#32 - Piper - Who is a true jew - part II

Piper continues a look at the true jew and answers the question, “Why do we want to be a true jew?”

 

Paul says in verse 26 that the uncircumcised man (the Gentile) will be regarded by God as a circumcised man (a true Jew) if he “keeps the requirements of Law.” “So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?” So it isn’t circumcision that makes you a true Jew, it is keeping the requirements of the Law—that is, it is understanding what the Law was really all about and being changed by it in the heart and living out God’s purpose for man taught in it (see 1 Corinthians 7:19).

 

This is amazing. The reason it’s amazing is that what Paul is trying to show is why Law-keeping—Law-fulfilling—makes one a true Jew, and his answer is all about internal change, not external activity. He says, in essence, that Law-keeping or Law-fulfilling makes you a true Jew because it is not mainly an external thing, but an internal thing. It has to do mainly with the sense of the heart and not the seeing of the letter. It has to do mainly with praise that comes from God in secret, not the praise of man in public (see Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). That is what the Law is really all about. Otherwise the argument doesn’t work.

 

So the point is that a person is a true Jew—a true part of God’s redeemed people—if he fulfills the Law, that is, if his heart is circumcised by the Spirit to love God. Deuteronomy 30:6 promised, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” That’s what Paul is talking about here, and you don’t have to be a natural-born Jew, he says, for it to happen to you.

 

Without the Spirit we either reject the Law of God out of hand, or we change it into something we can manage. And in either case we lose, and the Law condemns us: you can become a transgressor of the law by rejecting it or by trying to keep it in your own strength. Paul calls the law minus the Spirit: “letter.” And he says in another place, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

So let’s put two summary equations in the corner of our picture.

 

Law minus Spirit = 1) external religious ritual (like circumcision) 2) the need for the praise of man to keep you going 3) death, because the Law becomes mere “letter,” and that kills

 

Law plus Spirit = 1) internal circumcision of the heart 2) satisfaction in the praise of God, even if no man approves you 3) life, because the Spirit unites us to God in love

 

Now what’s the point of all this? The main point I want you get this morning is this: Seek and cherish the work of the Spirit of God in your life to make you a true Jew. Our salvation hangs on this—the work of the Spirit circumcising our heart to love the Lord (Deuteronomy 30:6) 2) writing the Law of God on our heart (Jeremiah 31:33) 3) freeing us from our need for the praise of man (Romans 2:29)

All of this is what Christ obtained for us when he shed his blood to seal the new covenant

 

 

 

 

Steve Allen

ACTION Zambia

www.aliveinafrica.com