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There is no doubt in Paul's mind as he writes to
the Church at Rome, that the Jews are pre-eminent in
God's sight. He makes it clear in 1:16 that the gospel is
the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Mind you he uses
the same hierarchy in ch 2:9 when he describes the
judgement that God is going to bring on all people, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. So the Jews come
first in God's plan and in Paul's thinking about the
gospel. But the problem is, as he points out in this
section here, they've somehow missed the point. |
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In fact there are 6 areas in which they've got
it wrong. Let's look at the passage and see what these 6
mistakes are: |
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1 They rely too much on the law |
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There's no doubt that the knowledge of God's law
is the Jews greatest asset. No other nation, no other
religion, has had God's will explained to them in such
detail. If, as I've mentioned the last couple of weeks,
there's a desire on the part of human beings to know how
to be right with God, then the Jews are greatly
privileged. They have God's law in written form. They
don't have to wonder how to please God. He's told them in
great detail. But the trouble is that they seem to think,
some of them at least, that just having the law makes the
difference. That this position of privilege they have is
enough. But relying on the fact that they have God's law
in written form isn't enough, as we'll see in a moment.
Nor is it enough to be confident that you're the chosen
people of God. Their second mistake you see is that: |
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2 They're over confident in their status of
being the people of God. |
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He points out how they boast of their relation
to God. The Jews have this position of being the chosen
people of God. God had said to them on a number of
occasions, "You will be my people and I will be your
God." Of all the nations on earth only they could
claim this relationship with God. But the mistake they
make, again, is to boast of the relationship but not live
out the responsibilities that go with that relationship. |
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3 They have a sense of superiority as those
who have been instructed in what God wants |
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Next, because they've been instructed in the
will of God and know what is the right thing to do, they
have this sense of superiority. They think that just
because they've been educated they must be better than
those who are ignorant of God's law. |
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Of course that's an attitude that we recognise
well in our own culture. There's often a sense of
superiority that accompanies education. We explain the
foolishness of certain people by their ignorance. We look
down on those who are ignorant as though they're lesser
beings than we are. And that attitude leads to the next
mistake the Jews have made: |
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4 They glory in being able to teach those who
are ignorant |
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This comes back to something I talked about a
couple of weeks ago. When we look at someone else and
discover how ignorant they are by comparison to
ourselves, it makes us feel superior, like when we look
at the sinfulness of some people and think how much more
righteous we are. Paternalism and that sense of
superiority are age old foibles of the educated. |
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And of course in the case of those who have
received God's word, well, doesn't it talk about God's
word being a lamp to our feet and a light to our path? So
when we teach God's word to those who are in darkness, we
feel good that we're able to lead those who are blind
into the light. We love being able to correct the
foolish, as though they were little children, and feel
superior to them, just because we were taught the law
first. But the trouble is: |
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5 They're unable to keep the law themselves |
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He lists a whole range of laws that they preach
about, yet are unable to keep themselves. Now whether
these are literal examples he's giving or whether this is
simply hyperbole isn't clear. Perhaps he's thinking of
the teaching of Jesus in the sermon on the mount where he
expands the meaning of the law to include not just the
literal infringement but the mental, inward infringement
as well. |
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In our first reading today we read how Jesus
took the law against murder and expanded it to cover not
just murder but anger and hatred, a desire to do away
with a person even metaphorically speaking. He took the
law on adultery and showed how even to think of someone
else in a lustful way was tantamount to committing
adultery with them. Elsewhere he condemns the Pharisees
for the way they twist the law about the tithe in such a
way that they can escape their responsibility of
supporting the temple, and so in a sense are robbing the
temple. |
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You see it isn't enough that they know what
God's law is. They also have to keep it. And not just for
the sake of their own righteousness, notice: v23: He
says: "You that boast in the law, do you dishonor
God by breaking the law?" |
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Now this has relevance for us as well doesn't
it? One of the things we've talked about from time to
time is the way people look at us as a church and judge
Christianity and, therefore, in a sense, God, by what
they see. If what they see is glorifying to God, then it
promotes the gospel. People are attracted to God by the
way we as a church behave. But when the way we behave is
contrary to God's will, it sets back the cause of the
gospel. I think it was Ghandi who said that the greatest
problem facing Christianity is Christians themselves. One
of the most common excuses people use for not becoming
Christians, or not getting involved in the church is the
way Christians have behaved in the past. That's one
reason why something like the child abuse scandals
involving church leaders that continue to erupt in the
media are such a problem for us. Apart from the obvious
moral, ethical and pastoral issues for the individuals
involved, the wider effect on the credibility of
Christianity is enormous. The fact that church leaders in
the past have sought to cover up this sort of thing or
pretend it hadn't happened is as much a scandal for the
church as the offences themselves. |
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You see, our integrity as individuals who
profess Christ affects not only how people see us, but
also how they see God and his church. That's a fairly
sobering thought isn't it? Think about these words:
They're pretty terrible aren't they: 'as it is written,
"The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles
because of you."' |
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He sums most of this up by reminding them that
"Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the
law; but if you break the law, your circumcision has
become uncircumcision." In other words it's no good
boasting in having the law, or thinking that you're
better than someone else because you've been chosen by
God and have been shown how he wants you to live, if in
the end it makes no difference to how you live. It isn't
knowing the law that matters, but whether or not you do
it. In fact there are those who don't have the law, he
says, who are better at keeping it than you are. |
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I guess we all know people who live outside the
people of God, who are great at doing good works; who are
the first to help when someone needs a hand; who seem to
exemplify everything that the law requires of us. There's
a sense in which they're closer to being a people that
God desires than those in the Church who fail to obey
God. |
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In fact there are those in the church today who
take the attitude that as long as they go to church each
week, and confess their sins it doesn't matter how they
live in between. But that's to make the same mistake that
the Jews made. This is the 6th mistake that Paul points
out. |
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6 They misunderstand what is the essence of
being a Jew |
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He points out that being a Jew, that is, being
one of God's own people, has to do more with the inward
state of a person, not some outward manifestation.
