Romans 2:12-29 – Romans

This morning's reading is Romans chapter two, verse twelve to twenty-nine.

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

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

For when Gentiles who do not have the law by duty by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

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, on that day when, according to the gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you were instructed from the law, and if you are sure 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 children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?

While you preach against stealing, do you steal?

You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

You who abore idols, do you rob temples?

You boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law.

For, as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

Then he who physically is uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law.

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter.

His praise is not from man but from God.

You are very, very welcome.

It's great to be here.

It's great to gather to sing together.

Thank you for yeah, I hope that you know that as you sing, you're encouraging those around you.

As those up there who are singing around me are encouraging me.

And we're gonna sit together under God's word.

Um now.

So you can open up uh Romans chapter 2 again, uh, or keep it open if you do still have it open, that'd be great.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

Uh Romans chapter 2, verse 12.

Romans 2:12

If you need to go on to, well, actually, there's a there's three Bibles there.

There's only three left, so you'd have to you'd have to run if you want to get one.

Um or just open it up on like Bible Gateway um if you Google that.

But it's really important to be following along uh as I'm as as we're looking through uh this passage together.

Um and also just at the top, I would uh commend again that our prayer meeting on Wednesday evening, and uh we'll have 30 days of prayer, we're halfway through now, and so we'll be sending that out uh week three this afternoon into the WhatsApp group.

If you're not in the WhatsApp group and you'd like to join, uh join at the Connect table.

Um, but it's really important that we're all praying together, uh, not only specifically in our context now, which is we're thinking of where we should be in the city, um, but there's so much more to be praying for.

Um so I'd commend those two things: the prayer meeting on Wednesday evening and uh 30 days of prayer.

You'll see that popping up in your WhatsApp group.

Uh, there's these funny stories that they make their rounds uh on the internet from now and again, um, where someone say they emailed or they texted everyone in their contact in their contact list with something like, or they received this text, they've discovered everything.

Run.

I don't know if you've seen any of those, or something like that.

And then the story goes on that I don't know, 2%, 5%, 7 or 8 people out of the contacts actually just disappeared because there's something, uh there's something that they're so scared will get out that even the thought of it, even if if they're not 100% sure, but they're like, okay, they could actually know, I need to hide, I need to go underground.

They're so scared of their secrets getting out, and it's a scary thing to think that our secrets are known or will be known.

And not only that they're exposed, but that they'll be judged.

In the first section of our passage here from verses 12 to 16, we're hit with the fact that it's what's on the inside that will be judged, it's those secrets that they will be judged.

That's our first point.

The inside will be judged.

Our next point will be that outward morality doesn't cover what's truly there.

Then righteousness is not outside in.

And finally, only the spirit changes our hearts.

That's where we're headed, that's where we're going.

I hope as we uh think about uh the secrets of our hearts being judged, that that last point might stick in your head, only the spirit changes our hearts and the hope that we have in that.

So we will get there, I promise.

So, firstly, though, the inside will be judged.

And if you're anything like me, you'd actually rather just get up and walk out and go get some tea and coffee and pastries and not think about the secrets of our hearts.

Because it's pretty difficult to think about.

But Paul, unlike those uh people who uh send those uh messages to everyone in their contacts, he's not pranking us.

And maybe you feel that crushing weight on your chest even now as you contemplate maybe those to your left and right, those around you, knowing the secrets of your heart.

And this probably won't offer you much comfort, and Paul isn't really trying to comfort us here, but at the start of our passage today, he's continuing on from what we saw last week in verses six to eleven.

If you remember, Paul was laying out, or if you can see there now in verses six to eleven, he was laying out how both the one who feels morally superior and looks down on those around them, and the one who feels crushed, that they're all under God's judgment.

In verse 11, Paul sums this up by saying, For God shows no partiality.

He judges everyone.

It doesn't matter if you think you're morally superior or if you feel crushed.

It's not how religious you are, it's not your ethnicity, or how many people are worse than you, we're all under judgment.

And so he continues to talk about judgment in verse 12, in what we're looking at today, and how both those with and without the law will face the consequences of their sin.

It doesn't matter who you are, if you've sinned, there will be perishing.

There will be judgment and punishment.

In verse 13, he's also bringing through some of what he has just addressed in the previous paragraph, so back from last week, and that it's what we do that God judges.

Not that works are the basis of our salvation, but they are evidence of faith.

And so in verse 13 here, he continues by calling out people who think that they're right with God by virtue of the fact that they've heard the law.

