Fr. Stephen De Young: We’ll go ahead and get started. When we get started in just a minute here, we’ll be picking up in St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, chapter two, verse one. We finished the first chapter last week. As usual, for you folks, almost a year from now, but for anyone hearing this on the internet, already available is the introduction to the book of Romans. [Laughter] Available via the internet, if you want to go back and listen to that.

To get us caught up to where we are in Romans 1, last time, we saw how St. Paul, picking up on a lot of the themes we saw back in Acts 17, his sermon in Athens, spoke primarily to the Gentiles in his audience, first. Remember, he’s writing now to the Church in Rome. This community is now sort of coming back together after the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius. So now the Gentile portion of the community has been sort of operating as a Christian community for a couple of years on its own, and all of the Jews, whether they’d accepted Jesus as the Messiah or not, were expelled, and are now coming back in. That means that now synagogues are being reconstituted and that sort of thing, but also there’s now an increasing sense, as you might imagine after that happens, of Jewish identity versus Gentile identity. And so St. Paul is concerned about the potential for their developing two different communities, sort of a Jewish Christian community and a Gentile Christian community, and them not coming back together. So, to prevent that is one of the primary motives that St. Paul has for writing this letter in the first place.

After his introduction, we saw how he starts talking to the Gentile members of the community who of course have been sort of there in Rome continuously, reminding them about their former lives. He began by pointing out that, as he did in Acts 17 to the Athenians, that there was a period of time during which God had not been holding their sins against them because of their ignorance; God had been sort of bearing with them, being patient with them, and showing mercy on them, but now that the Gospel has gone out into the world, now that time is over and now they’re going to be held accountable. This then led him to say— to try and make it clear that the previous situation was not really better, in case someone might object and say, “Wow, we were better off before the Gospel came.” [Laughter]

Q1: They hated that idea, I think. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: By reminding them of just what their life was like and how, through idolatry, through the practice of idolatry—and we talked about how that involved a large degree of self-worship—they had devolved into sexual immorality and then all kinds of other sins, and that those sins had consequences. Whether God was being merciful to them or not, there were consequences in their own lives and in their own families, and even in their own bodies, of what they had been doing. So they were not really better off before the truth came to them; they are definitely better off now, even though that knowledge now brings with it accountability.

He made it clear that even though—and this is another theme from his sermon in Acts 17 in Athens—he made it clear that even though they hadn’t had the Torah, they hadn’t had the same revelation of God that Israel had had, that, based on being born in the world that God had created, and being made in the image of God, they could look within themselves, they could look at the world around them, and they had enough knowledge to know that what they were doing was wrong and didn’t make sense: that idolatry was wrong and didn’t make sense, that sexual immorality was wrong and didn’t make sense, and these other things. And despite that, the phrase that St. Paul uses is they sort of suppressed that truth so that they could do what they wanted to, even though they realized at some level that it was wrong.

So that’s basically where we ended at the end of chapter one. St. Paul had just given this sort of long list of unrighteousnesses of sins, starting with sexual immorality but including wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, gossip, back-biting, hating God, being violent, proud, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to their parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. [Laughter] So this was— Even though at some level they knew these things were wrong, they were doing all of these things, and even giving approval to other people who did them, meaning they not only did the things but they tried to justify those evil things they were doing and they tried to call them good and sort of promote them as being good things. I will leave any comparisons between that and our current cultural moment to you. [Laughter]

Okay, so that’s where we left off, so unless we have any other comments, questions, assertions, notes, or anything else, we’ll go ahead and start in St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, chapter two, verse one.

“Therefore, you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” So he says, “None of you”—still speaking to the same audience—“has room to judge anybody or criticize anyone else, because you have all done these things. You’ve all at least come out of”— Now, he’s not asserting that they still do these things as Christian believers, but they’ve all come out of this, and so they have no room to cast judgment on others.

Q1: Is the phrase that was formerly translated “without excuse,” that Calvinists use a lot?

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, “without excuse, you’re inexcusable, without excuses.”

Q1: That’s a lot of places.

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right. And the idea there is, again, that even though they didn’t have, you couldn’t pull out this: “Well, we didn’t have the Torah; how were we supposed to know murder was wrong?” [Laughter] “How were we supposed to know?” Well, you knew. Not only you should have known, but you did know, and you did it anyway.

