THE RELIGIOUS DEVOTEE

Bob Bonner
Romans 2:17-29
October 23, 1994

Assume, for a moment that you are an employee of a major corporation, and you are working in one of its many divisions. Although you maybe just one of the peons way down the ladder of the corporate structure, your Dad is chairman of the board. The corporation has said that it wants to send its faithful employees on an all expenses paid, two week vacation anywhere you want to go in the world. Anyone in the division who fulfills the following four requirements will be given this bonus.

The personnel manager comes before your division of 600 employees to give the four requirements. The first requirement was that of perfect attendance at work for the last year. After stating the requirement, the manager posts the 100 names of the employees who failed to meet this require. You know your name is not one of those employees because you haven't missed a day at work for the past several years. So, How does it make you feel to know that you made the first cut and weren't included in that first group that was knocked out of the running? Pretty good!

Because this company prides itself on its public image, the second requirement for this bonus vacation is one of hygiene and dress for the past year. If your name has been put on report for sloppy dress or inappropriate dress, or body odor, you can't receive the bonus. Well, you are a great dresser and you happen to be a fanatic about wearing cologne, so you aren't surprised when you have passed the second cut, which knocked out 200 others, leaving only three hundred employees left in the running for this round trip ticket, two week vacation gift. 

300 employees are still available to receive their bonus vacation and you are one of them. Now, how do you feel? You are feeling even better. Then, the third requirement is given. For the past couple of years, your company has been encouraging the employees to come up with innovative ideas for their product line. Those who have made suggestions that were taken, were rewarded immediately. But now, the company wants to reward those, who although their ideas weren't used, at least they were using their creative abilities. So, only those who had presented the company with an innovative idea in the past three years were kept in the running for the free vacation. And that knocked the numbers down from the original 600 to 25, and you are still one of the 25.

Now, how are you feeling? You feeling great, because you just know that the next requirement just has to be some sort of production requirement and you don't believe that anybody can top yours. You have been pushing out the sales and making the big transactions that have benefited the company greatly for the past three years. So if the third requirement is production, you know you are okay. You just have to be. As a result, you feel pretty cocky that you just have to be given this award. Even if there should be a tie, you have a chance of being given the award, because your dad is the head of a corporation. And being his child, he would probably make sure that you were given the benefit of the doubt.

And sure enough, the personnel manager cites the third requirement as being that of production. And then, the announcement of the big winner is just about to be made. To say that your anticipation of hearing who the big winner is, is great, is an understatement. You just know you have to have won this award.

And that is just how some of the religious Jews feel, as they read Paul's letter to the Romans 2:17. They have made the first three cuts of being approved of by God and escaping His wrath, because they are not like the immoral godless hedonist, that we looked at in Romans 1:18-32. Some of the Jews think they are not like the self-righteous moralist who judges others in 2:1-11. And they have made the third cut, and are not like the unenlightened pagan found in 2:12-17, who knows nothing of the Old Testament or the New Testament. So, as far as they are concerned, the Jews or the religious devotees are sitting pretty. They believe that they have earned God's approval and have earned that heavenly eternal vacation that will allow them to spend the rest of their days with God. 

But the Apostle Paul is about to burst their bubble of hope. He is going to reveal to us why the religious devotee, whether Jewish, Muslim, Mormon or any other protestant or Catholic church-goer won't earn that eternal vacation on the basis of their religious merit. Although Paul uses the Jew as an illustration in these verses, his argument applies to all religious peoples everywhere.

If you notice from merely the sheer number of verses devoted to this fourth group of people, there are more verses directed at the religious devotee and why they won't make it on their own merit to earn God's approval than any of the other three groups. The reason for this is that the religious man is customarily more blind to his need for a savior than the immoral man, the self-righteous man or unenlightened pagan.

Our section for study this morning, breaks into two parts. In verses 17-27, Paul points to the deceived and rejected religious devotee. In verses 28-29, Paul speaks to the only religiously accepted devotee. 

In the first ten verses of our study for this morning, Paul points to three commonly held misbeliefs of religious devotees that give them their basis for boasting in God's acceptance. The first is found in verse 17 Paul writes, "But if you bear the name ‘Jew,’ and rely upon the Law, and boast in God..,"

So often, when you ask a religious person what is going to happen to them if they die, they respond, "I'll go to heaven." And when asked why, they cite the fact that they are Catholic, or Baptist or Christian or Jew or Mormon or Muslim and because they carry that proud religious title, God just has to allow them into heaven. Their boast in God's acceptance of them is based upon their chosen religious name. 

