Romans 2:4-29
False Security
Page 3
Verses
17-20, tell us some of the characteristics of religious people. But if
you bear the name Jew and rely upon the law, and boast in God, and know his
will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed of the law”--i.e.
you know the Bible--“you’re confident
that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the law the
embodiment of knowledge of the truth.” He gives us some of the characteristics of religious
people. First of all, religious people
rely many times on their affiliations to “save” them. It’s one of the signs of a religious person.
They rely on their affiliation. You
say ‘Oh I’m a Methodist!’ ‘I’m a Presbyterian, I’m a Mormom, I’m an Adventist’--No,
that’s not what I asked. There’s a sort
of a mentality in the religious mind of salvation by brand name, you know. I have had people ask me quite often, “Mark,
people at work are asking me ‘What are you?’
What do I tell them?” I say, “Tell
them you’re a Jesus person.” [One good
way of doing it would be “I’m a Christian who just happens to attend
a ‘Calvary Chapel’, or ‘a Baptist church’ or ‘a Methodist church’, etc., etc.,
you get the idea—Christian 1st, affiliation 2nd. God doesn’t look for your affiliation, he looks
to see if the Holy Spirit is indwelling you, whether you are a real born-again
Christian. If that’s what is most important
to God, why do you insist on putting your affiliation ahead of what God thinks
is important--“I’m a good Baptist”--yeah, but are you a good Christian?--that’s
what God cares about.] Because they ask
me, ‘Are you a Baptist?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are
you a Lutheran?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you a Catholic?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well,
what are you!?’ ‘I’m a Christian!’ Tell ‘em you go to the generic church, everything
is yellow and black. Just tell them you’re
a Jesus person. You see, they’ve got
the religious mentality too, don’t they? And you’ve got to cut through that and say ‘I’m
a Jesus person. Everything in my life
is wrapped around Jesus Christ.’ For
me to live is Christ, he is my life. He’s
the one I’m expecting to return, he’s the one who saved me, he’s the one who
loves me, he’s the one who accepts me--I’m a Jesus person. Tell them that. It’ll knock them over, they won’t know what
to do with you. They won’t know where
to pigeon-hole you. ‘Yeah, but are you
going to heaven? Well, aren’t all Catholics
going to heaven?’ [and on it goes]…
Secondly, a religious person, people, are
often in danger of relying on their knowledge and external behavior to save
them. To religious people outward appearance
is very important to them. They couldn’t
worship in anything but a church-looking building for one thing.
For years we were so blessed, we didn’t get religious people.
They wouldn’t come to this schoool
where we were meeting. We didn’t have
pews. We
didn’t have Hymnals. We didn’t have stained glass windows and chandeliers
hanging down, you know. We didn’t have
them. And people would walk in and say
“This is a church?” And they’d leave, and I was, ‘Praise God!’
I’m sorry, ha, ha, I was so glad when they left.
They have to have an atmosphere, external things are so important to
them [things that amount to the re-arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic],
how people look, how people dress, they can be very critical of everybody else,
especially those who don’t meet their
standards.
Another characteristic that you see, you
know, he picks on Jews there, but they just represent the religious person [in
this passage]. Religious people are also
in spiritual danger, they have a false security based on a reliance on rituals
and cerimonies to save them. In Paul’s
day the cerimony of circumcision was looked upon almost superstitiously. The rabbi’s of his day thought that “no circumcised
Jewish male will see hell”, end quote. Another
rabbi said (quote) “circumcision saves us from hell” (end quote).
The Midrash includes this statement (quote) “God swore to Abraham that
no one who was circumcised would be sent to hell.
Abraham sits before the gate of hell and never allows any circumcised
Israelite to enter” (end quote). I’ve
sort of heard the same thing from people who think you’ve got to be baptized
to be saved, or “confirmed” or go through the temple cerimony, or wear “holy
underwear”, or pass out literature (gospel tracts), or be a vegetarian. I mean, I’ve heard this same thing, I mean,
religion is religion is religion. I really
believe that if you’re a religious person you could be a good Muslim, a good
Mormon, it doesn’t matter, religion is religion. And Christianity stands starkly apart from
all of it, because Christianity does not believe that any ritual or cerimony,
even a Christian ritual or a Christian cerimony has any salvation power in it.
There is no rite or ordinance that you can partake of that will save
you. Jesus saves, and only Jesus saves. ‘But I was baptized!’ So what. Do
you know the Lord? ‘Well, I was confirmed.’
But are you born-again? [i.e.
Does God’s Holy Spirit dwell inside you?] ‘Well,
I’m a church member.’ Do you know Jesus
Christ as your personal savior? You see,
when you get to heaven [into the Kingdom of heaven as a resurrected immortal
being, cf. 1 Cor 15:49-54,--heaven will end up on earth, cf. Rev. 21:1-17] God
is not going to ask “Were you baptized?”, “Were you confirmed?”, “Were you a
church member?--Let’s see your giving record.”