“But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.” Basically that’s saying when God passes judgment on these things, we know—not just St. Paul but you whom I’m talking to also—you know that he is right to call these things evil.

“And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?” This is basically talking about hypocrisy. Do you think that you’re criticizing these other people—you’re correct that God is going to judge them for that, but do you think somehow that because you’re there being a moralist that you’re going to somehow escape judgment?

“Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” What that means is— St. Paul is saying that God has been being patient with you. Remember, he said he’s being patient with the Gentiles; he’s being long-suffering—forbearance, right? He hasn’t been punishing. He says, “Do you not know that he’s been giving you that time in order for you to come to repentance?” That’s not going to last forever. He’s saying, “Is that what you’re relying on? You think:Oh, well, he hasn’t punished us yet, so he must not care.” He’s just this loving, merciful God, and so I don’t have to worry about it.” [Laughter] And St. Paul’s saying, “No, you’re being given this time for repentance.” This is something that— St. Peter’s going to use this same kind of argument in 1 Peter when he talks about the period of time between, well, St. Peter’s day and Christ’s return. He’s going to say, “Don’t think that Christ isn’t really returning just because it hasn’t happened yet and it seems to be taking a long time.” He says, “God is giving you this period of time for repentance, for the salvation of people. That’s why he’s being patient and merciful, not because he doesn’t care, not because there’s not going to be any judgment, not because we can just all do whatever we want.” So that’s what St. Paul is saying here. He’s saying, “Look, do you think because you go around moralizing that God’s not going to judge you, or are you just depending on the idea that, well, he’s so merciful that, you know, there’s not going to be any judgment, ever; we can do whatever?”

Q1: I think a lot of modern Christians think that.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah! [Laughter]

Q2: I agree.

Fr. Stephen: And there’s a famous quote— It’s in a lot of the icons of St. Isaac of Syria, where he says, “This life has been given to you for repentance, so do not waste it on vain pursuits,” that the time we’re given is the time to make progress and correct ourselves and to find healing.

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

So he says, “By you not repenting, you not repenting and continuing to live this kind of lifestyle, all you’re doing is building up more wrath. It’s not that God doesn’t care, it’s not that there’s no judgment; God’s just not dropping— Like the sword of Damocles, it hasn’t dropped on your head yet.” [Laughter] But your purpose in life should be to get rid of that rather than to continue to build it up. So while you’re going and still sinning and not worried about it, you should be worried, because you’re building up more and more condemnation for yourself.

“Because the day is coming”—and he refers to the day of the Lord, which is all through the Old Testament, which is the day when God comes to reestablish justice. And we talked about that a little bit last time, the idea of justice in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word is mishpat, and it refers to everything being in its right place and everything being in good order. Because of sin, that’s gotten out of whack, and so God is going to come and he’s going to restore that; he’s going to set things right. That day is coming, and if you are someone who is in the right, who has been suffering, then that’s a day you should look forward to, but if you’re someone who’s on the side of the oppressors and has been causing other people to suffer and who’s in the wrong, that’s a day you should not be looking forward to! [Laughter] That’s a day you should be dreading.

Q1: What about the fact that most of us are both?

Fr. Stephen: Well, we’ll get there in just a second, just a second because he continues. And when that day comes, he is going to render “to each one according to his deeds.” Now, notice—notice again, because we’ve already had to— we made this note once, I know, at the beginning of chapter one, but because of our friends who follow Martin Luther’s reading of the book of Romans—notice: “He will render to each one according to his deeds.” [Laughter]

Q1: Deeds.

Fr. Stephen: Right? According to his works. That is the standard on which God is going to judge on the day of judgment, according to everywhere in the Scriptures. When St. Matthew tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, it’s not: “Well, these people were Christians and these people weren’t, so the Christians go to heaven and the non-Christians go to hell.” All the goats there say, “Lord!”—call him Lord, and say, “When did we see you naked and hungry? When did we see you—?” So St. Paul is not changing that in the book of Romans. He’s not saying, “Well, it used to be that way under the Law, but now it’s not.” He’s not saying that. But we talked before about the relationship between faith, belief, faithfulness, loyalty to God, and works, that these two things are inseparable.

