The Counterfeit and the Covenant Text: Romans 2:17-29
Introduction: The Danger of the Badge
The Apostle Paul, in this letter to the Romans, has been using heavy artillery. He has already leveled the pagan world, showing how their rejection of God in creation leads to a debased mind and a culture of death. Now he turns his guns, and with surgical precision, he brings them to bear on the religious man, specifically the Jew. But we must not think this is merely an ancient debate. The principles here are timeless, because the temptation Paul addresses is the perennial temptation of the human heart: the temptation to substitute the badge of religion for the reality of regeneration.
The Jews had every reason to be proud of their heritage. They had the oracles of God, the covenants, the patriarchs, the law, and the promises. These were glorious gifts. But a gift can be turned into an idol. A privilege can be twisted into a false security. The very things that were meant to point them to God became the things they hid behind to protect themselves from God. They mistook possession of the law for obedience to the law. They confused the sign of the covenant, circumcision, with the reality of a covenant relationship. They were like a man who boasts that he has a library full of medical textbooks but refuses to take the medicine that would save his life.
This is a profound danger for us as well. We can call ourselves "Reformed," we can boast in our sound doctrine, we can have all the external markers of a faithful Christian, and yet our hearts can be a roiling mess of self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and secret sin. Paul is not attacking the law, or circumcision, or Jewish identity. He is attacking the reliance upon these things as a ground for righteousness before God. He is stripping away every false refuge, every hiding place, so that the Jew, and by extension every religious person, is left standing naked and guilty before a holy God, with nowhere to run except to the cross of Jesus Christ.
Paul's argument here is a brilliant and devastating cross-examination. He first lists the defendant's proud boasts, all of which are true, and then he shows how their own actions turn those boasts into a testimony against them. He demonstrates that religious privilege, when coupled with disobedience, does not lessen judgment but rather increases it.
The Text
But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law, through your transgression of the Law, do you dishonor God? For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written.
For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law, but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. So if the uncircumcised man observes the righteous requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the Law, will he not judge you who, through the letter of the Law and circumcision, are a transgressor of the Law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.
(Romans 2:17-29 LSB)
The Indictment of the Religious Man (vv. 17-24)
Paul begins by listing the privileges of the Jew, which form the basis of his boast.
"But if you bear the name “Jew” and rely upon the Law and boast in God, and know His will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth..." (Romans 2:17-20)
Paul grants every premise. Yes, you are a Jew, God's chosen people. Yes, you have the Law, a divine revelation. Yes, you know His will. You have been catechized. You have the "embodiment of knowledge and of the truth." You are the designated teachers for a world stumbling in darkness. Paul is not disputing their credentials. He is setting the stage. The higher the privilege, the greater the fall. The brighter the light you possess, the darker the hypocrisy if you do not walk in it.
Having established their high calling, he pivots with a series of devastating rhetorical questions that expose the chasm between their teaching and their practice.
"...you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?" (Romans 2:21-22)
The charge is rank hypocrisy. You have the truth, but you do not let the truth have you. You function as a signpost that points the way to a city you yourself refuse to enter. He picks three representative sins from the Ten Commandments. Stealing and adultery are straightforward. But what does he mean by "robbing temples"? This likely refers to the practice of trafficking in idols or materials plundered from pagan temples. Though they would never bow to an idol, they were not above making a profit from idolatry. They abhorred the theology of idols but were quite comfortable with the economics of it. It is a subtle form of worldliness, a spiritual compromise that says, "I will not participate in their worship, but I will gladly take their money." It is a failure to maintain a principled separation from the filth of the world.
This hypocrisy leads to the ultimate spiritual crime.
