Romans 2:17-29

“Religious Pride or Resting in Jesus” (Romans 2:17–29)

• Main Thesis:
  True righteousness is not found in religious identity or outward obedience, but in a transformed heart through the Spirit and faith in Jesus Christ.

• Religious Privilege Leads to Pride (vv. 17–20):

  • The Jews trusted in their identity, the law, and their role as teachers.

  • They believed they were spiritually श्रेष्ठ while relying on external markers.

  • Warning: Christians today can do the same (church attendance, Bible reading, sacraments).

• Hypocrisy Exposed (vv. 21–24):

  • Teaching truth without practicing it dishonors God.

  • Sinful inconsistency leads to God’s name being blasphemed by outsiders.

  • Religious activity without inward transformation is dangerous.

• Outward Religion Is Insufficient (vv. 25–27):

  • Circumcision (external sign) is meaningless without obedience.

  • Hypothetically, perfect obedience—not religious identity—would justify.

  • This exposes that all fall short.

• True Identity Is Inward (vv. 28–29):

  • A true member of God’s people is one inwardly.

  • “Circumcision of the heart” is done by the Spirit, not by external law-keeping.

  • God values inward transformation over outward appearance.

• Central Application:

  • Stop trusting in religious performance.

  • Be honest about sin and hypocrisy.

  • Rest entirely in Jesus, whose perfect righteousness is credited to believers.

• Gospel Focus:

  • Jesus alone fulfilled the law perfectly.

  • Salvation comes through faith in Him, not self-righteousness.

  • True rest is found in Christ, not in religious effort.

1. Key Passage

• Romans 2:17–29

• Supporting: Romans 1:16–17; Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 36:25–27; Matthew 23; Luke 18:9–14

2. Key Themes

A. The Danger of Religious Pride

• External religion can mask internal corruption.

• Pride grows when identity is rooted in privilege rather than grace.

B. Hypocrisy and Its Consequences

• Inconsistency between belief and practice dishonors God.

• It damages the church’s witness to the world.

C. True Righteousness

• Not external conformity but internal transformation.

• Accomplished by the Holy Spirit.

D. Justification by Faith Alone

• Christ’s righteousness is credited to believers.

• Salvation is entirely outside ourselves (righteousness externus).

3. Historical & Biblical Context

• Jewish Confidence:
  Jews relied on covenant signs (circumcision) and possession of the Law.

• Paul’s Argument in Romans:

  • Romans 1: Gentiles are guilty.

  • Romans 2: Jews are also guilty.

  • Romans 3: All are under sin.

• Old Testament Background:

  • Deuteronomy 30:6 → Promise of heart circumcision.

  • Ezekiel 36 → Promise of a new heart and Spirit.

4. Westminster Standards Connections

• Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF):

  • WCF 11 (Justification): We are justified by faith alone, not works.

  • WCF 16 (Good Works): Works cannot justify but flow from true faith.

  • WCF 25 (Church): Visible membership does not guarantee salvation.

• Westminster Larger Catechism (WLC):

  • Q. 76–77: Repentance and justification are distinct; works don’t save.

  • Q. 91: The moral law reveals sin and drives us to Christ.

• Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC):

  • Q. 33: Justification is an act of God’s free grace.

  • Q. 35: Sanctification is the Spirit’s work within us.

5. Practical Applications

• Examine where you place your confidence (habits vs. Christ).

• Practice honest confession of sin with other believers.

• Avoid comparing yourself to others spiritually.

• Remember: spiritual disciplines are means of grace, not grounds of salvation.

• Regularly return to the gospel—don’t move past it.

Will you please turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2, if you're, well I don't know what page it is on your pew bibles, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, Romans chapter 2. And just keep in mind what Paul has already said in Romans chapter 1, verses 16, that I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Now let's look at Romans chapter 2 beginning at verse 17.

Indeed, you who are called a Jew and rest on the law and make your boast in God and know his will and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law and are confident 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 babes, having the form of knowledge and the truth in the law. You therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself?

You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written.

For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law. But if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. Let's end this portion of reading of God's word. Let's pray.