So it’s by someone’s fruit that you know who they actually are and what they actually believe.

Q1: Does this mean—or is this running ahead of things—that a non-Christian who does good deeds and abstains from sin—?

Fr. Stephen: We’ll get there, because he talks about that. [Laughter]

Q1: Okay, because I was wondering. These are questions that come up a lot.

Fr. Stephen: Right. And so he expands on that, rendering to each one according to his deeds. “Eternal life to those who, by patient continuance in doing good, seek for glory, honor, and immortality.” Now his wording there is important. You notice he doesn’t say, “Eternal life to those who do good and earn glory, honor, and immortality.” That’s not what he says. He talks about those who, by patient continuous in doing good, first of all. Patient continuence involves— implies there’s a struggle going on. They’re seeking to do good, and being patient, they’re enduring and seeking to do good. And notice, he then uses the word— “those who seek glory, honor, and immortality.” So the good guys, the righteous, in this paradigm, are the ones who are seeking these things, who are patiently enduring and pursuing these things, not people who are perfect, not people who have earned something or achieved some special spiritual state. They’re people who are seeking.

We saw before, when he quoted Habakkuk— Remember, Habakkuk: there were those who shrank back, and there were those who were faithful in pursuing God. So this is important, that we take the contrast. The contrast is not where St. Paul thinks, well, there’s this big tally of all the good stuff you did and all the bad stuff you did, and if the good stuff is higher you win and you go to heaven; if the bad stuff is higher, you lose and you go to hell. [Laughter] We’re going to see: none of the people who end up condemned are trying, are seeking these things. It’s not that they’re trying to follow Christ and they just don’t make it; they’re just not quite good enough, and they don’t make the cut and so they’re condemned. [Laughter] That’s not here. There are those who are striving for that and seeking it and pursuing it—not achieving it; they’re seeking it and pursuing it, and that’s given to them as a gift by God. And there’s those who aren’t looking for it; there’s those who aren’t looking for it.

A story I tell that some of you may have heard, if I’ve heard your confession, is one of my favorite sort of monastic stories. There’s a story of a monk in a monastery who was drunk all the time, just perpetually drunk. And, much to the other monks’ chagrin, the abbot assigned him— The monastery was up on a hill, and they had a sort of a house down at the bottom of a hill where they received the visitors who came on a pilgrimage to go to the monastery. And much to the other monks’ chagrin, the abbot assigned the monk who was drunk all the time to that little house at the bottom of the hill, to greet all the visitors who showed up.

And so a day came one day when this monk who was drunk all the time died. He was down in the little house at the bottom of the hill. He died; the other monks found him there. And so they went back to the abbot of the monastery to let him know that this monk had died. And when they came to tell him, the abbot said, “You don’t have to tell me. I saw the angels come and get his soul and bring it to heaven.” And the other monks were sort of like: “Are we talking about the same person? We’re talking about the guy down there who was drunk all the time.”

And the abbot said, “You know, when he first entered the monastery as a novice, he took 20 drinks a day and was drunk all the time. And every year on Pascha, he gave up one. So by the time he died, he was having four drinks a day, and he was still drunk, but he had gone from 20 to four.” And he said, “The angels came for his soul because God honored his struggle.” It’s not that he won; it’s that he continued to struggle every day against the sin that was enslaving him.

So this is the idea of what it means to be a believer, what it means to be a Christian, that St. Paul is getting at here, when he says, “who seeks after these things with patient endurance.” This is the idea that he’s talking about, not that you’re perfect or you’re better than other people. That would seem to be ruled out by what he just said about judging other people! But that you’re pursuing it.

And then he contrasts, remember: “But to those who are self-seeking”—they’re not seeking after God; they’re seeking after themselves and their own desires—“and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness”— Because, remember, he’s already argued they all know the truth at some level, but they don’t obey that; they obey unrighteousness. That’s an interesting phrase, too, because they’re still obedient; they’re not actually free. People think that obedience means that you’re not free. “If I have to obey God, if I have to obey the rules, then wah, I can’t do what I want.” But St. Paul’s making the point here and even making it frequently that choosing sin doesn’t make you free; it just makes you a slave to sin. So when they don’t obey the truth, they end up still obeying—they still end up slaves—but they’re obeying unrighteousness, they’re obeying their own passions, they’re obeying sin.

