Romans 2:17 - Meaning and Application

In the latter part of this chapter, the apostle speaks more directly to the Jews and exposes the sins they were guilty of, despite their claims and outward profession. He had already said (Romans 2:13) that it is not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law, who are justified, that is, counted right before God. Here he applies that truth to the Jews. He first allows what they claimed for themselves in Romans 2:17-20, so they can see that he is not speaking from ignorance of their case. He knows the strongest argument they can make.

They were a special people, set apart from all others by having God’s written law and his special presence among them. “You are called a Jew” was an honorable title, not so much because of birth alone, but because of their public identity as God’s people. Salvation came through the Jews, and they were proud to be a people set apart. Yet many who bore that name were among the worst of men. It is no new thing for evil practices to hide under good names, for some who belong to the synagogue of Satan to say they are Jews (Revelation 2:9), or for a generation of vipers to boast that Abraham is their father (Matthew 3:7-9).

They also “rested in the law,” meaning they took pride in having the law among them, copied in their books and read in their synagogues. They were very puffed up by this privilege and thought it was enough to bring them to heaven, even if they did not live by it. To rest in the law with contentment and trust is good. But to rest in it with pride, laziness, and false security ruins the soul. “The temple of the Lord” became a false confidence (Jeremiah 7:4), as did Bethel for Israel (Jeremiah 48:13), and being proud because of the holy mountain (Zephaniah 3:11). It is dangerous to lean on outward privileges and never make use of them.

They also “made their boast of God.” See how even the best things can be twisted and misused. A humble, thankful boasting in God is the root and summary of true religion (Psalm 34:2; Isaiah 45:15; 1 Corinthians 1:31). But a proud, empty boasting in God, or in an outward religion, is the root and summary of hypocrisy. Spiritual pride is the most dangerous kind of pride.

They were also a knowing people (Romans 2:18). They knew God’s will, that is, what God wanted them to do. God’s will is sovereign and absolute. The world will be set right only when God’s will is the only will, and every other will is brought into agreement with it. They did not merely know truths about God, but his will for life and conduct. Even a hypocrite can have a great deal of knowledge of God’s will.

They also “approved the things that are more excellent,” or, as this can be read, they could discern things that differ. They could tell good from evil, and the precious from the worthless (Jeremiah 15:19), and make a difference between clean and unclean (Leviticus 11:47). Good and bad can sometimes lie very close together, but the Jews, with the law at hand, were or at least thought they were able to judge between them. A person may be skilled in religious questions and still be a poor Christian, accurate in thought but careless in practice. Or this may mean that they approved the excellent things themselves, as Paul prays for his friends to do (Philippians 1:10). A person may agree in judgment that God’s law is good, and still be ruled by fleshly desires. As the saying goes, “I see the better way and approve it, but I follow the worse.” Sinners often use that approval as an excuse, when it is really a greater blame.

They gained this knowledge and affection for what is good by being “instructed out of the law,” that is, catechized, or taught from early childhood. It is a great advantage to be well taught when young. The Jews took much care to teach their children, and their lessons came from the law. It would be good if Christians were as careful to teach their children from the gospel. This is called “the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law” (Romans 2:20), meaning its outward shape and appearance. Those whose knowledge is only an empty idea, and never reaches the heart, have only the form, like a well-painted picture that has no life. A form of knowledge produces only a form of godliness (2 Timothy 3:5). A form may carry the power, but anyone who settles for the form alone is like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.

They were also, or thought they were, a teaching people (Romans 2:19-20). “You are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind.” This applies, first, to the Jews in general. They thought themselves guides to the poor blind Gentiles who sat in darkness, and they were proud that anyone who wanted knowledge of God had to get it from them. They believed the other nations must come to school to them to learn what was good and what the Lord required, because they had the living words of God.

It also applies especially to their rabbis, teachers, and leading men, the same kind of people Paul had in mind in Romans 2:1. They were proud of sitting in Moses’ seat and of the respect ordinary people gave them. Paul piles up titles to show their self-importance: a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes. They loved to keep speaking this way and gathering honor for themselves. Even good work becomes unacceptable to God when a person grows proud of it. It is good to teach the foolish and the young, but when we remember our own ignorance, folly, and inability to make such teaching succeed without God, there is nothing there to boast about.

He then increases their guilt (Romans 2:21-24) in two ways. First, they sinned against their own knowledge and profession by doing the very things they taught others to avoid. “You who teach another, do you not teach yourself?” Teaching is part of that charity which begins at home, though it must not end there.

It was the Pharisees’ hypocrisy that they did not live as they taught (Matthew 23:3). They pulled down with their lives what they built up with their preaching. For who will believe people who do not believe themselves? Example shapes people more than rules do. The greatest hindrances to the success of God’s word are those whose bad lives contradict their sound doctrine. They preach so well in public that it is a shame for them ever to leave the pulpit, yet they live so badly outside it that it is a shame for them ever to enter it.

