Paul continues discussing the Law and the use of it by the Jews. He comments they teach others but are not teaching themselves and their witness has made God’s name blasphemed among the Gentiles. Paul moves from there into the issue of circumcision and its benefit. At this point, Dr. Sproul discusses in detail the sign of circumcision and what it meant and the relationship to the New Testament believers.

We will continue our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome by turning our attention to the second chapter of the epistle. I will be reading from Romans 2:17–29, which is the end of the chapter. I will ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 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, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, “Do not commit adultery,” do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” as it is written.

For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor 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, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

He who has ears to hear the Word of that God, let him hear. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Our Father, as we attend to this, Thy Word, we ask that You grant us understanding of it, that You would prepare our hearts through the law for the hearing afresh of the gospel. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Our Condition Under the Law

When we began looking at Romans 2, I mentioned that after Paul’s elaborate discussion of general revelation and how the whole world suppresses the plain and manifest knowledge of God He gives to every person in creation, Paul moved from the universal guilt of the human race and aimed directly at his kinsman according to the flesh, Israel. He addressed them at the beginning of chapter 2, calling them “O man.” Paul began to talk about the hypocrisy of those who were in a special relationship to God, God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. They were living in the same kind of godlessness that manifested itself among pagans and gentiles who were foreigners and strangers to the covenant that the Jews enjoyed in their own history.

In the last sermon, we talked about that dreadful experience of sinners, as they make a deposit in the account of their corruption every time they sin. That account is mounting exponentially as they store or heap up wrath against the day of wrath. I mentioned that I was hoping we would soon get out from underneath the oppression of the indictment God gives to His people in the early chapters of Romans, that we might hasten to the good news that comes in the declaration of the gospel. But again, before Paul brings us to the gospel, he first examines our condition under the law.

The Weight of the Law

In classical Lutheran theology, there is important emphasis on both law and gospel. We remember the torment Martin Luther endured when he was in the monastery at Erfurt where he would go to confession every day, as was required of the brothers there in the monastery.

Normally, confession would last ten minutes for the monks. But Luther would go into the confessional, see his father confessor, and spend hours confessing, until the senior fathers in the monastery were filled with frustration with the young monk. They chastened him and said: “Brother Martin, if you’re going to come with a long list of sins, bring something serious. You come with minor transgressions, peccadilloes, as it were, and take up all our time.”

But what they did not fully understand about Luther is that he came into the monastery after leaving the university, where he had already distinguished himself as a brilliant student of jurisprudence, preparing for a career in law. He brought that keen analytical ability to dissect law with him to the monastery, and he would examine the law of God in great depth and detail.

The more Luther studied the law of God, the more troubled he was in his conscience, provoking his famous statement when somebody asked if he loved God: “Love God? Sometimes I hate God, because all I see is Christ as the judge. He has the scales of justice in front of me, and He weighs my sins, and the scales are always weighted against me.” Luther’s conscience was terrified by the law of God, not because he was neurotic, but because he was perceptive, just as Paul himself was in his expert understanding of the righteous demands God imposes upon His people.

Our problem is that we fail to feel the weight of the law. We are so hardened in our sin and so accustomed to our corruption that we give our attention not to the law of God but to the social customs of our culture, and then we measure ourselves in conformity to those customs. We measure ourselves not against the standard of God’s perfect righteousness. But as Paul would later write to other Christians, those who go about “measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Cor. 10:12).

The Mirror of the Law

Remember the parable Jesus told of the two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and one was a publican. The Pharisee looked up into heaven and prayed. He said, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector” (Luke 18:11).

The Pharisee was thanking God. He was saying, “There but for Your grace go I.” But he obviously had a highly exalted view of his own performance because he was judging himself by the curve of the culture. He had forgotten that God does not judge or grade on a curve. He grades against an absolute standard of perfect holiness. That is what the publican understood. He could not even lift his eyes to heaven but simply cried out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Having told the parable, Jesus then turned to His audience and essentially said: “Which of the men went to his house justified? It wasn’t the Pharisee who judged himself by himself and judged himself among others. Rather, it was the publican who knew his sin and cast himself on the mercy of the court of God.” That is why we read the law as part of our liturgy at Saint Andrew’s, so we can always hear that standard and see the mirror of the law that reflects God’s perfect character.

When I look in the mirror of the law, every one of my blemishes becomes instantly obvious. I cannot hide from what the law reveals to me about who I am. No wonder Paul speaks of the law as the schoolmaster who drives us to Christ.

