The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (here and here).

Romans 2:17-24

¹⁷ But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God ¹⁸ and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; ¹⁹ and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— ²¹ you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. ²⁴ For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

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Last week’s post discussed Paul’s criticism of the Jews’ conduct by contrasting it with that of the Gentiles, who, at that time, had no knowledge of God yet conducted themselves in a much better fashion than those who received God’s law:

¹³ For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

With regard to the Gentiles:

¹⁵ They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them ¹⁶ on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

The rest of Romans 2 focusses on what the Jews held dear: their special status with God, the law and circumcision. Circumcision comes later in the chapter. When one reads it, one can see that Paul’s criticism of the Jews can also apply to some Christians today. Substitute baptism for circumcision.

This is all about having a false sense of Security in God.

John MacArthur summarises the second half of Romans 2 as follows (emphases mine):

Now in Romans 2, Paul speaks specifically, verses 17 to 29, to destroy the false securities of the Jews. But in so doing he also lays bare the inadequacy of many false securities of people today, and we’ll see some very interesting parallels. Now Paul has already indicted the pagan, immoral, irreligious people in chapter 1 verses 18 to 32. And then he indicted the religious, moral people in chapter 2 verses 1 to 16, and the Jews were also sort of included there. But now, having dealt with irreligious people and generally religious people, he now zeroes in specifically on the covenant people, the Jews, in verses 17 to 29 so that he really is just sort of embracing everybody. He catches the pagan, the moral person and the covenant people, the Jew, and all of them are brought to the tribunal, as it were, to be told that they are sinful and they come short of God’s glory. Nobody escapes.

But in verses 17 to 29 he deals with the people who had the highest and the greatest privilege. And the people who at the same time felt themselves the most secure. And he devastates their false securities. And may I hasten to add that it is an act of great kindness. You do people a tremendous favor when you tell them that their security is insecure, when you tell them that they are putting their money in a bank that’ll break, when you tell them that they’re holding onto a rope that will snap. That’s kindness. And so Paul is very honest and very forthright and he is very gracious in so indicting the Jew because he makes him face the inadequacy of his false securities.

Now in these verses, 17 to 29, we face the fact that the Jew had three great privileges which gave him a false sense of security. One was that he was a part of the nation of Israel. Two, that he possessed the law of God. And three, that he was circumcised. So, based on the nation and the law and the sign of circumcision, the Jew, having these great privileges, felt himself greatly secured by them, and believed that, because he was a Jew, because he possessed the law, because he had the symbol or the sign of the covenant in circumcision, he was therefore free from any fear about judgment. And so what Paul does, beginning in verse 17, is take each of these three and systematically destroy them all as securities. He strikes a killing blow at the supposed security of the Jew. And in so doing he strikes a killing blow at the supposed security of many so-called Christians and so-called religious people in the church today.

This is the intended lesson for Christians:

My prayer is not only that you’ll understand the passage so you understand the Jew, but my prayer is that you’ll understand the passage so you’ll understand even in a contemporary setting in the church how people can hide behind false security, and that needs to be made known to them.

MacArthur reminds us that what Paul wrote came from Jesus’s own words, the Sermon on the Mount:

Jesus arrived in the scene in Judaism in Matthew. First time He gave a sermon, chapter 5 through 7, He spends the entire sermon literally demolishing the walls of Judaism. First of all, He says in chapter 5 verse 20, “Your righteousness is not adequate to get you into the Kingdom.” There goes that security. Then He says, “Your attitudes are wrong. Your view of Scripture is wrong. Your human relationships are inadequate. Your words are inadequate. Your praying doesn’t cut it. Your fasting doesn’t cut it. Your giving doesn’t cut it.” And literally, in Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7, Jesus strips Judaism threadbare naked without securities. And that is the approach that you always have to take in a presentation of the gospel. The person has to be led to the place where they know they have no resource, they have no protection, they have no hope, they have no solution, they have no security. So we are not surprised to see Paul do this.

