Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Failure of Religion

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

We’re tracing the storyline of the entire Bible. We started in Genesis, where we learn what’s wrong with the human race, and we’ve come to Romans, where we learn what God has done about it through Jesus Christ.  Here at the beginning of Romans 2, Paul does a turnaround. It’s so surprising and shocking I don’t have much to introduce. I’ll start to explain it, and it’ll draw us right in.  This chapter tells us three things: 1) the failure of religion, because of 2) the terrible beauty of the law and, therefore, 3) the need for a regenerated, new heart. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 22, 2009. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Creation and Fall. Scripture: Romans 2:1-6; 12-26. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. If someone asked you what the main story of the Bible is, what would you say? Today, Tim Keller is preaching through the central storyline of the Bible. What went wrong with the human race, what God has done to rescue us through Christ, and how God means to restore the world. We're glad you're listening with us. Tonight's scripture comes from the Book of Romans, chapter 2, verses 1 through 6, and then verses 12 through 26. You therefore have no excuse. You who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment

do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think that you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance. But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, your storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done.

God will give to each person according to what he has done. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

Since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciousness also bearing witness and their thoughts, now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ as my gospel declares. Now you, if you call yourself a Jew, if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship

to God, if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law, if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have the law, the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself, you who preach against stealing. Do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery. Do you commit adultery?

You who abhor idols? Do you rob temples? You who brag about the law? Do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written. God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Circumcision has a value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though

you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? This is the word of the Lord. We're trying to trace out the storyline of the entire Bible, and we started in Genesis where we learned what's wrong with the human race, and then we've gone now to Romans 1 to 4, where we're learning

what Paul says God has done about it through Jesus Christ. And we've been going through Romans, and here at the beginning of chapter two, Paul does a turnaround. It's so surprising and shocking that if I begin to, I don't even have to introduce too much introduction here. I will start to explain it and it'll draw us right in. Please see, however, this chapter talks about three things. The failure of

religion because of the terrible beauty of the law and therefore the need for a regenerated new heart, the failure of religion because of the terrible beauty of the law and therefore the need for a regenerate new heart. First, the failure of religion. Now, Paul starts this chapter by saying, you therefore have no excuse, you who sit there passing judgment on someone else for when you judge others, you're condemning yourself because you do the same things. Now this only makes sense if you go back and see what was in chapter one, right? Because the same things refer to chapter one. And if you remember, Paul's been talking about Gentiles, pagans, idol worshipers, worshiping,

bowing down to figures of wood and stone and metal, sexual orgies. That's all been in, 1. And all of a sudden Paul's turn and says, hey you out there listening, sitting in judgment, you do the same thing. Because the Paul knew that this letter was going to be read. This letter would have been read out loud to the Roman congregation. And who was in the Roman congregation, Gentile, Christian converts, and Jewish Christian converts. Now who would have been out there sitting thinking, oh yeah, those pagans, those orgies, that bowing down to worship, the idols,

that's just awful, and who would have been sitting there condemning, who would have been sitting there passing judgment on all that? It would have been the Jewish Christians, but now keep this in mind, in this case Paul is actually speaking to people who essentially represent anyone who's religious, anyone who has tried very hard not to be pagans, not to have orgies, not to bow down to little figures of wooden stone. He says, hey, you people out there, you people who all of your lives been trying to obey the Bible. All of your lives been relying on obedience to the law and feeling pretty good about it.

I obey the biblical law. You out there, when you condemn those pagans, you condemn yourself because you do the same things. See, it's very surprising. And how could that be? How could he say, he's like, you were talking about bowing down to idols and orgies and all, now how can he turn to the good Bible, believing people who've been trying to obey the Bible all their lives and say, you out there smug people sitting around there saying, yes, that's awful, that's tough, that's awful. You condemn yourself because you do the same things. How could that be?

