Romans 2:17-20

The Jew And The Law Of God.

‘But if you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and glory (boast) in God, and know his will, and approve the things which are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth,'

Here we have an impressive list of claims. The Jew claimed that:

· He bore the name of ‘a Jew', which meant ‘praise' (Genesis 29:35). He thus saw himself as praised by God (Genesis 49:8), and as one of the covenant people. By the time of Jesus ‘Jew' had come to signify any Israelite.

· He rested on the Law.  His confidence lay in the fact of his possession of a God-given Law which shaped his opinions and guided his thoughts. Thus he considered that whilst he might not always succeed in observing it, the very fact that he was committed to it (in theory at least) would be sufficient.

· He gloried (or ‘boasted') in God.  He delighted in his knowledge of the one, true God in Whom he gloried or ‘boasted', this in contrast with a world which worshipped idols. He not only gloried in his heart, he boasted about his God in front of others. For this idea compare Jeremiah 9:24, ‘but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD Who exercises covenant love, judgment (justice) and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight.' Of course they missed Jeremiah's point which was that what they should glory in was a God Who delighted in love, justice and righteousness for ALL. He exercised them ‘in the earth'. Thus they would repeat Deuteronomy 6:5 every day, thinking that it made them special, and without even considering how far short they came of fulfilling it. They rather saw it as separating them off as God's special people. What they overlooked was that Jeremiah was talking about boasting in a God Who exercised ‘in the earth', not only covenant love, but also justice and righteousness, the concerns that Paul has in mind. He treated the whole world the same.

· He knew His will.  Through the Law he considered that he knew what the will of God was, in contrast with the philosophising and feeling in the dark of the Gentiles. His knowledge of God's will came from the Scriptures. Again he felt that this made him special. Yet he never considered that the Scriptures revealed that what God willed was for him to be wholly obedient to that will of God, and threatened curses if he was not (Deuteronomy 27:26).

· He approved things which were excellent, or alternately ‘the things which differ'. The same phrase occurs in Philippians 1:10, of the Philippian Christians, and was a result of their ‘knowledge and discernment'. Thus the Jew believed that the Law gave him the right perspective on God and the world so that he approved of what was most excellent, even if he did not quite live up to it. His intentions were good, even if he did not carry them out.

· He was instructed out of the Law.  He prided himself on the fact that his beliefs and his way of life rested on the God-given Law that he possessed, which was read out at the synagogue each week. This was how he knew God's will and knew what was excellent. And he learned it from experts.

· He was confident that he was a guide of the blind, a light to those in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, and a teacher of babes.  As a result of his knowledge of the Law he saw himself as a guide to the blind (compare John 9:41), a light to those who were in darkness (to Jews the Gentiles were in darkness, which was why the Servant of YHWH would be a light to the Gentiles - Isaiah 42:6; Isaiah 49:6), a corrector of the foolish (who themselves worshipped idols - Romans 1:22), and a teacher of babes (their responsibility to teach their children was a prime concern of the Law, e.g. Exodus 12:26; Deuteronomy 11:19, but here the ‘babes' were probably Gentiles looked at with some disdain).

· He had in the Law the very form of knowledge and of the truth.  Whereas others wavered and argued and debated, and had no certainty, he knew that in the Law he had ‘the very form of knowledge and of the truth', a structured revelation from God. He had it detailed in writing. It gave him a certainty which the world lacked. The problem was that he only selected the parts that suited him.

It will be noted from this that there is no mention of any recognition on their part of a need to be obedient. It was all about their opportunity to have knowledge. They considered that that knowledge would somehow result in their being excused in the day of Judgment. Paul will, however, point out their error. Knowledge of what was good was an excellent thing, but if it was not followed up with obedience then it became a heavy weight around the neck.

We can, however, see from this why the Jews had such false confidence in their position. Nor would Paul have denied much of this, although he clearly saw them as drawing the wrong conclusions from it. Indeed he was ready to concede the superiority of the Law to anything that the Gentiles possessed (they were after all the Christian Scriptures). But what he argued was that this put the Jews in a position of greater responsibility to actually obey the Law, rather than a lesser one, and what he was very much against was the idea that their privileges made them untouchable by judgment. He would have argued that to be enlightened was good, but only if it then resulted in living according to that enlightenment, something which the Jews did not do. Otherwise their knowledge could only condemn them for not responding to the light that they had. He will go on now to bring this out.