Therefore, the practical application for us is to read these verses as if they were directed towards Christians today.

Paul begins by attacking the boastfulness that the Jew had in being one of God’s chosen and having His law (verse 17).

Matthew Henry elaborates:

They were a peculiar people, separated and distinguished from all others by their having the written law and the special presence of God among them. (1.) Thou art called a Jew; not so much in parentage as profession. It was a very honourable title. Salvation was of the Jews; and this they were very proud of, to be a people by themselves; and yet many that were so called were the vilest of men … (2.) And restest in the law; that is, they took a pride in this, that they had the law among them, had it in their books, read it in their synagogues. They were mightily puffed up with this privilege, and thought this enough to bring them to heaven, though they did not live, up to the law. To rest in the law, with a rest of complacency and acquiescence, is good; but to rest in it with a rest of pride, and slothfulness, and carnal security, is the ruin of souls … It is a dangerous thing to rest in external privileges, and not to improve them. (3.) And makest thy boast of God. See how the best things may be perverted and abused. A believing, humble, thankful glorying in God, is the root and summary of all religion, Isa. xlv. 15; 1 Cor. i. 31. But a proud vainglorious boasting in God, and in the outward profession of his name, is the root and summary of all hypocrisy. Spiritual pride is of all kinds of pride the most dangerous.

The Jew from the time of the late prophets of the Old Testament to Paul’s era thought he was superior to everyone else. MacArthur explains:

Now the term for boast is used many times by Paul. The word group from which it comes is a very familiar one. It sometimes is used for God-centered glorying, and sometimes for man-centered boasting. And I think the [character] indictment … of this passage indicates that it should be here seen as their boasting, the self-confident boasting of a man who thinks that God owes him something because he’s superior to everybody else. They were bragging about their relationship with God. So special were they, so great were they that God had to favor them.

And the effect of this — and this really was their attitude, you see it over and over again even in the minor prophets — but the effect of this was that they thought they could live their life any way they wanted and everything would turn out okay because God was obligated to them because they were so superior to everybody else.

Paul takes the Jews to task for claiming that, because they had the law, they knew what was excellent in God’s eyes (verse 18). That holds true only if one obeys God’s revealed will.

MacArthur says:

Verse 18, they were boasting about resting in the law and about knowing God’s will. We know God’s will. We’re okay. Boy, that is shallow, isn’t it? Because to know God’s will doesn’t mean anything except you’re more responsible, again, if you don’t do it.

Paul goes further by criticising their sense of self-privilege of being the enlightened ones (verse 19), the great teachers above all others (verse 20).

Matthew Henry points out:

A man may be a good casuist and yet a bad Christian–accurate in the notion, but loose and careless in the application. Or, we may, with De Dieu, understand controversies by the ta diapheronta. A man may be well skilled in the controversies of religion, and yet a stranger to the power of godliness …

Those whose knowledge rests in an empty notion, and does not make an impression on their hearts, have only the form of it, like a picture well drawn and in good colours, but which wants life. A form of knowledge produces but a form of godliness, 2 Timothy 3:5. A form of knowledge may deceive men, but cannot impose upon the piercing eye of the heart-searching God. A form may be the vehicle of the power; but he that takes up with that only is like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

In verses 21 and 22, Paul asks questions of the Jews of the day. When they teach others, do they also teach themselves? When they preach against stealing, are they themselves guilty of stealing? In telling people not to commit adultery, were they guilty of committing that same sin?

MacArthur distils the message from these verses for us:

It’s not what you teach, it’s what you do. I would venture to say that this country is full of people who teach Christian truth who will never enter God’s kingdom. I mean, the country is loaded with angels of light, or those disguised, I should say, as angels of light, false teachers, false prophets, who under the guise of true prophets and true shepherds are teaching. And sometimes perhaps they even teach the truth to gain their own ends.