And because of that, they receive indignation and wrath. They receive that, again, because they’re not seeking God. It’s not that they’re trying and they fail; it’s not that they don’t do it right or their theology isn’t perfect; it’s not that they don’t make the cut—it’s that theyr’e not even looking for it. It’s not something they want.

Remember, he talked about how salvation came first to the Jew and then to the Greek? The Gospel came first to the Jew and then to the Greek? Well, he parallels that language here, and he says, “Tribulation and anguish come on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek.” [Laughter] God doesn’t play favorites. The Jewish person who’s wicked and isn’t seeking after God, just as much as the Gentile who isn’t seeking after God. “But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Because,” as he says, “there is no partiality with God.”

Q1: Is there any significance to the “Jew first,” then, under the— in this thank-you that there’s no [partiality]…

Fr. Stephen: You’re anticipating exactly where he’s about to go! [Laughter] That’s good! You’re following along with what St. Paul is saying!

Q2: A step ahead!

Fr. Stephen: Yeah. So he says, “For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law.” So he says those of you Gentiles who didn’t have the Torah, who didn’t have God’s teaching, and you went and sinned, well, you’ll perish without the Torah. He says those of you who had the Torah and had God’s teaching, well, you’re going to be judged by it. You’re going to be judged by the knowledge that you had, but you’ll still perish if you worked sin and wickedness.

“For not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of the God, but the doers of the law will be justified.” And this is not a new idea; this is all through the Old Testament. But we have to understand—and St. Paul as a Pharisee understood this very well—that the general view of the Jewish people at this time was that: “We’re the chosen people; we’re God’s people. So when God comes on the day of the Lord to judge the earth, he’s going vindicate us and he’s going to put down all these Gentiles who are always oppressing us.” That’s where they thought the line was drawn. And they would say, “Well, maybe some of these Gentiles who became God-fearers who stopped being pagans, well, maybe they can come along with us”—generally as sort of second-class citizens. [Laughter] But maybe they can get in on this, too, but for the most part this is the divider.

So what St. Paul is saying is not only is that not the divider, that was never the divider. He’s going to continue to make that point, because it was never just: “Oh, you received the law; you’re part of the Jewish people, so now, automatically, you’re righteous.” And he’s going to give plenty of examples. He has a lot of examples from the Old Testament of that. The whole generation that received the law, other than Joshua and Caleb—and Caleb was not Jewish, by the way; he was a Gentile—all died in the wilderness; none of them got into the promised land, because they were wicked. So he’s got plenty of examples. He’s going to use a whole bunch of them; he’s going to allude to a whole bunch of them.

But that’s never been the case; it’s always been the person who follows the teaching of God, who follows God, who seeks after God, who is the righteous one on the day of judgment, not just the person who happens to have been born to a Jewish mother or happens to have been circumcised or whatever. He’s going to get into some of those issues in more detail, too. But right now he’s talking about receiving the law, because, remember, this is what— He’s segueing now. He was talking about the Gentiles who didn’t have it, and so God’s been being patient with them, but they weren’t better off not having it. Now he’s segueing into talking to the people who did receive it, the Jewish people who did receive the Torah, and he’s saying, “It’s not just getting it that makes you righteous; it’s actually keeping it that makes you righteous.”

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.

So St. Paul says, “Look. You may have— You may be one of the Jewish people. You may have received the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the Torah, but there are a lot of Gentiles out there who never received it, but through doing what I just talked about, through looking within themselves, through looking at the world around them, they understood, at least at some basic level, what was good and what was evil, and they tried to do good and they tried to flee from evil, because their conscience within them told them.”

Q3: Father, when he is talking about the law in this way, this doesn’t seem to include the ceremonial aspects of the law. It just seems to be more moral. That seems to— Or does it kind of say that what the Gentiles would have at most is kind of an idea of, like what you said, good and bad?

Fr. Stephen: Well, part of the problem of excluding the ceremonial part is his whole discussion of the Gentiles’ sin has been centered around idolatry, which very much has to do with the ceremonial aspect. So there isn’t… I know it’s fashionable now to make this distinction between the ceremonial law and the civil law and the moral law, but at this time in history, they made no such distinction. They saw… In fact, a big theme, not just in the first chapter of Romans, but if you look at the book of Wisdom and 3 Maccabees and a lot of other Jewish literature, is this direct connection between idolatry and sexual immorality and other sins.

