But if *thou* art named a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast in God,
Paul has already taken up the Gentiles and proved them guilty. Now he turns to the man with the best religious credentials — a name, a law, and God to boast in — and asks whether any of it will hold when God judges the heart.
This verse opens a new section. Until now Paul has aimed the charge elsewhere. Here he turns to the man who carries the religious name — and says who really carries it.
In Romans 2:17 the apostle begins definitely with a Jew, insisting on the same truth, but the opposite of what he had said of the Gentile. A Jew who boasted of the law and broke it was as bad as the man who had none; the Gentiles blasphemed the name of God because of them. He alone was a Jew who was one inwardly; whose heart was circumcised in spirit, not in letter; whose praise came not from men, but from God.
The privileges themselves were real, and the list is a long one.
Then come the proofs of what man is. First the Gentiles, and then from Romans 2:17 the Jew, with his privileges: the law, circumcision, yes, the very words of God given to him. So we see "None is righteous, no, not one." The very law, which was the boast of the Jew, is that which condemned him.
Older translations open the verse with "Behold." Commentators say the true reading is "But if," and the verse belongs with the judgment Paul has just described.
God will judge the Gentile by conscience, the Jew by law, in the day when God judges the secrets of the heart, according to Paul's gospel. God will show no favour to the circumcised... He will have realities. The judgment spoken of here reaches the secrets of the heart. It is not outward and earthly. "But if" — for that is the true reading, and not "behold" in Romans 2:17.
The law was a real gift. The mistake was what he did with it. (The ESV reads "rely on the law"; the older wording quoted here reads "rest in the law.")
He made, however, one great mistake. He treated the law as something in which he could boast, and so it fed his pride. Says the Apostle, "you... rest in the law and boast in God." He did not realise that the law was not given to him as something to rest in, but as something to act as a test.
He used the same law in two opposite ways.
True, he had the form of knowledge and truth in the law, but it all worked like a two-edged sword. He was so busy turning its sharp edge against other people that he missed how it applied to himself. For others he treated it as a standard — a plumb-line or spirit level. For himself he thought it a personal ornament, a feather to stick in his cap. Do not be surprised that he did this, because it is just what we all do naturally. We take pride in our privileges and forget the responsibilities that come with them.
Boasting in God sounds like the best thing a person could do. Here it goes wrong.
The Jew — the favoured, privileged Jew — sinned grievously in this way. Romans 2 convicted him on this ground. His separation from the nations came from God. He should have used it to witness to God's holiness in a corrupt world that had turned against Him. Instead he used it as a chance to exalt himself. He boasted in God and in the law; but he dishonoured God by breaking the law.
Romans does not leave the reader here.
One view of the first five chapters of the Epistle to the Romans sees them as the leading of a soul from a false joy in God in 2:17 to a true joy in God in 5:11. The false joy is all brought to nothing. In its place comes justification by faith and the love of God, so that "we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:11).
Commentators apply the same words to religious people today.
We have only to read these verses to see how exactly they describe the religious man, whether Jew or professing Christian. Change the name Jew to Christian, and law to Bible, and we have an exact description of the Christian profession. The professing Christian boasts that he is called a Christian and not a pagan. He boasts that he has the Bible and knows the true God. He boasts that the Bible teaches him what is right.
- Name. From this verse on, Paul puts the man with the religious name on trial. The name was never a defence.
- Rest. God gave the law as a test, not a resting place. Leaning on it was resting where no rest was possible.
- Boast. God set them apart to witness to His holiness. They used the privilege to exalt themselves instead.
- Reality. God judges the secrets of the heart. He will have realities, and no outward name covers what is inside.
- Replacement. The false joy in God here gives way to the true joy in God of Romans 5:11, through justification by faith.
and knowest the will, and discerningly approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;
Paul has been pressing the conscience of the pagan world, and now he turns to the Jew, who holds a revelation from God and can tell right from wrong because of it. Does knowing God's will, and being able to judge what is best, make a man right with God?
From verse 17 onward the argument shifts. Paul stops speaking to humanity in general and takes up the man with real, God-given advantages — including the trained judgment this verse describes.
The apostle now takes another step in his appeal to conscience. He speaks next to the Jew, and no longer groups him with the Gentile only. Did the Jew value himself on his unique place among men? Did he value himself on holding a revelation from God, on the true God as his God, on the knowledge of His will, and on his resulting ability to test the things that differ and so decide for the more excellent? Grant that it was all true. How did the Jew then stand? The greater the privilege, the less excusable he was, if he proved unfaithful to the light he had and as bad as the heathen he despised.