Internal Godliness

In the second part of chapter 2, Paul continues on with this question of hypocrisy and the law. In verse 17, he essentially says: “Indeed you’re called a Jew, and as a Jew you rest your case on the law. You have the law of God. That’s the glory of Israel. No other nation has such a clear manifestation of the law of God.”

We tend to think of the Old Testament law as being reduced to simply the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were only the foundation of the law. After the Ten Commandments were given, a whole host of laws were added to it that we call the “holiness code.” In addition to the Ten Commandments, we have the case law of the Old Testament that further reveals the character of God and shows us how far short we have fallen of that law’s standard.

If we can hide from the law, put the law in a basket, escape that mirror, shatter that mirror, and look around, we can always find someone more sinful than we are and pat ourselves on the back. But we cannot afford to do that, and God will not let us do that. He keeps coming to us with His law.

Paul says: “Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 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, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.”

Could we not extrapolate this critique Paul gives to his kinsman according to the flesh, Israel, and apply it to us in the church? We have the Word of God. We rely on the Word of God. We rest on our doctrine. We have been instructed by the Word of God. We are confident that we are called to be guides to the blind, a light to those who are perishing, a light to those who are in darkness. We instruct the foolish. We are the teachers of infants. We have the form of knowledge and truth. Could that not be said also of us?

Elsewhere, Paul rebukes people for having a form of godliness, but not the substance of it. The outward forms are there, but that form is an empty shell. Once God bores through that shell and examines the heart beneath the external form, there is no internal reality. That is the judgment Paul gives to Israel, but it also has application to us.

Masters of Masquerading

Paul continues: “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?” These are not just empty questions. As Christians, we all stand up and say it is wrong to steal. If you have a pledge campaign in the local church, and the people in the congregation pledge to give a certain amount in the next calendar year, the rule of thumb in ecclesiastical circles is never to count on receiving more than 80 percent of the pledges people make, because people think nothing of failing to fulfill their pledges.

I wish I could take you to the accounting offices of Christian ministries and show you how many people purchase material from ministries and never pay. It is not just pagans who do not pay their bills; professing Christians do that as well. The same people who shake their finger at the unbeliever for not being honest and forthright are practicing the very same things. They are stealing.

Paul says: “You who say, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?” We have the law of God, and what are we doing with it? We boast of it while we break it. Here comes the clincher at the end of this section. Paul says, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

Do you know one of the standard complaints and objections people not involved in the church make about church members? It is a false accusation, but it is one you hear all the time: the church is full of hypocrites. Have you ever heard that? Maybe you have said it. One minister, when he heard somebody say the church is full of hypocrites, said, “Yes, and there’s always room for one more.” He went on to say: “If you ever find a perfect church, don’t join it. You’ll ruin it.”

Hypocrisy is a damnable thing. Our Lord constantly rebuked the Pharisees, who were the masters of masquerading and pretended to have a form of righteousness they really did not possess. But what happens is that when people see us as Christians, we do not pretend to be perfect. The church is filled with sinners. The first qualification to join a church is that you must be a sinner. There is no place for perfect people in the church.

One of the reasons people call us hypocrites is that they notice we are not perfect. But the hypocrite is the one who claims to be more righteous than he is. That is a serious matter. That is what Paul is talking about in this text. Hypocrites claim more righteousness than they possess.

This is destructive, and one of the real practical problems of ministry in the life of the church is that we have set the standard high for behavior. We encourage people to grow in their faith and their sanctification, but at the same time we encourage them, we also put heat and pressure on them to make them feel that they have to pretend to be more righteous than they actually are. Do you ever feel that pressure? I think we all feel it, and so we talk the talk but do not always walk the walk.

The world watches when we say one thing and do another. Paul says to the hypocrites in Israel that the gentiles are blaspheming God because of us. Because of how we treat them, they say—and how many times have you heard it said—“If that’s Christianity, I don’t want any part of it.”

Blasphemy Needs No Help

It is true that the gentiles, the pagans, the unbelievers, blaspheme because of us, because of the horrible example and witness that we often give them. On the other hand, if there is any comfort here, it is that if we treated them perfectly, they would still blaspheme God. The fact that we add to their impulse of blasphemy does not get them off the hook in the final analysis.

