You Who Teach Another, Don’t You Teach Yourself?

17Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and glory in God, 18and know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, 19and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. 21You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? 22You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law? 24For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written. 25For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision? 27Won’t the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? 28For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; 29but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.

Moses received God’s command to go to Pharaoh. When he asked how he should answer if the children of Israel asked God’s name, God answered that he is I AM WHO I AM. To make Moses a leader of the people, God trained him himself for eighty years, because bringing Israel, enslaved for 430 years, out of Egypt required a great deal of experience. He made Moses live forty years as a prince and learn the culture and customs of Egypt, and then forty years as a shepherd in Midian and learn how the world and its people relate to one another. Moses, who as a prince had trusted in his own strength and killed an Egyptian, needed time, once that position was taken from him, to realize how weak and powerless he was. Having fled into the wilderness in fear of Pharaoh, Moses must have thought long about God, about himself, and about the people of Israel during his forty years tending sheep in Midian.

By making Moses live as a prince and then as a shepherd, God gave him eyes to see the world and a heart that cherishes life. The paths he had walked with the sheep turned out to be the road on which he led the people toward Canaan; here we see that nothing in the time and circumstances of God’s training is wasted. When the training was done, God judged that the time had come and commanded him to go to Egypt and lead the people out. Through the wisdom and experience gained in all his training, Moses had grown strong enough to stand against the mighty, cruel Pharaoh. His steadfast faith, which thundered at Pharaoh to let God’s people go, was possible because he knew God’s will precisely. In this way God receives glory for himself through the faith of his people. When they understand the word and live by it, God helps them overcome the world by faith.

Parents feel joy when they see their children living their lives well. In the same way, when God sees his people persevering in faith, he will consider how he can help them. What can weak human beings like us do to give glory to God? The way to glorify God is to know his will and obey it. That is why he gave the law to Moses, so that Israel could live rightly. The law was never given for the Jews to boast about, nor so that they could condemn and judge the Gentiles by it. Yet the Jews, because of their pride in being a specially chosen people, brought on themselves the misfortune of drifting away from God.

In giving the law, God was revealing what kind of God he is, and through it he was helping his people live more soundly and rightly. More than that, he gave it so that through the law and the prophets they would understand what the law demands and receive Christ, who atoned for their sins. But they did not see that the works of the law could not spare them God’s wrath, and in trying to keep the law perfectly they committed a greater sin.

Jeremiah 25:11

11This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

Those who kept the law as works and did not obey in faith were judged. Their judgment was some seventy years of suffering as captives in Babylon. Even through such hardship they did not understand; instead they boasted of their superiority, saying, “The Gentiles are fuel for the fires of hell.” Since they had received the law and were the chosen people, they thought it only natural to be saved, not as individuals, but by right as Abraham’s descendants. To be sure, God did intend to save the nations through Israel. But they only paraded the fact that they were a blessed people; blind to God’s true purpose, they grew proud. The Jews rested on the law and boasted of reading and memorizing Scripture, but they never grew to the point of knowing Jesus Christ.

Romans 2:19-20

19and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.

Paul rebuked the Jews, who had received God’s great love and still did not understand his will. If they believed they had received much from God, they should have striven to give back all the more; instead, they boasted only that knowledge and truth had been given form in the law, while living lives of sin. Paul’s words show that they despised the Gentiles so much that they provoked God to anger. Having received the word from God, they should have lived by it first and set an example for the Gentiles, but they mocked the Gentiles as blind and as those in darkness. The Jews were convinced that, because they had the knowledge and truth of the law, they could teach the foolish Gentiles as much as they liked. Having received so much grace from God, they fell into pride. When people have received abundant grace they ought to do better, yet this is how they sin, by falling into pride. Jesus called such people blind guides of the blind, and said that if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit. Even after hearing such fearful words, they still believed they were teachers and instructors.

We too need to think about this. To teach others, I must first know the word well and live by it. Yet people claim they are qualified to teach because they are older, or because they have studied a great deal. Teachers who pass on the knowledge of the world, and Sunday school teachers who teach the word, should both ask whether they truly know the high knowledge they hand on. Pastors, too, as they preach God’s word, must ask themselves whether they are truly worthy to preach his holy word, and whether they live by it while asking their people to live holy lives. If we think we are qualified to preach simply because we are teachers or pastors, God will rebuke us. We must seriously consider whether those who hear the word we preach today will grow spiritually. Teaching that is mere form only provokes the wrath of God, who sees it; true faith is putting into practice the word one has taught.