Q3: Okay. So when he’s talking, when he’s distinguishing between Jew and Gentile, the Gentiles he’s talking about are kind of Jewish Gentiles, or…?

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] No, he’s talking about Gentiles— There were Gentiles who didn’t participate in the pagan worship, who understood— Plato and Aristotle, for example, who didn’t believe— who were men— At this point, there were a fair number of them. So who understood: “Well, yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to worship something that I made, that looks like me.” They may not have had a defined concept of who God actually is beyond some vagueness, but they were— Basically what St. Paul is arguing is that— This is part of his argument that they are without excuse. If there was some basic level of knowledge that they could have, morally and spiritually, because he says in chapter one that God’s invisible attributes were knowable through creation— He’s saying that even though the vast swath of the Gentile world had suppressed that truth, there were Gentiles who, with the limited amount that they had available to them, tried to put that to the best possible use.

Q1: There are a lot of Gentile philosophers at this time who are— who have a pretty high philosophy and the concept that the real God is beyond and behind all the pagan—

Fr. Stephen: And St. Paul appealed to that, again, in Acts 17, to them, that God is not something made with human hands, and he expected the Athenians to agree with that and say, “Well, okay, yeah, you’re right.” So, yeah, he’s saying that there were people who acted properly, albeit on limited information. And he’s using that primarily here as a foil over against Jewish folks who had received so much more and who then hadn’t obeyed it, hadn’t sought after God. “This person was given so much less than you were, but look what he did with it. He did so much more than you did with so much more.”

And to get back, because this is related to the question you asked, this is the point where we think about the fact that most of the human beings in history had no access to anything that we would now call the Bible. Most people in human history— And you don’t— I’m not just— Everybody thinks of the tribesmen on some remote island. Think about all the people who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, who didn’t have access to the Temple, were born there, lived there their whole lives. Everyone went and worshiped Yahweh, but they did it at one of the golden calves. [Laughter] So there’s a vast swath of humanity who was born and lived and died in this condition.

Q1: There’s a vast swath of them in America today.

Fr. Stephen: Well, in the world today, yeah, of human beings. And so what St. Paul is also doing here is telling us what the standard of God’s judgment is. The standard of God’s judgment is what you did with what you had. So the people he talks about being condemned here— He talks about Gentiles being condemned who had these truths and suppressed it in order to follow after their own desires, and he’s talking about Jewish people who are condemned because they have the Torah, they have this revelation of God, and they ignore it and they disobey it and they go and follow after their own desires. Those are the people who are condemned, and the people who are not condemned are the people who are seeking after God based on however much they had.

Q1: Would that mean that pious pagans—not the ones who were going to the temple prostitutes and such, but— [Laughter] But pious pagans like pious Aeneas and so forth, who worshiped their gods because they think this is the good and right and proper and moral thing to do, where do they stand?

Fr. Stephen: Well, we can’t say anything about any specific other person.

Q1: Well, that’s true.

Fr. Stephen: Because that hasn’t been revealed to us. But we know that this is the standard of judgment. This is God’s standard of justice. “From him who has been given much, much will be required.” If you’re given little, then proportionally— that Christ is going to judge with equity. So we can say— We can’t go into details on any particular person, but St. Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, said, “We know where the Holy Spirit is; we don’t know where he isn’t.” We know he’s in the Church. We know the Church is the place to find salvation. But it’s not just “he might be”; he is doing other things other places with other people.

So there will probably be people in the new heavens and the new earth who have found salvation. It’s all been through Christ; it’s all been through coming to know Christ, but who may have come to know Christ through some, shall we say, non-traditional means. And there are little stories and traditions you find here and there in the Fathers that reflect that, like of Plato encountering Christ when Christ descended into Hades, and repenting and turning to the kingdom of heaven, and things like this. And while I’m not going to put full stock, like this is literally true, in any of those stories, they reflect this idea. They reflect this idea that we’re not to judge and to decide who did and who didn’t make it—because we don’t know and we’re lousy at it—but that, again, the line isn’t drawn— It wasn’t drawn around Israel or Judah: “Everybody outside of here is all going to hell.” And it’s not drawn around the Orthodox Church or even churches that you or I might decide we’re going to loop into that along with the Orthodox Church. We don’t get to draw that line. Christ is the One who’s going to judge each person.