Well, if you go down a little deeper into the text, he actually talks about it in verse 21. He says, in 22, you who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You preach against stealing, but don't you steal? You say people shouldn't commit adultery, but don't you steal? You say people shouldn't commit adultery, but don't you commit adultery. Now, at that point, the reason he's saying,

you condemn yourself, he's talking to moral people, and he says, though you say, publicly you don't commit adultery, a lot of you do commit adultery. And any moral community, any church, any synagogue, any moral community, is gonna, any synagogue, any moral community is going to have hypocrites in it, people who say, this is what I believe, but in private they're doing the opposite. And so that's partly why he's able to say, hey you religious people,

you Bible believing, Bible obeying people, looking at all these awful pagans out there, you know, rolling in the streets, you the streets together in their drunkenness and their orgy's and your feelings appear to me. You do the same thing and some of it is hypocrisy, but that's not always saying here because then he says, you who abhor idols, don't you rob temples. Now he's talking to Jewish Christian believers, as you can see from the paragraph, of the paragraph.

And this is completely inexplicable at first sight, because there is absolutely no record of Jews running a kind of, you know, you know, that at night they would go out to temples and rob temples and sell the idols on the black market. Is that what he's talking about? There's absolutely no evidence that Jews did anything like that. What in the world is he talking about? And the answer is he must be talking metaphorically. And by the way, he hints at that in verse 5,

because when he says to them, up in verse 5, because of their stubbornness and your unrepentant heart. And this is something you can never tell by looking at it in English. but he's using two Greek words that in the Greek Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, were always associated with idolaturns. And what he's actually saying is this,

you're religious and you're obeying the Ten Commandments, and externally it looks like you're complying what all the rules and regulations, but though you may not have idols of the hand, you have idols of the heart. You may not have idols that you can pick up and move around, but you've got idols in your heart. You have poor idols, and yet essentially you're no better than the idolaters because, though you're obedient, the thing you really live for, the things that really give you meaning in life, the things that you really are worshiping, our career or achievement or power, and

therefore you stand condemned. Now, how can he really say this, that the good Bible believing people are everybody's condemned, every bit is lost as the Gentiles and the pagans. How can he say that? Well, we'll get to that under 0.2. But first, I'd like to stop, and I want you to think about the amazing 0.1. Because this is what he's saying.

He's saying something that will show you, if we think about it, the unity of the Bible and the uniqueness of the gospel, unity of the Bible by that, I mean this. Remember, if you were here in the fall, we talked about Jesus' great parable, Luke 15 of the prod of the gospel. Unity of the Bible by that, I mean this. Remember, if you were here in the fall, we talked about Jesus' great parable, Luke 15 of the prodigal son. We spent six weeks going through that parable.

And in the parable, Jesus gives us a father with two sons, a younger brother, who loves sex with prostitutes and takes away all the father's money and squanders it. He's materialistic, he's licentious, he's disobedient to the father. But then he's got a second son. And the older brother is very obedient and very compliant to the father and obeys everything the father says and yet the point of the parable is they're both lost.

They're both alienated from the father and they both need salvation. That's Jesus. But now you have Paul. And Paul is giving his greatest exposition of the gospel and he's saying exactly the same thing because in Romans one, he's talking about younger brothers. He's talking about how they're condemned. He's talking about how they're lost. Bowing down to idols of the hand, see?

You know, rolling around and drunkenness and sex. Okay, sin, the kind of sin everybody thinks of as sin, but now he turns to Romans 2 and he says, you elder brothers, you people who are trying so hard to be good and you think God owes you a good life because you're so good, you are everybody's lost, you're everybody's in need of salvation. Isn't that amazing?

Paul's saying exactly the same thing that Jesus was saying. You see the unity of the Bible, but also, let me show you how unique the gospel is. For Paul to be saying, you good people condemned. You bad people condemned. You're all lost. You moral people, you immoral people, you're all lost. In the 1970s it was this enormous bestseller, as some of you may have heard of, it's actually

kind of passed into the language a little bit, a book by Thomas Harris called, I'm OK, you're OK. It was a little self-help book. It was on the top of the New York Times bestseller for two years. You know, I'm OK, you're OK. And in the 1990s, a woman named Wendy Kaminer wrote a devastating critique of the self-help movement, a devastating critique of it. And the name of her book was, I'm dysfunctional, you're dysfunctional.

