Just a Thought "97"

Romans 2:17-23 - You see, the Law of Moses had a relationship claim on every member of the human race. If the law has a rightful claim on you, God cannot have a rightful claim on you. If Christ has a rightful claim on you, the law has no rightful claim on you whatsoever. People have such a hard time when their motivation is based on the false assumption that God gave to Israel a law contract in order to provide for them the motivation necessary for them to live righteously. God designed the law to make sin show its hand, to make sin abound, so that they could look at that picture of the law and look at themselves and say, “These pictures do not match up,” so that they could see that their sin was exceedingly sinful. 

People must rid themselves of the tendency to think that God is dealing with people as he has dealt in time past, when the law program was the order of the day. Paul wants us to understand and understand fully that motivation to do righteousness is the exact opposite of what our natural minds suppose it to be. God did not design the law to enable Israel to live righteously unto him or to give them the motivation to do it. Take away the law Paul and you have taken away the motivation people need to do good and to avoid evil, that is the way the natural mind works.

Listen to the attitude of law orientation; an attitude that comes from a person, who is walking after the flesh: “I’m not going to do that, because that is bad,” or “I’m not going to do that, because I cannot do that and remain righteous,” or “I’m going to do this, because God demands I do it,” or I’m going to follow the rules, because God will accept me if I follow the rules faithfully.” If we are trying to satisfy God’s justice on a daily basis or however by conforming to a standard of rules and regulations, we are going to find that just the opposite becomes true in our flesh. We are going to find ourselves constantly focusing on the flesh. The milk of self-righteousness will sour under the divine heat of God’s justice.

Romans 2:24 - God did not design the law to enable Israel to live righteously unto him or to give them the motivation to do it. Take away the law Paul and you have taken away the motivation people need to do good and to avoid evil, that is the way the natural mind works. The nation Israel was given every visual opportunity to change their thinking about the identity of their messiah and their ability to perform up to the standard of God’s righteousness, when it came to the law contract. God proved how obstinate the hearts of Israel’s political/religious leadership were, in spite of all the visual evidences God placed before them.

A visual evidence given and a visual evidence rejected! Well, this is the case with Israel’s religious leadership, people were getting healed, people were coming to belief and many people were added to that earthly kingdom in that day, but God was looking for the leadership, the representatives of that nation to make their confession. It was a national promise and it is a national rejection as far as God is concerned.

Jesus Christ was no military giant in their eyes, much less a military genius, and that is what they were looking for. Israel’s leadership did not want a suffering servant as a messiah, they wanted a conquering hero as their messiah.
The issue with God in his plan and program with Israel and their promised land was an issue concerning their need of, and acknowledgment of the source of their righteousness. Israel would need a righteousness that God could recognize. They had a righteousness that they could recognize as far as they were seeing things, but they did not have a righteousness that God could recognize.

A God recognized righteousness would be an absolute necessity for that nation, if they were to acquire and remain in the land promised to their fathers. Paul could never preach and never preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, because the kingdom was no longer at hand. When Israel’s leadership rejected the King, that kingdom was placed on the shelf to be reserved for a future fulfillment.

Romans 2:25-28 - Circumcision, or the setting aside of the flesh was simply the sign, according to the apostle Paul, that God gave to Abraham to point out that Abraham had placed his faith in God and in God alone, and not in himself. Abraham learned that it would not be his own fleshly production that would accomplish God’s purpose for him. It is significant when we think about Abraham’s faith, that God wanted Abraham to place no confidence in his flesh.

It is law principle that actually stirs up the sinful emotions. The law principle itself incites the sinful nature that is within the human race. Most people suppose that if you want to eliminate sin, simply put forth a little more law. Well, it is the other way around according to the apostle Paul, it is the law that stirs up the passions of the sin nature. The law actually ignites the passions of the sin nature. The law is a good thing, the problem lies not with a holy and just law, the problem lies in the fact that while the law is good, the flesh is weak.

Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision. Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual was circumcision.

People placing confidence in their performance, not realizing that the law was designed to teach them not to place confidence in their performance when it came to earning their righteousness before God through their performance. Otherwise, God would not have provided for a sacrificial system within the law program in the first place, he would not of needed it. Paul wants us to be sitting in our thinking, in the place where Job was sitting, when Job asked a question, “But how should man be just with God” because Paul understood that the heart of people will go to great lengths to establish its own righteousness.