A Look At Romans 2:17-24

by Wayne http://sweetjazzycat.blogspot.com/


Romans 2:17-24 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God (18) and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; (19) and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, (20) an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—(21) you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? (22) You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? (23) You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. (24) For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”



Paul, in this passage was speaking to the Jews who were relying on the law and boasting in God through their possession of the law. While they had a knowledge of the law and thought themselves righteous because they taught others the precepts of the law, they failed to confront the fact that they themselves broke the law. They were attempting to justify themselves before God, through the law, and considered themselves righteous before God by affirming and teaching the law. The fact that they didn’t obey the law perfectly was either not realized or deemed unimportant in their own eyes.



In this passage, Paul is objecting and pointing out the error of their thinking. They had failed to be sanctified through law keeping for the purpose of justification, and Paul is giving them the bad news of their blaspheming God before Gentiles for dishonoring God by breaking the law.



Sanctification through law keeping for the motive of justification is guaranteed to be a 100% failing proposition. Yet, many people today think that law keeping for the purpose of sanctification is the proper way for a Christian to pursue sanctification. In this view, the law points a sinner to Christ to be saved by faith and Christ sends the regenerated Christian back to the law to be sanctified. Paul acknowledges the law is right and good later in Romans, but he goes on to assert that sanctification is through the Spirit of Christ and not the written code. Praise God that grace upon grace saves and also sanctifies sinners. Grace points sinners to Christ for salvation, and grace points Christians to Christ for sanctification.
Posted by jazzycat at 3:23 PM

2 comments:
mark pierson said...
Yes, Paul makes it clear that the law was to point people to Christ, period. Any Christian who thinks themselves not holy enough to claim salvation as their own has no concept of the grace that came through Christ. On the other hand any Christian who is satisfied with how they measure up to the law (which would require them to do some serious watering down of the severity of its demands) has taken their eyes off of Christ and their need for HIS righteousness in their lives. The Bottom line is that our eyes belong on Christ and only on Christ.
April 03, 2009 10:02 AM

God's Intervening Grace and Sanctification

by Wayne

Since faith itself flows from God's intervening grace, it follows that a saved soul will be influenced positively by the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification. Calvinism precludes any human effort in being saved, but non-Calvinism depends on the initiative and decision of an unregenerate man to wisely choose his own salvation. Little wonder that such a view produces the idea that human effort is the primary cause of sanctification. Calvinism acknowledges human cooperation in sanctification, but asserts that the Holy Spirit is the engine that drives the process. All the glory and credit goes to God and there is absolutely no boasting involved.

Neither do I condemn you

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I despair. Despair over my own lack. Despair over my seemingly slow-as-molasses sanctification. Despair over my miniscule love for God. Despair over my greed, my selfishness, my pride.

I don’t wallow in it to the point of actual depression or visible despair. If you met me, you’d never know these thoughts invade my inner heart. But still, I despair.

Yesterday, while reading a regular mailing from John Piper’s ministry, I saw these words regarding the story of Christ telling the woman caught in adultery, "Neither do I condemn you..."
(John 8:11):

“Wearing Jesus’ righteousness, the Father viewed her as if she had never sinned and as if she had perfectly obeyed, because Jesus became sin for her and he perfectly obeyed the Father on her behalf.”

What struck me immediately was that this states she was able to "wear Jesus' righteousness" before He had physically served as the propitiation for her sins - she was forgiven of God before Christ physically hung on the cross.

This reminded me of a question that Daniel had once posed to me, when he asked, in essence, “How do you think OT saints were saved - by the blood of bulls and goats, or by the blood of Christ?”

It seems remarkable to me now that I had never before given that idea the deep consideration it is due, but instead somewhat idly figured that God had saved them somehow before Jesus' death and resurrection - and separate from it. Yet the Old Testament is replete with references to the coming Savior for His people.

They were saved – just as we are today – by faith through grace in One Lord, one Messiah, one Redeemer. They were merely looking forward – whereas I look back – to one point in chronological time when something remarkable occurred that was arranged in eternity.

Although all of this is intellectually interesting, it became all the more appealing to my heart when I read words of John Piper quoted further down in the letter. He wrote: “…and I need the grace of promised help from Jesus today and tomorrow.”

It made me realize that I needn’t despair of my seemingly slow sanctification, my imperfect walk, my shallow heart.

Although I recognize that all of my sanctification rests in God’s hands – I need not only look back with a grateful heart; I too can look forward – just like the OT saints did. I look forward to God’s promises that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

Not that I mustn’t continue to submit to Him wholly or mortify the old man, but that I must in the faith He has bestowed upon me rest fully in His promises.