The verse sits inside a rising list of boasts. The last of them is that his light came from a written revelation, not from hearsay.
To show what the religious Jew is responsible for, the Apostle lists the advantages the Jew has and boasts in. The Jew takes his stand on being a privileged Jew, set apart from the Gentiles. Next he rests on having a divinely given law. Then he boasts that he has the knowledge of the true God. Further, he boasts that he knows the will of God, and that he can approve the things that are excellent, because the law has taught him… He also has the form of knowledge and of the truth, embodied in the law. For the light he has, he does not depend on tradition passed by word of mouth.
The advantages were genuine. The problem was how the man held them: as a measure of his standing, not as a call to obey.
The Jew with his knowledge of the will of God did no better than the moralist among the Gentiles. He was very far from being an open rebel. Yet he completely misunderstood his own condition, and so he misunderstood the character of that law on which he "rested" — where no true rest was possible. He owned God and His law, but not with a heart subject enough to give Him the obedience due. He held them instead as things that raised his position above all other men… In fact, he had the form of knowledge and of the truth as the law gave it; but the breath of life was absent from the form.
Paul does not deny the privileges. He turns them around, so that the very thing the man leaned on becomes the measure of his failure.
If he had a conscience, he had to admit that he was more guilty than the Gentile. If he had none, his lack of feeling would not make his sin and folly any less obvious to all who fear God and judge people rightly. On his own showing, his boasted knowledge of the law brought him no saving power. Whatever fuel it gave to his arrogant misuse of it in contempt of others, it saved nothing in himself.
The verse is not a piece of ancient history. Swap two words and the portrait is current.
These verses describe the religious man exactly, whether Jew or professing Christian. Change the name Jew to Christian, and law to Bible, and we have an exact description of the Christian profession. The professing Christian boasts that people call him a Christian and not a heathen. He boasts that he has the Bible and the knowledge of the true God. The Bible teaches him what is right, so he can send out missionaries to teach the heathen.
Believers are meant to know God's will too. They stand on different ground when they do.
We see, then, how important it is to prove what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Then, being "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding," we may "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him" (Col. 1:9). Setting this aside is what brought condemnation on the religious boaster of Romans 2:18… He belonged to Israel and to law; we belong to Christ and to grace… "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God," said the Lord (John 7:17).
- Privilege. The verse names real, God-given advantages: he knows God's will, and he can judge what is best. Both came from Scripture, not from hearsay.
- Posture. He held those advantages as a mark of superiority, not as a call to obey. The form of knowledge was there, but "the breath of life was absent from the form."
- Powerlessness. Knowledge of the law brought no saving power to the man who had it, however much it fed his contempt for others.
- Reversal. The ground of the boast becomes the measure of the guilt. Greater light means less excuse, not more safety.
- Present. Change "Jew" to "Christian" and "law" to "Bible" and the portrait still fits. The cure is not to know less of His will, but to know it on the ground of Christ and grace.
and hast confidence that thou thyself art a leader of the blind, a light of those who [are] in darkness,
Paul has just exposed the nations who never had God's law. Now he turns to the people who did, and lists back to them the titles they were proud of. The verse raises one question: does being sure you can lead others put you right with God?
The list of advantages is not a compliment. It is a set-up:
Did the Jew value himself on his unique place among men, on his possession of a divine revelation, on the true God as his God, and on the knowledge of His will? Did he assume a conscious superiority to his Gentile neighbours? He was confident that he stood on ground that let him look down on the wisest of other nations as merely blind, and in the dark, and foolish, and babies. They lacked that embodiment of knowledge and truth which the law gave him. Suppose all this was so. How was it with the Jew in fact? The greater the privilege, the less excusable if he was unfaithful to the light he had and as bad as the heathen he despised.
Each phrase needs someone underneath it: someone blind, someone in the dark, someone foolish.
So too he gloried in God, as the One who had made the Jew the storehouse of all the light and knowledge in the world. He owned God and His law, but not with a heart in subjection to render Him the obedience due. He owned them as things that added to the loftiness of his position compared with all other men. For him the Gentiles were just the blind, walking in darkness, foolish as undeveloped babies. The Jew was the full treasury of all that the Gentile lacked.
