It was late at night. There had been delay after delay after delay in flying out of Cleveland, and our plane finally landed about midnight. I, along with a handful of weary travelers, boarded the shuttle to head to the airport. And on that shuttle, there was a very pleasant and a very talkative young black lady. She had just arrived from Tel Aviv. She was here to visit her family in America. She was from America. But she was a Jewish citizen of Israel. We made our way to the hotel and we were checking in and by this time it was about 1 a.m. or so. As I turned and we parted ways at the check-in desk, I looked over at her and said, Laila Tov, which is Hebrew for good night, and her noting the early hour of the morning, looked back at me and said, Boker Tov, which means good morning. Now, how was it that this pleasant young black lady from America happened to be a Jew from Israel? Now, that raises the question of Jewish identity. Who is a Jew? Now, on the surface, that seems quite a simple and straightforward question, but its external simplicity belies its internal complexity, because there are a lot of factors that go into answering that question, and how you answer that question often depends upon your religious affiliation. For example, very conservative and Orthodox Jewish people trace Jewish identity through the mother's line. It's a matrilineal descent. That's holocaustic law. And if your mother was Jewish, then you are Jewish. Some, however, will follow a line of patrilineal descent. So if your father was Jewish and you are observant, then you can be considered a Jew. Of course, you can convert to Judaism. This is a complicated, detailed process that requires rabbinical oversight so that you can be considered a true Jew. This young black lady had received Jewish citizenship in Israel because her father was Jewish. She was able to prove that and it qualified her to be considered a Jew. This idea of true Jewish identity is Paul's focus here at the end of Romans 2. Paul here is weaving an argument that's very tight. It's intricate. There are no wasted words. Paul, as a theologian and a logician, uses every term with specificity and for purpose, including this little word, for. with which verse 25 begins. It notes a logical connection with the verses that preceded. And Paul in verses 17 through 24 had been dealing with this issue of religious hypocrisy. There were Jewish people that he knew he had been one of them himself who had held to the law, who had taught the law, who had instructed others who thought they were superior because they had the law. And yet, they did not live by the law. They broke it, and as a result, dishonored God. Now, as a Jew, Paul, writing these words, anticipates how one of his fellow countrymen would react to such an indictment. You condemn me for hypocrisy? How dare you? How can you condemn me? I have been circumcised. Circumcision was certainly a key component of Jewish identity. It was not the end-all and be-all of Jewish identity. There were Jewish women as well. There were other important and significant Jewish rites and observances. But we could say that circumcision was a sine qua non of Judaism. Without it, without a man receiving circumcision, he would not have been considered a Jew. This defining feature of Judaism is what's under focus here in these verses. When confronted with this issue of religious hypocrisy in verses 17 through 24, circumcision was, as Robert Haldane put it, the Jews' last retreat. But here's the question I want to pose to you this evening. Was it a safe retreat? Paul has a great deal to say about circumcision in his letters. He's never derogatory of the rite, but he knew that it had to be placed in its proper religious, spiritual, and theological context. Because ritual without reality can never save. Ritual without reality can never save. That's the undergirding principle that Paul confronts us with in these closing verses of the chapter. Physical circumcision, he will argue, is valuable. It has value if it reflects the physical circumcision or rather the spiritual circumcision of the heart. Let me get that right. We're in Pittsburgh, not Philadelphia. I'm getting everything backwards tonight. Physical circumcision has value if it reflects the spiritual circumcision of the heart. Now, Paul is going to argue that by making two affirmations. The first you will find in verses 25 through 27. Circumcision is valuable if it leads to faithful obedience. Obedience has been the issue, hasn't it? If you go back in chapter 2 to verse 13, Paul says, it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Circumcision is valuable if it leads you to what it signifies. Now, to appreciate all of this, we have to understand something about the nature and the significance of circumcision. We've got to put this in its context. What is circumcision? Well, many a Sunday school teacher has faced the wide-eyed stares of youngsters when plunging into this topic, but let's make it as simple and straightforward as we can. Circumcision was a sign that God gave to Abraham, whereby removing a piece of flesh from a man's body, a mark was placed upon him, that he was in covenant with God, that God had given certain promises to him and the rite of circumcision symbolized those promises and served as God's stamp of guarantee that those promises were true and would be true for the individual who believed. There was significant symbolism to circumcision by the removal of a piece of flesh. God was telling Abraham and his descendants through him that you need to have your flesh dealt with if you were to be right with God. This removal of the flesh symbolized the new birth, regeneration, being born again or born from above and all that goes with that. cleansing from sin, renewal, and union with Christ. Take just a moment and turn over in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 2, where Paul spells this out for us. Colossians chapter 2, verses 11 and 12. Paul