Tuesday, October 16th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 9-10

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:27-31

²⁷ What is left for us to brag about? Not a thing! Is it because we obeyed some law? No! It is because of faith. ²⁸ We see that people are acceptable to God because they have faith, and not because they obey the Law. ²⁹ Does God belong only to the Jews? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is! ³⁰ There is only one God, and he accepts Gentiles as well as Jews, simply because of their faith. ³¹ Do we destroy the Law by our faith? Not at all! We make it even more powerful.

John MacArthur shares what salvation does for us...

Justification by faith encompasses two things. First of all, it is a declaration. It is a statement. It is an affirmation. It is God saying - Based upon the merit of Jesus Christ, based upon the death of Christ, based upon the righteousness of Christ and your faith in Christ, I declare you to be right with Me, I declare you to be just, to be righteous. In Romans chapter 4 verse 11 it says that righteousness, the end of the verse, is imputed unto them. That it is ... that is, it is granted to them. Based on the work of Christ, God declares us righteous.

Now, in a very real sense, we are not righteous. We are unrighteous. And we don't, by believing, make ourselves righteous, but God declares that we're righteous and He imputes that righteousness to us in that declaration because Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sin. But I said this the other night and I want to make it very clear again. We are not only declared righteous in justification by faith, we are made righteous.... There is that declaration, but there also is secondly a reality of righteousness. We are not only declared righteous, we are made righteous so that you have not only imputation, which is a declaration of righteousness, but you have impartation which is a granting of real righteousness...There is a genuine transformation...we are really transformed. We become one with Him. We become clothed with Christ...when you came to Jesus Christ, you received the covering of the righteousness of Christ, you were in union with His death, you were in union with His resurrection, you are in union with Him in eternal, indivisible union with the living Christ. And that is an identification and so we have no fear of judgment because I we are clothed, as it were, in Christ....

You then are also the partakers of the covenant. You become redemptive family, recipients of covenant blessing. Regenerated to the family of God, identified with Jesus Christ in an eternal and indivisible union, and then identified with all the family of blessing, all the family of promise, all the family of redemption that have sprung from the loins of Abraham. And that's not a racial designation, that's a designation of faith. Abraham is the father of all who trust in God. He is the father of the faithful...for he believed God and became the father of those who live by faith.

And then further into the verse, you see we become heirs according to the promise, we receive all the promises of God. We are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies....You are no more a servant but a son and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Tremendous truth. Don't you think for a moment that justification by faith is simply some statement that God makes apart from any reality, there is a reality in justification, you are regenerated into the family of God, you are born again. And the new birth is the implanting of a new nature ... the implanting of a new nature. You are identified with Christ. You literally are cloaked in Christ. You become a Dart of the redeemed seed of faith. You become an heir to all the promises of God and you become the temple of the resident Holy Spirit of God. Now when justification by faith occurs then a person is transformed....

So when I say you are made righteous, that is not to say that you are sinless. It is not to say that you are perfect. It is to say that God has recreated you into an eternally righteous transformed person, fit for eternity. But, for the time on earth, that new creation is encompassed within the flesh, our humanness, and that restricts the full manifestation and the full development of what that potentiated righteous creature is. Understand that? It's as if you're in there and you can't burst out because you're encased in your humanness...But, the longer you live as a Christian and the more you walk in the Spirit and obey the Lord, the more that new I overpowers the flesh. 

Salvation does all that for us. But it also does some things for God.  We saw the first one in yesterday's passage - it declares and satisfies God's righteousness.

The cross also exalts God's grace (v27).  If we were saved by our works, we could boast about our salvation.  But we're not saved by works.  We're saved by grace.  We're saved by what God did for us - and that exalts God's grace.

The cross also reveals God's consistency (v28-30).   All Israel would affirm that there is only One God.  But if there is only One God that means He has to be the God of both the Jew and the Gentile.  And so God has made a way of salvation that is the same for both the Jew and the Gentile.  It can't be the law because the Gentiles didn't have the law.  It has to be by grace, it has to be by faith.  God doesn't have a works system for Jews and a grace system for Gentiles.  Everyone has the opportunity to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ.  And this applied in the OT as well.

Genesis 6:8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
If he hadn't found grace through faith he would've drowned with everyone else.
Romans 4:2-3 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. ³ What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Habakkuk 2:4 “See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright—but the righteous will live by his faith
All of Hebrews 11 speaks about the heroes of the faith and that they were justified by faith, starting all the way back with Enoch.

Men are redeemed always, past-present-future, by believing God. And in that time they had to believe all that God had revealed and now we believe all that God had revealed which is all that He'd revealed then and all that He's revealed in His Son ... but we still believe all that He revealed.

And in this age in which we live, just as before Israel, during Israel's time and now as Israel's been set aside, we are redeemed by faith, by believing. But as James says, "Saving faith will manifest fruitfulness." There's no question about that.

The cross also confirms God's law (v31).  If you can't get saved by the law, then is the law useless?  No, no, no, never, no way!  The law was never given to save us, it was given to show us our need to be saved!

The cross doesn't abolish the law, it establishes it.
The penalty of law had to be exacted.  The law said - you sin, you die, so somebody had to die.  When Jesus died He said that the law was in effect and its demands had been met.
The purpose of the law was to show the impossibility of keeping it, and to show us our need of a saviour - to drive us to Christ.
Justification by faith makes keeping the law a possibility through the power of the Holy Spirit.

All of this comes by faith.

But how do we know if we have true saving faith? MacArthur shares some insights into this.

You are not saved simply for knowing and believing the facts about Jesus, for going to church, for being in ministry, for being convicted of your sin, for being convicted enough to change your lifestyle, for feeling assured that you're right with God, and not even for remembering a time you prayed a prayer or made some verbal commitment.   You could do all of those things and still be lost.

If you have true faith you will have a love for God, you will desire that God be honoured and glorified, you will want to know Him more through study of His Word, He will be your highest desire.