Basically, that they think they're good because they know Scripture.

Rather, what Paul has been saying is that it's, and what he's saying here is that it's the doers of the law who will be justified.

Again, this is not to say that our works save us, but there are actually two things here.

First, what does it mean to be a doer of the law?

That's what we need to be asking.

Well remember, remember what Paul actually said back in chapter 1, verse 17.

For in for in it, that's the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

For it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

To do the law is to live by faith.

It's not the other way around.

And also, doing the law actually comes as a result of being saved, it's evidence of salvation, not the other way around.

We'll see that again, and but I hope that that can clear things up.

So it's not merely about getting through the content of scripture or digging deep into theology, though that's so important.

And Paul he doesn't dismiss that here, but what he's saying is that it must lead to faith.

That's what justifies, and that's that's the basis of being right with God.

It's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then actually, again, out of that comes these other things.

Out of that comes increasing desire to know God, to hear him speak in his word.

It comes out of that faith in Christ, and so these works come out of that, not the other way around.

We'll continue on down if you look in verses 14 to 15.

So, with those people in mind who only hear the law and think that they're good because of it, Paul directs us to those who haven't heard it in the same way, but show that they can still distinguish between right and wrong.

Even those who do not have the law in the way that the Jew did, thinking he's morally superior by nature the fact that he's heard it, even those Gentiles show that the law is written on their hearts by what they do, in that they have a conscience, and in that their thoughts, in their thoughts, they weigh up things, either accusing or excusing those things.

And we've seen that come through already in chapter one, where Paul says no one has an excuse.

We've seen in God has revealed Himself, even in creation.

So Paul is building this argument that the Jew can't rely on merely hearing the law because Gentiles have it written on their hearts too.

And it's not just it's not just that the Jew might say, Oh, well, they happen to do the right things from now and again.

Paul's like, no, their conscience shows shows it as well, it bears witness, and their thoughts bear it witness too.

So the the Jew can't rely on the law and hearing the law alone.

And then in verse 16, Paul rounds this out, pointing us to judgment day, when all those secrets, everything we've ever done, even the things we think we thought that nobody saw, will they all be judged?

And on that day, who will be able to stand?

On that day, those who merely heard the law but did not do it, they will be found out.

But on that day, those who have the law written in their hearts will also face judgment.

All who have sinned, whether with or without the law, whether in secret or not, will be judged.

All of us, no matter who we are, face judgment for what we have done.

And not only that, but we'll face judgment for the secrets of our hearts, what's on the inside.

The inside will be judged.

It's interesting that Paul refers to his gospel here in verse 16.

I don't know if you noticed that.

Um he says that it's his gospel.

Um I don't think I don't think there's much to be made of his uh him saying his gospel, he's already referred to the gospel of God back in chapter one, how it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes and that in it the righteousness of God is revealed.

I think he's just expressing his ownership of it.

He has it, he believes it, and he's declaring it.

But something that's really interesting is that he refers to the gospel in the context of judgment.

This section feels like it's just all doom and gloom and judgment, but we have the gospel there, and when we think of the gospel, we rightly think of good news.

That's what it means.

Gospel means good news, right?

It's good news of Jesus Christ.

The judgment, even of our secrets, is part of that good news, though.

How can this be?

How can judgment be good news?

It's only good news.

Like I've said before, and like Paul has laid out already, if we live by faith, it's only good news if we're justified in Christ.

Paul continues then in verses 17 to 24 by expounding and clarifying our problem with sin.

He's speaking to the Jew who has the law, but again, it's for that morally superior person that we were looking at last week.

He's he's still drawing this through, who thinks that they're righteous because of who they are, what they know and what they do.

It's the religious person.

It's the moralistic person, the person who thinks they can do enough.

Again, like Mark was saying last week, it's the people who compare themselves to others, thinking that they haven't broken the law as badly as him or as her.

They think they're good because of that.

These verses help to clarify what Paul means by doers of the law in verse 13 that we were just looking at.

See, and doesn't it seem like all the things in verses 17 to 20, though, relying on the law, knowing and approving what's excellent, guiding the blind, instructing the foolish, teaching children, that these things are all things that would be counted as doing the law?

You would think that.

Yeah, Paul goes on to call out the hypocrisy in all this outward, all this apparent morality.

This clarifies that Paul doesn't think that doing these good things makes one right with God.

Again, it's not like these things are bad.

Paul loves the law of the Lord.