In the case of a Jew, their title of being a "Jew" is often times more invoked as a reason of being approved of by God than any other religious devotee. The name "Jew" came into existence after 586 B.C. when what was left of the nation of Israel was taken into captivity by the Babylonian empire. The remnant of the nation of Israel primarily came from one tribe, the tribe of Judah, from which the name Jew was devised, and later referred to the whole nation of Israel.

Because this remnant of the nation of Israel escaped God's immediate judgment of being put to death by the invading armies of Babylon, and were the only heirs left from the nation of Israel to receive the promises of Abraham, they considered themselves special. Even their name, which translated means, "His Praise" carried with it a sense of privilege. God had chosen to spare them. So they took pride in their name. We as Christians also bear a name that carries with it a significant meaning. It means, "Christ-bearer". But even having a special name given to you by God, doesn't guarantee approval or acceptance by God, as we will see.

The second common cause for the religious devotees' boasting in why God should accept them is also stated in verse 17 and then further explained down through verse 24. In this case Paul is speaking to the Jews, but we can substitute just about any religion in here as well, even the religious folks who attend this church. In this case, the religious devotee is boasting in the fact that God must accept them, because they are the possessors of some sort of religious source of truth. For some, it may be the Koran, or the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, or, for the Jew, the Old Testament, sometimes referred to as it is here, as the Law.

Because of their possession of God's truth as it is found in the Law, the Jews assumed that they had several privileges. Paul lists three in these verses that have lead many religious people into a sense of false security in thinking that because they possess the truth and these privileges that go along with possessing the truth, they must be okay in God's sight.

Paul writes in verse 17-18, "But if you bear the name ‘Jew,’ and rely upon the Law, and boast in God, and know {His} will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law,..." Now let's stop right there, even though this is an incomplete thought and examine each of these three privileges.

Paul tells us that their first privilege in possessing God's Law, is that they can know His will. That made them special and unique. They knew what God wanted. They knew of His plans for this world. There are many today, even some who think they are Christians who boast in their relationship with God because they think they understand God's word and future plan for this world and the world to come. Whether they do understand His will correctly or not, is not a valid basis for being approved of by God.

Secondly, Paul says they "approve the things that are essential". Meaning they reject the common immoral attitudes toward life that those around them suggest are okay. And by doing so, they make themselves morally superior. Isn't it interesting that whenever there is a moral issue on the ballots, isn't interesting how many people say they know God's word, and even in the way, not so much what they say, but in the way they say it they demonstrate that if they know His word, they certainly don't know Him.

How often the religious folks take pride in that they don't do certain things. "We don't dance, drink, smoke, chew or go with girls that do." They believe that they have truly impressed God because they have put these things aside.

Thirdly, they take pride in the fact that they are being "instructed out of the Law." They knew the Old Testament Law backwards and forwards. They could tell you how many books there were in the Old Testament. How many chapters were in each book. They could tell you the author of every book. They could tell you what the middle letter of the very middle word in the very middle of the Old Testament was. They memorized great portions of scripture. Now, there is nothing wrong with scripture memorization, or knowing your Bible. But to rely upon it to earn or maintain God's approval of one's self won't work.

Unfortunately, this delusion that they were so privileged by having the Law that they would escape judgment lead to a deadly presumption. They felt that because they knew their way around their religious book, they alone held four responsibilities over other people. 

These responsibilities are given to us starting in verse 19. "and [you Jews] are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,..."

Today, we have people who are always ready to correct those around them, to impart truth to those unfortunate ones who have not learned anything yet.

Every now and then we run into people who are quite ready to dazzle us with their knowledge of the Scriptures. They know all about the anti-christ, they want to argue about spiritual gifts, and want to impress us with their knowledge of the decrees of God. They want to tell everybody what they know about the kenosis theory of Christ, or the supralapsarian position of people before the Fall, etc. They take great pride in these things. 

This is the attitude of speaking down to the uneducated non-religious person about the things of God. Such as, "Don't you know it is wrong to use the Lord's name in vain!" Because they have knowledge of what is right and wrong, they believe they are to be the instructors of all the ignorant.

Then you have the teacher of the immature. Sometimes it’s amazing how many people want to teach a Sunday School class when they don't even know the Lord, or they want to teach a class for a wrong reason. 