You will also hate sin, and repent from sin when you are convicted of it.  You are not just sorry you got caught, you don't just feel bad about the results or consequences, you confess your sin and you genuinely want to turn away from your sin, you are grieved by your sin.

You will also be humble.  Your love for God and hatred for sin will cause you to see the sin in your own life and be humbled by it, and come to God seeking mercy.

You will be absolutely devoted to God's glory above all else.  Above your glory, above your desires, above your will, above your comfort, above everything else.

You will pray.  You will have a heart that seeks communion with God through prayer.

You will have a selfless love for one another.

You will be separate from the world.  You will overcome the world and it's desires.

You will continually have spiritual growth.  You will not stay stagnant.

You will a life of obedience.

And when you have done all that - you will also have all those things on the first list - you will have a visible and genuine morality, a proper knowledge of God and His Word, you will be involved in ministry, you will convicted of sin, you will have assurance of salvation and that time of decision will have meaning for you.  But those things can't and don't stand alone.  You can have those things and not be saved.  But if you are truly saved, you will have those things as well.

Now, obviously we will fail.  We are not perfect.  We do not always love God the way we should, we do not always hate sin the way we should, we are not always humble, we are not always devoted to God's glory above all us, we do not always pray, we are not always selfless in our love, we are not always wanting to overcome the world, we are not always growing spiritual, we are not always obedient.  And that is why we have a High Priest who intercedes for us, that is why we need to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit.  No, we cannot do those things perfectly.  But it does need to be the direction of our life.  Not the perfection, but it must be the direction.

One more thought from MacArthur to close out Romans 3 - sorry this is getting really long, but I think it's important...

when a person becomes redeemed, there is never a separation between grace and law. And that is a major fallacy in the thinking of many people. They want to so purify grace that they make salvation all of grace and no responsibility or obligation whatsoever. And this is an effort to maintain what some have chosen to call super-grace. But grace and gracious salvation never makes null and void the law but rather establishes the law. Now that statement has all kinds of interpretive ramifications, but just to focus on one--becoming a Christian by grace does not remove from us the obligation to obey God. All Paul is saying is you cannot save yourself by your good works, he is not saying therefore give up and never bother with them. He is saying - when you come to Christ and are justified, and as we shall see later in this epistle, when you are implanted with the Holy Spirit, He then can produce in you those good works, yes, He will produce in you those good works and you will even establish the law or fulfill it.

And it’s very important, I think, that we understand this....when people want to separate grace from law all together, the logical step that follows that is to separate the Savior-hood of Christ from His Lordship. And so, they will affirm that Jesus Christ is Savior and receive purely and only as Savior, and then there’s no other thing required for salvation and hopefully at a later time, you’ll acknowledge Him as Lord and get with the issue of obedience, that is not germane to salvation. Now this is an artificial dichotomy. It does not belong there. It is not biblical. It is an effort to maintain pure grace.... that is one theological perception of salvation, that all you have to do is ask Jesus to come into your heart, no commitment, no change of life, no nothing and you’re still saved. In fact, one writer says: “Believers who become agnostics are still saved. They are still born again, you can even accept Christ and become an atheist but if you once accepted Christ as Savior, you cannot lose your salvation even though you deny God.” Now it says in my Bible and in his Bible, 2 Timothy 2:12, “If you deny Me, I will deny you.” Another author, Dr. Stanford, who is the president, by the way, of Florida Bible College, which propagates a lot of this, says: “Any teaching that demands a change of conduct, either toward God or man for salvation, is adding works and human effort to faith and is an accursed message.”

What he is saying therefore is that you can be saved and have absolutely no manifestation of it. Is that true? I don’t think so. Because if salvation means the life of God is planted in the soul of man, there’s got to be some revelation of that life, just as there was of the life of evil that was there before. We do not accept that. And so, when we teach whether it’s Matthew or Romans or any other book in the New Testament, or even in comparison to the Old, we teach that when a person comes to Christ he receives Him as Savior and Lord and genuine salvation demands a commitment of life to obedience to the Lordship of Christ. Now we don’t always follow through the way we should, do we? But there has to be a willingness to turn from our sin and accept the responsibility to live under the Lordship of Christ. I think Thomas had it right when he said in John 20:28, very simply, “My Lord and my God,” and he affirmed instantly when he saw who Jesus was that this individual had absolute dominion and sovereignty over his life. In Romans 10:9 and 10 it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as ... what?...as Lord and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And by the way, that is a quote from Joel 2:32 and you have there the word “Lord” is the word Yahweh, it is the very name for the sovereign ruler of the universe, Jehovah God Himself. And that is what salvation is. It is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God in my life through the mediator Jesus Christ.

Now that is not adding a works to salvation, that is a recognition of who He is.... Nobody can be saved except through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Nobody can make the proper insight into who Christ is except by the Holy Spirit. Nobody will truly understand Jesus except by the Holy Spirit. And when the Spirit does His work, he will say: “Jesus is the Lord.” And so, there is no reason to dichotomize the saving work of Christ from His Lordship, you do disservice to His person and you miss the message of true salvation. There’s no way in the Bible that you could ever separate; mark this, faith from obedience. Why in Romans chapter 1 verse 5 it says: “We have received grace and apostleship,” listen to this phrase, “for obedience to the faith among all nations.”

In other words, he says as an Apostle, we are proclaiming to the nations the obedience of faith. There’s no such thing as a faith that has no obedience. There’s no such thing as a salvation that does not acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And yet, when I have taught that, people have accused me of teaching a works salvation. In fact, when I was roaming around in south Florida, some years ago, in the environs of Florida Bible College, I got attacked all over the place. People would come and hear me and they’d come up afterwards and say, “You’re teaching works salvation because you’re saying that you have to repent of your sin, and confess your sin and you have to embrace the Lordship of Christ and commit your life to be obedient to Him, that’s a works salvation, it adulterates pure grace.” I think they have a nice idea trying to keep the purity of grace, but in so doing I think they’ve emasculated the doctrine of salvation. And there are a lot of people under their aegis who are running around thinking they’re saved when they’re not because all they’ve done is identify Jesus Christ as a Savior from sin, but because they’ve not submitted to His Lordship, the completion of their salvation has never occurred.

