IF there is one thing more than another that Christianity has clearly proved to be necessary, it is that God requires reality from man. Reality, and not formality, is essential in the soul’s relations with God, now that the darkness is passing and that the true light is shining.
This is clearly brought out at the close of Romans 2. Whatever may have been the case before the cross, God deals with men now according to individual responsibility and not mere national privilege. The Jews as such were set apart from the nations, and were specially privileged by God; they were not slow to recognize this and to make their boast of these privileges in a carnal way.
“Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,
“And knowest His will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;
“And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
“An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.”
But the gospel announces that a day is coming when God shall judge the secrets of men. Be they Jew or Gentile, it matters not, each one in that day will have to give account of himself and of his own individual actions, and before that tribunal there is no respect of persons. If a Jew who has taught others in a self-righteous way, and has preached that this and that should not be done — if he, while boasting of the law, in fact broke the law, he dishonored God. Indeed the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles through them.
“Nor the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified” (vs. 13).
“For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision” (vs. 25).
In presence of the full revelation that God has made of Himself in Christ, and in view of the day of judgment, it is no longer a question of external privilege and national relationship, but of that conduct which God requires at the hand of each individual man, woman, and child.
On the other hand, if the uncircumcision, i.e., the Gentiles, keep the righteousness of the law, their uncircumcision would be counted for circumcision (vs. 26). The case is here supposed, it is not said that any such case was actually existing, for in truth “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight” (ch. 3:20). From Romans 8:44That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4), we learn that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, but this can only be done by the Christian. A Christian has a far higher standard than the law, and his practical conduct should far exceed the righteousness of the law. But the close of Romans teaches us that not outward form but inward reality is acceptable with God.
“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh:
“But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men but of God” (chap. 2:28,29).
How important is such a scripture in a day like this, when a religion of form and ceremony and external ritual is spreading itself through the world. God must have reality — reality in the soul’s confession of sin, reality in the soul’s faith in a personal Saviour, and reality in a consistent Christian conduct.
“What advantage then hath the Jew?” Much every way. God had communicated to them His living oracles.
Was this a small matter? The Scriptures put the soul in living contact with God. There is a power in the Word of God when applied by the Spirit to awaken the sinner’s conscience, and convert his soul. Does not Satan know this? Was he not the first one to attempt to rob man of God’s Word by the infidel question, “Hath God said?” (Gen. 3:11Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1)). And is it not Satan that to this day is seeking to undermine the authority of that Word by rationalism and the attacks of “Higher Criticism” falsely so-called? Satan knows, even if man forgets, that the entrance of that Word gives light and understanding (Psa. 119:130130The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. (Psalm 119:130)).
But that Word, as we have seen, has proved that all are guilty, Jews no less than Gentiles. No salvation can be had on the ground of works. The heathen were sunk in the lowest depths of degradation and corruption; the Jews were condemned by the very law that they boasted they possessed. God’s remedy through the gospel met man just there in his lost condition and proposed a way of justification exactly adapted to man’s need, and altogether worthy of God. Christ Jesus was set forth by God as the meeting-place between these sinners and Himself — a crucified Christ. How humbling to the pride of man!
What? Am I to put my faith and trust in a crucified Christ? “Where is boasting then?” (Rom. 3:2727Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. (Romans 3:27)). Ah, it is excluded. God will not have us to be boasting in ourselves. We may boast and glory in Christ — yes, the more the better — but in self, never. “By what law (or principle)?” What principle excludes boasting? Works? No, this would encourage boasting. What then excludes boasting? Why, the principle of faith — that very principle upon which the whole gospel rests:
But this principle of faith throws the door wide open to all. God cannot be bound down to one nation only in the matter of showing grace. He is God of the Gentiles as well as of the Jews. The Jews on the ground of law were condemned. By works of law they could not be justified, for that law had brought them in guilty. Christ’s precious blood was God’s provision for all who would believe. The circumcision, then, must submit to being justified on the principle of faith, which scattered to the winds all his religious boasting. This truth once established opened the way for the uncircumcision as well. The same God that justified the Jew by (or on the principle of) faith, also justified the Gentile through his faith.
Did this make void the law? By no means; it established it. The law demanded righteousness front man; man had none in himself for God; but God has provided a perfect righteousness for man in Christ. As another has said: “God does not efface the obligation of the law, according to which man is totally condemned; but while recognizing and affirming the justice of that condemnation, He glorifies Himself in grace by granting a divine righteousness to man when he had no human righteousness to present before God... Nothing ever put divine sanction on the law like the death of Christ, who bore its curse, but did not leave us under it. Faith does not, then, annul law; it fully establishes its authority. It shows man righteously condemned under it, and maintains the authority of the law in that condemnation, for it holds all who are under it to be under the curse.”
A. H. B.