Introduces his opponent. Romans 2:17 through 24, starting with 17 and 18." Behold, you are called a Jew, and rest in the law and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the Law." In the subject passage, Paul introduces his fictional opponent. Throughout his great argument, Paul will periodically address this opponent and sometimes spar with him.
Therefore, correctly identifying this fictional opponent is an essential element to understanding Romans. Because of Luther's influence, millions of Christians today identify Paul's opponent as a Christian, who thinks that works play a role in our final salvation. They imagine that Paul is writing Romans to refute Christians who hold to such beliefs. However, how could such a Christian be Paul's opponent? Paul has just stated in clear language that our works are going to determine our final destiny.
If Paul's purpose in writing Romans is to refute Christians who believe that works play a role in our final salvation. He has lost his case at the very outset. Furthermore, where do we ever read in Acts or in any of Paul's letters about Paul clashing with Christians who believe they must walk faithfully with Christ to ultimately inherit eternal life? There are no such conflicts.
Instead, Paul was constantly clashing with the Judaizing Christians who insisted that the Gentiles had to be circumcised and live by the law of Moses. In the initial chapter of this commentary, I explained that Paul and the other apostles had to vanquish the Judaizers, or it would have meant the death of Christianity. You are called a Jew and rest in the law. So Paul specifically identifies his opponent as a Jew. This opponent boasts in his circumcision and in his keeping the minute regulations of the Mosaic Law.
As we will see shortly, He is not just a Jew, but an unbelieving Jew. You approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law. God had given the Jews the law and the prophets. These set forth the will of God, and showed the Jews the things that are more excellent. However, instead of making good use of all these spiritual advantages, the Jews became spiritually arrogant and boastful. This was painfully apparent in Jesus' day.
John the Baptist was forced to warn them," Do not think to yourselves, we have Abraham for our Father, for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones." Paul chooses his words carefully here, saying," You are called a Jew." The reason he phrases it in this manner is that shortly he will deny the name Jew to ethnic descendants of Abraham who do not believe in Christ. In short, these people call themselves Jews, but are not.
As Origen writes, to actually be a Jew and to merely be called a Jew are not one and the same. Why did Paul choose an unbelieving Jew to be his fictional opponent? Why did he not choose a Judaizer as his opponent? After all, the Judaizers were the primary people with whom Paul was contending. It was all a matter of tact. In some of his other letters, Paul directly denounces the Judaizers.
However, in his letter to the Romans, Paul directs his arguments against a fictional unbelieving Jew who represents all unbelieving Jews. In this manner, Paul can still proclaim the same truths about the law without directly attacking the Christian Jews in Rome, most of whom he has never met.
Romans 2:19 and 20, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, who have the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. You are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind. Paul now enumerates some of the things about which his opponent boasts. Chrysostom notes, Paul does not say that you are a guide of the blind, but you are confident that you are.
In other words, Paul is saying that you are merely boasting. So instead of truly being a guide to the blind, the Jews were blind themselves. Jesus called their leaders blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. Jesus also said of them," They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit." An instructor of the foolish. Paul says the Jews imagined themselves to be instructors of the foolish.
Yet they themselves were foolish, for they rejected their very own Messiah. Chrysostom writes," When Paul says you are confident that you are a guide to the blind, an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of babes, he is simply repeating their own pompous language. For they treated their proselytes with disdain and called them blind, foolish, and babes. This is why he dwells at length upon what were supposed to be their praises.
For he well knew that what he was saying furnished a greater accusation against them. Romans chapter 2:21 and 22. Therefore, you teach another, but do not teach yourself. You preach not to steal, but you commit theft. You forbid adultery, but you commit adultery. You abhor idols, but you commit sacrilege. Moving on to Romans chapter 2:21 and 22. Therefore, you teach another, but do not teach yourself. You preach not to steal, but you commit theft. You forbid adultery, but you commit adultery.
You abhor idols, but you commit sacrilege. Our English translations typically render this passage as a series of rhetorical questions. However, most of the early Christian commentators understood this passage to be a series of indictments against the unbelieving Jews, not a series of questions.
Chrysostom writes," Paul tells them of their failings, bringing forward the things of which the prophets accused them." Some Jews were guilty of these offenses in a literal sense, but most Jews were guilty of them in a figurative or spiritual sense. You commit theft. No doubt some Jews literally stole the material possessions of others. However, most Jews did not. Yet as Origen points out, the unbelieving Jews stole the Messianic prophecies from the law and the prophets.
In fact, the Jews did their utmost to conceal these prophecies and explain them away. As Jesus declared about their leaders," You took away the key of knowledge, you did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered." Malachi described another type of theft of which many Jews were guilty. He declared," Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me." But you say," How have we robbed you?" in tithes and offerings.
Furthermore, Jesus charged the religious leaders of His day with robbing widows, saying," Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and as a pretense, you make long prayers. Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation. You commit adultery." Again, some Jews literally committed adultery, but this was not true of the entire nation. So Paul is primarily speaking about spiritual adultery.