Titus 2:11-12  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age

When the grace of God appears to us, the first thing it does is teach us to deny ungodliness. And it says in verse 14 that the Lord gave Himself in order that He might redeem us from iniquity and purify unto Himself a people of His own. The purification of life, the submission to the Lordship of Christ, the obedience that comes at salvation is that which marks the true salvation.... God saves us by grace through faith, not human effort. But part of God’s gracious work is to bring us to repentance and to bring us to confession and to bring us to submission to the Lordship of Christ..... Salvation is in Christ and Christ alone. Okay? Not Christ plus something. But within that genuine salvation, there will be repentance from sin and submission to the Lordship of Christ.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 4:1-3

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9:1-17

Monday, October 15th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 8:14-34, Mark 4-5

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:21-26

²¹ But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²² This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵ God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— ²⁶ he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Thankfully it's time for some good news!
MacArthur...
salvation is not a matter of maintaining some religious law in the flesh but rather righteousness, or salvation, is apart from the law...   it is revealed in the Scripture. ...No difference between Jew and Gentile as we’ve seen in chapters 1, 2 and 3....

So, the point of all of this is that you can’t get saved by keeping the law. The Gentile cannot become saved by a fleshly effort to maintain the law of his conscience. The Jew cannot save himself by a fleshly effort to live up to the written law given to him through the Old Testament. The law has the effect of showing us our sin, but we cannot keep it to the satisfaction of God and thus be granted salvation. Redemption, salvation, justification, righteousness is apart from the law. It is given to us as a free gift, verse 24, through grace granted in Christ Jesus....

salvation occurs apart from some human effort to live up to the divine standard. You can’t do it. All have sinned and come short, so we’re all left incapable of reaching the standard and salvation therefore must come another way and it comes through grace in Christ.

We have all sinned.  We are under obligation to the law, but there is no way that we can live up to it.  We are totally unable to make things right with God on our own effort.  Only God can make things right with man.  Only God.

How?  How can we be made right with God.

It's apart from legalism (v21).  We've already established that we can't keep God's law, we can't earn our way into God's good graces.
But it is built on the revelation of the law and the prophets - on the OT (v21b).  We needed to know God's standard in order to know we could never keep it.
Because we can't reach God by our own righteousness, He has brought us His righteousness through Jesus Christ, as the fulfillment of the OT (v22).
It's acquired by faith, not works (v22).
And it's provided to everyone who will believe (v22b).  Anyone.  We're all the same.  We're all in the same boat together - the murderers, the child molesters, and the "good" people (v23).
MacArthur explains it this way....

you're just the same as a child molester and a rapist and a murderer and an irreligious, God-hating Christ cursing, hell-bound sinner.

Well, that's very hard for people to understand. But that's what it says. You see, because they think good is relative but good is not relative, it's absolute. But evil is relative. I mean there are some people technically worse than others but they're all so bad that they're infinitely far from God. And we're included too, aren't we?--before we come to Christ. There's no difference....

Any human being on the face of the earth who comes short of the glory of God is in the same boat as everybody else

You see evil is evil is evil and everybody is in the same boat--infinitely separated from holy God. So salvation is provided for all because everybody is in the same category. Not only does everybody need it but God is able to save everybody who believes. Tremendous truth.

So, God's righteous is apart from legalism, it's built on revelation, it's acquired by faith, it's provided to everyone who believes and it is given freely through grace (v24).  God doesn't pretend that we're now righteous.  We are made righteous by His righteousness being imputed to us on our behalf.
we are saved freely by grace and grace is undeserved love granted to the guilty. 

Grace is free for us, but not for God.  It cost God a lot.  It cost God redemption through Jesus Christ.
man's a slave to sin. Man cannot be righteous on his own. God provides a righteousness by faith. The only way God can do that is for Christ to pay the price to free that man. The man is a prisoner. He is sentenced to die. Somebody's got to pay his penalty. And that was the redeeming price paid by the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He paid the price to set us free.

Redeem means to ransom by the payment of a price.  God said the price for sin was death.  Jesus paid our ransom.  He died the death that was meant for us, the price we were meant to pay.  He paid it with His blood shed on the cross for us (v25).
 God could not just forgive you and me and not deal with justice. Love could forgive but justice had to be met and justice required a penalty and the penalty had to be paid. And so, literally, Jesus becomes the covering....

God's righteousness couldn't come to us apart from the cross. Jesus died in our place. Beloved, I hope you hear with the Scripture's saying. You were hell bound; the first three chapters of Romans describe you. And we're all the same, there's no difference. And we could not be right with God on our own and so God came down and He had a plan to make us right. And He gave us His righteousness. You say, "How could He do that?" He had to deal with our sin first and the penalty had to be paid and it was paid in the death of Jesus Christ. And then again it says in verse 25, and this is the final word, "This is appropriated through faith," through faith. And there we are again back to that most important of all truths that we saw also in verse 22, that salvation comes by faith, by believing, not by anything we do. It is God; it says in Colossians 2-12, it is God who has done this for us.' It is buried with Him in baptism. It is risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God. Faith is God operating....

It's not what we've done. It's what He has done for us. 

Christ's death accomplished so many things.  His sacrificial death saved us from our sin and therefore, from God's wrath, from death and from eternal hell.  Christ's death and resurrection destroyed Satan's only weapon - death.  Christ gained the power to take us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  Christ's death and resurrection also enabled Him to once again experience a face to face relationship with God the Father, His humiliation ending, His glory returning.  His death verifies His promises and demonstrates His love of the Father.

Here's another incredible thought.  Yes, Jesus died for sinners.  But He also died for God.

