Understand Christianity

After condemning the heathen, the moralist, and the religious person (Jew), Paul then turns to note the advantage which the Jew (religious person ) has. 

  I. We experience the special choice of God.  (1,2) 

1. Jews were God’s specially chosen people.

 2. The Scriptures were given to the Jews.

 3. You as a believer are chosen by God. (Believers are now God’s chosen people.)

 II. We experience the faithfulness of God.  (3,4)

 1. Our nature is to be unfaithful.

 2. God’s nature is to be faithful.

 3. God’s faithfulness is not dependent on your faithfulness.

 1. You cannot out-sin the grace of God.

 2. Humanity’s amazing ability to justify sin.

 3. Faithful proclamation of God’s truth will produce these kinds of questions.

Reflection: In my privileged position as a child of God have I been faithful to the proclamation of God’s truth without succumbing to an arrogant attitude? 

In Romans the apostle Paul uses a question-and-answer format as he develops the significance of Christ’s sacrificial death.  This approach is vividly displayed in the first verse of chapter three.  In anticipating the natural response to verses 2:17-29, he asks, “What advantage is there then in being a Jew?  Or another way of asking the same question is, “What value is there in circumcision?”  The first question specifically relates to 2:17-24, while the second question to 2:25-29.  Then he begins to answer the question.  By saying, “First of all” or “Chiefly” one would expect he was going to list some successive points.  However, he gives only one item as he does in 1:8 and 1 Cor. 11:18.  But in this case he states the most important item and by that essentially includes any other items he might have listed.

What the apostle has in mind as he speaks about the Jews’ great advantage is that God has given them His Word.   For some people it is a bit misleading in the way the English translators  employ the word “oracle.”  In pagan times (and I might add for today too) there are bad connotations associated with the word “oracle.”  Then and now, “humans have always wanted to know what will happen in the future and how to make choices.  Ancient authors wrote about some people who consulted the movements of fish in a tank and the movements of snakes in a pit to determine what was going to happen.  One author tells of how some people left a coin by a certain altar of Hermes, stopped up their ears and walked through a crowd, until suddenly, they unstopped their ears and took guidance from the first words uttered by a chance passer-by.”  Etc.       

We may laugh at such nonsense, but let us not forget that similar practices are present today.  Some people decide their movement and whole days by the cutting of cards, or the toss of a coin, or the fall of the dice, or the reading tea leaves, or the lines in the palm of the hand, or the horoscope, or some questionable interpretation of dreams.  So it should not surprise us that when people stoop to such practices to outwit the odds (God), they have strayed far from God’s will.  Remember the Christian walks by faith, not by sight.  

But when the apostle uses the word “oracle, ” here he is referring to the Word of God.  In other words, the chief advantage of the Jew was that God’s divine revelation was committed to them.  Most commentators agree that the “oracle” as used in the Bible refers to the whole of inspired Scripture.  

Another error, which continues even today, is the notion that God is done with the Jew and has transferred all promises for Israel to the Church.  However, as we will see later is Romans that God has not “cast away His people.” (Romans 11:1)  God is not done with Israel.  In fact, they will occupy a prominent place during end-time events.  Still another error that exists today is the idea that the Jew is presently God’s chosen people.  It is true that they WERE God’s chosen people and they will be again, but today God’s chosen people are made up out of every kingdom, tongue, tribe, and nation.  This means that God’s chosen people today include all Jews and Gentiles who have been born again through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is not the Protestant church or the Roman Catholic Church, but the true church, the invisible church.     

The apostle Paul continues his well-reasoned argument, led by the Holy Spirit, when he anticipates the kind of question one might ask in response to what he has already said.  “What if some did not believe?”  There is some question among translators as to whether the expression “not believe” might better be translated as “unfaithful.”  The difference is this: to say that some did not believe is to imply that some of them did not accept what they had heard.  (which I expect was true in some cases.)  However, to translate the word as “unfaithful” is to imply that some of them believed in their heads, but refused to act upon what their heads believed.  (Ill.)  Is that not like some of us at times?  We know certain things to be true and believe them, but fail to put them into action.  To be fair both renderings could be defended by the language.   

Even though some were unfaithful, that did not nullify the faithfulness of God.  God has always been true to His promises even though those who claim to be His followers at times are unfaithful.  It is God’s very nature to be faithful.  God’s faithfulness is not dependent on your faithfulness.  “Let God be true and every man a liar.”  