God, we come to your word, pleading with you for the work of your Holy Spirit. Father, we need your spirit to open our eyes that we may see both what these words say and mean and mean for us. Lord, we plead with you that you would please not let us walk out of the doors today unchanged by your living word, but we need you to teach us We need You to challenge us, to correct us, and to train us. Lord, please help us, we pray. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. I need to just say I'm afraid of preaching this passage. I am afraid of preaching this passage because of what Paul starts off with in verse 20 and following, especially 21.

You therefore who teach another do not teach yourself. You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast, make your boasts in the law. Do you dishonor God through your breaking of the law?

How in the world is anybody supposed to preach this passage? How is anybody supposed to teach? And I struggle coming to this to this passage, and I'm just being honest with you, this has been a week of a lot of confession of sin. And I hope that whoever you may hear preach this passage doesn't point to themselves as a person of righteousness. Because what this passage is doing is giving no quarter for any Christian to be able to look to themselves for any righteousness.

Paul is really taking off the gloves. Paul has started in Romans chapter 1 verse 18, showing the sinfulness of the Gentiles. And they're giving them over to the desires of their hearts. And then he's pushed on as he was telling about the list of vices of sin, beginning at verse 28, that even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, he gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. And he started listing a whole bunch of sins that whether somebody was Jewish or Gentile, they were also sinful of. unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, whispering, backbiting, hating God, violent, proud, boasting, disobedient to parents, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.

And then last week we looked at the first part of chapter 2 where Paul is putting each reader, each person listening to this letter, on the trial stand. And he changes it from those Gentiles out there to second person singular, you. Therefore you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are who judges. For whatever you judge another you condemn yourself. And so when we come through this entire issue of Jewish people are sinful and Gentile people are sinful and we have all this sin, we come to verse 17 and now he's narrowed his eyes specifically on the Jewish people here. He says, indeed, you are called a Jew and you rest in the law and make your boast in God. And then he won't give up until the very end of the chapter to show there's no reason for them to rejoice.

So my question for you this morning is, are you trusting in religious markers of your own? Is your hope for your right standing before God, your membership in the church, your reading of your Bible, your keeping of the commands yourself, your coming to the Lord's Supper? Do you look back to your baptism and do you rest there? What are you resting in to know that you would stand before a holy and righteous and perfect judge who knows every secret thing of your heart? How could we ever stand before him when we know the gnawing feeling that we don't measure up?

The Jews were trusting in their religious privileges while failing to live up to the righteous demands of the law. So I have a desire for you today. I've got a purpose for you today. I don't want to give myself, and I don't want to give you, anywhere to rest in yourselves. I want to, as best I can, if the Spirit enables, to point you all to someone outside of us. To Jesus himself, the measure of righteousness. Our only hope.

So first I want you to see, from verses 17 through 20, That religious privilege can lead to religious pride. Verses 17 through 20. Religious privilege can lead to religious pride. Indeed you are called a Jew and rest on the law and you make your boast in God. and know his will, and approve the things that are excellent being instructed out of the law, and are confident 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 babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law."

Paul says they're boasting about a whole bunch of stuff. They're proud in their hearts and they rest on a whole lot of external things. That they can call themselves a Jew. That they can rest on the law. That they can boast in God. And in verse 18 he says, more than that, they can boast, they can rest in, and they can build their pride up. That they think they know God's will. That they can approve what is excellent.

That they could say, but we're not like the rest of the world. We've been instructed in the law. He says they're boasting and they're resting that they are somehow guides the blind and lights in the darkness. He says they're resting and they're boasting in their religion that they're somehow able to be instructors of the foolish teachers of babes, little infants. They think somehow that they're the mature ones, they're the adults, they're able to look down on everyone else and teach everyone else. And the issue is, that's exactly what Jesus is warning them about. Paul's not saying anything different than Jesus.

When he confronted the Pharisees and said, you whitewashed tombs. You look wonderful on the outside, but on the inside you're full of rotting corpses. You blind guides leading the blind. You weigh heavy burdens, loads on other people that neither we nor our forefathers were ever able to bear.