Christ's death declared God's righteousness.  God had tolerated sin in the past (v25b), He had allowed it to go unpunished for a time - but sin cannot be excused, it cannot just fade away, it has to be paid.
MacArthur says....
God vindicates His righteousness by putting to death His Son as a substitute and in a divine miracle, He gathers up all the sin of all the ages in terms of its guilt and its deserved penalty, He puts it on Christ and Christ becomes the sacrifice paying the price for all that sin so that God is a just God. He will not pass by sin without its penalty being met....He had to find that absolute balance between His love and His justice. And the balance was found in the full execution of the penalty but on a substitute so that those who believe in Him can go free, but the penalty was paid.
Christ's death maintains God's righteousness, it satisfies God's justice.

And once again, it only applies to those who accept this sacrifice, by faith.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:27-31

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 9-10

Sunday, October 14th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 13, Luke 8

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:19-20

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰ Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

I will let MacArthur do the explaining on this passage, which is really the climax to yesterday's passage.....

Now it starts out in that verse by saying whatever things the law says it says to them that are under the law.  Who are they?  Who is under the law?  You want to know the answer to that?  

Everyone...everyone's under the law.  The law here, I think, is the opposite of being under grace, another familiar Pauline phrase.  People who are under grace are the redeemed people, people who are under law are the unredeemed.  Anybody unredeemed is under obligation to justify himself by keeping the whole law, right?  That's his only hope, and of course he can't do it.  But the whole world is under obligation to the law of God. That's why God can ultimately condemn them...the whole world.  The Jew is under obligation to the written law.  The Gentile is under obligation to the law written in his heart and his conscience.  That's why Romans 2 verse 11 is so important, "There's no respect of persons with God, for as many as have sinned without law will perish without law, that is written law, as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law, for when the Gentiles who have not the written law do by nature the things contained in the law they having not the law are a law unto themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts."  The Jews have the written law, written externally.  The Gentiles have the written law, written internally.  All are under the law. So he's really taking everybody.  All unregenerate people are under the law of God.  And whatever that law says it says to the people who are under its authority, and so everybody's under it.  Everybody in the world is obligated to the law of God.  Everybody who lives on the face of the earth is obligated to God's standards.  God is the creator, God is the sustainer, God is the authority in the universe, He is the sovereign, He is the Lord, He calls the shots, He makes the rules, and every human being living on the face of the earth is under obligation to that law.

Now, the verdict then is since every man in the world is under obligation to the law and every man in the world is evil, every mouth is stopped.  What does that mean?  No defense.  In this particular tribunal there's nothing to say, there's not a word to say to defend yourself.  The only response is dead silence.  Every mouth is stopped. The defense has no defense.  The defense rests before the defense says anything because there is no defense.  It is a dramatic fearful scene...reminiscent of the same silence that occurred in Revelation chapter 8 when the awesome judgment began to fall.  The effect of overwhelming evidence is utter silence.  There's nothing to say.  Are you going to stand up and defend men?  Are you going to say, no, no, no, man is basically good?  No, no, man doesn't sin with his mouth, oh no, man is not murderous, man is not evil, he's not deceitful.  Are you going to say that?  Why of course there's peace...are you going to try to defend men?  There's nothing to say.  Therefore the verdict, all the world stands guilty before God.

And so, Paul has come all the way to the climax of his statement on sin.  Everybody is guilty....

There's nobody that's going to make it by keeping the law.  Every man on the face of the earth, now mark this, is in obligation to keep God's law but nobody on the face of the earth can do it.  Now that puts man in an impossible situation.  He is an utter sinner, he is obligated to keep God's law and he can't.  That's the human dilemma...

The sinfulness of man is proven every which way, including by Scripture.  And the Psalmist was right in Psalm 130 verse 3 when he said, "If thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?"  Nobody could, the whole world is guilty, everyone is silent, there's nothing to say, we're all under obligation to God's law because He's the sovereign and none of us can keep the deeds of the law, all the law can do is show us our evil and it leaves us stuck in that position.  No man is living a righteous life.  That's clear...

The Scripture concludes all under sin so that in your hopelessness you'll believe in Jesus Christ and take Him in.  And He can do what the law could never do, what you in your flesh could never do. 

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:21-26

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 8:14-34, Mark 4-5

Saturday, October 13th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 12:22-50

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:9-18

⁹ What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. ¹⁰ As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
¹¹     there is no one who understands,
    no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”
¹³ “Their throats are open graves;
    their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
¹⁴     “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
¹⁵ “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
¹⁶     ruin and misery mark their ways,
¹⁷ and the way of peace they do not know.”
¹⁸     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

We really need to understand the bad news before we can receive the good news. After all, there's no need for a Saviour if we don't understand our need to be saved.

And here Paul lays it out on the line, man's absolute corruption.

He's already condemned Gentiles as sinners, he's already condemned the Jew as sinners, and here, just to make it clear, he says that every one is a sinner.  Every. single. person.  

Even Christians are sinners.  In fact, Christians are simply people that recognize just how bad we really are and how desperately we need a Saviour.

V10-18 are a string of OT quotes, reiterating the fact that this is not a new thought.  Ever since the fall, man has always been and will always be sinners.

We are all guilty, every one of us.
What are we guilty of?
We're all evil (v10), we're all ignorant of what good even is (11a), we've rebelled against God and turned away from Him (11b), we are so corrupt that we're as useless as food gone rancid (12a) , we are incapable of doing anything truly godly (v12b).  Yes, we can do good from a human perspective, but not with the motive of giving glory to God.

How is this evil revealed?
Through our mouth, our throats (13a). MacArthur puts it bluntly.... The sum of what he's saying, very simply, is man's soul is dead as Paul said in Ephesians 2, dead in trespasses and sin, and the putrid stinking decaying corpse emits a foul and filthy odor that comes through the throat in the form of words. 
And from our throats to our tongue which is deceitful (13b).
And from out tongue to our lips which are like poison (13c).
And finally out of the mouth comes cursing and bitterness - words of hate, anger, pride (14).

Our evil and sinfulness is also revealed in our conduct.
Men are killers, ever since Cain and Abel (v15).  MacArthur shared a stat (not sure where he got it) that since 1900  in the US, there have been more people killed than have died in all the wars in the history of the States.  Whether in peacetime or in war, men kill each other.
Mankind leaves in his path a trail of destruction, devastation, massacre and misery (v16).
No, not everyone kills.  We are not all as bad as we possibly could be.  But none of us are good.  None of us do good for the sake of glorifying God.  Not in our own power.
We do not know peace (v17).  Oh, we talk about wanting world peace.  But there is none and never will be.