And remember, St. Paul said it’s a judgment according to deeds, because those deeds reveal what it is you’re seeking after. We could say all kinds of things. We could say all kinds of things, and that’s kind of what’s going on in the parable of the sheep and the goats that I referenced. They all say, “Lord, Lord”; every single one of them says, “Lord,” but Christ points to what they did. “So if I’m really your Lord, why did you see me hungry and not feed me? So apparently I’m not actually your Lord, as much as you want to give lip service to that.” And of course he says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?” which is fairly direct! [Laughter] We can say we believe in all kinds of things, we can say all kinds of things are important to us, but then if you look at our lives and how we live and what we do and the choices we make, you find out what the things are that are actually important to us because we choose for certain things and we choose against other things.

So that’s the relationship there, and this is setting out that standard of judgment: what you did with what you were given by God.

St. Paul says, “In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.” So he ties it back to the judgment of the day of the Lord. All men are judged by Jesus Christ. And notice this is according to his gospel. We talked before about what “gospel” means, that “gospel,” evangelion, in the singular, even though we kind of do the etymology and say, “Oh, it’s ‘good news,’ ” like I saved a bunch of money with Geico on my car insurance is good news, but that’s not what we’re talking about! That this was— We talked about how this is normally used in the plural outside of the New Testament, and the evangelia were read out before Caesar or an important official or general was coming to a city. A herald would come there first and read off their titles and their honors and then all of their military victories so that the city could properly prepare to receive the person when they came. St. Paul understands what he is preaching about Christ to be an evangelion, his titles, Lord, Savior, that we’ve seen, and then the report of this victory he won over the powers of sin and death and hell through his death and resurrection and ascension. And that culminates with his return to judge the living and the dead. So that is the conclusion of St. Paul’s gospel, and that’s why he’s referring to that here.

That being the conclusion of the gospel is why we saw in the book of Acts, when the Gospel was preached by St. Paul and the other apostles, the response was always, “What must I do to be saved?” This same Christ is now returning to judge the living and the dead: “Okay, what do I need to do to be on the right side when that judgment happens? What do I need to do?”

So now he sort of completes his segue. Now he’s speaking to the members of the Jewish community.

Indeed, you 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, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law.

So he’s saying, “Look, you’re one of the chosen people. God’s revealed himself to you, he’s given you his wisdom in the Torah, you’ve studied it, you can now educate everyone, go and teach—” This was the mission of Israel. The mission of Israel was to be a light to the nations; it wasn’t an end in itself. They were supposed to live in a certain and different way so that the other nations would see and would come to worship their God as well. So he’s saying, “This is how you look at yourself. You’re the one who’s instructing everyone, instructing the rest of the world. When you look at the— Even when you look at the Church now and there’s Gentiles there, you’re the older brother who’s going to instruct them in the ways of your people.”

He says:

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 make your 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.

St. Paul says, “You know, you’re right. You do know. So you can go out and you can teach all of these new Gentile converts. You can teach them all the ten commandments. But let me ask you something: do you keep those ten commandments that you’re teaching everybody else, or are you violating them even as you’re teaching them?” And so he quotes—and it’s hard to tell whether this quote is from Isaiah or Ezekiel, because they both say this—notice “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles, among the nations, because of you.” This is the opposite. He appealed to that language of being a light to the nations; this is what they were supposed to do. When Isaiah and Ezekiel come to the people who were— Isaiah comes before the Assyrians are going to wipe out the northern kingdom of Israel; Ezekiel comes while Judah is in exile in Babylon. And they say, “Not only did you not succeed in being a light to the nations, of drawing them to worship the true God, but they speak badly, they blaspheme your God because they see you and how you live and what you do.” So he says, “You’ve failed.”