Paul names three sins that were common among the Jews. First, stealing. This was charged against some who declared God’s statutes (Psalm 50:16, Psalm 50:18), when they saw a thief and joined him. The Pharisees were also accused of devouring widows’ houses (Matthew 23:14), which is one of the worst forms of robbery. Second, adultery, mentioned in Romans 2:22. This too is charged against the sinner in Psalm 50:18, “You have been a partner with adulterers.” Many Jewish rabbis were said to be notorious for this sin. Third, sacrilege, meaning stealing from holy things set apart for God by special law. This is charged against those who claimed to hate idols. The Jews did strongly reject idolatry after their captivity in Babylon. That fiery trial separated them from the dross of idol worship, but they still dealt very treacherously in God’s worship. In the later days of the Old Testament church, they were accused of robbing God in tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8, Malachi 3:9), using what was devoted to God for themselves and for their sinful desires. In a sense, this was close to idolatry, even though it was hidden behind a loud hatred of idols. Those who condemn sin in others, yet do the same or worse themselves, will be judged severely.

Paul also says that they dishonored God by their sin, in Romans 2:23, Romans 2:24. God and his law were things they boasted about and took pride in, yet they became a shame to God and his law. They gave outsiders reason to mock their religion, as if it approved such behavior. That is a sin for those who draw the wrong conclusion from religion, but it is also a sin for those whose conduct gives them that excuse. David was guilty of this when he gave the Lord’s enemies cause to blaspheme (2 Samuel 12:14). Paul points to the same charge against their forefathers: “As it is written” (Romans 2:24). He does not name the exact place, since he is writing to people taught in the law, but he seems to point to Isaiah 52:5, Ezekiel 36:22, Ezekiel 36:23, and 2 Samuel 12:14. It is a sad thing when those made to be a name and praise for God become a shame and dishonor to him. The great evil of a believer’s sin is the dishonor it brings on God and religion through that person’s profession. “Blasphemed through you” means that they gave the occasion for it through their folly and carelessness. The insults they brought on themselves reflected on their God, and religion was wounded through their own sides. This is a good warning for believers to walk carefully (1 Timothy 6:1).

Paul then shows how completely their outward religion could not clear them from guilt, in Romans 2:25-29. Circumcision truly helps if you keep the law. That is, obedient Jews would not lose the reward of their obedience, and their Jewish position gave them a clearer rule for obedience than the Gentiles had. God did not give the law or appoint circumcision for nothing. Paul is speaking here of the Jews before the ceremonial system was set aside, because circumcision was later forbidden to one who professed faith in Christ (Galatians 5:1). He tells the Jews that their Judaism would help them only if they lived according to its rules. If they did not, their circumcision became uncircumcision. In other words, their outward religion would do them no good. They would not be more justified, meaning declared righteous before God, than uncircumcised Gentiles, and they would be more guilty because they sinned against greater light. Scripture often marks the uncircumcised as unclean (Isaiah 52:1), outside the covenant (Ephesians 2:11, Ephesians 2:12), and wicked Jews would be treated as such (Jeremiah 9:25, Jeremiah 9:26).

Paul then explains this more fully. If uncircumcised Gentiles live up to the light they have, they stand on the same ground as the Jews. If they keep the righteousness of the law (Romans 2:26), if they fulfill the law (Romans 2:27), that is, if they sincerely follow the guidance of natural light and do what the law requires in practice, then they are in a real sense obedient. Some understand Paul to mean perfect obedience: if Gentiles could perfectly keep the law, they would be justified by it just as Jews would be. But he seems to mean the kind of obedience some Gentiles actually reached. Cornelius shows this clearly. Though he was a Gentile and uncircumcised, he was a devout man who feared God with all his household (Acts 10:2), and he was accepted. There were likely many such examples. These uncircumcised people who kept the law’s righteousness were accepted by God as if they were circumcised. Their uncircumcision was counted for circumcision. Circumcision was indeed a commanded duty for Jews, but it was never a required condition for all people to be justified and saved.

Their obedience also made the Jews’ disobedience worse, since the Jews had the letter of the law (Romans 2:27). Those Gentiles would condemn, meaning help add to, the judgment of Jews who broke the law while having circumcision and the written law. For people with a mere outward religion, the law is only a letter. They read it like a document, but do not let it rule their lives. The Jews broke the law not only despite the letter and circumcision, but through them, because those privileges hardened them in sin. External privileges, if they do not do us good, do us harm. The obedience of people with fewer advantages and a weaker profession will help condemn those with greater privileges who do not live up to them.

Paul then describes true circumcision in Romans 2:28, Romans 2:29. It is not simply what is outward in the flesh and in the letter. This does not mean we should ignore outward religious duties, which are good in their place. It means we must not trust in them or rest in them as enough to bring us to heaven. We must not settle for a name that says we are alive while we are not truly alive. A person is not a true Jew, meaning he will not be accepted by God as Abraham’s believing child, if he only has the outward mark. To be Abraham’s children is to do Abraham’s works (John 8:39, John 8:40). True circumcision is inward, of the heart and in the spirit.

God looks at the heart. It is the inward circumcision of the heart that makes us acceptable to him, as Moses said in (Deuteronomy 30:6). This is the circumcision “not made with hands,” spoken of in (Colossians 2:11-12), the putting away of the sinful nature, or the “body of sin.”

This work happens in the spirit. It is done in our own spirit as the place where it takes effect, and by God’s Spirit as the one who brings it about. Its praise does not come from people, who judge by outward appearances. It comes from God, who owns it, accepts it, and rewards this true sincerity. He does not see as people see. People may be fooled by fine claims and outward religion, but God sees through every show and knows what is real.

The same is true of Christianity. A person is not a true Christian just because he looks like one on the outside, and water baptism alone does not make a man one. A true Christian is one inwardly, and true baptism is that of the heart, in the spirit, not just in the written form. Such a person’s praise is not from people, but from God.