The prophetic books of the Old Testament repeatedly speak of the spiritual adultery of the Israelites of Old. For example, Ezekiel talks about the adultery of Oholah, Samaria, and Oholibah Jerusalem. Jeremiah denounces Judah saying," I have seen your adulteries and your lustful names, the lewdness of your harlotry, and your abominations on the hills in the fields.
Woe to you, O Jerusalem." In speaking of the Jews in his day, Jesus declared," An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign." When Jesus calls them an adulterous generation, he is talking about spiritual adultery. The Jewish nation was guilty of such adultery because they adulterated the law with numerous man-made traditions. They loved their self-righteous human traditions more than they loved God. Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees," You have made the commandment of God void because of your tradition.
You hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you saying," These people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine rules made by men." Origen comments that the Jews taught an adulterated and corrupt doctrine in their synagogues. You commit sacrilege. Here Paul uses the Greek word" hierosyleo." Etymologically, the word would literally means to rob a temple.
However, by the time of Paul, the word had the sense of to commit sacrilege. This is clear from how the early Christians used the word. In fact, the ancient Latin Bibles translated hierosyleo as sacrilegos, from which we get the English word sacrilege. Notably until the revised version of 1895, all English Bibles translated this passage as" commit sacrilege," or something similar. This includes the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva Bible, and the King James Version.
However, most modern Bibles follow the lead of the revised version and translate this as" robbed temples." Yet how many Jews would have been guilty of robbing temples? They would not even enter Gentile houses. So are we to believe they entered Gentile temples? It would have been a strange Jew indeed who would have even entered a pagan temple, let alone rob it. That is why the early Christians understood Paul to be speaking of sacrilege or of spiritual theft.
Ambrosiaster writes," You are sacrilegious when you deny Christ, to whom the law and the prophets point." Origen rebukes the Jews with these words:" You abhor idols, yet you commit sacrilege, for you violate the true temple of God, which is Jesus Christ." He further comments that when they appropriate for personal gain money given to the poor, they are committing sacrilege.
Romans 2:23:" You make your boast in the law, but you dishonor God by breaking the law." Although many Jews were meticulous in following the ceremonial and ritualistic regulations of the law, they dishonored God by breaking God's laws on much weightier matters. What Jesus said about the scribes and Pharisees applied to the nation as a whole:" Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law justice, mercy, and faith.
But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone. You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, you also outwardly appear righteous to men. But inwardly, you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. The witness of Isaiah.
Romans 2:24," For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." To demonstrate that these indictments against the Jews are not originating with himself. Paul calls in Isaiah as a witness against them. As is his normal practice, Paul quotes from the Septuagint, which reads," My name is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles on account of you.
The Gentiles blasphemed Jehovah, the God of Israel because of the various evils the Jews committed." Furthermore, when God cast off the Jews because of their unbelief and allowed the Romans to destroy the temple in Jerusalem, the Gentiles belittled the true God even more. When pagan critics said," The lonely and miserable nation of the Jews worshipped one god, a god peculiar to themselves. But he had so little power that he is enslaved to the Roman gods, along with his peculiar nation.
The equality of Jew and Gentile." Romans 2:25 through 29, starting with 25." For circumcision truly profits if you keep the law. But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision. For circumcision truly profits if you keep the law. This statement has puzzled Christians for centuries.
After all, Paul had previously told the Galatians," Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing." So, at first glance, Paul seems to be contradicting himself. However, this difficulty is easily explained. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul was addressing Gentiles who were listening to the Judaizers. So Paul was admonishing these Gentiles not to get circumcised. For it could in no way profit them spiritually.
If the Gentiles in Galatia had received circumcision, it would have represented turning to the law for salvation and denying the grace of Christ. In contrast, in the subject passage, Paul is diplomatically addressing Jewish Christians who wish to retain their Jewishness. Paul tells them they do not have to discontinue circumcision to be a Christian. Paul had similarly told the Corinthians," Was anyone called having been circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised? Has anyone been called in uncircumcision?
Let him not be circumcised." In short, circumcision is not necessary for Gentiles. But Jews do not need to be ashamed of their circumcision. In the early years of Christianity, Jewish Christians continued to keep many of the regulations of the law in addition to circumcision. In fact, a short time after writing to the Romans, Paul journeyed to Jerusalem, where he met with James and the elders of the Jerusalem Church.
They told Paul," You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to walk after the customs. Therefore, do what we tell you.
Then all will know that there is no truth in the things that they have been informed about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law." In what sense did circumcision profit these Jewish Christians? It profited them in that it reminded them of their ties to Abraham and the covenant God made with him. It also profited them by enabling them to effectively minister to other Jews.
Origen writes," Circumcision was of no value to those who thought it brought some type of justification." However, it was profitable for those Jews who would otherwise not come to Christ. For otherwise they might be concerned that they would be prohibited from circumcising their sons. For in the beginning, there were some Jews who clung to circumcision because of an excessive attachment to this sign of their nation.