Why?  Why all this evil?
The answer is in v18.  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Quoting from Psalm 36:1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.

The reason man is so abandoned to sin is because he does not fear God.  He does not fear God.  And fearing God has both a positive and a negative element and you have to understand both or you won't understand this.

Fearing God on the positive side means to worship and to be in awe of God.  And fear of God on the negative side means to be afraid of Him.  And when you hear people talk about fearing God simply being the positive, they've left out a very important motive.  There must be a healthy respect for God's chastening power.  And when men don't fear God's punishment, they will abandon themselves to sinfulness....

And conversely, you see, that is why Proverbs 9;10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of...what?...of wisdom."  You will never even begin to be wise unless you fear God.  By the fear of the Lord, it says in Proverbs 16:6, a great statement, by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.  You see, men depart from evil when they fear God.  Why do you think throughout the Old Testament God slew people?  Why do you think He punished sin with death?  Why do you think Ananias and Sapphira fell dead in front of the church?  In order that men might fear God and know that if they did not live in righteousness, they themselves would suffer the same fate.  And that's why it tells us in Corinthians that these things happen for examples unto us.  You remember our study of Romans 2 when we went into that? 

All throughout the Old Testament we had these tremendous acts of God where He moves in destruction and devastation and brings death upon individuals.  And at first it seems to us a somewhat whimsical, somewhat arbitrary until we find out that God is doing it so that we would fear Him.  It was said of Cornelius that he was a devout man who feared God and so he was a prime candidate for salvation.  But unless God's Spirit has worked in the heart, men do not fear God.  They have no respect for His holiness, they have no respect for His person, they have no respect for His work, they have no respect for His will, they have no respect for His power... 

There has to be a sense of knowing that if I violate God there are consequences.  And fearing like that is the controller of all behavior.  I mean, we all do that.  We all are, our behavior is controlled basically because we fear consequences.  For example, maybe you're mature enough spiritually that you don't need that, you'll just do everything right out of pure love, and that would be the epitome of spirituality.  But in my own life, I confess to you that there are sins that I do not commit, there are temptations I do not fall to not because I'm so utterly holy that they don't really push me very far, but because I'm fearful that God will retaliate as He has a right to retaliate and I'd really rather not have the consequences.  I mean, some of you may drive 35 in the 35 zone just because you're sanctimonious, others of you may be doing it looking in your rear view mirror because you don't want a ticket.  Either way, if it works its work on you, it's good.

The same is true with God.  There are times when we respond to God out of the pure love of our hearts.  And there are times when we must respond to God out of the fear of His chastening power.  And where men have neither, they do not desire God's glory and they do not fear God's punishment, they have no control over their sinfulness.  Do you see that?  That's why we've said to you repeatedly for years that the key thing in all of human behavior is to live to the glory of God where you recognize Him and you honor Him and you live in a healthy fear of what may happen when you disobey.  And I'm talking about Christians living even under grace because it says in Hebrews that whom the Lord loves, He...what?...He chastens and every son He scourges.  We must accept God as God and worship and obey and fear the consequence of our disobedience. 

The Old Testament is literally filled with things to force us to that attitude.  God was trying to make His people in the Old Testament fear Him.  And that's a common thread in the Old Testament.  Just go through the Old Testament and see what God did to make the people fear Him.  He turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt.  He threw Adam and Eve out of the garden.  He drowned the whole world, that ought to be some kind of lesson.  He sent snakes to bite the Israelites.  He swallowed Korah, Dathan and Abiram, He killed Nadab and Abihu, He sent fire from heaven at the call of Elijah and consumed a hundred soldiers.  He sent a bear to tear up forty little children.  He drowned the entire Egyptian army.  He took the life of Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas.  He killed Absalom, David's rebellious son.  He used Samson to slaughter thousands and thousands of the Philistines. He repeatedly demanded death.

And you remember the illustration I gave you in the thirteenth chapter of Luke?  When the people came to Jesus and they said, "You know, we don't understand why happened the other day.  There were 18 people walking down the street and a tower fell on them and killed them all.  Were these people worse sinners than everybody else?"  And you remember what Jesus said?  "You better shape up or the same thing will happen to you."  What was He saying?  The answer to the question was this is what everybody deserves and it ought to be a warning to you to make sure your life is right.

We need to see our sin the way God sees our sin before we can see our need for a Saviour.

MacArthur tells a vile story that really helped me see this perspective.
In Greek mythology there was a king of the Etruscans called Mezentius who was absolutely cruel - there was no torture or punishment too vile for him to inflict on a man.  One such punishments gives us a perfect illustration for this topic.  He would tie a living person to a dead person - face to face, lip to lip and leave that person alive in that excruciating and vile condition until he eventually died in death's embrace.

And some people even believe it is to that very cruel practice to which the Apostle Paul refers in Romans 7 when he says, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death," seeing himself as a new living creature in Christ and yet face‑to‑face with that old sinful part of him.

Now whether or not in Romans 7 Paul actually had in mind this incredible practice, we don't really know. But we do know that when he cried out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death, he was crying for deliverance from sin.  He was crying for deliverance from the unholy and impure passions and appetites which had ruled his body for so long and would still had a residual power in some cases over him.   Paul saw sin as a foul polluting reality, offensive to be something that you deeply desired to get rid of.

Now if sin is such a fearful and horrifying thing to the Apostle Paul, imagine what it is to God Himself who is utterly and totally holy.  If you'd like to know what God feels about sin, and how He reacts to it and how He describes it, all you need do is look at Romans chapter 3 and the passage we just read.  For in this passage more than any other single passage in the Scripture, we have the bringing together of the statements of God regarding the sin of man.  It is a composite divine definition and description of the sinfulness of man and his utter inability to do anything about it.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:19-20

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 13, Luke 8

Friday, October 12th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 11.