He encourages us to approve what's excellent, to teach others, to exhort and encourage one another towards godliness.

But this outward morality doesn't cover what's truly there.

Outward morality doesn't cover what's truly there.

That's our second point.

You see, Paul highlights all these things that the Jew might lean on, thinking that they justify and save him.

He highlights that they might lean on the fact that they're a Jew and all that that means to justify themselves.

And one of the biggest things for a Jew was circumcision, which he'll come back to, as you might see, you might have noticed down in the last paragraph that we're going to look at today in verse 25.

So we're going to come back to that in a bit.

But as Paul has already spent a good bit of time addressing, they might lean on the law and the fact that it was given to them, that they're the ones who've heard it.

Paul says next that they boast in God.

They take they take pride in the fact that they're part of God's family, part of his chosen people.

And not any God, the one true God.

And they take pride in this.

And again, it doesn't seem like this is a bad thing, but if you pluck that out of the out of context, no, it's not bad.

It's good.

But we start to see that their faith and their pride is in what they know.

It's in that they've been instructed from the law, they know God's will, and they can approve what is excellent.

But they say all these things about themselves, don't they?

What else do they lean on?

They lean on the fact that they can instruct and guide others, those who are blind, those in darkness, the foolish and naive.

Again, there's this sense of superiority based on what they know, who they are, and what they've been given in the law.

There are all these outward things, all these religious things, all these moral things that people can rely on and can be so self-assured that these things are what justifies him or her.

And Paul is speaking to the Jew here, and I don't want us to get lost in that and think that this isn't for us.

It's for all of us because we can so easily try to cover up what's truly there with outward morality.

So then in verses 21 to 24, Paul reveals while he was setting all this up in verses 17 to 20, all these good things.

He then reveals it from verse 21.

There are all these good things on the outside, the optics are grace.

But Paul goes just a little bit below the surface to expose this facade that they're leaning on, these things that they're relying on.

He shows their hypocrisy and how shallow their self-reliance is.

He calls out those who put themselves in the place of teacher and ask, Have you ever taught yourselves?

He calls out the ones who preach against stealing and committing adultery and praying to idols, saying that they do the very same things.

He calls out those who boast in the law and yet break it.

These people think they're good enough because of what they do and because they know the right things.

When in reality, these are just on the outside.

And what's beneath is as sinful as the very ones they point the finger at.

They're the ones who steal.

And even if they manage to keep it a secret, they'll be judged.

Remember back in verse 16.

When Paul says they abhor idols, yet rob temples, it seems that they either profit off idol worship or they don't follow what's taught about money, like what Jesus says, give to Caesar, what is Caesar's, give to God, what is God's.

It might be that they don't have a right view of money.

But whatever it is that Paul means exactly here, it's clear that he's calling them out.

He's calling them out for teaching against the very thing that they do themselves.

And as Paul has outlined already, what's underneath the secrets of men will be judged.

There's nowhere to hide them.

So whether they're the ones teaching against stealing and yet doing it themselves, committing adultery, uh no teaching against it, whether they are just looking at someone lustfully, or whether they're the ones who are teaching uh they abhor idols, they hate idols rightly, but they rob temples, they will be judged.

And not only is it that they teach one another, sorry, that they teach one thing and do the other, they boast in the law.

They boast in this very law that they break.

They rely on the knowledge of the law, thinking that it will save them, and instead they break it and end up dishonoring God.

And not only is God dishonored among them, those who look at them and see their hypocrisy dishonor God too, because they see those who claim to have God's law make a mockery of it by breaking it.

That's what he says in verse 24.

The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

Paul is quoting from the prophet Isaiah here in chapter 52, verse 5, where God's people are in captivity in Babylon and they're seen as weak and worthless, and so their captors think that God is weak and worthless as well.

And so they did they dishonor him and blaspheme him.

Here, though, why is God's name blasphemed?

God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the hypocrisy of the very one who boasts in the law because they break it.

Their behavior, their attitude towards God is bringing dishonor to God among others.

Now, this doesn't give those onlookers an excuse.

They'll have to answer for themselves, but it does highlight the dreadful consequences of how we live.

What does your life say about God?

What does your life say about the gospel?

What we say and what we do, even if we think it's in private, it can damage the cause and witness of the gospel.

We should be eager, like Paul was is is this is why Paul is saying this.

Back in chapter one, he says he's eager to get the gospel out.

And we should be eager to get the gospel out to a needy world, but yet our hypocrisy can dampen that.

