Do We Teach Ourselves? — Sermon by Dr Peter Masters on Romans 2.12

Do we teach ourselves?

Romans 2, verse 12, and our title will be “Do we teach ourselves?”

“For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.”

We come to the latter part of the second chapter of Romans in our studies, and we’ll begin here at the twelfth verse. It flows from verse 5: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

“For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” Then there are the parentheses from verses 13 to 15, in brackets. And if you go straight to verse 16, you can read from verse 12, as I’m sure you’ve done: “As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law … in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus according to my gospel.”

And within those brackets is additional material of great importance, but breaking the flow just momentarily from verse 12 to verse 16. Well, that’s the passage before us. And in verse 12, the Gentiles are primarily in mind. For as many as have sinned without having the law—they do not have Moses and the Ten Commandments, the books of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the books of the law, setting out the standards of God for the human race.

As many as have sinned not having the law shall perish not having the law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. So the privileged—the Jews who have revelation and instruction and the law of God—will be judged by it.

Then the brackets, verse 13: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God.” This is a hypothetical statement. Not the hearers, but “the doers of the law shall be justified”. But, of course, in reality there is not one single person is a doer of the law successfully. Not one single person. Paul will go on to argue in this epistle and to show us not one will be justified, accepted by God as just, on account of obedience to the law, because we are hopeless sinners and we have too great a back record of guilt, and we cannot be justified by our works.

But hypothetically, if a person were to have perfectly kept all the standards of righteousness in the law, then such a person would be accepted of God by their merits and their deserving. But not one will be. And we need grace. But the Jews need to be reminded of this. It’s not having the law and hearing it week by week. It’s being a performer of it.

Now, the Jews in those times, so many of them at any rate, took the law not as a standard of righteousness, but as a confirmation to them that because God had given them this, therefore they were special in his sight, and they were redeemed and forgiven. The giving of the law to them was taken as a mark, a sign, a surety that they were God’s people. They needed no Saviour. They needed no salvation. They merited it by their birth.

Not all Jews. There were godly Jews who understood that they needed the grace and forgiveness of God and trusted in a coming Saviour who somehow would secure it for them. But the majority were hearers only, convinced that they would be justified by that. And the apostle rehearses these things.

Verse 14: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” Well, they demonstrate that the law is built into them. They’ve never read the books of Moses. They’ve never heard the Jewish preaching in temple or synagogue, but they have it already, as Jews do too, as we all have it written in our consciences.

So the apostle Paul argues this by saying: note, the Gentiles very frequently do right things by nature, and they’re kind, hopefully, to their children, and they look after their needy, and they do good things because it’s in their consciences—the same law. So the Jew will be judged by his greater light, that he had the published Word, but the Gentile, as the Jew, will be judged by the testimony of his conscience. He knew what he should do.

And Paul goes on to elaborate in verse 15: “Which show the work of the law written in their hearts.” Their conscience, their conscious thoughts. The word “conscience” comes from the Greek word for light. They’ve had a degree of illumination in the conscience.

“Their conscience also bearing witness”—speaking alongside. The conscience is separate in this sentence from the mind. The mind has the conscience. Yes, you know right and wrong. You have a moral consciousness, and you have another voice alongside it challenging you. You knew you shouldn’t tell that lie, make that excuse, say those things. But as though there’s a magistrate, a policeman within you, a schoolmaster overlooking your shoulder and looking at your work, a voice came and said, “That’s wrong.” And you desperately tried to justify or excuse it. And there was almost a discussion going on between the inner core of you and your conscience, the voice alongside you in your head.

Well, it’s expressed more perfectly in the Greek than in the English. When they do by nature things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts. Their conscience also—the alongside voice—bearing witness, and “their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another”. Doesn’t everybody have that work?

Alas, the conscience can be disabled, and so often is. You can disable the conscience by the simple technique of ignoring it, of steamrollering over it, pushing it to one side. The same wrong or sin comes up minutes, hours, days later. The conscience speaks again. You do it again. You steamroller it down. You do the thing anyway. Tell the lie anyway. Third time, the conscience is enfeebled. Fourth time, it’s barely speaking. Fifth time, you feel nothing. You’ve insensitised the conscience.

