The Faithfulness of God

I wonder if you can think back to the last conversation when you found the subject of God’s judgement came up. On those occasions, I try to explain that no-one will be accepted by God on the day of judgement unless they’ve trusted in Jesus. And I find people are always quick to come up with exceptions. Eg, what about people who’ve always tried to live a good life? Or, what about people with a sincere faith in something other than Jesus – like Jews or Muslims? Aren’t they a special case? Or, what about those who’ve never heard of Jesus? Wouldn’t God actually be unjust to condemn them? Whenever you say, ‘No-one will be accepted on the day of judgement unless they’ve trusted in Jesus,’ exceptions start to fly. But the truth is: there are no exceptions.

We’re in a sermon series on the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans. And in Paul’s day, the group of people who thought they were an exception to his message about judgement were the Jews. And in the bit we’re looking at today, Paul is in the middle of explaining why they were not an exception, and why they needed the saving work of Jesus on the cross as much as anyone else, along with you and me. Now we may not find ourselves sharing the gospel with Jewish people. But what Paul says here is an example to help us deal with objections to judgement – whether they crop up in our own minds, or in the minds of others we speak to. So would you turn to Romans 2.17. This is where Paul starts talking to an imaginary Jewish objector who thinks he’s OK before God without Jesus. Look at 2.17:

17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God... (2.17)

The Jews knew that they had a special relationship with God. God had rescued them from Egypt at the time of the Exodus, brought them to Mount Sinai, and called them into what the Bible calls a covenant relationship - like a marriage. It was as if God was the husband and they were the wife, and at Mount Sinai God had said, ‘I will’ – ‘I will be your God.’ And the people had said, ‘We will’ – ‘We will be your people.’ And God then gave them his law so that, now they were in this relationship, they’d know how to please him. And the equivalent of a wedding ring – the visible sign of that covenant relationship – was circumcision: all Jewish males were to be circumcised. And, v17, the Jews of Paul’s day bragged about that relationship in the sense that they thought it meant they’d all be safe on the day of judgement simply because they were Jewish. And Paul says: wrong. Look on to v23:

23 You who brag about the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law? [Ie, do you show by your disobedience that in fact, underneath all your Jewishness, you’re not in right relationship with God at all? And Paul says the answer to that question is: ‘Yes’ - read on, v24:] 24 As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed [ie, spoken badly of] among the Gentiles because of you." (2.23-24)

Verse 24 is an Old Testament (OT) quotation about when God punished his people’s disobedience by sending them into exile. And Paul is saying that in fact Jews in every generation are in danger of judgement like that – because the only way the law could make them safe on the day of judgement would be if they’d kept it perfectly – which none of them has. And then look at v25. Paul goes on:

25 Circumcision [the sign of the covenant relationship] has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. (2.25)

One bit of Jewish teaching from that time said this: ‘No circumcised person will go down into hell’ - ie, having the sign of this special relationship will make you safe on the day of judgement. But again Paul says: wrong. Circumcision on your body doesn’t mean your heart is right with God any more than a wife wearing a wedding ring on her finger means she’s being faithful to her husband.

So, Paul says to his imaginary Jewish objector (let’s call him Joe, so I don’t have to keep coming out with that mouthful), ‘You’re not an exception: no-one will be accepted on the day of judgement unless they’ve trusted in Jesus. You can be born a Jew, circumcised and have the law; but none of that changes the fact that underneath you’re still a rebel against God as we all are by nature.’ Ie, being a Jew in itself gives you no advantage before God when it comes to the day of judgement. Which is why our passage for this morning starts the way it does. Look at 3.1, where Joe the Jew comes back at Paul:

1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? [And Paul comes back at Joe:] 2 Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God. (vv1-2)

The advantage of being a Jew was not that it automatically meant you were in right relationship with God, but that it meant you had the great privilege of the opportunity to be - because God had spoken to Israel in the words of the OT. So they had basically the same privilege that someone growing up under Christian parents has today. Take, for examples, my god-daughter Ottilie - whom some of you know. Because her Mum and Dad are Christians, she’ll have access to the Bible from the word ‘Go’. Whereas I, growing up in a totally non-Christian home, never had a Bible, never read the Bible or had it read to me. Now Ottilie’s privilege doesn’t mean she’s automatically right with God; but as far as knowing about him and how to come into relationship with him, she’s at a massive advantage compared to where I was. And before the coming of Jesus, the only people who had that advantage were the Jews: they were ‘entrusted with the very words of God’ (v2).

So just to apply that before we move on: if you’ve grown up under Christian parents who taught you the Bible and exemplified what they taught, count it a massive privilege, when so many of your contemporaries have grown up in the dark about God and what life is really about. One student said to me that his parents were Christians and that home had therefore been pretty ‘square’ and ‘dull’ and he was quite glad to get away from it. And I said to him, ‘I’m sure they didn’t get everything right any more than any parents do. But what you’ve had is a massive privilege.’

