Religion or Regeneration? 

Turn to Romans 2:17-29. Paul is winding down his prosecution of the human race as guilty, as under the wrath of God, facing God’s impartial and righteous judgment, and in desperate need of the gospel. But there is one group of people he must deal with directly, and that is the Jew.  Where does the Jew stand in relation to sin, guilt, the wrath of God, and the need of the gospel?  Paul knew the Jew from the inside. Just like Luther knew Catholicism from the inside, Paul understood how the Jew thought. He himself was a high-level Pharisee. In the rest of this chapter, he exposes the Jews as religious hypocrites who would agree that the Gentiles are depraved and guilty but declare that they are God’s people. They were loaded with religious privileges and proud of it.

When I was a little fellow, they hauled me off to the doctor. There they rubbed some stuff on my upper left arm and then took a pin and scratched until blood oozed out. The scratched area developed a heavy scab and then left a permanent scar, a telltale sign I’d been inoculated against smallpox. Some of you still have that scar. The whole idea was to put a weakened virus into your body to stimulate your system to make protective antibodies to inoculate you against the real thing. 

Like the Jews, many religious people today have enough religion to inoculate them against the real thing. Like the Jews, they are involved in religious activities. They go to church, get baptized (often as infants), do some religious rituals, and are convinced they are good with God. They are religious but not regenerated. The Jews were proud of their religious heritage, but Paul is going to pull their religious rug right out from under them. He’s going to focus on their privileges, practices, and a major problem. To be sure, Paul is not being hateful or antisemitic. In chapters 9-11 he’ll express repeatedly his concern for the Jews, his kinsmen according to the flesh, and his desire that they might be saved (Romans 10:1).

RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES 

Romans 2:17-20, But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, 18 and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, 19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,

The Jews traced their religious privilege back to Abraham, who was called a Hebrew, and they were proud of it. Remember John the Baptist confronted them about their false confidence in their heritage. “Don’t say Abraham is our father, because God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:9). Then in John 8 they argued with Jesus, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus replied, “No, you’re trying kill me. Abraham wouldn’t do that. You are of your father the devil” (John 8:39-44).

So, Paul reminds them of their privileges, but these very privileges won’t save them. He points out five Jewish privileges in which they boasted:

• “We’re Jews. We’re the people God redeemed from Egypt and formed into a nation with the Law and plans for the tabernacle. He brought us into Canaan, gave us the glories of the kingdoms of David and Solomon, gave us all kinds of prophesies about a coming Messiah and future blessings. We’re Jews, named after the tribe of Judah, the root of David.” But here’s the problem:  they thought of themselves as God’s special people that gave them a pass to heaven just because they were Jews.
• “We have the Law, the Torah, God’s revelation to us by Moses way back at Mt. Sinai.” 
• “We worship the one true God and are proud of it. We are monotheists, not polytheists like the pagans.” They often recited the “Shema” from Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”
• “We know what God’s Word says.”
• “We approve what God says in the law. We have 613 laws to guide us: 365 negative commands and 248 positive commands. We know how far to walk on the Sabbath and how to carry an egg on the Sabbath without breaking the law, and many, many more.”

As these special people chosen by God, they were proud of telling everyone else about the Law (vv. 19-20):

• “We give guidance to people who don’t know the Law.”
• “We shine light for all these Gentiles who don’t know our God.”
• “We correct foolish people who are ignorant of God’s Word.”
• “We teach people about God.”
• “We have in our Law everything we need for life, the embodiment of knowledge and truth.”

There’s nothing wrong with most of this. Except these Jews saw themselves up on a pedestal looking down in religious pride and arrogance on others. Nothing here is of the heart. Rather they speak of heritage, tradition, external stuff. It’s so easy for religion to be just a form of knowledge without the reality of a life-change. Paul warned us in 2 Timothy 3:5, “Holding to a form of godliness although denying its power.” This is why this passage deeply searches the hearts of us Christians. We have the Word of God. We believe in the sufficiency of the Bible. We know God exists in three persons. We know it condemns homosexuality and abortion. We believe other people need to know these things. We too are teachers and preachers of the foolish, ignorant, and immature.