If this external sign were forbidden to them, they would have been hindered from coming to the faith. On the other hand, if believers from the Gentiles were compelled to be circumcised, it would have harmed the faith of Christ and the preaching of the Word.
As Paul had earlier said," To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews, to those who are under the law as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law." So Paul concedes that circumcision has value if you keep the law, meaning the righteous moral precepts of the law. But if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision is made uncircumcision. Paul had already declared that there is no partiality with God. God treats Jew and Gentile the same.
Paul now goes further and declares that if a Jew transgresses the law, the circumcision of which he is so proud is nullified. So he stands no higher in God's eyes than an uncircumcised Gentile. When Paul talks about transgressing the law, he is not speaking about violating the ceremonial regulations. He is talking about the weightier matters of the law. Love, justice, faith, and mercy. He is also talking about their rejecting their Messiah, who is identified in the law.
As Ambrosiaster points out," If a Jew does not have faith in Christ, then he is a transgressor of the law. For the law and prophets point to Christ." In that case, circumcision does not profit the Jew in the least.
Romans 2:26:" Therefore, if someone of the uncircumcision keeps the righteousness of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision." As we have mentioned previously, the mosaic law contains many types of provisions: dietary requirements, ceremonial and priestly regulations, sacrificial laws, and health and quarantine procedures. None of these matters pertain to true righteousness. So what is the righteousness of the law?
Origen writes," The righteousness of the law refers to the enduring moral teachings contained in it." Justin Martyr explains it as" Those things in the Law of Moses that are naturally good, holy, and just." These same righteous precepts are also included in the teachings of Jesus and His apostles.
That is why Paul later writes about Jesus," He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Similarly, the righteousness of the law was contained in the natural law that God instilled in the hearts of all mankind. Justin Martyr writes," God sets before every race of mankind, those things that are eternally and universally just, as well as things that are righteous.
Every race knows that adultery, immorality, murder, and similar things are sinful." Tertullian writes," I maintain that there is an unwritten, natural law that was regularly understood and which the patriarchs habitually kept, long before the law of Moses was written on stone tablets.
Will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?" Paul says," If the Gentiles maintain the righteousness of the law, their uncircumcision becomes circumcision." Such Gentiles stand higher before God than the circumcised Jews who violate this righteousness. In fact, God views such a Gentile as being circumcised, and He views the Jew as being uncircumcised. Chrysostom writes," Here Paul addresses true circumcision and true uncircumcision.
He says that true circumcision consists of good works, and that true uncircumcision consists of evil works. As to the physically uncircumcised man who has good works, Paul transfers him over to the people of circumcision.
Likewise, he casts out the circumcised man who lives a corrupt life, and he transfers him over to those of the uncircumcision, Romans 2:27." And will not someone who is by nature of the uncircumcision if he fulfills the law, judge you who by the letter and with circumcision transgressed the law." Here Paul is reiterating the teaching of Jesus, who said," The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, someone greater
than Jonah is here." Paul says that this principle applies to all the Gentiles who fulfill the righteousness of the law.
Such Gentiles will judge the unrighteous Jews with their fleshly circumcision, for these Jews have transgressed the law by rejecting their very own Messiah, Romans 2:28." For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh."" But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God.
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly." Here Paul presents one of his most radical teachings in Romans. He says that a fleshly Jew who has not been circumcised in the heart is not a real Jew. Even more radically, he declares that a Gentile who is circumcised in the heart is a real Jew. So a genetic descendant of Abraham, who rejects Christ, is not a real Jew, but a Gentile who accepts Christ is a real Jew. This was radical teaching. Yet Paul was not the first to say it.
Jesus had announced to the Jews," I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill me, because my Word has no place in you." They answered and said to Him," Abraham is our Father." Jesus said to them," If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham." So, although the Jews were Abraham's descendants, they were not Abraham's children. To use Paul's words, they were merely Jews outwardly, but not Jews inwardly. Only those who do the works of Abraham are Abraham's children.
Similarly, John the Baptist told the Jews," Do not think to yourselves, we have Abraham for our Father. For I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones." John had said that God was able to raise up children to Abraham from mere stones. Paul is saying that God has now accomplished that very thing by raising up children of Abraham from the Gentiles. In chapter 9 of Romans, Paul repeats this same truth, saying," They are not all Israel who are of Israel.
Neither because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children." That is, those who are the children. Of the flesh, they are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. As strong as are Paul's words, at the close of the first century, the heavenly Jesus used even stronger language concerning the unbelieving Jews in Smyrna. I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, but they are not. Rather, they are a synagogue of Satan.
Jesus spoke similarly in his letter to the Church in Philadelphia." I will make those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not. But lie, behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you." In utter exasperation with the unending opposition from the unbelieving Jews, Paul had written to the Gentiles in Thessalonica for you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God, which are in Judea in Christ Jesus.
For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out and do not please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost. No wonder that Paul denies the name of Jew to such opponents of the gospel.