One of my favorite stories was told to me by a Christian who was on the PGA golf tour. He had a friend on the tour who was not a Christian. The previous year, that friend had played tremendously and was voted golfer of the year. He was the defending champion and was honored at a tournament for being the previous golfer of the year, but during the year in which he was to be honored, he went into a tailspin and was playing terribly.

Part of the honor for being named the golfer the year was that he played in the pro-am of the tournament, and he was a paired with the president of the United States, Jack Nicklaus, and Billy Graham. That is a high-powered foursome: the player of the year from last year—I will not give you his name to protect the guilty—the President of the United States—I will not even tell you which one that was to protect a terrible golfer—and then Billy Graham and Jack Nicklaus.

At the end of the round, the golfer walked off the course after playing poorly. He was red in the face, and he went over to the practice tee and started hammering drives down the practice tee to get rid of his frustrations. My friend sat down and watched him for a few minutes, and he said, “What’s the matter?” He said, “I don’t need to have Billy Graham trying to shove religion down my throat all day.” Then he went back to beating the balls.

My friend, after a few more minutes, said, “Did Billy really do that to you today?” The golfer turned to my friend, and he said: “No, Billy didn’t say a word about religion. I just had a bad round.” But why would he say that? Why would he say that Billy Graham was trying to shove religion down his throat when Billy Graham did not say a word to him about Christianity?

Billy Graham did not have to say a word to the golfer. He knew who Billy Graham was and what Billy Graham represented. He know what Billy Graham stood for, and he was feeling crowded all day. He was uncomfortable in the presence of a man like Billy Graham. That is what happens.

When I used to play golf, I did not want anybody to know I was a minister. As soon as they asked me what I did, I’d mumble something like, “I teach,” or “Insurance, eternal life insurance.” I knew that as soon as I told them I was a minister, they would start apologizing to me for their language, as if I’d never heard it, and as if I had never used it. I would say: “You don’t need to apologize to me. It’s God who’s hearing everything you say. You don’t need to worry about me.” But they get uncomfortable.

Unbelievers will blaspheme God at every opportunity. But we do not need to aid and abet them in their blasphemy by being less than kind, less than loving, or less than sensitive to them as human beings.

The Sign of Circumcision

Paul continues in verse 25: “For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?”

He goes on and talks about the difference between outward circumcision and inward circumcision, the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit, essentially saying: “You have the letter of the law, but you don’t keep the spirit. People outside may be more sensitive to the spirit of the law than you are, even though they don’t know the letter of the law.” He uses as his illustration the idea circumcision. I want to take some time to talk about the significance of circumcision because this is very important to Paul’s understanding of redemption, the law, and the gospel.

God’s Covenant with Abraham

In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant promise that He gave to His people. When God called Abraham out of Mesopotamia, out of paganism, He promised to Abraham that He would be his God, and He would make him the father of a great nation. He told Abraham that his descendants would be as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore. To confirm that promise, God went through an elaborate ritual to answer Abraham’s questions. I will mention that in a moment, but in the meantime, He required of Abraham circumcision, which was the cutting off of the foreskin of his flesh.

Not only of Abraham was circumcision required, but also of his children. In the Old Testament, the sign of the covenant was given to adults and to their children. That is the basic reason why the sign of the new covenant in Christian history is also given to the children of the covenant. When God gives His covenant promises, it is always to those who receive them and to their children, to their seed.

In any case, we have to stop for a moment and say, what is this sign of circumcision that is of so central importance to the covenant people of the Old Testament?

Abraham Staggers

In Genesis 15, God appeared to Abraham and told him that He would be his shield and his very great reward. Abraham said: “Thank You, that’s very nice, but what reward can You possibly give me? I’m already the richest man in the world, but I don’t have any children. I don’t have a son, and my heir is my servant, Eliezer of Damascus. So, what can You give me?” God said: “No, your heir will not be Eliezer of Damascus. But in your old age and in your wife’s barrenness, I will give you a son, who will be the child of promise.”

We read in Genesis 15—and we will see this later when Paul recalls it for the Romans— “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Rom. 4:3; see also Gen. 15:6). This was the first clear teaching of justification by faith alone. Paul will expand on that later, so I will save it for then. But no sooner does Abraham say he believes God than he staggers at God’s promise that He would make Abraham a great nation.

Abraham said to God: “How can I know for sure that You’re going to give me these things? I’m an old man. My wife is barren. How can I have a child? How can I know for sure?” That was his question. God put Abraham to sleep, and this deep sleep came upon him, and in the middle of that sleep, the terror of the presence of God was manifested to him.