And I think there are other people who may be teaching the law of God, teaching principles out of the Bible, teaching things out of the Scripture. But it is not what they teach, it is what they do. And here you find the terrible gulf between what theologians call orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between profession and practice. And Paul says, in fact, you’re guilty of what you condemn in other people. You’re a teacher and you don’t even live up to your own lessons. You’re like a crooked cop, somebody out there under the pretense of upholding the law, all the time breaking it. You’re like an unjust judge, somebody who sits on the bench with the task of rendering justice, and living out injustice. The worst kind of hypocrisy is this kind of hypocrisy. They pretended and they did not obey. And so he really indicts them there in a very simple way.

Henry explains the ways in which the Jewish hierarchy sinned and why Paul mentioned those sins specifically:

He specifies three particular sins that abound among the Jews:– (1.) Stealing. This is charged upon some that declared God’s statutes (Psalms 50:16,18), When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him. The Pharisees are charged with devouring widows’ houses (Matthew 23:14), and that is the worst of robberies. (2.) Adultery, Romans 2:22. This is likewise charged upon that sinner (Psalms 50:18), Thou hast been partaker with adulterers. Many of the Jewish rabbin are said to have been notorious for this sin. (3.) Sacrilege-robbing in holy things, which were then by special laws dedicated and devoted to God; and this is charged upon those that professed to abhor idols. So the Jews did remarkably, after their captivity in Babylon; that furnace separated them for ever from the dross of their idolatry, but they dealt very treacherously in the worship of God. It was in the latter days of the Old-Testament church that they were charged with robbing God in tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8,9), converting that to their own use, and to the service of their lusts, which was, in a special manner, set apart for God. And this is almost equivalent to idolatry, though this sacrilege was cloaked with the abhorrence of idols. Those will be severely reckoned with another day who, while they condemn sin in others, do the same, or as bad, or worse, themselves.

Paul tells the Jews of his era that, although they boast in the law, they dishonour God by breaking that law (verse 23).

This is why good Christians warn against legalism. As MacArthur says:

There’s one thing about legalism, folks, legalism has no ability to restrain sin. It can’t. All it does is intensify it. Anybody caught up in a legalistic system where they’re trying to gain God’s favor by their own works finds themselves utterly unable to restrain their evil flesh.

When we break God’s law, we blaspheme Him to those not of our faith. In Paul’s context, these were the Gentiles (verse 24).

MacArthur explains:

You see, if you claim to know Christ, if you claim to know God, and then you live a sinful wicked life, if you say you’ve learned the truth about God and you teach the truth about God and live a sinful wicked life, you just blaspheme God, that’s all.

MacArthur illustrates an example in Christianity which applies to Paul’s criticisms of the Jews:

In America there are many churches that come under the term “Covenant Church,” “Reformed Church,” and many of them are very good. But in some of them there is a teaching along the line of what we would call, I guess, for lack of a better term, family covenant, that the salvation of the child occurs because he is born to Christian parents. Now you may not have been able to identify that because it’s not in your background but that is true of many, many Protestant backgrounds …

I’ve been in parts of America where this kind of theology is fairly dominant, back in the Midwest. Parents have actually expressed the fact that even though their child is wayward and even though their child is indifferent to the cause of Christ, the child is still saved because they were born in the covenant and their salvation was affirmed in their infant baptism. And that the hope of the parent is that. Because of that, that child is secure …

We are not secured by our heritage. You may have had Christian parents, you may have been born in a Christian hospital with a Christian nurse and a Christian doctor who used tools purchased from a Christian manufacturer. You may have been fed Christian baby food and don’t be surprised if somebody doesn’t come out with that now. We have everything else. That doesn’t mean a thing. It’s a matter of individual faith. But the church has been so confused by this through the years. Heritage is not a security.

As believers, we bear a heavy responsibility in our conduct to honour God. It isn’t easy. This is why we should read the Bible and pray continuously, as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.

Next time — Romans 2:25-29