They're resting, and the fact that they're born of Abraham, and that's why John the Baptist has to tell them, don't take pride thinking that Abraham is your father. God can cause the stones to praise him. The Jewish people, Paul is addressing in the Roman church, he's saying, you're acting like a bunch of boy scouts with badges, trusting that somehow you look good enough on the outside and your uniform is clean and pressed and everything looks perfect, all the while on the inside, God knows the secrets of your heart and sees what you think about and love and do behind closed doors, and it's not pretty.

Let's face it, as Christians, we love to do this all the time. We like to put up a facade, we like to make a face, make a show, and we've got it all together. We don't like to be honest. We definitely don't like what the New Testament tells us, that we ought to be confessing our sins to one another. It's a lot easier to walk into church, get around other Christians, and act like we've got it all together. It's really hard to sit in a small group or one-on-one with somebody else and to actually be honest about what's going on in your soul.

It's really easy to play the game of religion, coming to the Lord's Supper and just acting like, well, I tasted the bread, I tasted the wine and I'm good. To see a baby baptized and think, oh, I remember, that's what happened to me too, I'm good, I've got the seal on me. Even more pernicious to open up the Bible and to read it and say, check, check, check.

I've got it all done. I'm living the good life. And we stop depending on God's mercy. He just describes them of what the Jewish people are that he's talking to in his religion. And then he goes into a series of questions in verses 21 through 24. showing them that their religious pride is seen to everyone else in their hypocrisy. Notice the question, question, question, question, question.

You therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach, I better listen. You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, do not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God? through breaking the law. These verbs are verbal. Preach, teach, boast, external, outward, tell everyone else, but don't internalize it.

It's a scary thing. It's a scary thing to think about those who teach the law will be judged more severely. But not everyone should be a teacher of the law. And I gotta tell you, there are so many times in my life that I ask, what in the world am I even doing as a pastor? It's really easy to teach and to instruct and to lay out what somebody else is supposed to do in their life. It's really hard to have it applied to your own life.

God's judging those who will teach but not learn, preach but not practice. Interestingly here he says, you who abhor idols, do you rob temples? These are people rationalizing away their sin. These are people who say, I really love the second commandment, I hate this idolatry, and yet one of the things that he's saying, and this isn't saying everyone in the Jewish church, or in the Roman church is doing this, not every Jew is doing this, but he's saying, he knows that there are people, Jewish people, who are calling themselves Christians in the church, and they think idolatry is nothing, and idol is nothing, so if I go into the temple, into that pagan temple, and I shortchange them, and I keep a little bit of gold, Have I robbed the temple? And we think of temples as like just the place that you go and sacrifice. No, that was the ancient bank. I can cheat the bank just a little bit. Line my pocket just a little bit. Just an idol anyways, I don't care if that temple falls.

Is it rationalizing away your sin that you're stealing from others? How easy is it for us to rationalize our sin? Instead of just dealing with it bald-facedly when we're struck with it. It's really easy to convince ourselves that something that we're doing is okay. It's really easy.

But one of the things that eventually happens is sin catches up. There's just too many stories, even locally, where even pastors will get caught up in justifying how they spend money of the church and how they do things and end up actually doing what most people think is probably criminal embezzlement.

Teaching against stealing and yet stealing from God's people. And one of the things that routinely happens is the enemies of God blaspheme against God himself. Why does the world seem to send out a million news articles every time a pastor commits some type of sin that's public? And yet, not a news article every single week that there were 15,000 pastors who faithfully preached his word this week. This is what Nathan's confrontation with David was about one of the biggest reasons that he needed to be confronted about his sin is you have given a reason for the enemies of God to blaspheme, to slander his name. There's devastating results of sin. God will eventually judge sin if it's not dealt with, if it's not repented of, if it's not taken care of in the person's life. He says, as it is written. Well, where is it written? What is he talking about in verse 24? He's drawing straight from the Greek translation of the Old Testament in the book of Isaiah chapter 52.

And that's about God even allowed His own name to be slandered by the Gentiles, blasphemed amongst the Gentiles. Why? Because He sent them out into exile, because they kept acting like they could say that they were His people, while doing all sorts of idolatry and immorality. And so, He let the Babylonians take Him over. He let Jerusalem fall. He let His own temple be destroyed. That's how much He hated sin and hypocrisy. and shallow religion.