God’s Sign of Surety

Before Abraham went to sleep, God told him, “Go get these animals: a she-goat, some birds,” and so on. God told Abraham to cut them in half and set them next to each other down an aisle, like a gauntlet. After Abraham did this, God put Abraham to sleep. In his sleep, Abraham saw a burning pot and smoking furnace move down the aisle between these pieces. In the vision, God said, “Know for sure that I will keep My covenant.”

When we go to conferences, there is this interesting thing that Christian people do. I do not know where it came from, but people bring Bibles up to me and ask me if I will sign their Bibles, particularly their Reformation Study Bibles. They ask me to sign a Bible, and then they ask me to put my life verse in there.

I ask: “What’s that? What’s a life verse?” Where did that come from? Is there one verse? Jesus said we are supposed to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Why do I have one verse to define my life?

Over my many years of doing this, I have signed a host of different verses. I will not be tied down to one of them. But the one I like to sign the most is Genesis 15:17, and the people run back and read it: “And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and burning torch that passed between those pieces.” They think I am pulling their leg, but no, it is a theophany. The fire represents God, and God moves between the pieces that have been torn asunder.

God was saying to Abraham: “Abraham, if I don’t keep this promise, may I be cut in half, may the immutable God suffer a mutation, may the eternal God become temporal. Abraham, I’m not promising on My mother’s grave. I don’t have a mother. I’m not promising by the temple or the earth, which is My footstool. I am promising by My own being, My own character. My eternal Godhead is on the line. You want to know if I’m going to keep My word? I’m pledging you by My very deity.” As the author of Hebrews will later say about that event, “Because He could swear by no one greater higher, He swore by Himself” (Heb. 6:13).

A Primitive and Obscene Rite

The covenant involved a cutting rite. On Abraham’s side of the covenant, God commanded Abraham to have the foreskin of his flesh cut off, a very crass thing. Why?

Many years ago, I was in Philadelphia because I had been invited to a Friends meeting house by some Quakers to speak about the relationship between the old covenant and the new covenant. I talked about how the Old Testament covenant sign of circumcision had two sanctions. There was a positive side and a negative side. The significance of the cutting rite of circumcision was that God was consecrating or cutting Israel out of the mass of nations in the world. He was separating them to Himself, distinguishing them by an act of grace, and cutting them apart from fallen humanity. As a result, they bore the sign of circumcision on their skin, signifying that they had been chosen by God’s grace to receive the greatest benefit any nation could receive.

The negative side of the sign was that the Jew bore in his body the sign of the covenant that had promises, benefits, and blessings, but also curses. In Deuteronomy, when God explained the significance of circumcision, He said to them, “If you keep My law, and you keep My covenant, blessed are you in the country, blessed are you in the city, blessed are you when you sit down, blessed are you when you stand up, blessed are you when you’re in the gate, blessed are you in the living room, blessed are you in the family room, blessed are you in the kitchen, blessed are you all over the place.”

“But if you break My covenant and violate the law,” then what? “Cursed are you in the country, cursed are you in the city, cursed are you in the living room, the dining room, the family room, the kitchen. Cursed are you wherever you are.” In other words, “May you be cut off from all blessings I give and receive the curse of judgment.”

As I was in the middle of this explanation regarding the significance of circumcision, and someone yelled out from the crowd, “That’s primitive and obscene.” What do you do when someone heckles you like that in the middle of a lecture? I stopped and asked: “What did you say?” I knew what he said, but I wanted to have a moment to gather my thoughts and see whether he really had the boldness to say it again. He did. He said, “I said, ‘That’s primitive and obscene.’”

I responded to the man: “I like your choice of words to describe it. I can’t imagine anything more crass or more primitive as a religious rite than the cutting off of the foreskin of the man’s flesh. You’re right. That’s primitive. However, the promise God was making was not for the benefit of only a gnostic, elite group of intellectuals. He was communicating His promise in a sign so base, so primitive, that the least of the people in the nation would be able to grasp it in its graphicness. But I really like the word obscene because there’s no better word to use to describe what sin is. When we look to the New Testament and we see that Christ receives the curse of God when He hangs on the tree, when He takes upon Himself the corporate sins of His people, that is the greatest obscenity the world has ever beheld. So, thank you for pointing that out.”

Remember that: primitive and obscene. That is exactly the significance of this external sign of circumcision.

