You Who Boast in the Law Dishonour God by Breaking It (Romans 2:21–27)

Rom 2:21. Do you, then, who teach another, not teach yourself?

The Gentiles are without excuse when, knowing the good by the prompting of conscience, they do evil. But you, O Jew, have received knowledge of what is proper directly from God Himself, and not only this you possessed, but were even conscious of yourself as a teacher of others. Judge now how much more inexcusable you are when you do evil? You teach others, but what of yourself? “Just as the Apostle condemned the Gentiles, so he does the same here. As he there said: ‘whoever judges another judges himself’, so here he says: ‘do you, who teach another, not teach yourself!’ By setting forth his thought in the form of a question, he shames the Jews. At the beginning he said that hearing the Law alone, if not joined with its fulfillment, brings no benefit; but now he demonstrates something far greater—that not only hearing, but even the most important thing beyond that, the very teaching of the Law to others, will not help the teacher if he does not fulfill what he teaches. And not only will it not help, but it will bring down still greater punishment” (St. John Chrysostom). When you teach another, it means you not only know what is right, but also desire that it be recognized as such by others and enter into their lives. But you yourself: why do you remain behind and not budge from your place, like a pillar that points the way to others, yet stands immovable? It is observed that when someone errs in something himself, he rebukes others more zealously for the same thing. The Apostle speaks as if to say: do not waste this zeal for nothing; instead of directing it at others, turn all of it rather upon yourself.

Rom 2:22. You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

From the general accusation that, in teaching others, he himself remains untaught—that is, fails to do what he teaches others—the Apostle moves to pointing out particular instances of this kind. He points to only three vices—theft, adultery, and sacrilege. Why these three? Perhaps because they represent the chief among three vicious inclinations—avarice, lust, and pride. Theft is the representative of the first, adultery of the second, sacrilege of the third, despising not only men and human things, but God Himself and the divine. These three passions encompass all vice and sin, and their offspring are numerous. Without enumerating all of them, the Apostle sets forth one product of each, the most common or the most striking. Avarice impels acquisition through intense labor, trading, certain improprieties in commercial dealings and transactions, usurious interest and the like. But when one resolves to steal what belongs to another, it is evident that his greed goes beyond all bounds. Similarly, the adulterer, when he flees from his own wife to another, clearly shows his lust has become uncontainable. And sacrilege is the fruit of avarice, but in spirit it is the fruit of contempt for all and everything; and contempt constitutes the essential character of pride.

The Apostle’s words about theft and adultery are clear; but his words about sacrilege are not altogether comprehensible. “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” — ἱεροσυλεῖ — you commit sacrilege. Before the exile, the Jews often fell into idolatry, but after the exile they were free from this greatest sin. And it is right to say of them that they abhorred idols. But what does it mean: “you rob holy things”? Whose and how? Where and how did they commit sacrilege? Judging from the fact that idols are mentioned here, one may suppose that the holy things they stole were also idolatrous and in heathen temples. This is how our commentators understand it. Through this the Jew was defiled, for everything sacrificed to idols is unclean and through them given to demons. If in this way he stole things dedicated to idols as if they were holy, he touched upon idolatry: his abhorrence of idols was only apparent; in reality he did not regard them as nothing, but as something. If this is so, then, turning our thought away from idols and fixing our attention solely on the theft of the holy, we see in this act impiety toward God, warfare against God, proud audacity against God in general. But it seems to others that, since it was not customary among the Jews to rob heathen temples, the stealing of holy things is better understood as thefts from their own temple. Yet this too was not so common that one could attribute such a vice to every Jew; so some have come to understand sacrilege here as the Jews’ irreverence toward their own temple and toward what is dedicated to it, or the appropriation to themselves of what should be given to the temple. What was to be given to the temple, he concealed and thereby stole from the temple. The Apostle speaks as if to say: you abhor idols, but you do not honor even your own holy things at all. Among the Jews living outside Palestine, transgressions against the established relationship they had with the temple and sacred services were quite common. This non-fulfillment the Apostle perhaps calls sacrilege. Or perhaps the Apostle named their impiety, their forgetting of God and the due spiritual worship owed to Him, as sacrilege. You abhor idols, but you do not honor the true God as you should; you steal from Him the heart, which should be dedicated to Him, and give it to earthly and material things. The subsequent discourse of the Apostle concerns how the Jew dishonors God and how His name is “blasphemed among the Gentiles” through him. Is this not the explanation of sacrilege mentioned here?

Rom 2:23. You who boast in the Law, do you dishonor God through breaking the Law?

“You boast in the Law”—you glory in the Law, in the fact that you have received it from God Himself and therefore have the assurance that God does not regard you as foreign, but especially favors you. But in setting forth this privilege, it was necessary for you to be wholly faithful to the Law, so as to show yourself worthy of this mercy of God toward you—the gift of the Law—before the face of all peoples, to show God’s choice of you in a manner not bringing shame—to show that God is righteous in having given you preference before other peoples. But you carelessly transgress the Law, and in transgressing it, you dishonor God, who gave it to you. All other peoples can complain: look at whom He chose! If He had chosen us and given us such a Law, we would never have allowed ourselves to show such ingratitude through transgression of the Law as these Jews do. “He sets forth two charges, or more rightly, three. The Jews dishonor, they dishonor by means of that which was their honor; they dishonor Him who exalted them in honor—and this is the very extremity of ingratitude” (St. John Chrysostom).