Paul sharply challenged the Jews reading his letter: “You who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law?” [Romans 2:21-23]

When Paul rebuked the idolatry of the people of Rome, the Jews had agreed with him, but when they heard that they were no different from them, they took offense. They had thought that they, who had the law, naturally had the right to teach the Gentiles, who did not, and they were angry because Paul told them they were committing the same sins. What Paul points to here is the Ten Commandments: though they knew they must not steal, they coveted what belonged to others in order to gather wealth. Records remain of rabbis who condemned the lewd conduct of pagan priestesses and then committed sexual sins themselves, and they show how corrupt these men had become. Because the rabbis taught others not to commit adultery while committing it themselves, the apostle Paul rebuked them as having no right to teach anyone. Even today we see pastors who have fallen into sexual sin still teaching the word. I do not know whether they think of it as a job, but they will surely pay the price of that sin.

People who act like this can commit such wicked sins because they forget how fearsome God is and think only of their own pleasure. In the Old Testament, whenever immorality and idolatry spread, God’s anger burned against Israel, and they suffered hardships from which they could not recover. Yet even after experiencing the work of the God who acts in wrath, these people do not fear him. The apostle Paul rebukes the Jews, asking whether they who abhor idols rob temples, and it is said that, absurdly enough, they stole well-made idols and sold them. A few of them stole idols and sold them to make money. They admitted the theft but consoled themselves that at least they had not worshiped the idols. Yet before God it is as if they had committed the same sin.

Deuteronomy 7:25

25You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourself, lest you be snared in it; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.

There were people who stole idols that had been carefully overlaid with gold and silver, and stripped off the gold and silver for themselves. Because God keeps his distance from those who commit such sins and hates them, he said that he would destroy them together with the idol worshipers. The Jews knew the law, yet they were sinning against the word to make money. Shamefully, these very people, whom God had rebuked as no different from idolaters, were teaching the word of God. Such a double life will surely bring God’s discipline.

Because we are ruled by our surroundings and weak to what our eyes see, such a sinful desire can seize us in a moment, so we must always be on our guard. An immature person finds it hard to overcome sexual temptation. A person weak in faith finds it hard to overcome the temptation of money. So we ought to admit these strong desires in ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit for help. Those who often face strong temptation need to know that such feelings can be readily driven off by a decision of faith that leans on the Holy Spirit. If we sin out of a moment’s desire, the pain of repenting will last far longer, so we must lean on the Holy Spirit and endure in faith.

Romans 2:24-25

24For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written. 25For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

When those who claim to keep the law steal, commit adultery, and rob temples, they break the law and defile the name of God. If, after committing such sins, they teach others in the church in Rome merely because they know the law, the Gentiles will not so much rebuke them as insult the God who called such people his chosen. At first the Gentiles would have looked with respect on the Jews, who boasted of the law and of God’s special calling and could recite the law without a stumble. But seeing how they lived, the Gentiles mocked instead the God who had chosen such people. The Jews themselves became the instruments by which God was blasphemed. Outwardly they acted holy, but their hypocrisy, in which words and deeds did not match, hid the glory of God and stood in the way of the gospel. Watching the Jews cry out that one must be holy while living detestable lives, people kept away from the church because of their double standard. Seeing those who should have spread the gospel living worse than the Gentiles, God must have grieved.

If they had not boasted of being God’s chosen people and of the privilege of receiving the law, they might have been rebuked less, even if, like the Gentiles, they offered little. But because, by their own account, they are a people who received God’s special grace, they will face greater wrath. We too, when we learn much of the Bible, can fall into the sin of judging those who know little of it. If we know much of the Bible, our words and deeds must match all the more, if only to glorify God’s name in proportion to what we know. If God’s people do not live wholly by faith, the world will mock and sneer not so much at the church, its pastors, and its members as at God, our Father. The lives of disobedient believers become the instrument by which God is reviled. We must know that one day God may rebuke the sins of his own people more severely than the sins of those who do not know him, and live each day for Jesus Christ.

