Romans 2 Three fingers and a Matter of the Heart … Like I said yesterday, Romans is not an easy book to skim through, and chapter 2 already proves my point. It’s like trying to wade out into the waters of a lake, only to find that six steps out, there’s a deep drop off. Romans 2 is a deep drop off and most likely your first read through leaves you feeling like you’re in over your head. If that’s what you’re feeling at the moment, let me try my best to help. For me, Romans 2 carries two main interconnected themes. The first has to do with our tendency to judge others with standards we ourselves can’t keep. The second has to do with a whole different way that God wants to take us. When I was growing up, one of those typical sayings that people used was: “When you point a finger at someone else, you know, there’s three pointing back at you.” (Some variations of this saying had four pointing back at us, but even as a child, I didn’t prescribe to that one because if you look, your thumb isn’t pointing back at you, unless you’ve failed to pay off your bets and some goon has redirected your thumbs.) In the first eleven verses or so, Paul is speaking specifically to those of a Gentile background. They had a tendency to play a little religious game called: “At least I’m not as bad as …” Paul is telling them that God doesn’t play that game. If your relationship with God is based on how well you perform morally, everyone is in big trouble. Even though you may think some sins listed in Romans 1 are worse than others, it doesn’t change things. Sin is sin and since we have a holy God, all sinners are in trouble. Then Paul turns his attention to his Jewish listeners. They liked to play a different game called: “The Double C’s.” They relied on ceremony and circumcision as a way of telling themselves they were just fine, but those Gentiles were second class. Paul goes directly after that self-righteous, judgmental attitude. Paul is telling them if they want to play that game, all they have to do is keep all the law perfectly. Or as he puts it so bluntly: “Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.” (Vs 25) In verse 28 and 29, Paul makes it clear that being Jewish outwardly (being circumcised) means nothing unless the heart has gone through a circumcision of its own by the Holy Spirit. In other words, ceremonies mean nothing unless we are changed from the inside out. So what’s the answer? The modern response is to tell us that outside of a few selected violent acts, we need to do away with the whole “s” word. Our culture seems to argue: “Just do away with the concept of sin. Who are you to judge anything as sinful?” But that definitely was NOT what Paul was saying. He’s not explaining away sin, but he’s making it clear that both Jew and Gentile are all on the same level ground. We – hear that - WE are ALL sinners. So what’s the answer to our condition? That’s where the second theme is introduced, although it won’t be really laid out until Romans 3. If we are all on level ground, then we need One who can come for both Jew and Gentile. We need a Savior. We need Jesus. Spoiler alert! That’s where we’re headed in the next chapter of Romans.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 11:14:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015