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:5-8.

⁵ But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) ⁶ Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? ⁷ Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” ⁸ Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved.

Paul began this chapter by answering the questions he knew they would ask after saying that the Jew's heritage, the Law and circumcision would not save them.  They wanted to know what the benefit was of being a Jew, of being God's chosen people.

The biggest benefit was the fact that they were given the very Word of God.  Having the Word did not save them, of course, but they possessed what would lead them to salvation if they bothered to read, study and understand it.  Which is also the only advantage to the church today - that is where the Word of God is being spoken and taught, leading the way to salvation through faith.

They also would argue that God was breaking His promise to the Jewish people.  And Paul declared unequivocally that that was not so.   God will keep His Word despite their unfaithfulness.  But He has postponed the fulfillment of the covenant, and it will happen, as Zechariah says, when they look upon the one they have pierced and mourn for Him as an only son.

That brings us to their third objection which is that God is glorified in spite of their sins.

MacArthur explains the argument this way....
 this was the heart and soul of the message of grace that in our sin God forgives us and gains glory because of His forgiveness....If our sin makes His holiness stand out by contrast, makes His righteousness stand out by contrast, then you're saying sin glorifies God and you have attacked the holy nature of God....The more wretched we are, the more lovely He looks. The more sinful we are, the more gracious He appears. The more faithless we are, the more faithful He will be. The more we lie, the more His truthfulness will be made clear. So, our motto for life is let us do evil that good may come.

Typical human reasoning (as Paul points out in the parenthesis) because man is always trying to justify his sin.  They had even accused Paul of this very thing (v8), that the gospel message of grace, mercy and forgiveness that he preached was a license to sin.  And some people really do abuse this reality.

But Paul once again vehemently denies this and says there definitely is sin and their definitely is righteousness and God will judge. And one of the very things He will judge is the attitude that says that I will sin because it glorifies God. Their condemnation is deserved.

all men are rendered guilty. All arguments are silenced. The pagan man, Paul finished him off in chapter 1. The moral man, in the first part of chapter 2. And the Jew in the last of chapter 2. And now he answers all his arguments. God's people have a great advantage, they have the Scriptures. God's promises are valid, the character of God demands it. God's purity is intact, the function of God's judgment and the evil sin of man reveals it. So he's not speaking against God...

God sets a whole nation of people before the tribunal, as it were, in Romans 2 and 3, the Jews. And he says all of your religious accoutrements, all of your religious activities, all of your religious artifacts, all of your religious ceremonies and customs and traditions add up to nothing if it isn't in your heart. Verse 29 of chapter 2, it's got to be in your heart. And I believe that is the single most important issue facing the church in the world today. Our message to people is simply this, you must know God intimately, personally through Christ in your own heart and, believe me, the churches of America and the religions of the world are jammed full of people who are counting on the system to be their salvation. And it is not...it is not. In fact, it will damn them to a deeper damnation because many of them sit in the place where they have the advantage of the Scripture and they reject it. If you are depending on anything, anything other than a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you're lost...you're lost. The only advantage you have in being in the church is the Scripture.

And that's why I tell people so often, if you're sitting some place in a church where they do not teach the Scripture, you've got no advantage at all. You might as well get out of there because that's all the church can offer you. It cannot redeem you by its organization or its ceremony. And the saddest example of wasted privilege was Israel. And the parallel is today, the people who sit in the church lost...lost. It's a crime against privilege and against opportunity.

J.A. Alexander...

"There is a time, we know not when, a point we know not where marks the destiny of men to glory or despair.

There is a line by us unseen that crosses every path, the hidden boundary between God's patience and His wrath.

To pass that limit is to die, to die is if by stealth, it does not quench the beaming eye nor pale the glow of health.

The conscience may be still at ease, the spirit light and gay, that which is pleasing still may please and care be thrust away.

O where is this mysterious born by which our path is crossed, beyond which God Himself hath sworn that he who goes is lost?

How far may we go on in sin, how long will God forbear, where does hope end and where begin the confines of despair?

An answer from the skies is sent, ye that from God depart, while it is called today repent, and harden not your heart."

He was calling us to an awareness that there's a line out there somewhere and you may cross it and not even know it, and it's the line between God's patience and His wrath and you've stepped over and you're lost. You can cross that so easily sitting in the church and rejecting the Christ the Scriptures teach. That was the folly of Israel and many fools have followed in their trade... 

only by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can you be redeemed. And that does not attack God's nature in any way. There is still advantage to being a Jew and being in the church, the Word of God. And God is still faithful to all of His covenants and promises and will fulfill them some day when hearts turn to Him. And because God triumphs over and receives glory in spite of your sin is no excuse for your sin. What you must do is follow the path of the Scripture to Christ, give Him your life.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:9-18

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 12:22-50

Thursday, October 11 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 8:1-13; Luke 7.

Today's scripture focus is Romans 3:1-4.

3 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? ² Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

³ What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? ⁴ Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:

“So that you may be proved right when you speak
    and prevail when you judge.”^[a]

Well!  This is not an easy bit of Scripture from which to draw meaning.  Thankfully, Mr. MacArthur has a sermon on these very four verses.  So he starts off this sermon by listing all the ways that the Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history.  Theirs is a sad saga of struggle, of war, captivity and death. They have been hated, persecuted, slandered, imprisoned, slaughtered and this repeatedly through their history.  

So this week we've been learning the following:

Bad news...bad news first then good news. And the bad news is that man is a sinner and man is condemned by God for his sin. That is the theme of chapters 1, 2 and 3. The good news begins in the middle of chapter 3 and stretches on really for the remainder of the epistle. But before you hear the good news, you have to understand the bad news, it's sort of like this, you can't take the cure until you realize you've got the disease.

And in chapter 1 he condemned the immoral, irreligious, pagan individual who just lives the wild and free and loose kind of life style with little regard for law and order in a moral way or God or anything else. 