Rom 2:24. For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written.

“Lest you think the Apostle accuses the Jews on his own authority, he introduces the prophet Isaiah as the accuser (Isa. 52:5). I do not rebuke you in this, Paul says; listen to what Isaiah said: ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’. And in this accusation there are again two charges. For it is said that they not only offend God themselves, but also lead others to do the same. Above he accused them of the fact that, while teaching others, they do not teach themselves; now he accuses them of something greater: you not only do not educate yourselves, but you do not teach others what they ought to do. And what is worst of all, you not only do not teach them to live according to the Law, but teach the opposite—you teach them to blaspheme God, which is contrary to the Law” (St. John Chrysostom).

“Because of you is He blasphemed”—not by your lips, but because of you, because of your unfaithfulness to the Law, which is from God. “Among the Gentiles”—the heathen peoples, seeing your wickedness, say: “Should God love such people? Is God, who loves such, truly God?” (Blessed Theophylact). “He ought not to have chosen such people or given them anything. Could He not foresee that they are evil and will be evil?!” (Oecumenius). “Thus you, O Jew, became not only the cause of no praise of God, but moved many mouths to blasphemy. For, seeing your lawless life, the heathen openly blasphemed God, who chose you” (Blessed Theodoret).

Rom 2:25. Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the Law; but if you break the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

After the Apostle said of the Jews that they too knew but did not do, it would have been fitting for him to apply the same judgment to them: consequently, you too are without excuse. But since this already followed of itself from what was said above, and yet the Jew might excuse himself from this judgment by the thought: we have circumcision and what is bound with it—God’s seal of our election—it cannot be that God would put us on the same level with the Gentiles. The Apostle now refutes these Jewish prejudices in his favor. Circumcision, he says as if, certainly has value, but not unconditionally. It benefits if you fulfill the Law; if, however, you break it, then regard circumcision as if it never existed. You have destroyed its significance through breaking the Law and have become as uncircumcised.

What law does the holy Apostle mean here? As the Apostle presents two aspects here, one of which is circumcision and, one must suppose, everything bound with it—Sabbaths, festivals, sacrifices, washings, the whole external religious arrangement, the entire external practice of pious Judaism—and the other is the fulfillment of the Law, one must recognize that by law here is meant the internal moral-religious character of pious Judaism, corresponding to that external—the fear of God and under it all the sentiments, dispositions, and deeds required by righteousness and love. For the Jew the entire external practice was law, but not the principal law. The religious arrangement among the Jews was such as to lead from the external to the internal. The external was valuable; but if the internal was not developed beneath it, then it lost value. So too circumcision was valuable; but if the circumcised one did not see in this the obligation—to circumcise his own heart—and did not circumcise it, then circumcision lost its value.

Blessed Theophylact writes: “He understands two circumcisions and two uncircumcisions: one external and another internal. That is: external circumcision is fleshly circumcision, when one is circumcised in the flesh, while spiritual circumcision consists in the rejection of fleshly passions. And uncircumcision in the flesh occurs when one remains uncircumcised in the flesh; while spiritual uncircumcision occurs when one, having a pagan soul, does not cut off passions at all. Paul’s thought is this: if you are circumcised in the flesh, but do not fulfill what is prescribed, then you are still uncircumcised—uncircumcised in the spirit; similarly, whoever is not circumcised in the flesh but fulfills what is prescribed is circumcised in the spirit, because his fleshly passions are cut off.”

Blessed Theodoret writes the same: “The Apostle here proves that fleshly circumcision is useless when there is no circumcision of the soul, because the latter was the reason the former was given. If the latter is absent, the former is useless; because it has the significance of a seal. Where we place gold, or silver, or precious stones, or valuable clothing, we customarily apply seals. But when nothing is placed within, then the application of seals is superfluous.”

Hearing a rebuke for uncircumcision of the heart was not new to the Jew. He had often heard it before from the Prophets. Thus the prophet Jeremiah says: “You are uncircumcised in the flesh, but the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart”—and then adds: “Circumcise your hardness of heart” (Jer 9:26; 4:4). The Apostle evidently imitates the prophetic word (Blessed Theodoret). Note the skill of St. Paul. He did not attack circumcision outright, but placed its value under a condition and, indicating that the Jew does not fulfill this condition, thereby disposed him to acknowledge that his circumcision amounts to nothing. “Thus you see how the Apostle, while granting circumcision in words, destroys it in fact. He did not say that it is useless, profitable for nothing, serves no purpose, but what does he say? ‘Circumcision is of value’—I agree, I do not dispute that circumcision is a good thing; but when? When you keep the Law. ‘But if you break the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision’. — And here he did not say it is useless, lest you think he is scorning circumcision. Rather, first he proved that the Jew does not have spiritual circumcision, and only then does he strike at his fleshly circumcision. Now the reproach falls not on circumcision, but on the one who has lost it through negligence. Just as judges, upon convicting an official of grave crimes, first deprive him of his rank and honors, and then punish him, so Paul deals with the Jew. Having said: ‘if you break the Law’, he added: ‘your circumcision has become uncircumcision’. And having shown that he is uncircumcised, he boldly pronounces judgment over him” (St. John Chrysostom).