The Outward Sign of Inward Reality

Paul reminded the Jews in Rome that the very fact that they were circumcised did not guarantee the blessing. But if they remembered Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, they would know that the sign of which they boasted was the very sign that condemned them and marked them as covenant breakers.

The same could be said for us and our sign of the new covenant, baptism. Baptism does not save anyone. Joining the church has never saved anyone. It is an outward sign of what God promises to do inwardly. The final analysis does not concern whether we are baptized outwardly, but whether we are baptized inwardly. Do we possess the spiritual reality to which the sign points?

That was what Paul was saying to the Jew: “I know you’re circumcised. The people who crucified Jesus were circumcised. The Pharisees thought that because they had biological roots to Abraham, that guaranteed them their salvation.”

There are people today who think: “I was born in a Christian home. I grew up at a Christian home. I was baptized. I went to catechism, joined the church, and enjoyed the sacrament.”

Recently, I had an old friend drop in and visit me. He was a Christian leader, and he was telling me that one of his daughters is not a believer. This daughter who is hostile to Christianity has a daughter, and his daughter would not take his granddaughter to church. My friend said to me: “R.C., I baptized her in my swimming pool. I wanted to make sure that she was covered.”

We started talking about whether you really have to be a minister in order to administer baptism or the Lord’s Supper. There is nothing in the Bible that says only the clergy can baptize or only the clergy can administer the sacraments. But the reason that tradition developed in church history was to protect people from the abuse of these sacred signs. As we were talking, I told him about my first Holy Communion.

I was reared in the most liberal church in the city where I grew up, but we still had to go through catechism class. I’d been baptized earlier in the Methodist church, and this was now in a Presbyterian church. We had to go through catechism, memorize the catechism, and then we had to be examined.

There were probably thirty of us in the catechism class, and we had to be examined in front of the whole congregation. I’ll never forget it because I had a bright green tie with a hula dancer on it, and the minister called attention to it and embarrassed me in front of the entire congregation while examining me on the shorter catechism. We had to answer the questions.

We all passed the test. So, on Maundy Thursday, we were confirmed, and after our confirmation, had our first Holy Communion. I remember after that first Holy Communion, I was standing in the foyer of the church, and one of my friends asked: “Well, what did you think?” They gave us paper-thin wafers. I said, “The stuff tasted like fish food,” and we all laughed.

There was a little old lady there who turned to me and said, “How can you talk about Communion like that?” At the time, I thought: “What’s with this lady? What’s the big deal?” But I had obviously tramped on something that was sacred to her. I didn’t have the slightest understanding of what the Lord’s Supper was all about, and this was after three months of catechism, giving a credible profession of faith before the elders, being examined before the congregation, and going to my first Communion.

I’ve kept in touch in some manner with everyone who was in that class with me. Of the rest of the children who were in that class with me at that time, I know of only one of them who’s a professing Christian today.

Do you see how easy it is for us to assume that we are in the kingdom of God just because we have been baptized, or joined the church, or went through a catechism class, or were confirmed? We look on outward appearances, but God looks on the heart. In the final analysis, the only baptism that matters is the baptism of the heart.

That does not mean that we should do away with the external. That is not what I am saying. Jesus made it clear that we were to use the signs of the covenant for the world to see. But we must always remember that they do not save us through the working of the work. Our justification, as we will see, is by faith and faith alone. My mother’s faith cannot save me. My father’s, sister’s, or wife’s faith cannot save me. I have to have faith, and it has to be in the heart.

The Risk of Ignoring the Law

Paul continues to drag us before the law, and the bad news is that he is not finished with us yet. The beginning of chapter 3 continues the bad news, but the good news is within striking distance. So, if you can hang on for just a little longer, we should begin to get to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Law and gospel both have their place in the Christian life. By the deeds of the flesh, by the law, nobody is saved. Salvation comes only through the gospel. But if you ignore the law, you will never feel the weight of the need you have for the gospel. Let us pray.

Father, we thank You for these warnings to awaken us from our dogmatic slumbers, lest we fall into the same false assurance that those who were ethnic Jews fell into, thinking that because they were circumcised, they were saved, that because they were descendants of Abraham, they were in Your kingdom. We know You can raise up children of Abraham from the stones on the ground. We thank You that the promises of those blessings have been given to us, even though we are not Jews, but You have included us in the new covenant and in the kingdom of our Messiah. We thank You for this in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.