But then in chapter 2 he began to talk about the moral man who is ethical, who may even be religious. And he shows how that man is condemned because by his morality and by his religion he cannot attain the perfect standard of God. And then the third category beginning in chapter 2 verse 17 was the Jew who not only was moral and religious but even had the right religion. And he says, first of all, you're condemned if your irreligious. Secondly, you can be condemned if you're even religious if you're depending on your religion to save you. And you can even be condemned if you have the right religion if you're still depending only on its form rather than the knowledge of God.

Paul was set upon by the Jewish people for the rest of his natural born life.  How dare you say that the Jewish people aren't saved by virtue of being God's chosen people?  How dare you say that our religious practices aren't good enough?  Paul knew exactly what arguments the Jewish people would bring against his message, because wasn't he the biggest Jewish religious nut of them all at one time?  He knew how they thought and how they would respond to what he had to say.

So, all that being said, what advantage is there in being a Jew?

If you go back in the Old Testament, you will read repeatedly of the tremendous and consistent blessing of God upon that people. You've been the ones who are adopted as God's special people. You've received the glory. What is that? The very Shekinah glory of God led them by day, led them by night, was in the midst of their holy places. You have received the covenants, Abrahamic, Davidic, Mosaic, Palestinian, all of those. You have been given the law. Yours has been the service of God through the priests and the prophets. You have received the promises, yours are the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. And yours is the Christ. Much much privilege.

They were marks of God's care, they were marks of God's concern. They were marks of God's love. They were aids to their deliverance from sin. They were instructions for the blessing of the Holy Spirit. God gave them all of these things and they just never really lived up to what they possessed. Great advantage, great privilege, great priority, great preeminence was given to the people of Israel but they wasted it. They had the privilege of proclaiming the true God. They had the privilege of revealing the Messiah. They had the privilege of blessing from God as they served faithfully. They had the privilege of a land. They had a privilege of an ultimate restoration and glory in the final Kingdom. They had all of these privileges.

In fact in Isaiah 5 God says, "What more could I have done for My people that I have not done?" What more could I have done? And the answer is nothing. They were privileged in so many ways but in disobedience they wasted the privilege. They're a little different than many people in the church today who have a great privilege but never commit their heart to Jesus Christ and tragically they waste...they waste inestimable privilege.

But let's go on to verse 2 and see the latter part. What advantage then has the Jew? Paul, you're really attacking the people of God with your theology. He says no, you have a great advantage in every way but chiefly...and here it comes...primarily because unto them were committed the words of God. Their greatest advantage simply their foremost advantage, their primary advantage was they received the Word of God. That's the greatest advantage anybody can have, isn't it? For where there's no knowledge people perish. But they had the knowledge.

The Scriptures were entrusted to the Jews. You would have thought that they would have absolutely cherished that, but as you read the Old Testament you find there were times in their history when they couldn't even find the Scripture, they didn't even know where it was. And when somebody would discover it and bring it out, it would be something that was a marvel because that which was lost for so long had finally been found.

God's authentic self‑revelation was committed as a trust to them to treasure and then to proclaim to the world. And the Word really says in verse 2, "Unto them were entrusted..." but they weren't trustworthy. William Calper(?) wrote, "They and they only amongst all mankind received the transcript of the eternal mind, were trusted with His own engraven laws and constituted guardians of His cause. Theirs were the prophets and theirs the priestly call, and theirs by birth the Savior of us all."

Anyone else feeling convicted about the part where he says that there were times in history where they didn't even know where the Word of God was?  Or what it said?  And then someone would find it and read it to the people, and OH, what amazement and joy!  What renewal of faith and desire for obedience!  And yet, how often in my 35 years have I ignored my Bible completely, forgetting what it has to teach me each and every time I read it?  Can you imagine any greater blessing and responsibility than being entrusted with the Word of God?  Do you feel ashamed, as I do, for allowing so many other things to overshadow and distract me from it?

I'm sorry, I know this is getting long, but there is a little bit more I want to include here on God keeping his promises.

So, shall the unbelief of the Jew make the faithfulness of God ineffective? What they're saying is this is God who is not going to grant salvation to His people based on their heritage, and their ceremonies, and so forth. If He doesn't then He's unfaithful. You are striking a blow at the faithfulness of God. One, you're saying He had nothing in mind when He chose us. And, two, you're saying His promises are meaningless.

Watch his answer in verse 5, or verse 4 rather, it says in the English "God forbid" but the Greek says me genoito, which is the strongest negative the Greek language knows. What it says simply in English is, "No, no, no, no, no way. Could never be, utterly impossible. Can't be." What can't be? God can't break His word, He can't break His promise. It's impossible. The unbelief of some does not bring to naught the faithfulness of God. And he just makes that statement...no, no, no, no, no, no. And he doesn't here go into explain how...listen to this...some day God is going to keep His covenants with Israel, He's going to do that. And don't you think for a minute He isn't. 

All God did was postpone their fulfillment until Israel finally gets their act together and believes. And Zechariah says some day they will look on Him whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as an only son. And in that day God will open a fountain of salvation to Israel. Their day is future. And by the way, that is Romans 9, 10 and 11, he'll get to that later. It will be postponed until faith comes.

In fact, he says...look at this in verse 4, I think it's interesting..."Let God be true and every man a liar." Listen. What does that mean? If every single person in the world said God is not true, He's still true. If every man in the world speaks evil about God, if every man in the world says God doesn't keep His Word, God is still true. God is true if every man in the world says He's not true. The integrity of God must be upheld.

I know the many people still believe that even though those of us who are not Jewish can be saved through faith and receive full inheritance as children of God, there are still blessings and promises to be fulfilled to the Jewish people, but I didn't really know to what they referred. I found this so interesting.  I cut a LOT out, so if you have further interest, I encourage you to read or listen to the full sermon.  The Advantage of Being Jewish - Part 1.

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  Romans 3:5-8.

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  Matthew 11.

Wednesday, October 10th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 5-7

Today's scripture focus is Romans 2:25-29

²⁵ Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. ²⁶ If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? ²⁷ The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

²⁸ A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. ²⁹ No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.