These titles were not made up. God had truly given this nation the light. But the description and the reality did not match:
The nation and its people should truly have been what they prided themselves on being — a light to those who were in darkness (Rom. 2:19). But it was otherwise. The light within them was darkness. And where that was so, how great was that darkness!
The sharpest irony came when the true light arrived. Those who claimed to lead the blind could not see:
They were not only in darkness — they loved it. They were not only blind, but angry with the One who would have healed them. The Lord had come so that those who do not see might see. But the Jews refused to admit any such thing and gloried in themselves... they were so infatuated, so under the power of the enemy who blinds the minds of the unbelieving (2 Cor. 4:4), that they did more than claim to see for themselves. They claimed to be guides to the blind and lights to those in darkness (Rom. 2:19).
The law gave a real form of knowledge and truth. But a form can be exact and still do nothing inside a person:
The law was like a schoolmaster who hands the same code of rules to every pupil — very firm, very clear and well printed. Yet he offers them no help at all in putting those rules into effect. Grace teaches in a far more effective way. Grace is just as clear about everything it commands, and it sets an even higher standard than the law demanded. But it adds one thing: it works IN us.
Paul does not argue with the list. He turns it into questions:
You have been boasting of teaching others — do you teach yourself? What about your practice? You preach to others that they should not steal: do you steal? ... What about God? You boast in the knowledge of God; do you honour God?
This is not about one nation only. Swap two words and the portrait fits us:
Change the name Jew to Christian, and law to Bible, and we have an exact description of the christian profession. The professing Christian boasts that people call him a Christian and not a heathen. He boasts that he has the Bible and the knowledge of the true God. The Bible teaches him what is right, so he is able to send out missionaries to instruct the heathen.
The advantages are real gifts. The danger is what people do with them:
How presumptuous man can be! He takes the advantages and privileges God kindly gave him and turns them into occasions of self-exaltation and of belittling others — like those "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt" (Luke 18:9).
- Gift. God gave the light. He made this people the storehouse of the knowledge the world lacked.
- Twist. The gift became a measuring stick. Every title in the verse needs someone blind, dark, foolish or childish underneath it.
- Form. They held a form of knowledge and truth. It was clear as a rulebook, but gave no help to obey it. Only grace works inside a person.
- Test. Paul answers the boast with questions, not arguments: do you teach yourself, do you honour God?
- Mirror. Change "Jew" to "Christian" and "law" to "Bible", and the description still fits. Privilege becomes self-exaltation and contempt for others.
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law
The verse ends a list of titles the Jew claimed: guide, light, instructor, teacher. They all rest on one thing. He holds the shape of knowledge and truth in the law. Paul lets the claim stand. Then he asks, in the next verse, whether the man who teaches everyone else has ever taught himself.
Verses 17-20 list what the religious Jew boasted in. One writer sets out where these titles came from:
To show the responsibilities of the religious Jew, the Apostle describes the advantages which belong to the Jew, and in which he boasts. Being a Jew, and having the law, he assumes to guide the blind, to give light to those in darkness, to instruct the foolish and teach the ignorant. Moreover, he has the form of knowledge, and of the truth, embodied in the law. He is not dependent, for the light that he has, upon mere tradition handed down from mouth to mouth.
"Foolish" and "children" are how this man saw everyone outside his own nation. Where the ESV says "embodiment", older translations read "form": real shape, but no life inside it:
The Gentiles were for him only the blind, walking in darkness, foolish as undeveloped babes. The Jew was the full treasury of everything the Gentile lacked. In fact, he had the form of knowledge and of the truth as the law gave it. But the breath of life was absent from the form. In his morals he contradicted his own teaching, glorying in law and breaking it. So the light he held only showed his misdeeds more plainly. It dishonoured the name of his God among the Gentiles, as He Himself had declared through His prophets (Isa. 52:5).
The law really did teach. That is why "teacher" and "instructor" were fair titles. But its teaching stopped where the pupil needed help:
There was of course teaching of a sort under the law, for the Jew had "the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law" (Rom. 2:20). It consisted in the clear laying down of what was right and what was wrong. The law was like a schoolmaster who hands the same code of rules to every pupil. The rules are very strict, very clear and well printed. Yet he offers his pupils no help at all in putting those rules into effect. Grace teaches in a far more effective way. Grace is just as clear about everything it commands. The standard it sets is even higher than the law demanded. But there is this in addition: it works IN us.
