Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: You're onto something, Jeremiah. You got.
Yeah, they're relying on the law in some way to help them be justified and be righteous.
So they're relying on the law because they know it. They've been raised with it.
And Paul's kind of speaking against that. So my question, and Paul, we'll answer this question later, but I want to ask now, is the law good or bad?
Good.
Why?
Okay, you're saying it can be both. Can you explain?
Yeah, so you're kind of saying the same thing. So yes, it's good in itself.
A good thing can be abused.
That doesn't mean it's ever bad.
And so I think Paul is showing us that it's being abused. It's not the law that is bad, but it's how the Jews were using it and viewing it. The law to them kept them near to God, or it did do this. It kept them near to God until Christ came. It kept them kind of like guardrails from straying too far.
And even though they did and were exiled as a nation, it was supposed to keep them near until Christ came. But now that Christ has come, the use of the law is different. It shifts.
So the law was puffing them up with pride pretty much, which is the opposite of what it should have been doing for them. It should have been humbling them and pushing them to Christ instead of puffing them up.
So this can make us think, are there ways. So this is for you to think to yourself, are there ways that we pridefully elevate ourselves over other Christians like the Jewish Christians were doing to the Gentiles?
Are there any ways that we do this, elevating ourselves over other believers?
You know, this is not necessarily what Paul is arguing, but I think this is a legitimate way to apply this. So I thought of two.
You know, I've heard people maybe disparage poor or rural churches, maybe they have subpar bands, maybe mediocre preaching, maybe very old fashioned traditions.
And we should never disparage any church for differences like this.
Right. Because what's the most important, They worship the one true God, that they know the gospel. And those are the primary things we want to rejoice about.
And I've even heard people, this was maybe a big.
There's contention against myself when, when I was a younger adult, people disparaging churches like ours that are Baptist for lacking a sense of transcendence and liturgy.
And you know, I would say that that's maybe not a good criticism, but it's made a lot. Many people convert To Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and I have close friends that have done that.
But I think the problem is we can't disparage people because we think their church worship is not transcendent enough, it's not mysterious enough.
Such people that say this don't realize that first, the gospel being present, like we said, is the most important aspect, and second, that even churches like ours actually do have liturgies and a sense of transcendence, just not smells and bells and the illusion of transcendence. I think it's actually real.
So, you know, let's not be that guy from whatever angle this might be or something that you can think of. Don't disparage other traditions for silly reasons unless they're forsaking the gospel or a clear implication of the gospel.
I think this can be helpful for us now to keep the main thing. The main thing to elevate Christ doesn't mean we have to wash away all of our niche convictions, the things we believe the Bible to teach. But it does mean we don't want to make those things the main thing.
Alright, let's go to verses 19 and 20. Back into this argument about the Jews being sinful according to the law. Verse 19, he says, and if you are sure, let me back up just so we remember. He says, verse 18 or 17. If you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law. Now, verse 19. And if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth.
So what is this revealing about the Jews to whom Paul is writing?
What do they think of themselves?
Yeah, You know, you're. I'm sorry, what?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: That they're too good to be like other churches?
[00:05:55] Speaker A: I think you're onto something. They're definitely. There's arrogance here.
They're puffed up with knowledge.
They believe to know everything and to be teachers.
Then he continues, verse 21.
You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself while you preach against stealing? Do you steal?
You who say that one must not commit adultery? Do you commit adultery?
You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
Does this remind you of any other passage of Scripture? Does anything come to mind?
Kind of like the Ten Commandments talks about like. Yeah, yeah, that's true, yeah. Adultery, idolatry. Yeah, There are many answers, I think. Anything else?
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Own Eye first before you take off the speck in your brother's eye.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Remove the log from your own eye before the speck in your brother's eye. So this note of hypocrisy, you know, along with the Ten Commandments, we can even. Jesus Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:7. He kind of goes through some of these things.
So Jesus does say, like we said, to take the speck out of your own eye first. He also says in Matthew 23:3, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
This is what Paul is saying. Another passage which we've heard in church lately, James 1:22.
But be doers of the word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves.
And again, many such cases, like I said, there are many passages we could apply.
And the sin being described here is hypocrisy.
Why is hypocrisy common?
It's common in Scripture. It's probably still common today, but we see that theme a lot. Why do you think it comes up so much?