This is why Jesus again would say to the Jewish people, you're so concerned about the minor points of the law, you'll tithe on your mint and your dill But you'll teach people that they can dishonor their parents by just dedicating their money to the temple and saying, well, it's used for holy purposes and so I don't need to take care of you in your old age. Says Corbin. And you make them twice the sons of the devil because of it.

I didn't really understand this until my pastor, I was listening to a sermon of his a couple, maybe it was even just a year ago. And he said, imagine going out into your garden And you got dill, and you got mint, like legitimate plants. And you know that God says you're supposed to give a certain amount in your tithe. And so you go to your bushes and you start counting all the little mint leaves on your plants and calculating up exactly how many mint leaves I need to give to God.

But your parents are starving. And you say, my money's tied up in the church. I'm sorry, I can't support you. This is why Jesus would tell the people who are sitting under the yoke of this pharisaical legalism, tell them, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke and learn from me, for my yoke is heavy and my burden is light. I will give you rest for your souls. Jesus isn't lightening the weight of the law or its condemnation.

But he's calling out the hypocrisy. And we need to be really careful. I'm saying we, not just you here. I can't just speak with Paul with you, you, you, you, you, because I am 100% involved with this too. We need to be really careful. Because sometimes the reason why somebody doesn't want to darken the doors of the church or hear anything about Christ is because we've made ourselves look like the standard of righteousness. We want to teach, we want to preach, we want to proclaim. All the while people are able to look at our lives and go, you don't have it as together as I know So where do we go from here? Paul says they've gotten it all wrong in verses 25 through 29. What Paul is going to get at in 25 through 29 is that true religion is produced by the spirit and it starts in the heart. For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law. But if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

Why is he even getting at here, right? Circumcision is the sign of the Old Testament people that they were truly part of God's covenant family. It was an outward sign placed on all the males of that time that they were supposed to be identified with God's people. And to be identified with God's people is specifically to be identified with the law, especially the law given at Mount Sinai. But they had an issue here. Circumcision is just a sign.

It's not the substance. Just because you can drive down the highway and see the price of gas on the sign and understand what the sign says and know that gas is sold there, Doesn't mean you're going to be able to keep on driving if you don't stop and fill up the tank. Great, you know what the sign means.

But if you don't stop and be filled with the Spirit, you have got no hope. If you are circumcised, great. But that's only good for you if you actually keep the law. But if you're a breaker of the law, your circumcision doesn't mean anything. It's become uncircumcision. Even worse than that, in verse 26 he says, therefore if an uncircumcised man, a non-Jewish person, if a non-Jewish person keeps the law, Will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?

See, if you could, if an uncircumcised person, a non-Jewish person, could go to the Old Testament, look at the Ten Commandments, and perfectly keep every single commandment, would he not be justified in God's sight? Would he not be said, that one is righteous? Yeah. Yeah, he would be. This is the hypothetical of the verse. and will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you, who even though, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? He says, not only would that person, who could keep the covenant of works perfectly, never sin and do everything righteous, if he could keep every law perfectly righteous, that person would judge you.

For he, verse 28, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. Did you catch it? Jew is just shorthand for God's people. God's beloved people. You're not one of God's beloved, chosen, covenant people if you're just one outwardly. Nor is circumcism that which is outward in the flesh.

Again and again and again, even before you get out of the Torah, when you get to Moses' preaching of the law a second time, the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteros means two, nomos means law, so the second preaching of the law. Deuteronomy is basically a long sermon by Moses on the law a second time right before he's about to die. In Deuteronomy he tells the people that circumcision of the flesh isn't enough.

It's meant to point to the circumcision of their hearts. To the rolling away of sin in their hearts. That's what he was getting at in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6. And just after what Elder Ben read for us in Ezekiel 33, we come to Ezekiel 36 where God says that it's a new heart that we need.

So who is a true Jew then? Who is One of God's true covenant people. Verse 29, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter. His praise is not from men, but from God. There will be plenty of people at the Judgment Day who have followed all the trad wife and all the Christian husband stuff that they're supposed to do and followed every letter of every Christian self-help book they can imagine thinking that they were a good person and God and Jesus on that day will say, away from me, you worker of iniquity, I've never known you. and yet will accept and open his gates into his kingdom to the person sitting on death row who knows that he was a sinner and couldn't bear to lift up his eyes to heaven and pled with God to have mercy on him. It's the Spirit's power to transform the hardest of hearts is what matters.