"Real circumcision is a matter of the heart -- it is
spiritual and not literal." So a person who is
circumcised in the heart, rather than physically,
receives praise from God rather than from others. Numbers
of times God warned his people that while humans look at
the outward manifestation of righteousness, or status, or
power, God looks on the heart. It's the righteous heart
that God is looking for. |
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Sadly, he's about to go on in the next section
to remind them that in fact no-one is righteous. No-one
has a heart that's completely right with God. All have
turned away from the truth at one point or another.
No-one does what is right. They lie and slander. They
kill and wage war. So when God looks on the heart it
doesn't, in the end, make a difference whether they're
Jews or Gentiles. All are in the same difficulty. |
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But then, if that's the case, he asks, what
benefit is there to being a Jew. What advantage do they
have as the chosen people of God? Well, he says, they
still have a great advantage. Being a Jew brings with it
a great privilege. |
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A great privilege |
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In fact they enjoy two great privileges: |
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The Jews have been entrusted with the oracles of
God. As I said earlier, no other nation, no other
religion has been given the revelation of God that the
Jews have been given. Everyone has the revelation of God
as we find it in the creation, the wonder and complexity,
and all that. But only the Jews have received God's word
directly. Only they have had revealed to them God's
redemptive purpose for the world. |
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You see, this is where Judaism and Christianity
differ from all the other religions of the world. All the
other religions have an awareness of the God of Creation.
They have some sort of understanding of a transcendent
God, of a creator God, even of the moral laws of the
world. But only in Judaism and Christianity do we
discover a God who redeems his people. Only here do we
discover a God who takes the sins of his people and
covers them over, deals with them in a such a way that
they are removed forever. Only as we read the Scriptures
that have been entrusted to God's chosen people do we
discover God's plan to bring the whole creation back to
him under the headship of Jesus Christ. |
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You see the Old Testament Scriptures that were
entrusted to the care of the people of Israel contained
the truth of God's grace to be shown to all people
through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. So the Jews had a
great advantage. And that advantage included the
privilege of being first to receive the grace of God. |
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- of being
first to receive the grace of God
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You see the grace of God as revealed in the
gospel of Jesus Christ is not a new thing. This is simply
the final unravelling of the revelation of God's grace
that began with the promise to Abraham to make of him a
great nation, a nation that would bring blessing to all
the nations on earth. |
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From the very start God's grace has been
revealed in his dealings with the people of Israel. As
we'll see next week, the very fact that he forgave their
sins when they offered sacrifices of mere animals, was a
sign of his grace and mercy towards them. And if in the
process they were unfaithful, it doesn't in any way
nullify his faithfulness. In fact it enhances it. The
enormity of God's grace is highlighted by the fact that
even when the people of Israel rebelled against him time
and time again, God remained faithful to his promise to
Abraham. Even when his patience ran out and he judged
their rebellion by sending them into exile, he remained
true to his promise and in his graciousness, preserved a
remnant who would eventually return to Jerusalem to pick
up the pieces and begin again. |
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Not that God's grace and faithfulness should be
seen as any sort of excuse for those who sin. That's
perhaps one of those excuses that people try on.
"It's OK if I do something wrong, because it just
lets God show how great his grace towards me is. It just
shows up how great God's love is." |
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In fact it seems that Paul's opponents were
accusing him of using just such an excuse. They were
suggesting that he was pushing the grace of God because
it let him get out of the requirement to keep the law. As
though he was suggesting that the more we sin, the more
God is able to show his grace and glory by forgiving us.
Well, that's a ridiculous and spurious argument and he'll
refute it fully when we get to ch6. For now suffice to
say that those who think like that will get what they
deserve. |
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Now before we finish, we need to move briefly
from the immediate context of Romans, of a church made up
of Jews and Gentiles, to our modern context. In most
places the residue of Jewish culture and religion doesn't
really impact on the church any more. Our modern day
church is almost entirely a Gentile church. Yet some of
the attitudes, some of the mistakes that Paul highlights
here are still being made by Christians today. |
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There are still those who take for granted their
status as God's chosen people. There are still those who
are over confident in that status, who think that they
can do nothing wrong just because God has called them.
There are still those who have a sense of superiority
because they've received the revelation of God; who look
down on others because they're ignorant of the things of
God; who glory in being able to teach the ignorant. But
the reality is that none of us is any more able to
fulfill the law by ourselves than the Jews of Paul's day
were. We're all totally dependent on the grace of God the
same as people have always been. If we're called to be
the people of God, then we should treat that as a great
privilege that carries with it an equally great
responsibility - a responsibility to show by our lives
the way God's grace has impacted on us, and the humility
that comes from knowing that it's only by God's grace
that we can stand before God unashamed. |
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For now, we've come to the point in the letter
where it's clear that no-one is able to please God by
themselves, no-one is any better than anyone else. All
need God's grace in equal measure. Next week we'll
discover just how God has brought about a righteousness
that is available to all through faith in Jesus Christ. |
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