You got something? Maybe that we were
[00:08:34] Speaker C: so blind in our trespasses that we can't see, or maybe we just can't see anything.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: We're so. Can you say that again?
[00:08:47] Speaker C: Question again?
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Why do we see this theme of hypocrisy so often in Scripture?
[00:08:53] Speaker C: Oh, my bad.
Maybe the.
Maybe because there's so many hypocrites in this world.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think. Think so.
I mean, they can.
Yeah, I think you're right,
[00:09:16] Speaker C: because there's so many hypocrites in the world.
He's just interesting. Hypocrites.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think that's helpful.
I think in this passage and even in Scripture, we can assess that those who have an overemphasis or overemphasize obedience to the law, to every law, are not wrong to say that we must obey the law of Christ.
But their emphasis reveals that they're more concerned with the law than with living by faith.
They're more concerned with the law, and the hypocrisy comes in because they do not follow it.
So they're not actually living by faith and living according to the law and living according to righteousness, even though that's their obsession. That's the hypocrisy being pointed out here.
And so then Paul says in verse 23, you who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law.
You who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law.
So the law is good.
We don't ever want to think it's not good, that any encouragement to obedience when preached or from another Christian is a bad thing. That's not a good way to apply this. The law is good. Like we said earlier and Paul will later argue, so what is dishonoring to God if it's not the law? What is dishonoring to God?
Sin, disobedience, the hypocrisy to emphasize the law and yet not obey it.
They make the law their everything and yet they do not live up to it.
They're not coming through on what they claim to believe and do.
Which, you know, this actually reminds me of a friend.
I didn't know him yet, but I know him now.
A friend who I met at Super Summer. Do you guys know what Super Summer is?
Some of you guys do.
It was like a summer camp for students that are, want to be kind of leaders in their youth group.
And you know, we used to go until a few years ago.
And so when I went several years ago with a church called Eagle Heights, I was a team leader, which means I led like a small group of students from various churches.
And I stayed in one of the dorms at OBU because that's where it is.
And I had one of another team leader staying in the room. I had never met him and you know, so we were just rooming together and I guess to maybe prepare me for his routine, he told me he does push ups every night before bed, you know, and that's fine, I don't care. I think he was telling me to warn me that it might take a while.
Like a while. It kind of did take a while.
And he told me he does as many as possible every night and had recently done 300 without stopping.
He's a very normal looking man. Very normal looking man.
He had only been doing this routine for like a week. He said he had never done push ups before that.
And so I'm thinking this guy is, is he a push up prodigy?
I mean, that is. I told him, you know, that's unbelievable, right?
I don't. Can anybody do that? I mean, maybe someone can do that.
I mean that is insane.
So he got down to do his push ups and I'm going to show you I don't usually do like big things. Like I can't describe the push up.
It is funny enough, he got down and he did this.
You guys see that in the back? You guys see that? He did those?
If you don't believe me, I think I can Dig up the video I took with my phone while sitting on the bed like this because I just couldn't believe it.
And I thought, oh, I just met this guy a couple hours ago. Can I tell him that he has done no push ups?
I did not tell him.
I didn't have the heart, but I could not believe my eyes.
I just was trying not to laugh. So I decided it's time to take a shower. So I went down the hall and did that.
So he said that he was a push up master and yet he did not do one real push up.
That's sort of what the Jews are doing. They're great. They think we are the masters of the law and yet they're not keeping one law.
If you break one, you're guilty of breaking all of it. James 2:10 says, they break them all every single day. They're not actually coming through on what they say they can do.
Even if they think they are, they're not.
So that's what he's saying when he says, you who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking free law.
And then he says, verse 24, for as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
Okay, so he's referencing Scripture here in verse 24.
And can anybody say what this is from? I think it's Isaiah. Yeah, Isaiah.
Isaiah 52.
Can anyone explain what you think this Scripture reference is doing in the argument?
The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
Does anybody know? Oh yeah,
[00:15:17] Speaker B: he's saying that because they're not following the Bible or God as they are supposed to, the Gentiles assume that what the Jews are doing is not following God. So God's saying,
[00:15:30] Speaker A: yeah, that's right.
Now let's just walk through that to kind of see how we can arrive there.
