After that opening salvo of Romans 1:18-32, one thing would be sure: Paul’s fellow Jews would be saying, “Preach it, brother!” (For that matter, given the topic in Romans 1:18-32, a whole lot of Evangelicals share that very sentiment). After all, what Paul put forth was the standard Jewish view of the Gentile world. Every Jew knew that the Gentile world was wicked, senseless, violent, and perverted! But what Paul does next would shock his fellow Jews to the core, for in 2:1-29, Paul turns the tables on his fellow Jews, and essentially says, “Hey! You Jews are just as wicked!” And so yes, perhaps Christians today would do well to look into the mirror that is Romans 2:1-29 as well. It is to Paul’s second part of his argument that we now turn.
News Flash, You Jews! You’re Just as Bad as the Gentiles Are!
To be clear, what Paul has just argued in 1:18-32 is (a) the entire Gentile world is sinful, and (b) that all sinfulness deserves death. What Paul then does in 2:1-29, though is shocking to his fellow Jews (although it is clearly obvious): God is completely impartial when comes to sin. In other words, God will judge everyone for their sin, regardless of who they are. And it just so happens that Jews are just as sinful as Gentiles…so what do Jews deserve as well?
Now, we know that Paul is talking about the Gentile world in 1:18-32 for two reasons: (1) the reference to idolatry—the Jews of Paul’s day certainly were not idol-worshippers; and (2) Paul uses the 3rd person plural “they”—when Paul, a Jew, uses “they” and discusses idolatry, it is pretty clear he’s talking about Gentiles. But here in 2:1-29, Paul uses the 2nd person singular “you”—and later he makes it explicit in 2:17, when he says, “you who call yourself a Jew.”
Ah, Yes! Hypocrisy! It Gets You Every Time!
So here at the beginning of chapter 2, Paul addresses his fellow Jews and says something quite startling: “you are without excuse.” This is the very accusation he levied against Gentiles in 1:20; and so what Paul is doing it connecting Jewish sinfulness with Gentile sinfulness. The end result is going to be obvious: everyone is sinful and deserving of death! In 2:1-11 Paul, though, doesn’t just highlight Jewish sinfulness, but also Jewish hypocrisy. The Jews were very quick to condemn Gentile sinfulness, but then evidently were all too ready to overlook their own. (My, some things never change). Yet Paul won’t let them (or us) do that. In fact, he says that not only do his fellow Jews do the very things they condemn Gentiles of doing, but they have taken God’s kindness and mercy for granted. Thus, they are storing up wrath for themselves on coming day of wrath—again, Paul is tying Jewish sinfulness with that of Gentiles. The very wrath of God that is being revealed in the Gentile world (1:18), is being stored up for the Jews as well because of their continued sinfulness (2:5).
Simply put, Paul is saying:
- God’s wrath is being revealed (present tense) in the pagan world of his day;
- God’s wrath is being stored up for the Jews for the coming day of wrath (future tense)
Paul’s point in 2:1-11 is simple: God will give everyone what they deserve. Tribulation and distress will come upon both Jews and Gentiles who practice evil, and glory, honor, and peace will come upon both Jews and Gentiles who do good. Simple point: God does not show any favoritism.
In 2:12-16, Paul then drives home the point that, despite the fact that the Jews have the Torah, both Jews and Gentiles are still nevertheless in the same boat, because the plain fact is that Jews don’t keep the Torah. What Paul says can be laid out in the following chart:
JEWS… GENTILES…
Are sinful Are sinful
Have Torah Don’t have Torah
Some don’t keep Torah Some keep Torah
Torah and the New Covenant, and the Coming Day of the Lord
Now Paul is not saying that either Jews or Gentiles are capable of perfectly keeping the Torah. The key to what Paul is saying is found in 2:15, when he talks about the Torah being written on one’s heart. He is alluding to Jeremiah 31:31-33, when Jeremiah looked forward to the day when God would establish a New Covenant, one that wasn’t written on stone tablets (and therefore could be broken), but was written on human hearts—and that could only be a work of the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah 31:31-33, when combined with Joel 2:28-32, where God says a day will come when He would pour out His Spirit on all flesh, provide the fundamental eschatological worldview of Paul and the early Church.
The Jews were looking forward to the coming Day of the Lord, when God would send His Messiah, pour out His Spirit, vindicate His people Israel, and write His New Covenant on their hearts. What Paul and the early Church (which was essentially a “fulfilled-Judaism” movement) declared was that the Day of the Lord had happened, but with a twist: God had sent His Messiah, Jesus, who bore the sins of the world, suffered crucifixion, and then defeated death by the power of the Holy Spirit at his resurrection; God had then, in fact, begun to pour out His Spirit on all flesh—this happened at Pentecost, and had continued among both Jews and Gentiles who put their faith in Christ; therefore, this required a re-definition of Israel, for the Holy Spirit was “writing the Torah” on the hearts of Jews and Gentiles alike—true Israel were those people who had accepted Christ and had experienced the out-pouring work of the Holy Spirit. So, by that little phrase in 2:15, in which Paul said Gentiles had the Torah “written on their hearts,” Paul made a revolutionary claim: Gentiles who experienced the Holy Spirit were part of true Israel, the people of God.
Ethnicity is Irrelevant in the Kingdom of God
From this claim came another shocking claim that Paul has been making: ethnicity is irrelevant when it comes to salvation and righteousness—the Jews, by virtue of being Jewish, do not get some kind of “sin-waiver” from God. This is what Paul drives home in 2:17-24. This section attacks Jewish sinfulness and hypocrisy in the same way 1:18-32 attacked Gentile sinfulness. And Paul’s point is simple: having Torah means nothing, because those who have Torah (i.e. the Jews) DO NOT KEEP Torah! In fact, according to 2:21-23, they actually find ways to get around the Torah! This kind of behavior, Paul says, dishonors God—for Jews who boast about the Torah, but then turn around and break it every chance they get, actually blaspheme God’s Name to the Gentile world. Simply put, they give God a bad reputation.
The Circumcision of the Heart
With this in mind, Paul picks up on the issue of circumcision in 2:25-29—for circumcision was commanded in the Torah as a way to distinguish who was part of the people of God. And so, the term “circumcision” pretty much acts as a shorthand way to refer to the Torah as a whole. So what does Paul say? He says simply that circumcision only has value if you actually keep the Torah. But if you don’t keep the Torah, then all you’ve got is odd-looking cut on your genitals! It is utterly irrelevant when it comes to righteousness. Therefore, not only can uncircumcised Gentiles do righteousness, but circumcised Jews can not do righteousness. The circumcision in the flesh counts for nothing; the only circumcision that counts is the circumcision of the heart.
Paul here is alluding to Deuteronomy 10:16, where Moses implored the Israelites to circumcise their hearts and to stop being stubborn and hostile to God. Of course, it is impossible for any human being to circumcise his own heart; that can only be a work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, what Paul is saying is it is the circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit that is the true identity marker of the people of God, not the Old Testament circumcision of the flesh.
This gets to the shocking heart of the Gospel. Paul states in 2:29 that a true Jew is one whose heart has been circumcised by the Holy Spirit, not one who has been circumcised in the flesh by according to the specific command in the Mosaic Torah. Thus true Israel, the true People of God, are those from all nations who have had their hearts circumcised by the Holy Spirit. This, as we will see, is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, in which God said that He would create a great nation out of Abraham (the nation of Israel), and that through that nation all nations would be blessed. God had worked through Israel to bring about Jesus the Messiah, and the Messiah had sent the Holy Spirit to be poured out on all flesh. Paul is saying that now all nations are experiencing that blessing promised in the Abrahamic covenant.
