ROMANS 2:17-3:8

LESSON 4    MISPLACED CONFIDENCE

ROMANS   2:17-3:8

2:17-24

Religion cannot save you. You cannot rely on your church background and religious teaching. What Paul applies to Jews can also apply to church members, or those raised in a Christian culture. As the law and circumcision cannot save, neither can moral teaching and baptism. If you were brought up in the church, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you know the Bible and Christian doctrine. You think you know everything about Christianity and can spout your favorite Bible verses. You consider yourself a guide for the blind, a light to those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher in Sunday School, because you have read a few books and heard a few sermons. Yet be honest about your own life. Do you take advantage of others? Do you commit adultery in your heart? What idols do you worship? You can pose as a good person but you fall short of God’s commandments every day. If you claim to be a Christian no wonder others are not wanting to become one. You are a hypocrite. Why do some church leaders fail? Power corrupts. Ego. Churches in Revelation.

2:25-29

Belonging to the covenant community of God’s people, which in the Old Testament was signified by circumcision, and in the New Testament by baptism does not guarantee salvation if it is not accompanied by heart faith. Col.2:11-13.The prophets urged a circumcision of the heart not just of the flesh because so many Israelites were disobedient and immoral. Circumcision minus obedience equals uncircumcision, while uncircumcision plus obedience equals circumcision. Paul looks for a circumcision of the heart that completely replaces the physical rite and does not merely complement it. What matters to God is a deep, inward, secret work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Similarly, with baptism: the visible sign (baptism) derives its importance from the invisible reality (washing from sin and the gift of the Spirit) to which it bears witness. It is a grave mistake to exalt the sign at the expense of what it signifies. A person is not a believing Christian if he is only one outwardly. A person is a Christian if he is one inwardly, and baptism is baptism of the heart by the Spirit, not just by outward ceremony. This contrast between letter or ceremony and the Spirit sums up for Paul the difference between the old covenant (an external law) and the new (the gift of the Spirit). He anticipates here what he will elaborate in 7:6 and 8:4 and the whole first half of chapter 8. You must be born again of the Spirit (Jn.3).

3:1-8

Objections from religious leaders. What advantage then is there in being a member of a church, of being baptized? Imagine Paul being confronted with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque; or Paul the apostle arguing with his pre-conversion self.

Objection #1: Paul’s teaching undermines God’s covenant (1-2). They have been entrusted with the very words of God: the whole Old Testament Scripture which contain them – for us the whole Bible. To be the custodians of God’s special revelation was an immensely privileged responsibility. To sit under the teaching of Scripture and to have the Scriptures in your home to read is a privilege which we should not take for granted. Do you study the very words of God?

Objection #2: Paul’s teaching nullifies God’s faithfulness (3). If some to whom God’s promises were entrusted did not respond to them in trust, will their lack of trust destroy God’s trustworthiness? If God’s people are unfaithful, does that necessarily mean that he is? Not on your life! God will never break his covenant. Let God be true and every man a liar. God is true to himself. Faith is essential to receiving grace in the word, sacraments and worship.

Objection #3: Paul’s teaching impugns God’s justice (5-6). Our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly. The more sinful we are, the more glorious the gospel seems. Therefore our unrighteousness benefits God, because it displays his character all the more brightly. Would it not be unfair of God to punish us for something which is to his advantage? Certainly not. If he were really unjust, how could God judge the world? To question God’s justice is to undercut his competence to judge and so to show up the absurdity of the original question. Is it God’s business to forgive us when we willfully sin? Do we deserve forgiveness?

Objection #4: Paul’s teaching falsely promotes God’s glory (7-8). Surely God ought to be pleased, even grateful? Am I not doing him a service? Why am I still condemned as a sinner if my sin is to God’s advantage? How can God condemn me for glorifying him?  Why not say “Let us do evil that good may result?’ The end justifies the means. The worse we are, the better: for the more wicked we are, the more conspicuous will be the mercy of God in our pardon. Their condemnation is deserved. Evil never promotes the glory of God. Paul was not content only to proclaim and expound the gospel. He also argued its truth and reasonableness, and defended it against misunderstanding and misrepresentation. We too in our day must include apologetics in our evangelism. We need to anticipate people’s objections to the gospel, listen carefully to their problems, respond to them with due seriousness, and proclaim the gospel in such a way as to affirm God’s goodness and further his glory. Such dialogical preaching has a powerful apostolic precedent in this passage. Christianity is often misrepresented or misunderstood.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR LESSON 4

ROMANS 2:17-3:8

1. What is the fallacy of a person who thinks that he deserves eternal life because he is a church member and claims to be a good person?
2. What do you say to a person who thinks he knows the Bible but his life contradicts its teaching?
3. Gandhi complained that people in India did not become Christians because people who professed to be Christians did not live by what they believed? How would you respond to that complaint? “God’s name is blasphemed among the nations because of you.”
4. Why do so many people who have been baptized not demonstrate the gospel?
5. What advantages are there in church membership?
6. Why do so many church leaders fall?
7. What other objections to the gospel and church membership have you heard?