A standard can be pointed two ways. The same writer shows which way this man pointed his:
True, he had the form of knowledge and truth in the law, but it all acted as a two-edged sword. He had been so busy turning its keen edge against other people that he entirely overlooked its application to himself. He viewed it for others as a standard — as a plumb-line or spirit level — but for himself he thought it a personal adornment, a feather to be stuck in his cap.
Nicodemus was a religious teacher who came to Jesus by night. One writer reads that visit through this phrase:
Was he not one of those who, by profession, rested in the law, and found in it a form of knowledge and truth? But coming to Jesus by night is not the fruit of resting in the law, nor in anything else. It had not brought him out of nature's darkness. Could the form of truth and knowledge in the law satisfy a soul when it thought of God, or found itself in spirit before Him? … Jesus pierces the layers of profession, and finds at the bottom only a man.
Swap two words and the description lands closer to home:
We have only to read these verses to see how exactly they describe the religious man, whether Jew or professing Christian. Change the name Jew to Christian, and law to Bible, and we have an exact description of the Christian profession. The professing Christian boasts that people call him a Christian, and that he is not a heathen. He boasts that he has the Bible and the knowledge of the true God. The Bible instructs him as to what is right, so he is able to send out missionaries to instruct the heathen.
- Form — The law really did hold the shape of knowledge and truth. The problem was never the law. The breath of life was missing from the form.
- Form as boast — Real privilege became a list of titles: guide, light, instructor, teacher. The man filed everyone else away as blind, dark and foolish.
- Form without help — The law posted the rules and gave no help in keeping them. Grace sets an even higher standard, and works inside the person.
- Form under test — The man used the standard as a measuring line for others and as an ornament for himself. So the light he held only exposed him.
- Form pierced — Christ looks past the titles and finds only a man. Change "Jew" to "Christian" and "law" to "Bible", and the portrait still fits.
thou then that teachest another, dost thou not teach thyself? thou that preachest not to steal, dost thou steal?
Paul has just listed what the Jew was proud of: the law, the knowledge of God's will, and the right to teach others (vv. 17–20). Now he turns each of those advantages into a question. The first one lands closest to home: the man who teaches everyone else has never taught himself.
Verse 21 turns the argument round. Everything the Jew held as a credential now becomes the measure that tests him.
The test is applied to him from verse 21 to the end of the chapter. He comes out of it with his reputation utterly shattered. True, he had the form of knowledge and truth in the law, but it all acted as a two-edged sword. He was so busy turning its sharp edge against other people that he overlooked how it applied to himself. For others he treated the law as a standard, a measuring line. For himself he treated it as an ornament, a feather to stick in his cap.
The same knowledge that made him confident leaves him without defence.
By his own account, the law he boasted of knowing brought him no saving power. It gave him fuel only for misusing it arrogantly, in contempt of others. Who, then, dishonoured God more openly?
Paul is not opening a discussion. He shapes each question so that only one honest answer is left.
Each question in verses 21, 22 and 23 is like a sword-thrust. To each implied accusation the Jew had to plead guilty. He had the law truly, but by breaking it he dishonoured God, whose law it was. Their guilt was so open that Gentiles looked at the Jews and blasphemed God, the very God they represented.
The questions move through one area of the religious man's life after another.
Addressing the religious man, the Apostle asks, as it were, What about yourself? You have been boasting of teaching others, do you teach yourself? What about your practice? You preach to others that they should not steal: Do you steal? … What about God? You boast in the knowledge of God; Do you honour God?
Teaching puts a man on record as knowing what is right.
Like the Gentiles, he had a conscience that condemned evil in others. But he also had the Word of God, and he taught others about good and evil. Yet he did not keep what he gloried in teaching. This is the most plainly manifested guilt of all. For to teach the truth is more than to know it; so that the responsibility of the teacher is a grave one indeed.
God does not forget the words a teacher aims at other people.
God is not mocked. He remembers words said lightly — words we might press on others, with little or no thought of our own need. "You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself?" Judgment grows heavier in every way if teaching does not flow from love and in the fear of God.
The verse states a rule that Christ Himself kept before He ever confronted evil in anyone else.