(Ill.) History of Israel – rising and falling.  Jonah, Nineveh, Nahum.  

(Ill.) While the Jew had the advantage of receiving the Word of God, today it is the Christian, and especially the Bible believing Protestants.  RCC’s are largely unfamiliar with the Bible.   But though we possess the Bible, are we faithful in passing on its truth to others?  “God’s faithfulness is unchangeable; His plan unalterable. He wants you to be involved in His plan!”

Beginning in verses 5&6 the apostle continues his argument with another question, “What shall we say to the idea that the Jews’ unrighteousness advances God’s righteousness?”  Logically, to the human mind it does not make sense that something bad can produce something good.  Then, if that is the case, isn’t God’s wrath on Jews unjust?  Paul answers the question with an emphatic, “By no means!”, “God forbid!” “May it never be!” “Absolutely not!”  “Certainly not!”  He uses the same expression in v. 4 and v. 31.  So if that were the case, then God would be barred from judging the world.  

While it is true that one cannot out-sin the grace of God, that does not give license for anyone to sin.  God’s grace is not limited by your sin or mine.  And because that is true, it should motivate us to seek God’s forgiveness –(see 2:4)  See also Luke. 15 –prodigal son

A second question posed by a non-believer might very well be, “If my lie enhances God’s truthfulness, how can God condemn me as a sinner?” After all, if my lie brings God more glory, why is that such a bad thing?  Doesn’t it seem unjust for God to judge me for what brings Him greater glory?   In fact, some people slanderously reported that Paul was saying, “Let us do evil that good may come.”   (Paul asks a similar question in Rom. 6:1.)  But still, some who ask these questions are saying that God is unfair in condemning sin.  Such reasoning and accusations blaspheme the very nature of God.  These people are already condemned.  This human logic is a form of “the end justifies the means.”  

It is all too easy to think of these verses applying only to the Jew of the first century.  I believe it applies also to Protestantism as well as God’s ancient people.  Bible believing Protestants today stand in a similar place to where the Jews stood in those early days.  They were privileged by receiving the “oracles” of God, i.e. the Word of God.  Today we stand as champions of the Bible and believe it to be the very Word of God.  And “as Israel departed from God before the time of Christ; and as Roman Catholic Church departed from God during the Middle Ages, so Protestantism has departed from God in modern times.”   

Even among conservative Protestants some have departed from God’s holy standards.  While God still works to bring others to a genuine knowledge of Jesus Christ and into a meaningful relationship with Him, that does not excuse the unfaithful from God’s judgment.  (Ill.) This line of thinking is so often used to excuse one from their own wrongs.  From the beginning of time, humans have resorted to these lame excuses.  When Eve sinned and was confronted by God, she said, “It was the serpent who deceived me.”  When Adam sinned and was confronted by God, his response was, “It was the woman you gave me.”  Why is it always someone else’s fault?  Note that there were consequences that followed for the woman, and there were consequences for the man.    

A contemporary application of this human reasoning to justify that “the ends justify the means” is seen in the life and death topic of euthanasia.  For some years now there has been a push to legalize this evil and ungodly practice.  The logic is that suffering is evil and anything that can be done to relieve the suffering is justified.  To be honest suffering is no fun.  Their twisted logic is that suffering is evil and death is the good.  But in truth, “the Lord permits the evil of suffering in the life of an individual in order to turn his/her thoughts away from the world and to turn them toward God.”  Even true believers are refined through the experience of suffering.  Jesus prayed these words for His own disciples,

ESV  John 17:15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 

In order to arrive at such a view, one is assuming that by suffering one is put out of their misery and ultimately there really is no judgment.  They are essentially denying life after death and that God, if such a being exists, is not ultimately in control of all circumstances.  This is truly a humanistic philosophy and Satanic in its origin.     

So what is in the mind of the person who accuses God of injustice?  Is it not really like Satan who wished to exalt himself above God and, in fact, become God.  The person who accuses God of injustice is claiming that their standards are superior to God’s standards.  Think of that the next time someone say that God would be unjust to send anyone to Hell.  Or that a loving God would not do such a thing.  Or that God’s will would never violate man’s will.  Or that the doctrine of justification by faith alone leads one to loose living.  God says their condemnation is just!  There is a day coming when everyone will stand before God.  Be assured that God’s assessment of you will be true and just.  

ESV  Luke 12:2 Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. 4 "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!