Rom 2:26. So if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the Law, will not their uncircumcision be reckoned as circumcision?

The word: “uncircumcision”—stands in place of: “the uncircumcised”. — Having placed the value of circumcision under the condition of fulfilling the Law and thus indicated that the Jew who does not fulfill the Law has become the same as the uncircumcised, now from the opposite side he sets forth the same thought more impressively: suppose the uncircumcised fulfills the Law; then he will become the same as the circumcised. Here the Apostle does not set forth an actual fact of an uncircumcised one fulfilling the requirements of the Law, but speaks this hypothetically: if it should happen that the uncircumcised one fulfills the Law. From the course of his speech it directly follows that this is what he is saying; but from this one cannot conclude that it is actually the case. For in reality, although there were decent Gentiles, strictly speaking, they did not have even true conceptions of moral perfection, and all the more so not the strength to achieve such perfection. In this sense one can only point to particular cases and contrast a sinning Jew in one sort of thing with a non-sinning Gentile in that sort of thing. For example: one Jew is a thief, but one Gentile is not a thief; the Gentile fulfills the requirement of the Law in this case, while the Jew does not; and in this respect that one is circumcised and this one uncircumcised. But one cannot on the basis of these words suppose that the Apostle deems it possible for an uncircumcised Gentile to prove himself morally perfect. He speaks of this only hypothetically, in order to impress more strongly upon the mind of the Jew the thought of how low he has fallen by breaking the Law, and thereby more successfully dispose him toward repentance and the seeking of another justification besides circumcision: which is precisely the Apostle’s aim in this section.

The meaning of the words: “if those who are uncircumcised keep the requirements of the Law”—is the same as in the previous verse the meaning of the words: “if you obey the Law”. As there is meant the heartfelt fulfillment of moral-religious requirements, so here. “Requirements,” δικαιώματα — rights, requisite demands. Whoever fulfills them or is holy, even though not circumcised, will be reckoned as circumcised. Theodoret writes: “The Law demands works. Therefore, if you, circumcised, have no works, while the uncircumcised one does, is it not just for you to be called lawless and for him to take upon himself your honorable title and be called no longer uncircumcised, as you scornfully call him, but rather circumcised, as one who has circumcised the wickedness of his soul?” St. John Chrysostom indicates that here the Apostle’s reasoning is abstract. Namely: “He examines what circumcision is and what uncircumcision is, and says that circumcision is good works and uncircumcision is evil works. And the uncircumcised one who has good works, including him in the concept of circumcision, and the circumcised one who leads a vicious life, excluding him from the concept of circumcision, he gives preference to the uncircumcised.”

Rom 2:27. And the uncircumcised by nature, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who, despite having the written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the Law?

“By nature uncircumcised”—naturally “uncircumcised”—stands in place of the person who, as he was born, so remains with uncircumcised flesh. The Apostle says: this uncircumcised one, if he fulfills, that is, keeps the Law, will condemn you if you prove to be a transgressor of the Law, which circumcision obligates you to fulfill and which Scripture constantly urges upon you. “You who despite having the written code and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law”. Not merely with the written code and circumcision, but more strongly—through the written code and circumcision. And he who, not having the written code and circumcision, transgresses the Law, is a transgressor; but when you, having the written code and circumcision, transgress the Law, through these very written code and circumcision you become the greater and more inexcusable transgressor.

On what judgment will he condemn? On the future judgment. The Apostle impresses upon the mind a picture of the future judgment; he places the Jew against the uncircumcised Gentile and says: this uncircumcised one will condemn you. “Not a Jew will condemn a Jew, but the uncircumcised. Christ said something similar: ‘The men of Nineveh will rise up and condemn this generation’ (Matt. 12:41)” (St. John Chrysostom). If the Jew took to heart what was said above, he could not but acknowledge that this is indeed so, and feel the danger of his position, because of which he is inevitably a victim of judgment and condemnation. It could not be imagined a stronger inducement for the Jew to repent and seek a means of deliverance from this condemnation. Through all this the Apostle strips the Jew of the sense of his own righteousness, which was destroying him, and brings him to the sense of being without excuse before God, indeed even more than the uncircumcised are without excuse. You are honored by God in such a way, surrounded by His care and furnished with such means for living holily; and yet at the judgment you will be condemned by the uncircumcised, whom you now refuse to look at and whose company you consider unclean. Can one not be struck by this possibility, which is entirely just?! We Christians too, who receive not external circumcision but inner rebirth, and not the written code alone but the grace of the Spirit, enlightening, strengthening, guiding, ought not to lose sight of such representations. What answer can we give if all this is trampled under our feet?!