What is the first thing any man ought to do before he speaks to another? Speak to himself. Do not speak to another and carry a careless heart yourself. "While you preach against stealing, do you steal?" … Now, before the Lord goes to attack Satan, He must withstand Satan. He lets him see that he has nothing in Him. If I take part in evil, I cannot rebuke it.
The warning does not stop at formal teachers. It reaches every believer who judges someone else.
We may try to apply it to other people. We sit in judgment on others — on our fellow Christians, or perhaps on the men of the world. But "you who teach others, do you not teach yourself?" The sword of the Spirit does not cut only those whose faults we can see. It cuts us as well.
The questions do not stop with the Jew who first heard them.
Change the name Jew to Christian, and law to Bible, and we have an exact description of the Christian profession. The professing Christian boasts that he is called a Christian and is not a pagan. He has the Bible and the knowledge of the true God. The Bible teaches him what is right, so he can send out missionaries to instruct those who do not know God.
- Privilege — the advantages of verses 17–20 now become the standard that measures the man who holds them.
- Test — every question from verse 21 forces a guilty plea. Knowing the law gave no power to keep it.
- Weight — to teach truth is more than to know it, so the teacher's failure is the plainest guilt of all.
- Order — speak to yourself before you speak to another; a man taking part in an evil cannot rebuke it.
- Reality — a religious name cannot cover a life that contradicts it. The claim may tower over the pagan world while the practice is no better.
thou that sayest [man should] not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?
Paul is talking to a religious man who is sure he can teach everyone else. Two questions here turn that teaching back on him: he condemns adultery and hates idols in public, but what does he do in private?
The verse belongs to a short run of questions, and each one is aimed at a specific claim the man has made. Read as a group, they do not invite discussion; they force an admission.
Each question in verses 21, 22 and 23 is like a sword-thrust. To each implied accusation the Jew had to plead guilty. He had the law truly, but by breaking it he dishonoured God, whose law it was.
The questions are not random. They move through separate areas of life: what a man does, who he keeps company with, and how he treats what is holy. The last question here reads "do you rob temples," while older translations have "do you commit sacrilege." One writer ties it to how this man deals with the idol-worshipping world he says he despises.
(3) What about the world? You claim to approve the things that are better: do you form unholy alliances with the world? Do you commit adultery? (4) What about the idol-worshipping nations? You claim to hate idols; do you commit sacrilege?
Another writer groups the same charges under three headings, and names the worst damage they do.
Here the Jew stands accused before God of three things: 1. evil work (v. 21); 2. evil walk, or the company he keeps; and 3. evil worship (v. 22). On every one of them he gives the finest teaching. And this brings the most serious issue right to the front: of all people, it was the Jew who had brought direct dishonour on the Name of God.
The man is not accused of ignorance. He knows the law well enough to quote it at other people. That is where his knowledge stops.
It is true that he had the form of knowledge and truth in the law, but it all worked like a two-edged sword. He was so busy turning its sharp edge against other people that he missed how it applied to himself. For others he treated the law as a measuring tool — a plumb line or a spirit level. For himself he treated it as a decoration, a feather to stick in his cap.
Teaching others does not lower the standard. It raises it.
To teach the truth is more than to know it, so the teacher carries a serious responsibility. James has good reason to tell us: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1).
His advantages do not soften the charge. Set beside his own conduct, they make it worse.
If he had a conscience, he had to admit he was more guilty than the Gentile. If he had none, his deadness to it did not make his sin and folly any less obvious to everyone who fears God and judges people rightly. By his own account, his boasted knowledge of the law brought him no saving power. It only gave him fuel for using the law arrogantly to look down on others.
Paul is writing about one people here, but one writer takes the questions wider. Anyone who lectures others while doing the same thing stands in the same place.
The man who preaches morals, whether Jew or Gentile, may in his proud and corrupt heart condemn all this in his neighbour. But God does not let him off for that, if he does the same things he condemns in others… So whether it was the Jew teaching the law or the Gentile teaching morals, God proves both guilty of doing the very things they condemn in others. And He knows the heart.
One writer names the root of it in a single line.
We pride ourselves on our privileges and forget the responsibilities that go with them.
The questions expose something the outward religion could never fix. Behind them stands a settled principle about what God accepts.
An outward religious form cannot cover a life that contradicts the very spirit of that form. On the other side, where that spirit is really there, God will approve it even though the outward form is missing — and it may be missing through no fault of the person. He will have, and must have, what is real in everything that concerns people's relationship with Himself.