A direct continuation of yesterday's passage, the last sign of security that the Jews held onto was circumcision.  Circumcision was the unique mark of the Jew and was an indication that that child was set apart to that special covenant relationship with God.  It was very important.

MacArthur adds....
It was the sign of God's promise. It was the sign of God's blessing. It was the sign of God's protection and care and love but it didn't mean a thing if he didn't keep the law...

You want to know the truth of it? And this is the most interesting thought, I don't know if you ever thought of it, circumcision was a symbol of the fact that men were condemned, not that they were saved. Because if you were circumcised it said you were in the covenant and the covenant was that you had to keep the law. So it was a sign of your lostness, not your redemption. It was a constant reminder that you had to keep God's law, you were in the covenant. You had to keep God's law. And you couldn't keep God's law so you were lost.

[Circumcision] was an outward reminder of an inward responsibility.

In v26 Paul says that a Gentile who keeps the law of God is going to be included in the covenant blessing even if he isn't circumcised. And he's only reinforcing verse 25, circumcision doesn't mean anything. If you break the law, it isn't going to help you. And if you keep the law, it isn't necessary. The point being circumcision is not necessary. Everything depends on whether you keep the law. Everything depends on obedience....

So circumcision, mark this, has no inherent value. It has no efficacy. It has no power to redeem. It is only a symbol. And not a symbol that everything is okay but a symbol that everything is not okay because it reminds me that I'm obligated to keep the whole law. There is no security in that symbol. There is only insecurity because man can't keep the law whether he's circumcised or not.

And then v27 is really a tough one for them to take.  You know what that says? An obedient Gentile will be the judge of a disobedient Jew....The Gentile will not really assume the role of a judge, that's not the idea here, God is the judge. But the Gentile will assume the role of a witness for the prosecution. ....The obedience of an uncircumcised Gentile is proof of the responsibility of a circumcised Jew. 

MacArthur parallels circumcision in the OT to infant baptism now.  It's like an extension of the OT circumcision.  It's a mark of the covenant.

And in v28 -29 Paul confirms that it's not your physical heritage that's important, it's not your biological lineage that matters, what matters is your heart. A true Jew is not one outwardly, but inwardly. You need to be children of God spiritually, not physically.

He confirms that the sign of physical circumcision is not the issue.  We need to undergo a circumcision of the heart.
It is the cutting away of evil from the heart, it is the cutting away of the unclean from the heart. It is the renewal of the heart.

And lastly, he confirms that knowledge of the law, or the written code, is not the issue.  Having the Word of God in your spirit, in your soul, in your inner being, that is what counts.

A true Jew - a man who is a Jew inwardly in his heart, who keeps the covenant of God with his heart, who understands the spirit of obedience and not just the letter of the law - that man will receive praise, not from men, but from God.

Here's a portion of the prayer with which MacArthur ended his sermon...

Lord, I pray that if there's any one in this place tonight who has found themselves feeling comfortable because of what they know, or comfortable because of their heritage or comfortable because they have been baptized, that you'll destroy those securities because they're false and drive them to Christ who alone can change the heart, the inside.

Lord, we know that Paul's purpose was to show them that there was an inward heart attitude necessary that they on their own could never attain and thus to drive them to Christ who alone would give them that new heart by faith. Do the same, Father, in the hearts of any here who sense the frustration of having counted on false security, bring them to the point where they know they have no security and cast themselves upon Christ who secures them forever.

Amen.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:1-4

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 8:1-13, Luke 7

Tuesday, October 9th

Today's passage from the Chronological Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Matthew 12:1-21, Mark 3, Luke 6

Today's scripture focus is Romans 2:17-24

¹⁷ Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; ¹⁸ if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; ¹⁹ if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, ²⁰ an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— ²¹ you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? ²² You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

Paul was speaking, once again, to the falsely religious Jew, and he destroys their false security.  But it applies to us now just as much as it to them then.

The Jewish leaders thought they were secure in three things - their heritage as God's chosen people, in the law that they'd been given and in the sign of circumcision (tomorrow's passage).

The Jews thought they were secure in their heritage, just like some people now feel secure in their heritage - maybe they were raised in a religious home or went to church every Sunday or even had parents who were diligent in teaching them the gospel.  But heritage does not save us.

The self-righteous Jews thought they were secure in the law.  They knew the law of God, and even taught the law - but didn't practice it themselves.   They were supposed to be guides to the blind and a light in the darkness - and they thought they were.  But they were not.  They thought they were the ones to correct fools and train up new converts.  But they were not.  They were hypocrites.

MacArthur...
security does not come in what you know, it comes in what you do in response to what you know. In fact, again if you don't do what you know to do, you simply end up in a greater state of guilt.
They even twisted the law to suit their fancy.  For example - instead of committing adultery, they divorced their wives for no reason and then got married again.  Which was still committing adultery, but in their minds, they were justified. They were teaching something (not even always the right thing!), but they were not living it out. What good is it to teach something you don't live?  In v21 Paul confronts them and says the issue is not what you know, it's what you do; it's not what you teach, it's what you do.  And he sarcastically tells them maybe they should start teaching themselves.

They bragged about the law and then broke it, completely dishonoring God. All sin is sin against God and brings dishonor to Him.

There are numerous people today who go to church every week and claim to be Christians, but they don't live it.  They don't live it.  Some, very sadly, are even teachers and preachers, but they don't live it.  And when they claim Christ but live like an unbeliever, they bring dishonour to God and His name is blasphemed.  When He has to chasten those who claim to be His people He appears to be unfair, judgmental and impotent.  When those who claim to be His people do evil, it reflects upon His character.

If you think you're secure because of what you know or what you've taught, but you haven't lived it, not only are you not secure but you're not helping anybody else and you're certainly not enhancing the reputation of God....No, there's no security in what you know, you only fall into a place of greater condemnation if you don't live it. 

It's not your physical heritage that saves you, it's your heart that's important.  You need to be a person of God on the inside, not the outside.  You need to be a child of God spiritually, not physically.


Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 2:25-29

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Matthew 5-7