And because he’s making this point— I want to reiterate; I’m going to reiterate this over and over again. St. Paul, most of his statements in Romans, he’s speaking historically. That’s why you can’t debate. So a Jewish person couldn’t come to him and say, “Well, I don’t think I’m doing all that bad!” because he’s appealing to a fact, historically. He’s just quoted Isaiah and Ezekiel. They can’t deny the fact that that is what happened, that that is what happened. They’re pinning their hopes— St. Paul sees this is the problem. They’re pinning all their hopes on the fact that they’re Jewish. They’re pinning their hopes on the fact that they’re part of this people. Well, let’s look at the track record of this people. Is that something you should really pin your hopes on? Is that something that should give you confidence in your standing before God, the fact that you’re part of this people who failed miserably?

Q1: Doesn’t this apply to us Christians, then? The world doesn’t seem to be terribly impressed with us today, enamored of what they see.

Fr. Stephen: Yes. We’ll get into that a little more when he talks about the works of the law, but, yeah, that Christ in St. John’s gospel says they’ll know you’re Christians by your love, not by your bumper sticker or your t-shirt or your voting habits or… [Laughter]

Q1: I was going to get a bumper sticker. [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: We like to identify ourselves with Christ, again, verbally—verbally—but people then judge our beliefs, our religion, and even our God based on what we do and how we live once we say that. And this is what the commandment is getting at. I know we read, “Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,” and we think that means: “Oh, don’t say bad words.” [Laughter] Or: “Well, you can say bad words as long as they don’t include the word ‘God’ in the bad word, or they don’t include the name ‘Jesus’ in the bad word: that’s what that’s saying.” That’s not at all what that’s saying. You shouldn’t do any of those things, but that’s not what the commandment is saying! [Laughter] “Taking the name of the Lord” means taking it upon yourself. It means taking it upon yourself.

Q1: Labeling yourself as.

Fr. Stephen: Right. This is the equivalent of what we’re going to see eventually when we get there in the book of Revelation of the mark of the beast. It talks about taking the mark of the beast, which is the number of his name. These people are identifying themselves with the beast. This is identifying yourself with God. So this is, for example, calling yourself a Christian, taking the name “Christ” and applying it to yourself. The commandment is saying: Do not do that in vain. Do not bring mockery upon the name of the Lord by your behavior. This is the way several of those commandments function.

Q1: This is very powerful and completely new to me.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah! [Laughter] It’s the same thing: “Honor your father and mother,” as much as we like to think, “Oh, well, that means—” As much as parents like to say, “That means obey me. That means do what I say.” That’s not what that means. That means you live your life in a way that brings honor to your father and your mother, brings honor to your parents and to their name, rather than dishonor by the way you live your life.

Q4: So, like when before Western, Asian countries, how they wanted to bring honor to their families.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah. And that’s where— Remember that passage when Christ is preaching, and those people say to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you,” where they’re blessing his mother because of him: that’s the fulfillment of that commandment. But that commandment with your parents is parallel to taking the name of the Lord in vain. It’s the same idea, that you live— If you are identifying yourself with, in that case, Yahweh the God of Israel, now with the Holy Trinity, with Christ, if you’re identifying yourself— then you live your life in a way that brings honor to his name and to him. In the same way you bear your parents’ name, and you live in a way that brings honor to them. Those two commandments are parallel. So that is sort of the idea that St. Paul is getting at here.

And obviously it does apply to us, because you ask the average just random person—we’ll just say in the United States today—what a Christian is and listen to the answer.

Q1: Whoa, yeah.

Fr. Stephen: And as much as we’d like to say, “Wow, they’re way off-base,” no, they’ve learned from observation. They’ve learned from observation. They’re not wrong; we’re wrong. We’ve been doing it wrong, and that’s why they have this impression. So, yeah, it’s exactly what St. Paul is getting at.

He says, “For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law, but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.” So you’re bragging about: You’re circumcised, you were born in this Jewish family, you’re Jewish, you’re one of God’s people. He’s like: That’s great—as long as you then keep the commandments. He says, “But if you don’t keep the commandments, what’s that circumcision worth? That and five bucks’ll get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.”

Q4: Circumcision in that case is like what you were talking about before. It’s like the taking on of the name of Jesus.