says, "...in Him, in Christ, also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." Paul's referring here to spiritual circumcision. but it's the putting off of the flesh or a new birth that comes to us as a result of the circumcision of Christ. Now, what's he referring to here? This rite that Jesus went through as a eight-day-old boy in Jerusalem when Mary and Joseph took him up to the temple? No, no, no, no. The circumcision of Christ here is the cutting off of Christ on the cross. And it's the cutting off of Christ on the cross through his death that brings us spiritual renewal. That's what circumcision was all about. That's what it symbolized. And that's been replaced, Paul says in verse 12, now by baptism. So there's this putting off of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been what? Buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. So circumcision symbolizes the new birth, regeneration, and it now has been replaced by baptism. It was a sign and seal of God's covenant with Abraham. Turn over just one page this time to Romans chapter 4, where Paul in discussing Abraham's faith and his justification writes, he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith when he was yet uncircumcised. You see that? He received the sign which was circumcision as a seal. That what? Seal that righteousness comes by faith. Circumcision stood for that and guaranteed that the only way a person could be made right with God, the only way a person could be justified and declared right in the presence of God was through faith alone. Now that's the significance of circumcision. And Paul says it is a privilege. There is an advantage to circumcision if you obey the law. Now, what kind of obedience is Paul talking about here in verse 25? Is he talking about perfect obedience? If you never break the law, if you do everything just right, you dot every I, you cross every T, you've got every jot and tittle in place, and you are a good boy or girl, then yes, circumcision, that'll be okay for you. No, no, no, this is not Paul's argument at all. When he refers here to obeying the law, it's the same kind of obedience he had in mind back in verse 13. Those who obey the law are never perfect in their obedience. But because they know God, because they love God, they want to follow God. They want to do God's will. They want to please God and obey His precepts. They have faith in God and they want to demonstrate that faith by their works. That's what Paul is talking about here. And he says, if you have faith in God, and you're living out that faith in your day-to-day life, then what you're doing is you're demonstrating the reality that circumcision symbolized. You're fulfilling in your life what the rite pictured for you. Circumcision did not automatically save anyone. We know that. We know that from the Old Testament, don't we? Ishmael was circumcised. Esau was circumcised. They received the sign and seal, but they did not believe the promises of God. So just having the right does not automatically make you right with God. But if you were a believing Jew, if you followed through on what this meant for you, then what Paul is saying in essence here is you've got a head start on discipleship. Because you were raised with the Word of God. You were raised with the catechism, as it were. You were taught the stories of redemptive history. You recited the promises and the covenants. They were yours. And you knew what it meant to live for the Lord. But what if you don't keep the law? Well, he confronts this at the end of verse 25. If you break the law, if you do not live up to what circumcision symbolized, if you're not a believing Jew, then your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. In essence, you're no better off than the Gentiles. They didn't have the privilege of this sign. They didn't have the privilege of the law. They weren't raised with the Word of God. And if you aren't going to take advantage of your privileges and live them out by faith, you're no better off than if you had no privileges at all. And so that really raises a question for us, doesn't it? How are we using our spiritual privileges? Many of us were raised in Christian homes, and if not raised in them, we now have established Christian homes ourselves. We've been baptized. We're part of a church that takes the Word of God seriously. We read and sing and pray the Word of God. We endeavor to preach and to teach the Word of God, live it out. We have all kinds of privileges. Are we taking advantage of them? Do we rest on them and say, Hey, you know, I was baptized. I've got a church membership certificate filed away somewhere at home. I'm okay. I'm okay. Or do we make good use of our privileges? We note that in the New Testament, baptism has replaced circumcision as the sign of the covenant, Colossians 2, that we read earlier. In our Westminster Larger Catechism, we are encouraged in question 167 to take advantage of the privilege of our baptism and to improve it. I remember one time talking about this in my former church, improving your baptism, and I had someone so confused. How could I ever improve what God did? I don't get this. This doesn't make sense to me. Well, improve in 17th century English meant to make good use of, take advantage of. How do you do that with the spiritual privileges you've been given? Well, how is your baptism to be improved? The catechism answers the needful but much neglected duty of taking advantage, if you will, of your baptism is to be performed by us all our life long. Especially in the time of temptation and when we are present at the administration of it to others by serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it and of the ends for which Christ instituted it. And it goes on. It's quite a lengthy answer. The point here is that you and I have been given much. And God has not given these spiritual benefits for us to just sit back and rest on them, but by faith to take advantage of them and seek to improve them, if you will, so that we grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus. But if verse 25 ends with dealing with the unbelieving Jew, Paul in verses 26 and 27 switches to discuss the believing Gentile. Let's read that once again, verse 26. