The Romance of Romans-Four

Chaper 3--cont'd

People who live in sin without being exposed to God's written law given through Moses, will be condemned without reference to it. However, those who live in sin having been exposed to the Mosaic law will be condemned on the basis of it. Possessing intellectual knowledge about the scriptures will never save anyone. Salvation is only found by personally embracing and submitting to whatever spiritual knowledge God has revealed to us. When Gentiles, who have never heard of the Mosaic law, live by the light of conscience within them, it proves that God has written his moral law on the hearts of all people. They instinctively know when they do right or wrong. God has specifically revealed to me that he has appointed a day when he will judge the secrets of men's hearts through the "grid" of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done. (Imagine some of the surprises we will have.) I assure you that after that day; no one will ever again point their finger at God and accuse him of being unjust!
Again I address you religious Jews. You claim that you have spiritual security by your knowledge of the Mosaic code, God is on your side, you know his will and you have a superior philosophy of life based on divine revelation. You are confident that you are the divinely chosen moral governors of the earth- guides to the spiritually blind, a light of truth in the midst of the world's dark deception, instructors to the foolish, teachers of the uninstructed and the ones entrusted with the scriptural blueprints of ultimate knowledge and truth.
You then who presume to instruct others, why don't you listen to your own words? You preach to others to not steal, but you are thieves yourselves. You condemn adultery in others, but you're guilty of it yourselves. You say you hate idolatry, but you put many things ahead of God himself. You claim to honor the commandments of scripture, but you dishonor their Author by violating them. Indeed, the Gentiles ridicule the precious name of the God of Israel because of you Israelites, just as the prophets of old have said.
Being Jewish has its advantages if you're not a religious hypocrite. Yet, if you are playing a religious game, do you think that God sees you as a true Jew? If a Gentile wholeheartedly embraces the truth God has revealed to him, isn't he more "Jewish" in God's sight than you, even though he hasn't embraced Jewish religious rites and customs? Indeed, such non-Jews, ethnically speaking, will end up judging you ethnic Jews who violate your own stated convictions. For true Jewishness is not a matter of ethnic origins, outward religious rites, or scriptural knowledge. True Jewishness is a matter of the heart..an inner "spiritual circumcision". It has to do with spiritual reality, not religious formality, and it causes a person to become a "God-pleaser" rather than a "man-pleaser".

Comments:

okay now! teaching doctrines like this out in the public square is what got paul into trouble with both gentiles and jews on a number of occasions. but, he truly lived out his last statement here about being a God-pleaser rather than a man-pleaser--as did all the apostles of the Christ. it takes some guts to be a real follower of Jesus.

Jesus came to reveal to us a faith that centers on the naked conditions of people's hearts in the eyes of God. i take a lot of comfort in this actually, although it does put the fear o' God into me at times. have you ever found people to be concerned about God's "fairness" in His ultimate judgement of people's souls? this passage helps me to relax my troubled mind about the justice of our Father in heaven--as though He really needed my help on this issue of His character!

this passage seems to open the door for the possibility that people can be "saved" in some rather mysterious ways. i have heard some remarkable stories told by missiologists about how the Almighty has sometimes gone ahead of His missionaries to unreached peoples and revealed His Son to them as the way of true salvation and...even showed them that the missionaries were on the way with His Book in hand to tell them more. indeed, there is no other Name on earth given to humanity whereby we can be saved. everyone who has and will be saved, has been saved by Jesus Christ--even Old Testament believers who could only anticipate His appearing. it's just that the Holy Spirit can and does sometimes circumvent the usual (and preferred) means of revealing the gospel through redeemed human ambassadors. the point is...we must make room in our theology of God's grace and mercy for the "cornelius"" out there whose prayers and almsgiving have risen to the Father as a memorial, the "wise men from the east" who are seeking the Christ and the "melchizedek's" hidden away in the earth who are "priests of God Most High" outside the context of the established faith. (people that are so postured only reveal the fact that the grace of God and the work of the Spirit has already been powerfully at work in their souls and...when they hear the story of Jesus, they gladly will receive it because the Spirit who has been at work in them will internally convince or "bear witness" to them of its reality.) i believe that these kinds of surprising accounts might have been in paul's mind when he stated that God will one day "judge the secrets of men's hearts through the "grid" of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done." i, and we all, can rest in that.

however, far from demotivating us from sharing the now "open revelation" of the good news of Jesus recorded in scripture, the reality of God's inscrutable justice should impel us all the more to pro-actively spread the message to the people of the world. the tragic fact is that most people aren't alright with God--they are trapped in their sins and spiritually lost and deceived--this is true of both the religious and the irreligious. apparently, most of the "secrets of men's hearts" are of the unholy type. (would you have wanted God to judge you on the basis of the secrets of your heart before you heard about and surrendered to the Person and Work of Jesus? not me!) however...we have the message entrusted to us that is the "very power of God" that can and does break through the powers of darkness that are blinding the minds and hearts of those who have not yet put their faith in Jesus the Christ. we owe them this opportunity.