In verses 21-24, Paul's judgment of these Jews is that they are just as hypocritical and guilty as the self-righteous moralist. Look at what Paul writes in verse 21 "you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself?..." "Come on you guys. Look who's calling the kettle black!" Then Paul goes on to point out various forms of their own hypocrisy, guiltiness and unrighteousness by not living up to the Law. First, Paul points to their stealing. 

"You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal?" The religious Jew would never in the world thought of stealing from God. They would literally count every ten grains to make sure that they would subtract one grain for their tithe offering to God. They made sure that they obeyed the letter of the Law, as regards giving back to the Lord what was rightfully His. But when it came to their business practices with others, the letter of the Law was obeyed, but not the spirit of the Law. The Jews for centuries have been known as shrewd business people. If they could figure out a way to legally steal you blind they would and did. That's Paul's inference here.

Paul continues to point to another area of wrong doing in their lives. He says, "You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?" Jews were slave traders. It is a well known fact that they believed that if you were married and had a slave and had sexual relations with that slave it was okay, because they were not considered persons as much as a possession. But if you had an affair with a free person, you were committing adultery. However, the Law never taught such a practice was permissible. Sexual immorality, whether with a free person or a slave was still immorality.

In verse 22, Paul sites another failure on the religious Jews part to live up to the Law. He writes, "You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" The religious Jew would never think of worshipping idols, yet they would make idols for the Gentiles and then turn around and sell them for inflated prices, ripping off their Gentile neighbors. In other cases, Jews had been caught robbing the Gentile temples of their idols, then selling the idols back to the Gentiles. 

Some believe that what Paul has in mind here is the scandalous incident that took place in 19 a.d., as recorded by Josephus (ANTIQUITIES, XVIII. 81 FF.), when four Jews in the city of Rome persuaded a wealthy Roman proselyte, Fulvia, to convert to Judaism and to make a significant contribution to the temple treasury. Upon receiving the money, they never gave it to the temple, but used it for their own gain. When the emperor, Tiberius Caesar heard about it, he expelled all resident Jews from Rome.

Acts of thievery, adultery and sacrilege were the highest form of hypocrisy. We are not talking about a momentary mental lapse here. We are talking about a religious lifestyle that never allowed the truth of God's world get past one's mind and into the heart. It was all knowledge. Because of this hypocrisy, Paul says “they caused God’s name to be blasphemed.”

Paul continues, "You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, just as it is written." 

To the Jew, blasphemy or the putting down or causing of others to put down the name of God was the worst of all sins. Like the Jews today, there are many Christians who keep a mental record of how many people they have led to Christ; yet they never keep any records on how many they drive away, because they have made a mockery of God's name by their lifestyles. Many of us are just like this religious Jew.

Although the Jew and other religious people believe they have the source of truth, often times it leads to arrogance in that they believe they know more and look down on others. They somehow, although they know the Law seem to feel that they can live above it, due to their favored position before God. Ultimately, it does nothing but lead to God's name being mocked.

Paul, now turns to a third boast upon which the religious devotee believes that have merited God's approval and acceptance, hence escaped God's wrath.  It's found in verses 25-27. Paul, now seizes upon another cause for which the religious devotee boasts in their acceptance before God. Regardless of the religion, protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, you name it, it seems that all religious devotees turn to some religious rite to basis their worthiness of being accepted or approved of by God. Here, Paul speaks to the supreme Jewish symbol or rite that separates the Jew from all other people, circumcision. Verse 25, "For indeed circumcision is of value, if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. If therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? And will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter {of the Law} and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?” 

Circumcision, like baptism, in itself is a ritual that in itself possesses no saving property. It does nothing to earn for oneself God's approval. However, as a rite, it points to something special.

But the Jews did not believe this. They believed that the very ritual was that which saved you. Rabbi Menachem, in his commentary on the BOOKS OF MOSES says, "Our Rabbins have said that no circumcised man will see hell." Another Jewish theologian states, "Circumcision saves from hell." And a third declares, "God swore to Abraham that no one who was circumcised should be sent to hell." One final Jewish authority dogmatically states, "Abraham sits before the gate of hell, and does not allow that any circumcised Israelite should enter there." [Hodge, p.63] Each of these Jewish theologians clearly missed the meaning of circumcision. As we will see when we come to chapter 4 of Romans, Paul will prove from the Old Testament, that circumcision never saves.