And to all of us, this is a reminder to value the Bible. At the coronation service, the Queen was handed a copy of the Bible with these words, ‘Receive God’s Word – the most precious gift this world affords.’ I wonder if you believe that? I wonder if you believe that the worst thing I could possibly do to you is to deprive you of your Bible? I wonder if you believe that the worst form of poverty in this world is to be without the message of the Bible - and therefore without any hope of coming into relationship with God? And I wonder if the time you give to reading the Bible and ministering its message to others would convince me that you think it’s the most precious gift this world affords?

OK, so the Jews had the massive privilege that God had spoken to them, v2. Now look on to v3, where Paul asks:

3 What if some [ie, some of the Jews] did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? (v3)

What does that mean? Well, from chapter 2, v1, Paul’s been saying that Jews are no different from Gentiles in that, underneath their privilege, they, like all of us, are born rebellious against God – as faith-less as the rest of us. And as you read the OT, it’s obvious that in each generation, many Jews stayed that way. In v3, Paul politely says ‘some did not have faith’ but during much of the OT it seems that most did not have faith. And it’s a big mistake to read the OT thinking that the people of Israel were basically all believers. They weren’t. And they weren’t in Paul’s day. Which is why he’s just spent chapter 2 saying that when it comes to the judgement, they’re in exactly the same boat as us Gentiles, namely: that unless they turn to God through faith in Jesus, they’ll be condemned.

And in v3 Paul is asking: does that contradict God’s faithfulness? If God originally said to the Jews in the past, ‘I will be your God,’ and then some of them haven’t had faith, so that he ends up ultimately condemning them on the day of judgement, then hasn’t he ended up being unfaithful to his original promise to them? And Paul’s answer is, v4: ‘Not at all!’

Now you may have noticed that I haven’t used any main headings yet. That’s because it’s not really that kind of passage and because it’s always more important to understand the flow of a passage than to carve it up into clever sections. But for the rest of the time I’ve got two headings – two things that Paul says to Joe the Jew - and to us:

1.Don’t presume on God’s grace
2.Don’t evade God’s judgement

Firstly, DON’T PRESUME ON GOD’S GRACE (vv3-4)

Look at v3 again:

3 What if some [Jews] did not have faith? Will their lack of faith [and therefore their ultimate condemnation on the day of judgement] nullify God's faithfulness? [Ie, doesn’t that contradict God’s original promise to be their God? Read on, v4:] 4 Not at all! Let God be true [ie, faithful, true to his word], and every man a liar. As it is written [and he quotes a Psalm where David is speaking to God after God has convicted him of serious sin]: "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (vv3-4)

The mistake the Jews so often made was to presume on God’s grace. What do I mean by that? Well, as an illustration I remember, when my brother and I were kids, my mother getting very annoyed by the fact that we put our socks in the laundry basket all bunched up and not pulled out the right way. And one day she said she wouldn’t do our washing if we kept putting our socks in the basket like that. And we presumed on her grace - ie, we presumed she would continue to be kind to us and committed to washing for us however we treated her. And one day we came home from school to find all our dirty washing dumped back on our beds in protest, to make the point.

Now what we did to Mum, the Jews did to God. They presumed that God would keep being gracious to them and committed to being their God however they treated him. Because after all, God had said, ‘I will be their God,’ hadn’t he? So they could presume he’d be faithful couldn’t they? Well, the answer is, ‘Yes, but...’: Yes, but the question is: faithful to what? What is God faithful to? They liked to think that God was unconditionally bound to be faithful to them. But that wasn’t true - and it isn’t true for us, either. God is not first and foremost bound to be faithful to us. He is first and foremost bound to be faithful to his character and promises. Ie, he is first and foremost bound to be true to himself. That’s what v4 means when it says, ‘Let God be true.’ It means, ‘You must always think of God as being first and foremost bound to be true to himself.’

And the mistake of Joe the Jew was to think of God as only a God of grace, and therefore bound to be gracious to them however they treated him. But he’d forgotten that God is also a God of judgement who won’t tolerate people rebelling against him – especially under a cloak of religiosity – and who is bound also to condemn those who do. And Joe had forgotten that God had not only made promises to be gracious to the Jews. He’d also made promises to judge them if they responded to his grace with faithlessness evidenced by disobedience – if they threw it back in his face and lived unchanged as if he wasn’t there. That, eg, is why the Jews were ultimately sent into exile. It didn’t contradict God’s faithfulness; it was actually God being faithful to his promises to judge those who made no heart-response to his grace (eg, see Deuteronomy 28.15 onwards).