- Profession. The man denounces adultery and hates idols out loud. What he says is not in question — only whether he lives it.
- Practice. The questions test work, walk and worship: what he does, who he joins, and how he treats what belongs to God.
- Contradiction. He used the law as a measuring line for others and as an ornament for himself, and had to plead guilty to every question.
- Damage. The contradiction hit God's Name. Of all people, it was the man who held the law who brought dishonour on it.
- Reality. An outward form cannot cover a life that denies it. God must have what is real, and He approves it even where the form is missing.
thou who boastest in law, dost thou by transgression of the law dishonour God?
Paul has spent this chapter taking apart the confidence of the religious man. Here the argument turns sharpest. The very law he is proud of becomes the thing that condemns him. The question is not whether he has the law, but what his life does to the reputation of the God who gave it.
One mistake lies underneath the boasting. He misread what the law was for.
He made one great mistake. He treated the law as something in which he could boast, and so it fed his pride. The apostle says, "you… rest in the law and boast in God." He did not realise this. The law was not given to him as something to rest in, but as something to test him.
The same writer shows the double standard:
True, he had the outward form of knowledge and truth in the law, but it all worked like a two-edged sword. He kept turning its sharp edge against other people, and overlooked how it applied to himself. For others he treated it as a standard — a plumb-line or a spirit level. For himself he thought it a personal ornament, a feather to stick in his cap. We should not be surprised at this, because it is just what we all do naturally. We take pride in our privileges and forget the responsibilities that come with them.
The verse sits inside a run of questions that moves inward until it reaches God Himself.
The apostle tests the claims of the religious man with searching questions. (1) Speaking to the religious man, the apostle asks, in effect, What about yourself? You have been boasting of teaching others — do you teach yourself? (2) What about your practice? You preach to others that they should not steal — do you steal? (3) What about the world? You claim to approve the things that are more excellent — do you form unholy alliances with the world? Do you commit adultery? (4) What about the heathen? You claim to hate idols — do you rob temples? (5) What about the law and the Bible? You boast in the law — do you obey it? (6) What about God? You boast in the knowledge of God — do you honour God?
The charge rests on one word. Commentators note where else Scripture uses it:
Transgression of the law does occur in Scripture — for instance, in Romans 2:23, translated "breaking the law" in the English Bible. "Transgression" in the same sense, without "the law," appears in Romans 4:15, Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 2:2 and Hebrews 9:15.
The word separates two kinds of guilt:
Transgression is therefore a grave and serious offence. It is the sin of the servant who knows his master's will and yet disobeys, and for that reason deserves many blows. The sin of Israel was transgression, in contrast to the sin of the Gentiles, which is lawlessness.
The people who knew God best did the most damage to His name.
Of all people, it was the Jew who had brought direct dishonour on the name of God. His high claims were nothing more or less than hypocrisy. They gave the Gentiles reason to ridicule and despise the God such people claimed to worship. The Gentiles took their impression of the God of Israel from the conduct of Israel.
Israel's separation from the nations had a purpose:
The separation of the Jew from the nations came from God. But he did not use it as a witness to the holiness of God in a world full of corruption. Instead, he took the opportunity to exalt himself by it. He boasted in God and in the law, but he dishonoured God by breaking the law.
God is not satisfied by the outward form on its own.
A religious form cannot cover a life that contradicts its own spirit. On the other hand, where that spirit is truly present, God will approve it even when the form is missing, which may be unavoidable. He will and must have reality in everything that concerns people in their relation to Himself.
The same charge falls on Christians today:
The apostle is speaking of the Jew, but what he says is equally true of the professing Christian. What has mainly stirred unbelievers to blaspheme is the corruption and the degraded practice of those who profess to be Christians. Consistent Christian living would not by itself have made people Christians. But if Christians lived up to what they profess, people would have no reason to blaspheme God.
- Boast — God gave the law as a test, not as a resting place or an ornament. Treating it as a source of pride is the first mistake.
- Blindness — He used the law as a measuring line for others and a decoration for himself. He never turned its edge on his own life.
- Breaking — His sin is transgression: a servant who knows the master's will and disobeys. That is a heavier charge than the lawlessness of those who never had the rule.
- Blasphemy — The dishonour does not stop with him. Onlookers judge God by the conduct of those who carry His name.
- Bedrock — God will have reality. An outward form cannot cover a life that contradicts it, and the warning reaches anyone who names Christ today.