It's not for the Our religion, our hope, our living out of the gospel is not that other people out in this world will praise us. If you're living your Christian life because you want other people out there to praise you, you've received all the glory you'll get. If you want people to look well upon you and say good things about you in this life, and that's why you think you're living the life that you're living now according to the letter of the law, you've gotten all the praise that you deserve. I've gotten all the praise I deserve.

Because he who is a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God." So how do you get the Spirits working in your heart? How do you get to sin-ward circumcision? How do you become a true Jew? How do you turn away from doing your own thing and your own heart for your own righteousness? This is the paradox. I can't tell you to do anything. Give up. Give up your own righteousness. Drop the facade.

Stand before a holy God who stands in unapproachable light and cry out with Isaiah, woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips. Have your soul laid bare before the God who omnisciently judges perfectly even at that last great day and say, I am guilty. and then go rest in the work of Jesus.

Because do you see, there was one person who fulfilled the hypothetical of this passage. There is one who kept the law perfectly, was tested and tempted in every way as we are, yet never sinned. And his name is Jesus. And it is by faith in Jesus that His righteousness is reckoned to us for our righteousness.

We don't get to look down our noses judging others. Because every time we judge another, we're judging ourselves. Instead, we judge ourselves and we run to the cross. We go to the cross not with anything that we can bring, but with open hands we cling.

We rest and we receive in Jesus alone for salvation. Because it's Jesus who lived the righteous life that we could not. It's Jesus who obeyed the law perfectly that we fail at again and again and again. It's Jesus that's our only hope in life and death. It's Jesus who laid down his life for his people. We look outside of ourselves. Luther called this a righteousness externus, outside of ourselves.

This is why Paul started the book in his Thesis of 16 and 17 of Romans chapter 1. That he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just or the righteous shall live by faith. Are you righteous?

By ourselves, no. No, we're not. But thanks be to God that he so loved the world that he sent his only son to reconcile us to God. That Jesus would be the propitiation that Jesus would be the one by which we are made right with God. So, I beg you, I beg you, and maybe you've done this, and you know this, but you've forgotten it. Maybe you've just been a Christian for a long time, and your eyes have been so fixed on trying for sanctification that you've forgotten first things, forgotten your first love. I am begging you, to be honest about where your sin lies, and to rest in Jesus alone. Religion without the Spirit is self-deception, and it will eventually kill us. It will destroy us from the inside out. But Christ gives life through His Spirit to all those who believe. Rest in Jesus. Rest. Find rest for your souls in Jesus.

Let's pray. Lord, you know our guilt. The nagging voice lurking in the background. A conscience that tells us we're not good enough. Thank you. That you are well pleased in Jesus. Thank you. for a hope that dwells outside of our own righteousness. Thank you for giving us the Lamb of God. Thank you for His blood, for His righteousness, for His life, and for the work of your Spirit. God, I pray that even now your spirit may be working, even in those who may hear this message, that your spirit might bring to life those who may be self-righteous by bringing them to the feet of Jesus with gratitude and thankfulness. that you might let them truly see. Help us, God, to not take our eyes off of Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. God, please help us, in Jesus' name, amen.

• What “religious markers” are you tempted to trust in for assurance?

• Where do you see inconsistency between what you believe and how you live?

• Why is hypocrisy so damaging to the church’s witness?

• What does it mean practically to have a “circumcised heart”?

• How does the doctrine of justification by faith challenge pride?

• In what ways can long-time Christians drift into self-righteousness?

• How can we cultivate genuine repentance and dependence on Christ?

• Justification: God declaring sinners righteous through faith in Christ.

• Sanctification: The Spirit’s work of making believers holy.

• Hypocrisy: Claiming belief without corresponding practice.

• Circumcision of the Heart: Inner spiritual transformation by the Spirit.

• Righteousness Externus: Righteousness outside ourselves (Christ’s righteousness).

• Covenant Sign: External marker of belonging to God’s people (e.g., circumcision, baptism).