That’s one way of getting rid of the conscience. Another way is to argue with it. That’s probably a favourite way of many. You say, “No, this is justified, what I’m doing, because of this, because of that. If you were in my shoes, you’d do the same. I’m not doing it as badly as other people.” All sorts of justifications to minimise the voice of conscience.

Or else, failing that, there’s yet another way you can silence the conscience. And this is going on wholesale in society. You rewrite the conscience. You tell yourself, “No, it isn’t wrong. That’s just Victorian prudery. Well, that’s just an inherited standard imposed upon us by a past generation. It’s all right to be gay. It’s all right to do this. It’s all…” You rewrite the conscience. You even get Parliament to help you rewrite it and change laws very often. The human race is very adept at that: changing, rewriting, reprogramming the conscience.

But it’s always there. And from time to time, no matter how much you’ve bludgeoned it out, how many excuses you’ve made, how much you’ve rewritten it, it’ll shout out. John Bunyan had it perfectly in Pilgrim’s Progress. Mr Recorder would break out of his jail and shout. And that’s what conscience does.

And it may do it on your deathbed. It may just roar to and fro in your mind. Some people have awful dyings because conscience gets loose at the last minute and makes them terrified of God and judgment. And it’ll certainly speak against you when you stand before God. It’s there to help you. Why make an enemy of it?

But there’s the conscience in verses 14 and 15. And then, in verse 16, we come back to the end of verse 12: “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.” Why, that’s something easy to prove from many Scriptures. Jesus Christ tells us that he is the appointed one of God to be the judge.

And two things I’d like to look at in verse 16. “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.” What’s my big secret and your secret? Your secret sin? Well, it may be something all-embracing. Forgive the negative tone I may seem to strike, but this is kindness, friends.

It may be somebody here in our congregation is a hypocrite. You’re not really a Christian at all. You say you are. You say you believe. Maybe you’ve even got into church membership, but you’re not. You don’t pray. You don’t strive for holiness. You don’t love or serve the Lord. You’re a hypocrite. But nobody knows. It’s your secret. Oh friends, be careful. “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men”, it’s coming out. And it may then be too late.

Or the secret may be something else. Some sin you’ve got wrapped up like a parcel, and it’s in your thought life or where nobody sees. Maybe you’ve been looking at images. Maybe you’ve been doing things and contemplating things and fantasising things, and the devil will lead you on through temptation. It’s a secret sin. Not even your dearest knows it. It’ll be opened: “The secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”

But then the end of the verse: “According to my gospel.” Why does the apostle Paul use that language? “According to my gospel”—it’s very beautiful. Some critics are saying, “Yes, that’s what it was. It was his gospel.” And they try to drive a wedge between the apostle Paul’s teaching and that of Christ. “Paul created something else,” they say. It’s nonsense.

Of course, when you’re familiar with the epistles of Paul and you read them with a reference Bible, you can’t help noting how much Paul says, for all the clarity he gives it, how much he says that is not original at all. There’s chapter and verse in the margin for phrase after phrase after phrase, rooted in the Old Testament. And so much of it you see rooted in Christ himself. Of course, it’s all under inspiration of God. Paul gives you his references, in a sense, in a reference Bible constantly.

And if you just spent one devotional half-hour looking at the references of any chapter of Romans, you’d see how much is rooted and referenced to the Old Testament. And you’d say to yourself, “I’ve been a Christian ten, twenty, thirty years, and I never noticed how much.”

So when he says “my gospel”, he’s not suggesting it’s unique to himself. It wasn’t. He compared it all with the gospel of the apostles who walked personally with the Lord, and they were at one hundred per cent agreement in their teachings. What does he mean, then, when he says “my gospel”? Well, he means a number of things.

Of course, he means to remind us that he got all his truth by direct revelation from Christ. He was the last of the apostles. The last, the one born out of due time, none after him, by revelation. And it agreed with everything the others had learned personally from the Lord Jesus Christ. So he’s telling us that. But he’s telling us more.

It’s his gospel, and this should be true of us too, and particularly true of anyone who will minister, but true of us all. He’d made it his very own, like the Old Testament sage made to eat the scroll. He’d taken it into himself. He was gospel through and through. He believed it with his whole being. He lived for it. “My gospel.”

