love kids and sacrifice to serve them? Where is God s finger of conviction pointing to hypocrisy? We re all guilty of hypocrisy at some level in some ways that s the point of this whole section of Romans. We are all sinners and Romans 1-3 labor to prove that because we need to feel the depth and reality of our sin. But as we see our sin, we can also feel the glory and joy and pleasure of the Gospel that forgives all our sins and grants us Christ s righteousness instead. We can be overwhelmed with humble thankfulness as we live with no confidence in ourselves and bank all our confidence on what Jesus has done for us. And also by feeling our sin, we can rightly remember the Lord s death until He comes again as we come now to celebrate communion. So let s take a minute to respond to God s Word alone in our hearts quietly and then I ll pray for us as the men come. 10