Romans 2:25

25For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

In verses 25 to 29 the apostle Paul speaks of circumcision, the pride of the Jews. Because the Jews regard circumcision as the completion of salvation, Paul points out sharply how wrong that thinking is. In Genesis 17, God appeared to Abram when he was ninety-nine years old. He told him that he would make him the father of all nations and that kings of nations would come from him. And he promised to be the God of his descendants and to give them all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. Because God told them to practice circumcision as the sign that he would be their God, circumcision is, for the Jews, like the token of an everlasting blessing. They took being circumcised as proof that they were Abraham’s descendants and were saved within the promise, mistaking circumcision for a mark of salvation. But Paul declared that even if they were circumcised, if they did not live out the law their circumcision had become uncircumcision, and this must have shocked them.

In Galatians 5:3 Paul testifies again to every man who receives circumcision that he is a debtor to do the whole law. This means that circumcision has meaning only when it leads to Jesus Christ. Going to church means taking on the duty to know, believe, and proclaim Jesus Christ, and churchgoing has meaning only when we obey the word. Then in Galatians 5:4 he says that those who desire to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ and have fallen away from grace. This verse means that the law’s work is to make us realize, the harder we try to keep it, all 613 commandments, that human strength cannot keep it, and so to send us to Jesus Christ. But anyone who clings to the law to the end does not understand at all what the law demands, and so, Paul says, has not met Christ.

What meaning, then, can circumcision have for such a person? Paul rebuked them: if the uncircumcised fully keep the law, won’t they judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? If a Gentile believed in the atonement of Jesus Christ, who came according to God’s will and covenant, and kept faith, then in God’s sight that person has kept the law fully. Someone may trust only the letters written in the book of the law, insist they have done all the law requires, and claim to be saved because they are Abraham’s descendant; but in the eyes of those who have received Christ, that person has not kept the law fully. A Gentile who never received the law but understands God’s will, believes in Christ, and walks with the Holy Spirit is the one who has kept the law. This is so because, in the end, this is the core of what the law demands.

I hope you will consider who is the Christian: the one who is circumcised but does not live a Christian life, or the one who was never circumcised but lives out the words of Jesus Christ. Between someone who is baptized but lives as they please and someone who has not been baptized but lives a life of faith, thankful to Jesus Christ, which is the Christian? Of course, coming to church, confessing one’s faith, and being baptized are important. But what the apostle Paul is stressing here is that actually living by faith matters more than form. True faith does not seek recognition by clinging to some form; it shows God a life changed by the Holy Spirit.

Churches today claim that a display of formal worship, formal service, and formal faith is faith and salvation. They even condemn those who step outside that form as though they were going astray. But just as circumcision outward in the flesh is not true circumcision, a religion of mere form is not faith. Rather, the one reborn in the inner self is the Jew, and true circumcision is not received by the letter of the law but is the circumcision of the heart, received by the Spirit. To go to church and not obey the words of Jesus Christ is a deep contradiction. A believer knows the sacrifice of Jesus and is God’s special child, whom the Holy Spirit helps every day to enjoy full joy because of Jesus Christ. Just as circumcision does not bring salvation, going to church does not mean salvation is complete.

The people of God are under obligation to please him and to glorify him. When we live by the spiritual wisdom the Holy Spirit gives, God will be pleased. Who are we, that God should rejoice as he watches us live by faith? If we stop to ask that again, we can become humble. It is only right to keep God’s law with our whole life. But to live according to God’s will, we must believe that God’s Kingdom will come on this earth and that Jesus Christ will reign over it; only then can we hold fast to that faith. A Christian means one who believes in the holy Jesus Christ. As those who believe in the Christ who received God’s holy anointing, we must live holy lives, every moment worthy of the name Christian. We have been born again as new people, called to be God’s children, and specially protected by God’s Spirit. Should people so special and so holy envy a world wrapped in darkness and long to live in it?

God has great expectations of his people. Because he trusts that they will bring at least a little light to this dark world, he listens to the prayers of those who pray and goes ahead of them to help. May you never disappoint God, but fulfill the responsibility entrusted to you, receive grace that is wider and greater, and live a lovely life.