What is it to blaspheme? God maybe heard the word blasphemy.
Yeah. You know what it means?
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that means like saying like, if you know them, you know this, but you don't act like you do. Like they say if you know them, you lie. Acting like you don't. Or is that cursing them?
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Well, you know, I think that could be an example of blaspheming, but we want to get a little more specific to define it.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Pretending to be someone you're not.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Pretending to be someone you're not. That's interesting.
I think that's an element. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yes, Yeah, I think that's kind of the specificity I'm looking for.
It's like to treat God with disrespect, contempt and irreverence.
And so that can happen in your actions, your hypocrisy, your words.
But yeah, it's just this intense disrespect, contempt and irreverence.
So the Jews doing that among the Gentiles? How are the Jews doing that among the gentiles? Well, like Elona was getting at, they're pretending to be something they're not. That they're saying, we represent God, we have the law. And yet you look at their lives and they're not living godly lives.
Even if they're living what we would look at, maybe say it's decent lives, they're still riddled with sin. They're still claiming that they are the examples instead of pointing to Christ, who is the actual example. So they're not being holy as the Lord is holy, which is the primary moral calling on them.
Now, the Bible is full of the theme of representing God on earth. This theme of representation or headship is sometimes what people say. So there's, here's some heads, these guys who were representative leaders. That's what a head is. Adam, representative mankind. Noah as well. Abraham, representative of the family of God. Moses represented Israel before God. David represented the nation as the king. Jesus represents all people in him, kind of as Adam did, does for all people, not in him.
So these are all representative heads of various biblical covenant.
Mankind bears God's image, represents him on earth. So that is our calling as humans.
Christ also dies as a representative substitute in the place of his people. So as he dies, he is in the place of every Christian atoning for their sins.
So therefore Israel as God's people should have represented him in a way fitting to his character. Yet they sinned constantly.
This way that they lived is what blasphemes God through their actions.
So instead of their living bringing honor to God in the watching world, they did the opposite.
So what does this teach us about the importance of our conduct? If you say that you're a believer, what does it say about your conduct, the way you live?
I think it tells us students that the way you live genuinely affects how people receive your testimony of the Lord.
It really does.
So think, what about your life might be hindering your testimony to the life changing grace of Jesus?
You know, when we want to communicate the gospel to someone, it's crucial that we explain it to them. We help them understand how it might Connect to their lives, their hearts, their minds.
And yet the way we live does communicate something about the gospel.
We have to live consistently.
And when we don't, seek repentance and ask for God's grace, because the way we live does communicate something to people around us.
So what do you do if you find that your life is hindering your testimony to the gospel?
And you know, it might be the case that many times each day you are hindering the testimony of the gospel?
Well, our response has to be to repent and to live by faith and to do that again and again, as often as we need to.
Even if it is the first time you've ever repented, understanding fully what that means, you can turn from sin and, and you can trust in Christ by His grace alone.
You can be forgiven, you can move forward. And even in this kind of life of repentance where we're trying to live holy as the Lord has called us to live, and we fail and we repent and we try again, and we fail and we repent and we try again, that cycle is showing something about the gospel, your humility and willingness to repent, your reliance on the grace of God communicates something crucial to people around you.
And as long as you live by faith, your testimony will be sure.
So in summary of this section, the Jews were hypocrites who loved the law, yet hated it with their actions. So they loved the law, they hated it with their actions. They are sinners just like the Gentiles, and we all need God's grace in order to be justified.
So we're going to continue to talk through this. He's got one more argument, especially for the Jews and their sinfulness in the rest of this chapter, which we'll talk about next week.
But do you have any questions about this passage?
All right, if you ever have questions throughout, you can ask me during, you can ask me afterward.
No big deal. All right, let's pray and then we can go head over.
Father, we thank you for the Word and even for your Law, in that it instructs us. It can show us the way to live. It can show us our need for a Savior. It can show us the righteousness of Christ who kept the law.
Lord, we pray that we would live lives that honor you, that we would turn from our sins. Trust in youn, seek to live by faith. And Lord, give us the grace to repent and return to youo again and again, as often as we need it. Lord, help our testimonies and witnesses before the world be kept pure. And clean that yout name would not be defamed.
Lord, we love youe, and we pray all of this in youn Son's name. Amen.
All right. Have a great.