For the name of God is blasphemed on your account among the nations, according as it is written.
This verse is the sting at the end of Paul's questions to the religious man who has the law, teaches it, and breaks it. The failure is not his alone. God's own name takes the damage among the nations watching His people.
The whole passage turns the Jew's advantage into his accusation. Everything he leaned on becomes the evidence against him.
The Jew was more favoured than the Gentile. No other nation had the light in which he boasted, but he was the most unfaithful to it. He was quite able to lay down the law, but he did not keep the law; this was his condemnation. He was no better practically than the Gentile. He had many privileges, but he was unfaithful to them all. He had broken the law in which he boasted, and by doing so he had dishonoured God; and through him the name of God had been blasphemed among the Gentiles.
Note where the reproach lands. The nations were not judging individuals; they were judging the God whose people these were.
Each question in verses 21, 22 and 23 is like a sword-thrust. To each implied accusation the Jew had to plead guilty. He had the law truly, but by breaking it he dishonoured God, whose law it was. Indeed, their guilt was so flagrant that the Gentiles looked at the Jews and blasphemed God, whose representatives they were.
Paul does not invent the charge. He quotes it from Israel's own prophets, so the verdict already stood in books the Jew honoured.
By his own account, his boasted knowledge of the law brought him no saving power, whatever fuel it gave for his arrogant use of it to look down on others. Who, then, more clearly dishonoured God? Was it not written even more strongly in their own prophets? What did Isaiah say (Isa. 52:5)? And what did Ezekiel say (Ezek. 36:20-23)?
The irony is sharp. The Gentiles the Jew looked down on end up as witnesses for God.
But there is more. Jewish Scripture itself has already answered the Jew's plea and thrown out his claim: "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written" (Ezek. 36:20-23). So the Gentiles are already God's witnesses, to the shame of the Jew who is under Law. To claim anything on the ground of legal obedience is therefore useless. It is also a lie against God, whose own word records their sin.
The failure has a measure: what Israel was set apart to be.
Israel does not appear to have been meant as a missionary people, eagerly spreading what they knew of the one true God. But they were meant to be a model people. Their laws were perfect, and they had received them straight from Heaven. So all their ways should have pleased God and rebuked the nations around them. But they were untrue to their privileged place of separation to God, the one thing that could have made them a blessing to the world. They copied the evil ways of their neighbours instead.
The verse does not stop with the Jew. It reaches anyone whose profession outruns his practice.
The Apostle is speaking of the Jew; but what he says is equally true of the professing Christian. The corruptions and degraded practices of professing Christendom have provoked most of the blasphemies of unbelievers. Men would not have become Christians just because Christians lived consistently. But if Christians lived up to what they profess, men would have no reason to blaspheme God.
That works out in very ordinary things — the job, the household, the way a person keeps his word.
When a Christian is careless, sloppy, or unprincipled in the way he acts, he does serious damage to the cause of Christ and dishonours His holy name. On the other hand, being diligent, earnest, punctual and faithful brings glory to that Name.
This verse is not the end of the road. It is one step in a case that shuts every mouth.
The very law they trusted was their righteous accuser. It had already said of them, "None is righteous, no, not one." And the apostle says, "We know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God."
And the dishonour is not the last word about that Name. God takes the matter into His own hands.
Israel had defiled the land and profaned the name of Jehovah, and Jehovah had scattered them among the nations. Even in this His name would be profaned by their vileness, because the nations would say, "These are the people of Jehovah, and they have gone out of His land." But Jehovah would step in and sanctify His great name before the nations. He would bring His people back from among them and cleanse them from all their filthiness, taking away the hardness of their hearts and giving them His Spirit.
- The Name entrusted. God gave Israel the law and set them apart to be a model people whose ways would rebuke the nations around them.
- The Name dishonoured. They copied their neighbours instead. The nations watched God's representatives and blamed God.
- The Name witnessed against. The charge comes from Isaiah and Ezekiel. The Jew's own Scriptures convict him, and the Gentiles he looked down on become God's witnesses.
- The Name and us. The same charge falls on Christian profession. What provokes blasphemy is not argument but the gap between what Christians claim and how they live.
- The Name vindicated. The argument ends with every mouth stopped and the whole world accountable. Yet God says He will sanctify His great name Himself, cleansing His people and giving them His Spirit.