And people are often really good at seeing through the outward, aren't they?

They see through to what's uh what's truly beneath.

And even if we can't keep it hidden from people around us, verse 16 God will judge the secrets of men.

Whether it's those who have sinned without the law or those who have sinned under the law, outward morality doesn't cover what's truly there.

And Paul makes this clear down in verse twenty eight.

If you jump down there into the next section, he says that no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, and then goes on to say, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

He's outlining here the futility of relying on circumcision and thinking that it is what saves and justifies.

This is what he's laying out in that paragraph, in that section from 25 to 29.

He continues to point out how righteousness does not come from the outside in, which he's been doing throughout our passage already.

And he begins to point us to the fact that we need our hearts changed.

But before this, before we get to the heart change, he continues to press that righteousness is not outside in.

That's our next point.

It is very similar to the previous point, that outward morality doesn't cover what's truly there.

But not only does it not cover it, it's wrong to think that righteousness on the outside then changes, can change the heart.

Righteousness is not outside in.

Paul has already pointed out that to merely hear the law does not make one righteous before God.

And neither does doing the right things or looking good on the outside.

Now he goes for something that the Jew would have put a huge amount of confidence in, thinking that it made him righteous.

Circumcision.

Now circumcision comes up from time to time.

We were looking at it in Genesis when it was given as a sign first, and it was an important part of the old covenant, being a sign of that covenant, a sign of being part of God's chosen people.

But here Paul is undermining that outward sign of circumcision to which the Jew held onto so dearly, because, as he says, it's of no value if you break the law.

Paul basically asks those who are circumcised, what's the point of it if it doesn't lead to obedience?

In that case, it's actually uncircumcision.

You might as well not be circumcised.

Being circumcised, having that sign, was meant to remind the Jew of God's covenant.

It was meant to remind them of God's grace towards them, his love for them, his desire for their good.

And then from that place, knowing that they're part of God's chosen people, they were supposed to live out of that.

Yet they began to hold on to this outward sign as the grounds for their justification.

And Paul says that this is worthless.

Now, this is again pretty specific to the Jew, but as I said before, religious people always hold on to those outward things, trying to make themselves acceptable.

This is of no value.

In the end, anything that you hold on to as a sign of being part of God's family is useless if your actions reveal that you're not part of it.

Paul goes on with this train of thought in verse 26 to answer the question: Is the opposite true?

If circumcision is worthless when it doesn't lead to obedience, does obedience mean one is circumcised?

And the answer he gives is yes, uncircumcision will be regarded as circumcision.

What does this mean?

Well remember what circumcision is.

Circumcision is a sign, it's the sign of being part of God's chosen people.

The one who is uncircumcised physically reveals true faith and true membership.

Sorry, the one who is uncircumcised physically reveals true faith and true membership of God's family by keeping the precepts of the law.

And so can be regarded as having that sign of membership in God's family, despite being physically uncircumcised.

Again, it's not that keeping the precepts of the law earns this membership.

It's not that those works make one a Christian, it's that it reveals it.

And so it reveals, despite this physical uncircumcision, it reveals spiritual circumcision.

It reveals being spiritually part of God's family.

Paul then drives home the implications of these two previous verses in verse 27.

So in 25 and 26, he drives this home for the Jew.

Not only in verse 25 does the circumcision of the Jew count as uncircumcision if there's disobedience, that that disobedience revealing that lack of true faith, as if that wasn't enough.

The very obedience of the uncircumcised, which reveals true faith, shows that the Jew is condemned.

They've no excuse.

Paul's highlighting again that the Jew who has this privileged position as the one to whom the law and the covenant were given is mistaken to rely on them.

To put faith in anything else but God Himself, even if that thing has been given by God, leaves you condemned.

It's the same for us as for the Jew.

And this gets tied together in verse 28.

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

Paul goes so far as to say that everything many Jews would have held so dearly and placed their identity in was not just worthless, it meant that they weren't even a true Jew.

All of us who place our hope in outward things to make us right, we're fooling ourselves.

All of us who find our identity in outward things will find that they're futile.

Even if that's to identify yourself as a religious person, as a moral person, even if you take on the outward name of Christian, but it's only outward, if it's only outward, it's meaningless.

So often we can fall into this trap to clean up our act to make ourselves good enough.

This could be self-deception or because of our pride, wanting maybe others to see us a certain way.