Fr. Stephen: Right, and it’s fulfilled in baptism. The equivalent today would be saying, “Well, I was baptized when I was a baby, so I’m a Christian. I was christened, so now I’m a Christian.” [Laughter] Okay, if you now live a Christian life, then that baptism is very meaningful. If that happens to you when you’re a baby and you never darken the doorstep of a church again and you go and live however you like, that and five bucks’ll get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

“Therefore, if an uncircumcised man”—so now we’re talking about a Gentile again. “If an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?” So wouldn’t he— wouldn’t the person who is not circumcised, was never circumcised, but who keeps the Torah, keeps God’s law, would not that person be considered righteous by God? Well, of course he would. God wouldn’t say, “Well, you know, yeah, I know you’ve kept the whole Torah, but you weren’t circumcised when you were a kid, so too bad!” [Laughter] Obviously not.

And one more note. We’re talking about keeping the Torah here, and this is another reason why it’s important not to separate off the ceremonial law, is that the Torah includes sin-offerings, guilt-offerings, the day of atonement. The Torah includes a means of—and we’re going to see as we go on this is very important to St. Paul’s thinking on this—includes a means of receiving forgiveness for sins, of handling sin that has happened. So keeping the Torah doesn’t mean being morally perfect and never sinning; keeping the Torah means striving to follow God, striving to keep the commandments, and when you fail then repenting and taking care of it through the prescribed means. To not keep Torah would be to sin and then not take care of it through the prescribed means.

Q4: I had a question about that. Before we just read when— Let’s see, you talk about circumcision. It seems like in the law circumcision was necessary or it was absolute, in the sense that those who were not— To Abraham, those who were not circumcised were not included in the covenant. That seemed really significant. And it seems to make sense—

Fr. Stephen: Well, with one major qualification: women.

Q4: It’s true.

Fr. Stephen: Because there is something called female circumcision, but it was never practiced in the Jewish world. So, yeah, males.

Q4: But it seems like what it is with males, yeah. All males must be circumcised, and those who were not circumcised were outside; they’re not included in the covenant.

Fr. Stephen: Right.

Q4: So it seems like with the Jews demanding that this be upheld, it seems to be in line with the Torah?

Fr. Stephen: Well, we’re going to see, because St. Paul’s going to get into that specifically.

Q1: You mean Jewish Christians demanding that Gentiles that convert be circumcised?

Fr. Stephen: Right. We’re going to get to that, because he’s going to go more in-depth on the issue of circumcision. But part of that question, to tease it, is going to be whether the old covenant, whether the Torah, was about salvation. [Laughter] It’s about what the purpose of the Torah, what the purpose of it was, and how it relates to circumcision, because circumcision was given before the Torah; it was given to Abraham—and how all those things relate. He’s going to go into great detail on that, but, yeah, a big part of that is going to be what was the purpose of the Torah, and whether that purpose was to be a means of salvation for people, and what that would even mean. [Laughter] So that’s a big tease.

Q2: Yeah, really! [Laughter]

Fr. Stephen: It says, “And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law?” So he says, “Would not that person, who has kept the Torah but is uncircumcised, be able to judge you, who are circumcised but haven’t kept the Torah, by the Torah as a standard?” St. Paul’s going to say in Galatians that if you’re circumcised, you’re committing yourself to the whole Torah; you are binding yourself to it. So again, this isn’t something you could argue with. If you’re circumcised, you’re obligated now to keep the whole— So if you haven’t kept it, that circumcision isn’t a plus for you; it’s a minus, because you’re part of a covenant that you haven’t kept.

“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.” This is not a new concept, either, that St. Paul is coming up with; this is straight out of the book of Deuteronomy, where God tells the people, Israel, “Today circumcise your hearts.” And that imagery is that you cut off the hardened part; you cut off the hardened, outward part of your heart. So the Jewish person would have to agree with that: “Well, yeah, the person who’s truly one of God’s people is the person who has circumcised his heart, and, yeah, it isn’t about what you do in your flesh and show off to other people,” though you probably shouldn’t be showing off your circumcision to other people…

Q1: Actually, in the ancient world, people were naked a lot.

Fr. Stephen: They kind of did, yeah. But it’s the one who’s circumcised in their heart. God sees the heart, and God rewards based on what’s in the heart, not based on what we may do or say outwardly, coming back to that standard of judgment again. It’s not what you say or what you claim; it’s who you are and then what you do that proceeds out of who you are.