None of this necessarily means spiritual reality in the heart. These activities and traditions can inoculate us from the real thing. The real issue is whether the gospel has come into your heart and brought about that transformation of 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ Jesus, they become a new creature! Old things have passed away, new things have come.” Are you a new creation in Christ? Do you have a transformed way of living? 

How does it happen that Bible believing denominations that sprang out of the Reformation or were birthed in the Great Awakening – spiritually alive with the Word of God and the gospel of Christ – how is it that they go apostate and begin to deny cardinal doctrines of the faith, slowly depart from the faith to the extent they begin to proudly affirm the very things God condemns? Under the pressures of the culture and of other churches, the leaders, pastors, elders, even whole denomination slip and slide from the faith. 

I stumbled across a Baptist church in Louisville, Kentucky, this week on the internet. It used to be in the Southern Baptist Convention but left because the Convention was “too rigid.” They have at least three female pastors and posted this statement on their website: “Highland now recognizes all forms of baptism, ordains and marries friends in the LGBTQ community, and engages much-needed social justice work like sponsoring refugee families and responding to systemic racism.” This church, while proud of their mission, has drifted badly away from its early days when the gospel was preached. 

Religious privileges and activities, but what about the real thing? This ought to humble us to the dust. “Lord, keep our hearts tender to you. Don’t let us wander or become lukewarm. Help us to not only read our Bibles but apply it to our lives and live in submissive obedience to your truth.”  Paul is pulling this Jewish heritage right out front under his feet. Stephen did the same thing in Acts 7, confronting them about their hard religious hearts. They responded by stoning him to death (Acts 7:51,58-59).

HYPOCRITICAL PRACTICES

Romans 2:21-24, you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? 22 You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? 24 For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.

Paul brings this Jew up short as he confronts him about the hypocrisy in teaching others but not obeying the law themselves. Jesus pulled no punches when He confronted the Pharisees about their hypocrisy in dealing with the law. Matthew 23:1-4, “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. 4 “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.” Matthew 23:15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

Paul confronts this Jew in the same way. He was well aware of the Jews’ hypocrisy. So he exposes their sham. They teach others not to steal or commit adultery and condemn the Gentiles for their idolatry and brag about being people of the Torah, but they didn’t apply it in their own hearts. In fact, the Gentiles knew of their hypocrisy and laughed at them and their God. “These people who put on a good front but sneak their sins in the background are the people of the true God? Yeah, right! Who needs that kind of God!”

Hypocrisy means playing a role, like an actor. It’s one of the greatest dangers and sins of God’s people. How many professing Christians are Sunday morning Christians. Remember Harold the Hearer and Donald the Doer?  How many do what they do to be seen of men, like those hypocrites in Matthew 6 who give and pray and fast to be seen of men, tooting their horns and praying long prayers in public and making themselves look extra pious when they fast. How many preachers in our own day have had to step down because while they were teaching family values, they themselves got involved in sexual sin. One high profile leader involved in grave sexual sin was in the news again this week. 

The Jews preached against idolatry but somehow Paul knew they were ripping off people in the temple. They used religion to enrich themselves. Jesus scolded them in Mark11:17 after overturning the tables of the money changers, “You’ve made my Father’s house a robbers’ den.” If you want to see this clearly in church history, go to the time of the Reformation when Pope Leo X was hauling in lots of money from Germany selling so-called indulgences (buying your way out of purgatory) so he could build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. One of his emissaries, John Tetzel, came too close to Martin Luther’s village of Wittenberg and stirred Luther up to write those 95 theses which kicked off the great Reformation.  

It’s easy to become a hypocrite. What do unbelievers who know you think about the Christ you profess? One pastor I’ve heard tells about a visitor coming to their church one Sunday morning. As the visitor was making his way down the aisle, he spied a businessman he knew who had ripped him off and never made it right. He immediately turned around, headed out the door with the resolve never to come back to that church. The pastor announced, “If you’re that businessman, please leave.” 

Paul has said, “You may be a Jew and you may have the Law, but your hypocrisy is well known far and wide.” So, the Jew runs to his one final refuge, his guarantee that he is accepted by God, or at least he thinks it is. “This all may be true about us, but I’m circumcised!”