"You who boast in the Law, through your transgression of the Law, do you dishonor God? For “THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,” just as it is written." (Romans 2:23-24)
This is the tragic irony. The very people who were called to be a light to the nations, to display the wisdom and righteousness of God, have become a stumbling block. Their disobedience makes God look bad. The Gentiles look at the behavior of the Jews and conclude that their God must not be very powerful or righteous if this is how His people live. Paul is quoting Isaiah 52:5, showing that this is not a new problem. Israel's sin has always been a public relations disaster for the kingdom of God. This is a sobering word for the church. The world is watching us. When they see Christians who are greedy, sexually immoral, and hypocritical, they do not just dismiss us; they blaspheme our God.
The Sign and the Substance (vv. 25-29)
Paul now moves from the Law to the great sign of the covenant: circumcision. He shows that the outward sign is worthless without the inward reality it is meant to signify.
"For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law, but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision." (Romans 2:25)
The sign is only valuable when it points to the reality. A wedding ring has value because it signifies a covenant of faithfulness. If the man who wears it is a serial adulterer, the ring becomes a mockery, a piece of hypocritical jewelry. In the same way, circumcision was the sign of being set apart for God. But if a man's life is not set apart for God, the physical mark in his flesh is meaningless. He is functionally a Gentile, an outsider to the covenant promises, because his life denies what the sign affirms.
Paul then turns the argument on its head. What if a Gentile, who does not have the sign, lives out the righteousness the Law requires?
"So if the uncircumcised man observes the righteous requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the Law, will he not judge you who, through the letter of the Law and circumcision, are a transgressor of the Law?" (Romans 2:26-27)
This is a shocking reversal for his Jewish audience. Paul is saying that God is more interested in obedience from the heart than in ethnic identity and ritual observance. A Gentile who, by the work of God's grace on his heart, loves God and his neighbor is more of a covenant keeper than the circumcised Jew who is a lawbreaker. On the day of judgment, such a Gentile will stand as a witness against the privileged but disobedient Jew. God has always been after the heart.
This brings Paul to his ultimate conclusion, a redefinition of what it means to be a true Jew.
"For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God." (Romans 2:28-29)
Here is the heart of the matter. True covenant membership is not a matter of genetics or external ritual. It is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit on the human heart. Paul is drawing on a rich Old Testament theme. God had long promised this inward reality. "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn" (Deut. 10:16). "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live" (Deut. 30:6). This is the promise of the New Covenant.
The "circumcision of the heart" is regeneration. It is the cutting away of the dead, rebellious flesh of the heart and the impartation of a new, soft, obedient heart that loves God and desires to please Him. This is a work "by the Spirit, not by the letter." The letter of the law can command, but it cannot create. It can show you what to do, but it cannot give you the power to do it. Only the Holy Spirit can perform this spiritual surgery.
And notice the result. The one whose heart has been circumcised receives praise "not from men, but from God." The hypocrite lives for the praise of men. He wants to be seen as righteous, to have the reputation of a good Jew or a solid Christian. But the true Jew, the true Christian, is concerned only with the approval of God. He lives before an audience of One.
Conclusion: From Badge to Birth
What is the application for us? It is profoundly simple and deeply searching. We must examine ourselves to see whether we are relying on the badge or the birth. Are you relying on your baptism? Your church membership? Your Reformed theology? Your Christian upbringing? Your moral efforts?
These things are good gifts, just as the Law and circumcision were good gifts. But if you are resting in them for your standing before God, you have made them into idols. They are a counterfeit righteousness. Paul has systematically dismantled every human claim to righteousness, whether the pagan's ignorance or the Jew's privilege, to show that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
The only hope for the hypocritical Jew and the debauched Gentile is the same. It is to abandon all self-righteousness and to flee to the righteousness that is from God by faith. It is to cry out for the Spirit to perform the circumcision of the heart. It is to trust in the one true Jew, Jesus Christ, whose heart was perfectly circumcised in obedience, who fulfilled the whole law on our behalf, and who gives His Spirit to all who believe.
True Christianity is not about polishing the outside of the cup. It is about God smashing the old cup and giving you a new one, clean from the inside out. It is not about turning over a new leaf; it is about receiving a new life. Has this happened to you? Is your praise from men, or from God?