You say, “My dear wife, my husband, my children.” They belong. You’re bound together closely. There’s nobody closer on earth. “My gospel.” This is tied to me. It’s part of me. I think gospel. It’s my gospel.

He says everybody knows this throughout the world, wherever they’ve heard of the apostle Paul—and many had—or the gospel. They link the two. Paul is coming: that means the gospel is coming. It was one and the same, the gospel and Paul. Can’t do anything without gospel. It is the letter to the Romans. We’ve only got into chapter 2, and we’ve already had two or three gospel messages from it. It’s supposed to be the book of doctrine, and so far you’ve had more gospel than doctrine.

He was inseparable from the preaching of Christ crucified, the need of salvation, the need to trust in him for the forgiveness of sin, the need to repent before him, to be born again by him, the power of the Spirit. These were the crucial things for the apostle Paul. “My gospel.” He was dedicated to it, committed to it wholly.

There’s a secretary of a church in Scotland told me a few years ago they were looking for a pastor, and they’d had some great disappointments. They’d had some young student preachers come, and they could preach fairly well. But if they talked to them about their pastoral call, they would start saying, “Well, of course, if I came to a church, my terms would be: I need so much holiday. I’d need at least so many bedrooms in the manse. I’d need this. I’d need that. I’d need…”

And you couldn’t imagine the apostle Paul laying down any conditions. I’ll come. I’ll live by faith if necessary, which is what he mostly did, working for his living. It’s my gospel. I’m pledged to it. I’ve been given a charge, a commission. The Lord will provide. I will live by faith if necessary and trust him and commit myself to this, even if they can’t pay me.

This is the spirit: “My gospel.” He was a new man. He’d had this committed to his absolute trust. It’s a terrific word. I commend it to you. Look at one word in this verse, and it’ll sanctify and bless you: “My gospel.” Can you say it? Does it rule you, govern you, motivate you? Is it everything to you? Your fortune, your substance, your gift for it—speed it on its way, support it. “My gospel.”

But I have another theme to consider. Verse 17: “Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God.” And there’s the long list of things which the Jews gloried in. These are not all Jews, but sadly the majority of them.

You make your boast of God. You know his will. You approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law. You’re confident that you’re a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes. You have the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. All these things they believed they had. And we can just glance at them. I don’t intend to expound them because I want to move to the big point.

You know his will. You approve the things that are more excellent. Oh, you Jewish people, you believe in virtues. You believe in good things and good conduct, just as you’re taught. You’re instructed from Moses, and you know the history of your nation, and you’re confident that you’re a teacher of Gentiles. Though you never teach them, but you’re confident you can.

Verse 19: “A guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness.” That’s an Old Testament phrase for Gentiles: those who are in darkness, and you’re their light. And then at home in your own society, verse 20, you lift up the people who fall behind: “An instructor of the foolish.” You exercise discipline and law and order. “A teacher of babes.” You have schools, and you teach the little children. The pagans don’t do that. They don’t have any schools. And you do. You’re civilised, and you admire virtue.

Then comes the bombshell, the thunderclap in verse 21: “Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?” Wouldn’t it be easier for the apostle Paul to say, “Do you teach yourself?” That’s plain and simple. Do you teach yourself? Why this way of putting it: “Teachest thou not thyself?” I’ll tell you why. Because the element of surprise is here, almost mock surprise. You Jews, you’re so good, so fit, so able. But a tone of shock and surprise: don’t you teach yourself?

Put that way round: surely you teach yourself. Surely you haven’t forgotten to teach yourself. That’s the punch, to put it like that. You’d think you’d be teaching yourself, doing these things yourself.

Now, let’s not talk about the Jews. Let’s talk about us. Let’s put ourselves in this text. Are you confident you’re a light of the blind? You have Calvary light. You have conversion understanding. The gospel is now so plain to you. You love it, and you trust in it. You can be a light to those in darkness and have a testimony. You can be an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes. And many of us are privileged Sunday school teachers. You have the form of knowledge. You teach others.

Haven’t you been teaching yourself? What a surprise. Have you been forgetting to teach yourself? You think, “I never heard of this—teach myself?” Yes. Let me give you an example.

