ROMANS 2:25-29 WHAT DO YOU CLING TO AS A SIGN OF YOUR CHRISTIANITY?

Romans 2:25 For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? 27 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? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 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. (NKJV)

External Religion cannot replace righteous living

Circumcision is of no avail or the impossibility of rituals pleasing God

Paul starts to remind his readers that religion without a heart change is useless

Many today think that because they were baptized as an infant or an adult, take communion, have been through confirmation, do good deeds, done more good than bad, or many other things the Bible does not say, they are going to heaven

v-25 Every male Jew was circumcised as an infant.

Gen 17:10-14 It was a sign that one was of the covenant community

Romans 4:11 shows that circumcision was a sign of righteousness

Paul's credentials or resume is in Phil 3:3-7

Profitable- it was profitable if done as an act of obedience and as a reminder of the covenant relationship with God.

Uncircumcision - If a Jew continued to break the law had no more of a saving relationship than an uncircumcised Gentile. It was no more than an outward symbol if there was no heart relationship with God

Circumcision went from being a rite or solemn religious ceremony practiced in the home to a ritual or practice that had no meaning. It was done because it was required not because of the love for GOD

V28-29

Deuteronomy 10:16 "Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

The true mark of God’s child is not an outward symbol, such as circumcision, but a godly condition of the heart.

Ga 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

Ga 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

The Gospel of Christ demands an inward change: “You must be born again” (John 3:7). It is not obedience to a religious system that will allow one to pass the test when Christ judges the secrets of men’s hearts. It is the Gospel of Christ that is God’s power unto salvation, both to Jew and Gentile (Rom. 1:16). If a person has never believed the Gospel and received Christ, then he or she stands condemned. The Jews, with all their religion and legalism, were (and are) just as much under sin as the Gentiles—and more so, because to them were given greater privileges and opportunities to know the truth

 Lessons

It is possible to think you are okay with God by what you say

1. It is possible to think you are okay with God by what you do
2. Your walk should match your talk if you are truly a Christian