A religious rite, whether you are talking about circumcision, baptism or confirmation does have a purpose behind it. If the person who observes the religious rite misses the purpose behind the religious rite, then the religious rite is worthless. That's what Paul means when he says that the Jewish man's circumcision becomes uncircumcision. Paul's argument is devastating to the Jew. One of the greatest insults in Judaism was to call another Jew "an uncircumcised one."

On the other hand, to add insult to injury, Paul goes on to say to the Jew that if the non-religious person naturally, from the inner man, fulfills the purpose behind the religious rite without having followed the religious rite, then the non-religious person will judge or condemn the religious person by his actions. That's the point behind verses 26-27.

For example: Caiaphas was the high priest who was responsible for Jesus being crucified. He was a circumcised Jew and prided himself in having fulfilled the whole law. Yet, he ripped of the people in the temple with his bazaar booths and money changers stands; he illegally put Christ to death for his own political purposes. But Cornelius [Acts 10], the roman centurion, a godly gentile, an uncircumcised man, sought after God from his heart, and God sent an angel to Cornelius to tell Cornelius to go see Peter to get the information on how to receive eternal life. Cornelius life as an unsaved gentile seeking after God condemns one such as Caiaphas. The religious rite, to mean anything, was something that had to originate in one's heart, not head.

But for Paul's religious or Jewish audience, there still remains the question of "Then what religious person or Jew can be saved?" So to briefly answer that, Paul points back to the rite of circumcision to illustrate what it takes for a true religious devotee to be saved, in verses 28-29. He says, "For he is not a Jew [true Jew or saved person] who is one outwardly; [keeps laws or follows religious rituals] neither is circumcision [true circumcision] that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew [or a true Jew or a truly saved person] who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God."

Circumcision is something that we unfortunately hear little talked about because it is practiced on sexual organs. But God thought it important enough to have it performed and declared in His word. He used the symbol of circumcision as a graphic illustration of what has to happen to the invisible part of a person, that inner being or "the heart" as Paul calls it here, if we ever will be accepted or approved of by God. 

Something inside each of us has to be removed or "cut away" or "circumcised" if we are ever going to enjoy a personal relationship with God. This idea was really nothing new to the Jews. Jeremiah wrote about it when he exhorted the Jewish people, in verse 4:4a, ""Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart,..."

Allow me to bring up some thing some of you have seen before to better illustrate what Paul has in mind here. As we continue our study through Romans you will see these circles several times. As we do, I hope you keep in mind exactly what they illustrate, because I believe they will greatly help you to better understand some of the life changing truths of this book. 

One of the biggest problems I have found with many popular and well known Bible teachers is their lack of consistency in the use of some key Biblical terms and their confusion as to what each term refers to. This confusion has lead many into serious error and unnecessary struggles for their entire Christian lives. For those of you who have been reading some of Dr. Neil Anderson's works, you know what I mean. His entire ministry is dedicated to correctly explaining the meaning and implications of these terms. So when we define terms for you in our ongoing study of Romans, please write them down in your bible somewhere so that when you come across them in your reading you will know to what they refer.

As we look at these circles, they picture how the Bible says we are made. Each person has a body, soul and spirit. The body is obvious. It is that visible portion of your being. The soul and spirit are not so obvious as to what they are and how they function because you cannot see them. They are both invisible. In addition, they both share in common three attributes of intellect, emotion and will. But they are different. The soul refers to that which makes up your personality, those experiences that have made you, you. Your unique talents, likes, dislikes, giftedness and leadership styles. 

Your spirit, however, is that part of you that makes you uniquely different than any other part of God's creation, specifically the animals. And further more, it is this part of our being that allows us to have a relationship with God, to communicate with Him and to sense His leading in our lives. In addition, it is the control center of our being.

An animal has a body and a soul. If you have ever had a horse or cat or dog, you know that they each have their own personality. But according to scripture, that which makes man unique in comparison to the animal is that God, according to Genesis 1 and 2, breathed His breath of life or His spirit into us to make us alive, both physically and spiritually. Our spirit is what enables us to be linked with God.

When mankind was first created, our spirits were alive and linked with God's spirit, enabling us to be and do all that God commanded. But when sin entered the world, according to Ephesians 2:1,2, our spirits died and no longer were we empowered by God. Instead, that which controlled our control center and how we saw ourselves was something the Bible calls the flesh.