Two years after it was published, it was taken up by one of the big publishers under the same title. But this time, although the book was unchanged, it was clearly pitched at a more adult market. And the illustration on the front was not a woman or a child, but a young man. Perhaps it would have been better retitled something like Fitness for the Tongue, but it stayed with its title, Beauty Care for the Tongue, and it was very popular. And we used it here in England. It used to be given as Sunday school prizes.

And I know a case where there was a man who’d almost torn his family apart. He was a Christian. He believed, and he was genuine. He loved the Lord, but he couldn’t control his temper. And he would come to you and say, “What can I do?” He went on an anger management course. I don’t decry them. Some of them have very good sense in them and are helpful to people. But it didn’t help him. And his family could almost take it no more.

And he was given a copy of this book, really not written for him, Beauty Care for the Tongue. And through prayer, and of course the power of the Holy Spirit and his efforts, his temper was cured. And that became a really happy family. And he became, in his own way as a lay person, a marvellous shepherd of souls.

And the secret of that book was that it set it out as a course of instruction, teaching first of all women, then the young, then adults, the steps for proper speech: a loving tongue, a this tongue, a that tongue, all the Scriptures, how to review your conduct, how to pray, practise it. That’s what the apostle says. Don’t you teach? Don’t you train yourself? Don’t you keep track of your regular falls and sins, and pray and strive and note the progress, and alight on the Scriptures that help that case and that activity and that aspect of thinking?

Dear friends, our highest task is to teach ourselves holiness. Our second task is to teach ourselves to witness. But our highest task is holiness. Let the text speak to us in the form it’s put: aren’t you teaching yourself? With surprise: haven’t you been teaching yourself?

All of us in your occupations—and so many of you are skilled and versed in things that I would be all at sea on—and you’ve been trained, and you’ve done a course, and you’ve learned the groundwork and the theory and the application, whatever it is. And without that you couldn’t function in your profession or your work. And holiness takes a back seat, gets no structured attention.

You don’t remember. You don’t say to yourself, “How am I doing with this, and with this, and with this?” Daily self-examination, prayer consciously for help to overcome this and that and the other. Oh friends, let’s tackle holiness so that the text could never say to us with surprise: haven’t you ever trained yourself first?

“Thou that preachest a man should not steal”—I haven’t time—do you steal, in some shape or form? “Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?” Is the thought life clean? “Thou that abhorrest idols”—you wouldn’t go near an idol temple—“dost thou commit sacrilege?” That translates a Greek term which means: dost thou commit temple robbery?

Of course, you don’t rob temples or churches or take things away, but Bible believers do. Every time we come into a church and sing a hymn without thinking about it, perhaps just get a slight lift out of a tune we happen to like and think of the odd thing here and there, you’re robbing the church of worship. You’re taking from church.

The person who puts a band in the front, and people come for the performance and the beat, the sound drug, the regular beat, and they swing their bodies about, and they play the Baal music and so on, and have the foolishness to try and put Christian lyrics onto it—but they’re stealing from the temple. They’ve taken its reverence. They’ve taken its God-centredness. They’ve taken its sense of the divine and turned it into a concert hall. That’s stealing the temple wholesale. You who wouldn’t go near a pagan idol to commit sacrilege listen to that nonsense at home. So it challenges us.

“Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?” Well, let’s close just with verse 25: “For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law.” Well, let’s apply it to us. A profession of faith in Jesus Christ and true conversion to him profiteth. It gains, it secures blessing. Of course, salvation is free. But having been saved, you have light and understanding. You can bring others to the Lord. You can be a shepherd of others and a great help and strength. To be a Christian profiteth: it brings gain and good and blessing.

But if thou be a breaker of the law, and sin comes easily, and we don’t teach ourselves, then it’s useless. Thy circumcision, or your profession, is made uncircumcision—unprofession, useless. And verse 24: “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.” Your testimony has discredited and dishonoured God. It’s taken away from his praise and his worship.

So friends, I didn’t mean that to sound too negative, because there were the positives there. Let’s have “my gospel”, and let’s teach ourselves holiness every day, and God will bless and enrich us and use us.