He’s not going to say any of that. He’s
going to say “What did you do with my Son Jesus?” That’s going to be the answer that’s going to
get you in or out. ‘What have you done
with Jesus?’ That’s what matters. Too many people today are relying on some ritual
or cerimony that they went through to save them. But the Lord says something different, look
at Jeremiah chapter 9, beginning with verse 25, the Jews trusted in this rite
of circumcision. Some trust, “Oh, I’ve
had Holy Communion”, “Oh, I’ve been baptized.”
There’s no difference. See the
religious mentality, it’s a false security that you have. “Behold days are coming, declares the Lord,
that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet”—what?—“uncircumcised; Egypt,
and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in
the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are
uncircumcised, all the house of Israel, are uncircumcised in the heart.”
[cf. Deuteronomy 10:16, “Circumcise therefore the
foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the Lord thy God will
circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God
with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” I.e. Physical
circumcision was merely a symbol for a far deeper spiritual act that must be
fulfilled in the hearts of all believers. The
physical symbol counts for nothing without the spiritual counterpart being fulfilled.]
God says “Oh yeah, you’ve gone thorugh the outward ritual, but your heart
isn’t with me.” You can stuff bread in your mouth and drink
the wine and your heart isn’t with me.” And
you can do that week after week after week. I never forget my next-door neighbor growing
up, he got married, they had to have a Catholic wedding with a High Mass, they
had to have it. He never went to church,
ever. But this was an essential, man,
if the marriage is going to work, we’ve got to have the right hockus, pockus
pronounced over it, you know. And there
he was at the altar, so drunk he could hardly stand, laughing and giggling,
partaking of the bread, just so sickening. ‘Oh,
but we went through the ritual.’ Well
why don’t you wear garlich around your neck too? You’d better wear crosses too, to protect yourself.
You’d better wear something to protect you from the ‘evil eye’ too, you
know. I mean, don’t walk under ladders,
and if a cat runs in front of you--be careful!
Superstition is all it amounts to, ‘Oh we’d better get this baby baptized!’
(God forbid we kind of give God his due every once in awhile, Easter
& Christmas, we do try to make it to church if nothing better comes up.)
‘But this baby better be baptized!’ Superstition, hockus pockus is all it amounts
to. You see, you could read it this way,
“But behold days are coming, declares the Lord, that I will punish all who are
baptized and yet not baptized—all who take Holy Communion
and yet don’t take Holy Communion, all who are church members,
but they’re not church members.” [You
see, God sees who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them and who doesn’t,
God sees who is being actively led by the Holy Spirit (cf. Romans 8:9,14--read
it) and who isn’t.] You see, heaven’s
rolls and earth’s rolls, heaven’s computer printout and earth’s computer printout
are two different things. And are you
sure? Are you the religious Christian? Oh, I just love to hear about Christians shooting
each other in [northern] Ireland, don’t you?--blowing each other to bits.
‘See you in heaven!--Boom!’ ‘Oh but they’re “Christians”’ ‘They were Christians fighting there in Lebanon’--till
they all got wiped out, fighting the Muslims. Oh, just like Jesus, isn’t it?—didn’t he say
‘Blow your enemies to bits?--Do it to them before they do it to you?’ Just like Jesus, right? You see, there are a lot of “religious” people
in the world. Religion is religion, you
can call it anything you want, but it’s religion, and it won’t get you to heaven
[i.e. into God’s Kingdom, as an immortal being, cf. 1 Cor 15].
Relationship is what gets you to heaven.
Not ritual, not religion--relationship.
Not cerimony, but the Savior. And
what have you done with Jesus [Yeshua]? Is
he your Redeemer?--then the ritual means something.
But if he’s not, you’re lost. You’re
a lost ‘religious’ person. Light your
candles, say your prayers, it’ll do you no good, because you must be born again.
We’re not saved by what we
do, we are saved by what he did for us. We’re not saved by what is done
to us, we’re saved by what he did for us. “My hope is built on nothing else than Jesus’
blood and righteousness. I dare not trust
the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name, on Christ the solid Rock
I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."” Maybe it dawned on you today
that you’re a ‘religious’ person. If
you’ve been trusting in your ‘baptism’, if you’ve been trusting in your ‘confirmation’
or ‘church attendance’, if you’ve been trusting your ‘knowledge of the Bible’
or “Bible teachings’, if you’ve been trusting in anything
in addition to or other than Jesus Christ, throw it out now. [And we’re not talking about Godly obedience
to the Word of God brought about by the enablement of God’s indwelling Holy
Spirit--he does not mean that.] And trust
in Christ alone. And let him begin a
work in your life that will be unbelievable.
You won’t need a building anymore because you have the body of Christ.
