In this episode, we delve into the profound teachings of Romans chapter 2 and uncover its contemporary implications for Christianity. We discuss the dangers of religious idolatry and the false sense of moral superiority that often arises within religious circles. As we explore, the need for genuine humility and the essence of Christ-centered faith are highlighted, challenging believers to reflect on their own spiritual idolatry and the role of Jesus as savior.
00:00:05 Romans chapter 2 and religious corruption
Okay, let’s take a final stab at Romans chapter 2 and try to understand that this, when applied to Christianity, has a lot to say. Remember that Romans chapter 2 is talking about the religious corruption of the world. That is, in Romans chapter 1, Paul talks about the idolatry of the pagan world. But in Romans chapter 2, he talks about the idolatry of the religious world. And that’s a bit of a shocker. And then when you extend it to Christianity today, you get more of a shock still. So let’s explore some of these verses with their application today. First of all, Paul is saying that the religious man is without excuse because he judges the world. Now think of that. Christianity has a tendency to believe that it is superior to everyone else. Now, of course, the message of the gospel and Jesus Christ is superior. It is the only true good news. But it is given to men and women who are not superior. It is given to men and women who are sinners like the rest of the world. There is no difference, Paul says in chapter 3, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So if you find yourself being supercritical in your heart about how many sins and how shocking the sins of the world are, and by inference imply that you are superior to that, then you come under the judgment of Romans chapter 2. The truth of the matter is that you and I cannot judge because the moment we do, we become judged ourselves. Now, that doesn’t mean to say you can’t evaluate between right and wrong and good and evil. Of course you can. But when you judge another… involved in those things, you imply that in your heart you are not involved in those things. But the truth of the matter is that human nature is the same throughout the world. All humanity is in a state of suppression of God. We instinctively do it because we’re afraid of Him, we feel guilty in relation to Him, and the only way we do not feel that guilt is through Jesus Christ, of course. Now, having mentioned Jesus, let me say this, that Romans chapter 2 reveals religion without Christ, religion without the Savior, religion without a rescuer, a redeemer. That is crucial to understanding the religious world here in its idolatry. How do we say that this is religion without Christ? Well, verse 17, Paul says, “…you who are called a Jew, rest on the law and make your boast in God.” Now, resting in the law is resting on our moral foundations. We’re good people, we’re nice people, we don’t harm anybody, we’re reasonably respectable. All of that attitude is revealed in humanistic Christianity. Christianity that does not believe it needs a saviour, that Jesus is simply a good example, or that Jesus is an expression of God’s love. The humanistic Christian can’t make sense of why Jesus had to die for God to forgive us. They will ask you, well, what was the necessity of the death of Jesus Christ? What was the meaning of it? and they imply by that that there is no sacrificial death, that is substitutionary death. Jesus did not have to die as a judgment for my sins. He simply died to express God’s love, or he died to show us an example of mercy towards others and kindness. That kind of thinking is The absence of the substitutionary work of Christ is what Paul is describing here. This is morality and Christianity without Christ the Saviour. Notice that leads, according to verse 4 and 5, let’s read that, “…do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads to repentance?” They thought the goodness of God was simply God saying, well, how good you are. to the Jewish people. How good you are to the Christians. You’re nice people, you’re pretty harmless, and I accept you because of what you are. Have you heard of creation theology? That is, God didn’t make junk, therefore God loves us because he didn’t make junk. That kind of theology itself is junk, of course. What Paul is saying here is that when you get a revelation of the glory of God and how great he is and how high and lifted up and how distant he is from us and yet comes close to us in Jesus Christ, you get an impression of your own sinfulness and your own brokenness and it leads to repentance. God who is high and lifted up yet dwells with the humble and contrite heart, that’s Isaiah 57, that God, who dwells with us in spite of the fact that he is so high and lifted up, leads us to want to be different. You remember when Jesus told the disciples to cast their net on the other side of the boat, and Peter apparently was a bit irritated because they’d been fishing all night and hadn’t caught anything, and basically he was saying in his heart, what do you know about fishing, Jesus? Well, they cast their net, and it was so full of fish that they couldn’t bring it ashore, haul it ashore. They needed help. And Peter was so humbled by that, he bowed before Jesus, he knelt before him, he grasped his legs and feet and said, Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner. When you get a revelation of God, you simply can hardly stand yourself. and you want to ask God for mercy and love. So then you see, Christianity without that Christ is a Christless Christianity. There’s a lot of happiness in churches. There’s a lot of patting on the back. There’s a lot of clapping of the hands and jumping up and down. But these days, What happened to bowing before the Lord, kneeling before him, and asking him for mercy and forgiveness? What happened to that? I’ll tell you what happened to it. They lost sight of the sacrificial nature of Jesus Christ’s life on the cross.