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law." Now here Paul's discussing someone who did not grow up with the same advantages as their Jewish counterpart in verse 25. This would be true of many in Rome to whom he was writing. They didn't have circumcision. They didn't grow up with the Bible stories of Abraham and Moses and David. There was no family prayer, no religious observance. We might say this describes people who grew up outside of a Christian home. They weren't baptized as children. They didn't attend Sunday school. They didn't memorize the catechism. They weren't taken to church. They didn't have these advantages, and yet this individual believes. By God's grace, by the work of the Spirit, he has come to be an obeyer of the law because he has faith in God. He keeps the precepts of the law. Well, Paul says his uncircumcision in the flesh will be regarded as circumcision. Why? Because he has experienced the reality of heart change. He's experienced what circumcision symbolizes. Its reality is already a part of his life. And so, as a result, he condemns the one who had the privileges and did not take advantage of them. This reminds me of Jesus' encounter with the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 12. Listen to this. Now listen, verse 41. The men of Nineveh. Were the men of Nineveh circumcised? No. Were they raised with the stories of Abraham and Moses and David? No. Were they catechized on the Torah? No. Did their parents pray with them the Shema? No. They had none of these advantages. And yet, the men of Nineveh, Jesus says, will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. Why? Because they repented. They gave evidence of a circumcised heart. They repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, someone greater than Jonah is here. But not only will the men of Nineveh rise up, so will the queen of Sheba. Now, we know she wasn't circumcised. We know she wasn't raised in a Jewish home. She wasn't catechized with the Torah. And yet she came and she listened to the wisdom of Solomon and she will rise up in judgment with this generation and condemn it. For she came from the ends of the earth. She heard the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. What's Paul emphasizing? At the end of the day, what matters most is what happens in the heart that changes the life that leads to God and to Christ and to a life of faithful obedience. He isn't discarding the ritual of circumcision. He never denigrates it, just as he wouldn't denigrate baptism. But we cannot substitute the sign for the substance. And we cannot neglect the privileges that we have and simply rest on them as though ritual without reality will be enough to get us through. Now there can only be this kind of heart obedience that the believing Gentile evidences here if there is, and here's Paul's second statement, that there is a true circumcision that occurs deep in the heart. Paul goes to the heart of the matter in verses 28 and 29, which is the heart. Look again at those verses. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly." Now let me stop here. When Paul uses the term Jew in this context, he's referring to the believer, the true seed of Abraham, the one who follows in the footsteps of Father Abraham and his faith. That's the kind of Jew he's talking about. And he says, no one is that kind of Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. An individual can't claim to be a Jew based merely on externals. That's not enough for true Jewish identity. Listen again to Jesus in his confrontation with the Jews in John chapter 8. They answered him in verse 39, Abraham is our father. We've been circumcised. Jesus said, if you're Abraham's children, you'd be doing the works that Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You're doing the works your father did. They say we're not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I'm here. I came not of my own account, but he sent me. And it was for this reason that just a few verses later they picked up stones to kill him. Because he made God his father and he condemned them for relying merely on their spiritual privileges without improving them by faith. True Jewish identity is a matter of the heart because only the Holy Spirit can change the heart. A Jew is one inwardly, not by the letter, because the law has no power in itself to change us. The law cannot regenerate us. It can guide us. It can condemn us, but it cannot convert us. That takes the work of the Spirit. But when that happens, then the individual becomes a true Jew, one inwardly, who follows Father Abraham. So, as I turned to that young lady that evening and said, Laila Tov, I was speaking our language. Because not only was she a Jewess, but I was a Jew as well. Because God is my Father, the Spirit is my Regenerator, and Jesus is my Savior. When we look at our lives, we are in the position of the Jew in this passage with his advantage. But what are we doing with our advantages? Are we improving them for our spiritual good? Or are we resting on them to our spiritual detriment? Do we have a form of godliness and yet deny its power? Or do we see the significance of the form and look beyond the form to what it stands for? So that we might know God and live for him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you tonight for your word. And Lord, as we consider this letter to the Romans, as we work our way through it, we pray, Father, for greater and greater understanding and for greater and greater obedience and diligence to improve all that you have given to us. Father, may we never take for granted these advantages, but bless you for them every day. in Jesus name.