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Hey, we're talking about circumcision today. Yay! Aren't you excited? It's something that God required of the Jews, and He still requires it of us today. Not the circumcision of the flesh, but the circumcision of the heart, when we understand the text.
You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We're going to be knocking out a huge chunk of scripture today. We're going to start in Romans 2, verse 17, to the end of the chapter. Tomorrow, we'll be looking at the beginning part of chapter 3, and we'll reserve the section that begins, none is righteous, no not one, until next week.
But before we jump ahead here, let's go to verse 17 of chapter 2. 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 are 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 abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who 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 is physically 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. Okay, that's a big section of scripture we're looking at today. And basically the point that Paul is making is this, all the way up through verse 16. So from Romans chapter one, verse 18 to Romans chapter two, verse 16, Paul has been bringing an indictment against mainly the Gentiles who do not have the law.
So remember there are Jews and there are Gentiles. A Gentile is basically anybody who is not a Jew. So this indictment of godlessness has been brought against the Gentiles and the entire time that Paul was writing that out, and as this letter would have been read in the church in Rome where there were both Messianic Jews and Christians, Gentile Christians worshipping together, as that section of the letter would have been read, you probably had Jews in there going, yes, amen.
That's right. Those Gentiles. But then Paul gets to the section here that starts in verse 17, where he's bringing even the Jews into condemnation for having broken the law, which they had been given. The Gentiles didn't even have the law.
They were a law unto themselves, yet were still law breakers and God was going to judge them for that. But for the Jews who had the law, they themselves could not keep the law. 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 are instructed from the law.
If you see 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?
Now see, that's something that is even convicting for me as a pastor. I go through my sermon on Saturday night before I preach it on Sunday. So I've gone through it from beginning to end. And even though I am preaching to an empty room at that point, there is still someone who is being taught by what is being spoken, and that is me.
As I am declaring the word of God, I am being taught by those things as well. I've been taught by them all week long as I've been studying the things that I'm going to speak about on Sunday. So I teach myself in that sense.
So I relate to that question that Paul asked there in verse 21. Then he goes on and says, while you preaching and stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery?
And remember the words that Jesus wrote in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. If you say that you've never committed adultery, yet you lust after a woman in your heart, you've committed adultery with her in your heart.
No one is as good as they claim they are. For committing adultery is not simply something that one does outwardly, but it is something that happens in the heart. It is from the heart that that pours out all manner of wickedness from men.
It's not what we do on the outside that defiles us, but it is the heart that defiles us. So though you may not commit adultery with your body, you have done so in your mind and with your heart. You who abhor idols, do you rob temples, Paul asks.
So even the act of stealing from a pagan temple, desecrating a temple in that way and stealing the artifacts, even if they were to melt them down into coins and use them in that way, they have still defiled themselves by even being in that pagan temple in the first place.
So they've broken the law. You who 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. Paul is quoting from Isaiah chapter 52, and it's talking about how the Jews did not obey God, so they were exiled and the Gentiles did not fear the God of the Jews, the God of the Hebrews.
They didn't fear him because their God didn't protect them when those Gentiles came up against them. So God was blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the failure of the Jews. Likewise, of what value is our God and the Bible that we read to unbelievers when we do not worship God and when we do not obey what he has said?
That is a stinging indictment even against us as Christians now, when we don't care for the Bible, we don't read it, and we don't display ourselves as followers of Christ. Those who are unbelievers blaspheme God because we do not obey what God has said to us.
Verse 25, 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?
His praise is not from man, but from God. This is something we're going to talk about a little bit later on as we continue in our study of Romans, but anybody can be a Jew. There are not two people groups of God, all right?
There's not Christians and Jews. There's only one Israel, and it is those who are in Christ Jesus, who's declared in scripture as being faithful Israel, the faithful witnesses. We read about Revelation chapter one, I believe it's verse five, okay?
That's a reference to him being able to do everything faithfully that Israel could not do. He fulfilled what Israel couldn't do. He is faithful Israel, and therefore all who are in Christ get to be called Israel.
All of us who are in Christ Jesus are Israel. We all get to be called Jews, not just those who were born in the bloodline of Abraham. There are not two people groups. There is only one, and circumcision has always been a matter of the heart.
It has never been a matter of the flesh. It is something that is done outwardly, but it's supposed to represent something that happens inwardly, going all the way back to Deuteronomy 10, 16, where Moses said to the people of Israel, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn.
Then we read later on in Deuteronomy 30, verse six, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul so that you may live.
So it's not even something that we do. It's something that God does for us. But then we display by our actions, by the works that we do according to the commands that have been given to us in Christ, that our hearts have been circumcised by God.
What does it mean to have a circumcised heart? It means to be cut off from the world and be united with Christ. We do not unite ourselves to the things of this world. Think of Romans, chapter 12, verses one and two.
These are verses I'm sure you have heard quoted many times. Present yourselves as holy and pleasing sacrifices unto the Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by renewing your mind, and then you will see God's good, pleasing and perfect will.
This concept of renewing the mind, of transforming the mind is a daily process. It's regularly submitting our thoughts to Christ, being cut off from the world and being conformed instead to Christ. That's the same thing.
It's that circumcision of the heart, not being united with the world, but being united with Christ Jesus. And we are all called to this. And all who are in Christ are Israel. We are his people adopted into the family of God because of the faithfulness of Christ Jesus, not because of our faithfulness, but because he is faithful.
Lord, we thank you for your continued faithfulness toward us, though we have been faithless. Teach us what it means to have a circumcised heart. Help us not to long for the things of this world, to pine after the material possessions or fame and fortune or whatever it is that we think would satisfy us in this world.
Help us to be completely satisfied in our Savior Christ, cut off from this world, united with you in glory. Teach us these things as we go. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books and more, visit our website at www .utt .com and let your friends know about our ministry.
Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.