Saved to Serve

…there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.
(Philippians 3:18 – NLT)

Paul had earlier spoken of the legalists (3:2-3), now he speaks about the libertines. You are to forget the legalist path, the “make your own way” types of the past, but you are not to swing the pendulum too far. Your obedience is not the root of your justification, as the legalists would say, but it is the fruit of your justification, as the libertines wouldn’t say. Good works does not save you, but you are saved unto good works. Grace is a teacher – Titus 1:15-16, 2:11-14. Some are not walking the walk (Galatians 5:25), and they talk a different talk. It is all about what they are allowed to do, they use liberty as license, and they are deceived.

Be aware of this fact: it is not those who don’t even claim the name of Christ that Paul is talking about in this passage, it is those who remain self-indulgent, who don’t press on to maturity, but who keep feeding their old man, and then try and justify it by saying that they are allowed, or even that it is somehow right. They are ripe for deception, and are already deceived. It is not those who are trapped in sin, even, that Paul is discussing and warning about, it is those who defiantly state that they are of Christ but who won’t take their self-indulgent old man to the Cross. This is why Paul says to be following him and those who walk right because there are many who don’t, and they are dangerous.

When you are saved, you are saved to serve, and that means others, not serving yourself, like the people Paul warns about here. When you won’t go to church, what are you doing? Think about it. In order to get your food, you must always do what? Serve yourself, and you never serve others, do you? And you prevent others from serving you.

Paul says beware because these types tend to try and gain converts to appease their conscience. Other biblical writers warn us also. Jude 1:3-5 – obedience is believing, acting in accordance with what you believe (that sin is bad and that Christ has delivered us from its bondage). Look at 2 Peter 2:2, 10, 14, 18-20. 2 (sensual), 10 (despise authority, i.e. they won’t learn in community they won’t follow patterns they must make their own), 14 (they try and recruit others who don’t know better), 18 (they appeal to the flesh of those who are still struggling with it), 19 (they talk of freedom but they are slaves to sin and self), 20 (they are unfruitful in their knowledge – Hosea 4:6-10 / 2 Peter 1:8).

Their end is destruction, whose god is their belly, or their own appetites; they live for the pleasures of the body, mind, and soul. Romans 16:18 – and they try and win others to this view, which is why they are doubly dangerous, it spreads because it is an easy way. Their feelings, emotions, and passions rule them, meaning they do what they want to do; their god is their own self-ish desires, with its self-indulgent agenda. They are proud of their liberty, thinking they are more enlightened than those whom they see as more narrow-minded, and they are constantly trying to defend their “right” to import this or that practice from the world. They are worldly, they thought they could be whatever they wanted to be, worship however they wanted to, and approach a holy God anyway they saw fit, and still keep Jesus too.

They wouldn’t let anyone correct them, they wouldn’t accept rebuke or be admonished, and they thought that they knew better. They are not broken by their sin and instead of falling on Christ, He will fall on them to their peril (Matthew 21:44). They wouldn’t suffer the death of the flesh; they are enemies of the Cross of Christ.

In this way are they enemies of the Cross: they may have thought they believed in it for Jesus, and indeed that is all it takes to be saved, believing Jesus died on the Cross for your sins is a saving knowledge of Christ. However, the bible clearly teaches that this knowledge if held in truth will cause a believer to also follow Jesus to the Cross. Godliness teaches us to become more and more repentant, our lives will progressively become more and more unlike the world, not like the world.

The degree of effectiveness in an individuals life is not the question, the resolve to do it at all or to deny the need to is the matter at hand (1 Corinthians 5), the desire to become sanctified in practice, rather than defiantly avoiding the possibility of going to the Cross for the gradual death of the self life, that is the question. In essence, they deny this saving knowledge in practice, if not in doctrine, by not believing in and following Jesus to the Cross in their own life. They became progressively more and more deceived, their faith was proven not to be real, and they are damned.

Those that won’t go to church wind up serving themselves and that isn’t why we are saved.

How Do You Know You Are Saved?

Here's a re post of a video that created quite a controversy on my old blog. I find that when sanctification and obedience become optional in circles of neo-evangelicalism, it is nothing less than the display of spiritual decadence that we are currently in...is it a wonder that the Lord refuses to send revival the American "church", seeing that she will not repent of her harlotry?

J. Vernon McGee on Ephesians 1:4b

" that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love"

God chose us in order to sanctify us. He saves us and He sanctifies us that we might be holy. That's the positive side of His purpose. It has to do with the inner life of the believer. A holy life is demanded by God's election. Now don't tell me that you can say, " Well, I'm one of the elected. I have been saved by grace, and now I can do as I please." Paul answered that kind of reasoning. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:1-2). You can't use grace as a license to sin, my friend. If you go on living in sin, it is because you are a sinner who hasn't been saved. Sinners who have been saved will show a change in their way of living.

Page 28, second paragraph down in the soft cover edition.