And it could be amplified in a moralistic culture where to do the right thing, the Christian thing, the good thing is the end goal, where what's on the outside is the only thing that matters.

All this doing good though is just it's worthless.

If it doesn't come from a place of true faith and true obedience, righteousness is not outside in.

Finally, in verse 29, after this consistent barrage of calling out those who think they're morally superior, those who rely on what's outward, Paul makes this hugely important statement.

He concludes all we've been looking at so far with this.

It's all been pointing forward to this.

It's what's on the inside that matters.

It's the heart that matters.

And only the spirit changes our hearts.

Only the spirit changes our hearts.

All of our efforts to make ourselves righteous on the outside, from the outside in are futile in the end.

When we try to clean ourselves up to appear more acceptable or good, we're putting effort into things that will ultimately fail us.

Or if we rely on our status, our family, our education, even our manners or our personality or our connections to people, our skills, our abilities, we're relying on something that will fail us.

If we think that our position, whether that's in work or in our friend group, whatever social situation in our families is what justifies us, then we'll be sorely disappointed when we realize how mistaken we are.

We can even rely on Christian things, whether that's in church or somewhere else.

Don't rely on merely sitting here on a Sunday morning, although I'm very glad you're here.

Or being a community group, or serving, or teaching to make you righteous.

We can fall into this so often.

Even things in private which aren't necessarily seen by others can have such a draw for us to find our righteousness in them.

An example, and I I don't think it's going to be just me who sometimes approaches daily time with God and Bible reading, even without meaning to, in a way that's wanting to justify myself.

Feeling like, oh, I had a good quiet time, so that makes me, I don't use the words that makes me more righteous, but that can be what's that can be what I'm what I'm thinking really underneath.

And don't get me wrong, like Paul in what he listed in verses uh 17 to 20, um those being able to approve what's excellent, a guide that's blinded light to those who are in darkness, etc.

etc.

These things aren't bad.

It's not that Bible reading is bad, of course not.

But it's when I rely on that, it's when I rely on those things, it's when I rely on how well I read my Bible for my righteousness, it's when I rely on it, or whatever it is for my right standing with God that I'm relying on the wrong thing.

I'm relying on the outward.

Doing that is like trying to put fruit onto a tree where the root is rotten.

It might look fine for a while, but it's futile in the long run.

Being a member of God's chosen people is something that's inward.

It's not outward.

Being righteous before God is a matter of the heart.

So our true and our deeper problem is not solved by doing, doing, doing.

It's not solved by doing more, doing good, doing the right thing.

It's not solved by our efforts.

Our true and deeper problem is with our hearts.

And as much as we can try to fix them from the outside in, it's just like trying to fix that rotten root by putting fruit onto the branches.

So how can we have our hearts changed if we can't do it ourselves, if we can't do it from the outside in?

God is the one who can change our hearts by his spirit.

The same God in verse 16, who knows and sees and will judge the secrets of our hearts, is the God who, by his grace, changes our hearts.

This is true membership of God's family, to have what's inside changed by him.

Being made righteous is a gracious act carried out by the Spirit, not by the letter.

That is, it's not through the law.

It's not what we do, it's not from the outside in.

This is true circumcision.

This is the sign of true membership in God's family.

And this heart change then leads to those good things.

This heart change is evidenced by those things that we often rely on.

So instead of relying on what we do to justify us, putting our faith in our efforts, we instead do those things out of reliance on God, out of faith in him and what he's done for us in changing our hearts.

We put our faith in him.

You see, the Spirit changes our hearts, and that works itself out from the inside out.

Through faith in him, we receive new hearts, and that leads to these good, righteous works.

It's no surprise then at the end of verse 29 that what we do indeed, that we do indeed, sorry, find acceptance and even praise from God because He's the one who's done the work.

He's the one who's changed our hearts.

We're approved by God because He's the one who knows and will judge the secrets of our hearts, and He's the one who's changed them.

That crushing feeling you might have felt, that weight when you thought about the secrets of your hearts being known.

Know that it's the God who changes our hearts by his Spirit.

He's the one who knows them.

And so He's the one who will receive praise, acceptance, approval from.

When you feel like you need to clean up your act before coming to God, when you tirelessly try to make yourself acceptable by what you do, when you find yourself trying to justify yourself by your efforts, come to our gracious God and find your righteousness in Him.

Find your rest in Him.

He's the one who has done the work in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He's the one who works in our hearts by His Spirit.

He's the one who works.

He's done it.

He changes our hearts by his spirit.

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