You won’t need the ritual because you have the Redeemer, you have the
Savior--puts meaning in the Sacriment.” [This
sermon is a transcript of a sermon given by J. Mark Martin of Calvary Community
Church of Phoenix, AZ, used by permission.]
[Now
I wish to put verses 17-29 of Romans 2 into the original context of the audience
they were written to--the Jewish believers
in Yeshua who were attending the Church of God in Rome. This Roman congregation of the early apostolic
Church of God was composed of two major ethnic groups, Jewish believers--Torah
observant Jewish believers--and Gentile Roman believers. Now read these same verses, understanding that
these Torah observant Jewish believers were trying to be “teachers” of the Law
to their Gentile brother members in this same congregation, and Paul was critiquing
their teaching style, words without substance. They had the knowledge of the Law all their
lives, and were now trying to teach it to the Gentile believers while not obeying
it themselves! They were putting more
emphasis on the rituals of the Old Testament Law of Moses than on having a relationship
with Jesus Christ (Yeshua Meschiach). Paul was showing them that while they were busy
teaching the Law of God, they were not really obeying it--or how real obedience
is brought about in a believer--by first seeking to have an active living relationship
with Jesus of Nazareth--then true heartfelt Holy Spirit enabled obedience would
follow. Relationship first, then Jesus
inside believers brings about true godly obedience to the Law of Christ.
So now let’s read what Paul said to the Jewish believers in the apostolic
Church of God meeting in Rome. Now to Romans 2:17-29, “Behold, thou art called a
Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will,
and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the
law; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of
them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes,
which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest
thou not thyself? Thou that preachest
a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through
breaking the law dishonorest thou God? For
the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou
be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.
Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall
not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature,
if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress
the law? For he is not a Jew, which is
one outwardly: neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart,
in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”
And
realize this, there are Messianic Jewish-Christian congregations all across
America, and now spreading around the world.
There are over 90 active Messianic Jewish-Christian congregations in
the nation of Israel. So keeping the
customs of the Law of Moses as part of the gospel, if that is your ethnic background,
is not forbidden by the new covenant law of Christ. Jewish believers are free to do that, as long
as they put their relationship with Jesus, Yeshua of Nazareth, first and formost,
seeking Yeshua-Holy Spirit-enabled obedience through faith. Then the Old Testament rituals, Holy Days and
Sabbath are perfectly OK, and have tremendous meaning for the believer [see
http://www.UNITYINCHRIST.COM/lamb/holyday.htm
]--just as Holy Communion and baptism have for Gentile Christians. These Jewish believers just had the ritualistic
‘cart before the horse’, putting more
emphasis on the Old Testament, Law of Moses rituals than on a direct relationship
with Christ. When you get to Romans 14
you’ll see Paul’s strong advice about the rights these Messianic Jews had to
keep observing their Law of Moses customs, and that they also were covered by
the blood of Yeshua. Now today a tremendous
revival of Messianic Jewish believers in Yeshua has arisen, and most of them
are non-Torah observant believers who follow the Torah customs, including Sabbath
and Holy Day observance, out of ethnic preference, which is allowed by the legislation
Paul cut in Romans 14 (mirrored in Acts 15), verses 5-6, 22-23.
To read more about this amazing revival of the late 20th and
early 21st century, log onto http://www.UNITYINCHRIST.COM/messianicmovement/messianicmovement.htm.
The
gospel of salvation, as God inspired the apostles to write down (Acts 15 and
Romans 14), was designed by God to be adaptive to whatever race or ethnic group
it would encounter. It was originally
adapted to the Jewish race and ethnic group, Judaism. The first churches were Messianic Jewish, and
appeared to be so Jewish, ethnic Mosaic customs and all, that it was considered
by the temple leaders of the time to be an offshoot sect of Judaism, and was
actually called by these same temple leaders the sect of the Nazarenes. This
branch of Jewish Christians, whose Headquarters church was the Church of God
in Jerusalem, was estimated to be as large as 50,000 members.
Other Messianic congregations were scattered throughout Asia Minor, keeping
Sabbath and Holy Days, and a New Testament Passover service once a year (under
John, Polycarp and Policrates). As you
got more into the pagan Gentile parts of the Roman empire and away from these
Messianic Jewish congregations, Paul centered his advice and writings more on
Gentile practices and issues than Jewish. But
in Paul’s writings, only two branches of Christianity are ever mentioned, the
Gentile and the Jewish. Now we see that
this same Jewish branch of Christianity is making a comeback—it is being brought
back into existence by the direct calling of God the Father through the Holy
Spirit. To read more about this amazing
ongoing event log onto the link titled: Two Branches of Christianity, Jewish
and Gentile. You will find this information
fascinating. (http://www.UNITYINCHRIST.COM/messianicmovement/twobranches.htm
)]