SPEAKER 01 :
So, The people who have this false Christianity, according to verse 8, are self-seeking.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, what does that mean? It means that at the center of their Christianity is the self, not Christ. Listen to the sermons you hear so often in Christian churches today. They are all about what we should do. Well, most of them, or many of them, what we should do, how we become holy, how we become godly, how we do this and that and the other. But they do not recognize the utter brokenness of humanity that needs a sacrificial atonement for their sins. God laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all. Remember Isaiah 53? Why would he have to lay the iniquity of us all upon someone else if it were not for the fact that Jesus is a sacrifice, a substitutionary sacrifice? He’s not simply an example. He’s not simply an expression of the love of God.
SPEAKER 01 :
So, modern Christianity, so much of it, is self-seeking.
SPEAKER 02 :
And what’s more, in that self-seeking, it has fallen for the delusion that God shows partiality. He’s kind of partial towards the Western world, partial towards Christianity, partial towards Christians who have the moral law. Is that the truth? No, he’s not. There is no partiality with God, according to verse 11. So just because we know the moral code, just because we have a belief in the Ten Commandments, has nothing to do with whether God favors us or not, because those Ten Commandments are impartial. They will judge a pagan as well as a Christian. And when they do judge us, What’s the result? Well, 3 verse 20, Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law, you cannot rest in the law. Romans chapter 2, going back to chapter 2, says that the Jewish people, and by extension Christians, rest in their morality, relax in it, think they’re pretty good with it. But God says the law reveals only a knowledge of sin, not a knowledge of righteousness. And so here we have, once again, Christianity without Christ. Those who have a Christianity without Christ, according to verse 23, make their boast in the law. What does it mean exactly to boast in the law? It means somehow to preen yourself for your moral rectitude. It means to consider yourself better than those people who are all hung out on drugs or pornography or alcohol and drunkards and what have you. It means that when you hear of somebody doing a terribly wicked thing to another person in the newspapers, online, you think to yourself, how in the world could they possibly do that? How could a teenager shoot his own parents? And you wonder and you think, what is the world coming to? Well, I’ll tell you what the world’s coming to you, coming to. It’s coming to you. It’s arriving at the place where you are. You say, don’t be outrageous, Colin. I’m nowhere near that. I would never think of shooting my parents. Jesus said, whoever hates has committed murder. We have in our heart a tendency to want to destroy. We all have to recognize this. I have a friend who said to me, well, this sounds like a rather dismal view of the human race. And he was a Christian and is a Christian. Indeed, it is a dismal view of the human race. We do not save ourselves by having an optimistic view of the human race. We find our salvation by having an optimistic view of Jesus Christ. That’s what the issue is. According to the Scriptures, there is none righteous, no, not one. You and I need a judgment for our sinful brokenness. All humanity comes under the judgment of God, not because God hates them, but because God has an enormous plan for the human race. but it cannot take place with our attitudes of mind as they are now. That’s why God presented Christ as a new representative of the human race. Christ’s mind towards his Father is the mind that God will give all humanity that will take them through to eternity, but our minds will not. And so Paul then says in 3 verse 9, what then are we better than they? And I come back to the beginning of this broadcast. The tendency to judge other people implies the feeling, the impression that you believe you are better than others. And this is where you and I have to face ourselves with enormous honesty. that we are broken down people. We just were not found out. Some others were. It’s terribly dangerous to be known, to have notoriety or fame in the public, because ultimately you will be found out. All of us will be, because ultimately we are broken down human beings. And so, what do we do with all this? Well, Paul is going to show us. He’s going to make it clear by the revelation of Jesus Christ, the substitute and saviour for the human race. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