Now, for the sake of terminology, let's stop right there and clarify some terms. Whenever Paul refers in this book and in his other writings to these following terms, these terms are synonyms for the same thing. They refer to our spirits. These terms are: "man's nature, inner man, spirit and heart". In the Old Testament, this last term "heart" sometimes refers to the entire invisible part of our being, our soul and spirit, or it refers to just one's spirit. The context determines it. But in the New Testament, it refers to the control center of our being or who we really are on the inside or our identity.

There is one other term that is very important that you understand and that is the term "flesh". Many have mistakenly understood the "flesh" to refer to our "nature" or to the control center of our being, and it does not. Those who have mistranslated the scriptures and translated flesh for nature when the word for nature is an entirely different term have done a grave disservice to the ordinary leader. The "flesh" can refer to several things. Sometimes it is used to refer to one's physical flesh. At other times, it refers to our propensity or drivenness to sin. This understanding of the flesh becomes very important that you understand this, especially as we get to Romans 6. 

In our diagram as to where our "flesh" has influence over our lives, it is shaded in gray. Apart from Jesus Christ, we are sinners. And as you can sin, the flesh influences and ultimately controls the control center of our being, that is our spirit. Because of sin, mankind, apart from God, is dead spiritually although alive physically.

For instance: There are those times when we wish to do right and we try very hard, but end up frustrated, because as hard as we try to do what is right we can't. The reason for it, is that, apart from Christ or before a person trusts Jesus as one's savior and Lord, we are sinners, control by this thing called the flesh at the very critical part of our being. Our spirits are dead and helpless to defeat or over rule the flesh drives or sin that controls our lives.

What we need to live a changed life, is the control center of our being to be changed. We need to have this "flesh" cut away from our hearts, or circumcised and our spirits made alive again, if we are ever going to be able to enjoy God and become the people we really want to be. But we are helpless to do that, which in a veiled way at this point, Paul points to in verse 29 when He says the spirit is the only one who can do the circumcision. And because we can't do it, we can stand back and accept the praise from other men as if we have done it. It is a work of God. Now, Paul doesn't explain what he says in verse 29, but that will be what he plans to explain from the middle of chapter three through chapter eight. 

However, I can tell you this much. If one desires to have their hearts changed or their spirits to be made alive so as to have a real and vital relationship with the living God, God says He will make it happen for us if we will simply take Jesus as our savior from our sin (which is controlling our lives) and allow Him to be the Lord of our lives. When we take God up on His offer, and trust Jesus to be our Savior and Lord, we are "born again" and once again our spirits are made alive and joined together with His spirit.

The "circumcision of the heart" refers to our spirits being made alive again. This is the only person who will escape God's judgment. But notice, at this point, Paul doesn't tell the reader how this can happen. He just states that the only true Jew (or approved believer) is someone whose heart has been circumcised. The religious fanatic who doesn't have a circumcised heart, will not be approved. Paul will explain the implications of the "flesh" and its influence over the rest of our being in later chapters, but this is all you need to know for now. The "Heart" refers to the spirit, the key to who you are.

Over all Paul's point of this chapter can best be illustrated by the following hair-raising story, which I understand to be a true, as told by Charles Swindoll. After you hear this, you won't know whether to laugh or to pray. "This man was working on the roof of his house, making some repairs. It was a blustery day. His roof had a real steep peak. In order to stay safe up there while working on the repairs, he had to secure himself to something on the ground. So he climbed up the roof, tied a rope around himself and yells down to his son, "Tie that end of the rope to the base of that tree." Well, the little boy hears his dad, takes a look at the tree and thinks, "That looks kind of small," so he ties the end of the rope to the bumper of their car. A few moments later, the mother comes out of the house to make a quick trip to the store. The boy has gone inside the house and hasn't told the mother about the rope. She hops in the car, puts it in reverse and the dad goes ZOOM!!! over the roof to the ground and ends up in the hospital in serious pain.

Many religious people are just like this man and this rope. They are holding on to religion as though it will protect them, when in fact it will not. The only thing that will protect and change a person's life and give them security in eternity is having a relationship with Jesus Christ as one's savior and Lord. It is the only way someone can be made alive spiritually.

There are many people who are religious and proclaim that they know god, but Jesus says that when the day of judgment comes, while these people are saying, "Lord, Lord, we did this and we did that in your name," He will be saying, "Depart from me, you evil doers, for I never knew you."

Paul is telling us here that religion, reading your bible, doing good works, taking communion or getting baptized or sitting in church will no more make you a Christian or a saved person than sitting in a garage will make you a car. What is required to know God and to be approved by God is to have one's heart changed.

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