So Paul is saying to Joe the Jew and to us: never presume on God’s grace. Never think that God is bound to be gracious to you however you treat him. Never think that you can be involved in persistent, unrepented sin and presume that you’ll be forgiven. Never think that you can make a decision that you know is wrong in God’s sight and presume that you’ll be forgiven. That’s what King David did, whom Paul quotes in v4. At the end of the quote there’s little letter ‘a’ and if you look to the bottom of the page, it says ‘a Psalm 51, v4’. It’s the Psalm David wrote after he’d committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband to cover up the affair (see 2 Samuel 11). And he thought he could then just carry on without consequences. He presumed on God’s grace. So God sent the prophet Nathan to tell him that he deserved utter condemnation (see 2 Samuel 12). And David comes clean in Psalm 51 and says:

1 Have mercy on me, O God...[Ie, he doesn’t presume on God’s grace as if it’s a right he can claim – he pleads for it here, knowing that he doesn’t deserve it and that God could justly send him to hell. He goes on:]4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight [and here’s the bit Paul quotes in Romans 3:], so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. (Psalm 51.1-4)

A friend of mine visited his grown-up god-daughter at university. She was living with and sleeping with her boyfriend and yet professing still to be a Christian. And he gently asked her how she could square those things. And she said, ‘I know it’s not really right, but God will forgive me. He’ll be gracious, won’t he?’ And the answer is: only to those who treat him with sincerity. Now please don’t mishear me. I’m not saying, ‘God will be gracious to those who deserve it by trying hard and only failing a bit.’ That would make grace conditional on our performance and it would therefore cease to be grace – which, by definition, is undeserved love. What I am saying is that God is not bound to be gracious to those who treat him without sincerity – ie, those who ask for their sin to be forgiven (and presume it is) while fully intending to carry on sinning.

Never presume on God’s grace. The other lesson of this passage is:

Second, DON’T EVADE GOD’S JUDGEMENT (vv5-8)

Where have we got to? Paul has just explained to Joe the Jew that if God ultimately condemns some Jews on the day of judgement - which he will – he is not thereby being unfaithful. So now Joe comes back at Paul on a different tack, v5:

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly (v5)... [What then?]

Joe is saying on behalf of his fellow-Jews, ‘If our sin has served to bring out God’s righteousness (ie, his character of both grace and justice) so that people have seen what he is like through his treatment of our sin... then how can he condemn us, when our sin has served his purposes? Take, eg, the sins that led to the exile: in the exile, God revealed his justice to the world by sending us back out of the promised land. And after the exile, God revealed his mercy to the world by bringing us back into the promised land. So our sin has served God’s purposes of making himself known. In fact, it was part of his plan all along. So how can he then condemn us for it?

Now how does that line of reasoning sound to you? I think the best word is: pathetic. But knowing that Joe the Jew (like the rest of us) is capable of thinking along those lines, Paul says, v5:

5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? [And Paul is clearly embarrassed by how feeble that reasoning sounds - as a sinful little human being stands up to God and tries to tell God he can’t judge him. So he puts in brackets:] (I am using a human argument.) [Ie, this is obviously feeble, fallen, human reasoning. And then the answer to the question of v5 is, v6:] 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? (vv5-6)

Ie, this line of reasoning would end up with you saying, ‘Since God created the world and allowed the fall – ie, since sin was part of his plan - how can he then judge us for our sin at the end of the day? It’s like the classic thing people say about Judas Iscariot: ‘If Judas was helping God’s plan along by betraying Jesus, how can God then possibly condemn him for doing it?’

Now a moment’s thought shows that that reasoning is wrong, because saying God allowed sin is not the same as saying God caused sin. God is responsible for the creation of the human will - and he made it perfect, with no design-flaw that meant Adam and Eve were bound to sin. Adam and Eve were then responsible for the exercise of their wills against God. And although we’re not individually responsible for inheriting a sinful human nature from them, we are individually responsible for acting on our sinful natures and individually exercising our wills against God. And part of our sin is to evade responsibility for our sin. That’s what Joe the Jew was doing, and it’s been going on ever since the fall, when God came looking for Adam and said, ‘Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?’ And what did Adam say? ‘The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.’ Ie, God, it’s really your responsibility. If you hadn’t put this woman here with me to lead me astray, I’d never have sinned.’ (See Genesis 3.8-12)

Now that is feeble and fallen human reasoning. And yet we run into it as we talk to people about the gospel. ‘Why didn’t God make the world properly?’ they ask, shifting responsibility onto God. ‘If God wanted me to be unselfish or patient or heterosexual (or whatever) why didn’t he make me that way?’ they ask, shifting responsibility onto God. And those of us who are believers are not above doing the same. So that when we struggle with some area of obedience, it’s easy to think (at least at the back of our minds), ‘Well, God, you’re actually responsible for the fact I’m like this. And I wouldn’t do this if you’d made me differently or not allowed this or that to happen to me’ - shifting responsibility onto God.

Now, I’m not going to cover vv7-8 because our time is up and they basically repeat the same point as vv5-6 in different words. I hope that’s helped our understanding of this passage. I hope it’ll equip us a bit better to deal with people’s objections to God’s judgement. But above all, I pray that it will keep us who profess faith from presuming on God’s grace or evading his judgement and our responsibility. And there’s no better way to be kept from that than to check ourselves by that Psalm that Paul quotes in v4. So just to end, would you turn back in the Bible to Psalm 51 – because the way to avoid presuming on God’s grace and evading responsibility for your sin is to ask yourself: do you pray about God’s grace and your sin like this:

1 Have mercy on me, O God according to your unfailing love;according to your great compassionblot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions,and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.