THE PROBLEM OF USELESS RITUAL

Romans 2:25-27, For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? 

In Genesis 17 God gave Abraham and his seed this mark of the covenant. It was never meant to save, but over time the Jews viewed circumcision as a guarantee of their salvation. The Rabbis even assured them, “Abraham sits before the gate of hell, and does not allow that any circumcised Israelite should enter there.” This was their final confidence, much like baptism in both the Catholic and many Protestant churches today. With infant baptism taking the place of circumcision, the parents are assured that baptism removes original sin if they are Catholic (and will forever be a member of the Catholic Church) or if they are Protestant, the infant is baptized as a “covenant child,” a member of a covenant family and in the church. 

Here Paul enlightens this Jew, “Not so fast, buster.” Just being circumcised has no value to save you unless you keep the law perfectly, and you don’t. Even a Gentile who would keep the Law but isn’t circumcised is in better shape than you. Circumcision as a sacrament or ritual has no power to save anyone, just like baptism doesn’t save anyone. But how many Catholics and Protestants rest in the false assurance that since they’ve been baptized, they’re sins are washed away, and they are good to go. When it comes to baptism, there isn’t one example of infant baptism in the New Testament. We don’t believe baptism has replaced circumcision. In the book of Acts the early church baptized believers, not infants. 

So, Paul pulls the rug out from under the Jew’s last refuge, circumcision. What can this Jew say now? “Okay, Paul, I have broken the law and my circumcision doesn’t count, but I still am a son of Abraham and God has given us promises He cannot break.” Paul, “You’ve got it wrong, friend. Just being ethnically Jewish, knowing your Torah, and being physically circumcised does not give you an automatic in with God.”

YOU’VE GOT RELIGION BUT YOU NEED REGENERATION

Romans 2:28-29, For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

All of their religion was merely external, the work of the flesh. Something has to happen inside. Even Nicodemus didn’t get it when Jesus said, “You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God.”  What did Nicodemus say? “Do I have to go into my mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Born again is another way of saying regeneration or made alive spiritually. Paul gives us four contrasts in verse 29 to help us see the difference between religion and regeneration.

You need an inward work of grace – a true Jew is one inwardly. It isn’t what you do or put on. It’s what God does inside of you. God gives you a sense of your sin, lostness, and guilt. And like the first beatitude “poor in spirit,” you realize you are a spiritual beggar. 

You need a work of grace in the heart – true circumcision is that which is of the heart. Regeneration gives you a new heart, a radical change at the center of your life. Your mind, your will, your desires are all changed. You become a new creation in Christ Jesus. 

You need a work of grace by the Spirit – not by rules or resolves to be a better person. Regeneration is that sovereign work of the Spirit that is internal, life-changing, supernatural. It is unfelt, but powerful and gracious. The Spirit opens your heart to God. He opens your eyes to understand salvation is not by religion, but only through faith in Christ. You turn to Him as your only Savior, trusting in His work on the cross of bearing that punishment you owed because of your sins. The result is a new life, a new person, new desires, new attitudes of humility and hunger for God, new battles with sin, new hope, new understanding, new concerns.  Paul put it like this in Titus. 

Titus 3:5-6, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

This work of grace in your heart by the Spirit results in a desire for God’s praise. You don’t live your life to be seen or approved by men. You aren’t out to impress people. “His praise is from God.” Like Paul put it in 2 Corinthians 5:9, we make it our ambition to be pleasing to Him.

SO WHAT?

What’s the difference between the religious man and a regenerated man? For the religious man, like this Jew or many church goers, Christianity is something you do, something you wear, keeping certain rules and requirements of the church. It can be trusting in his good morality. His thoughts are focused on all the things he thinks he has done for God to merit acceptance with God. He may even have a sense of pride in his religious life. He has been inoculated against the real “disease.” But God by His grace can override that religious inoculation.

For the regenerated man, Christianity is something he is. He knows only Christ can save him. He has no confidence or trust in his own performance. God has changed his heart. He lives for Christ. When he sins, he doesn’t cover it up but confesses it to God. Paul described it like this, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” Can you join with Paul is this expression of genuine trust in Christ as a regenerated man?