And it was a tremendous critique. And basically, she shows how narcissistic the whole idea was. She says, how in the world can you say, I'm okay, you're okay, and this is mental health. I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay. And yet out there in the world, there's all the blood of the innocent crying out from the ground for justice. There's genocide, there's terrorism, there's all this awful stuff. She says, and how can you, we're all, can you say, it's the sign of mental health to go out into the world and say, everybody's okay, you're okay, I'm okay, we're all okay. She says, that's silly.

And she says, that's narcissism. And she just hilariously deconstructed it. But you know, 10 years later, after she really showed how silly it is to say, I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay. She came back with another book that showed she was a bit in a bind. Because her whole point was, hey, with all the injustice, with all the innocent blood crying out from the ground for Justice Hockney, say, everybody's okay. But then she came back about 10 years later

with another book in which he was very critical of what she called the hard right. Because she saw a lot of people saying, yeah, there is evil out there and we've got to bring back the death penalty and we've got to go to war and she suddenly saw all these people saying, I'm okay, and the rest of you are no way okay. In fact, that was the subtitle of her book.

According to the New York Times gave it the book a subtitle, I'm okay, and you're nowhere near okay. And she says, the trouble with that. She says, okay, I said, you know, she said, all right, I'm okay, you're okay, we're all okay. That was narcissistic. that's narcissism. But to say, I'm okay, and I have the truth, and you all are evil, and I'm going to punish you, that's how you get death camps. That's how you get on the superior race, you're the inferior race, I'm the superior person,

you're the inferior person. And she says, that's moralism, and that's as bad as narcissism. Narcissism is, we're all okay, you're okay, I'm okay. And moralism is, I'm okay and you're not okay. Well, wait a minute. So, she was just saying, I'm okay, everybody's okay. That's narcissism, but then moralism is bad. So now what's left? Well, there's, there's masochism. You know, I'm not okay and everybody else is.

And of course, that's not right. Well, what's left? In the 1970s, a minister who's now passed away and a great teacher, a Bible teacher named John Gerstner, was speaking, and he referenced the book, I'm OK, you're OK. And he says, well, what's that? How does that compare to the message of the Bible?

And then he told a story. And it was about the fact that he and his wife were on a trip to Asia. They were actually in Kashmir. And at one point, they went on an excursion, and they went on excursion in a little boat. And it was he and his wife and a boat man who didn't know much English and his grandson.

And on their way back from the excursion, as they were starting to near shore, they actually bumped another boat. And when they bumped the boat, there was some water, if you're in a amount of water kind of splashed in and got everybody wet up to the knees. And the boatmen started getting very, very agitated. Very agitated.

And John Gerstner said, you know, okay, it's a little bit of water. And so he said, it's all right, we're okay. Don't get upset, we're okay, we're okay. But then a couple minutes later, the man was still getting even more agitated. And John was thinking he's very superior. He says, you know, this poor man either has an ego problem

or he, you know, and he says, don't worry. We're okay, we're okay. But then finally, as they got almost to the dock, he got really agitated, and John Gerstner says, we're okay, we're okay. And the man looked up at him and said, you not okay, I'm not okay, push them out of the boat onto the dock, threw his grandson,

jumped out onto the dock, and at that minute, the boat was sucked down into the water, and came up about six boats to the right, you know, on the other side. It turned out that there'd been a hole in the hull. The boatman had seen it, John Gerstner had not seen it. And if he'd stayed in there one more second, they would have gone down with it.

OK. And Gerstner said, you know, I realize that's the message of the Bible. I'm not OK. You're not OK. You realize what this means? Not the moralism of saying, I'm okay, and you're no way okay. Not the narcissism. This is, I'm okay, you're okay. Everybody's okay. Not when there's injustice out there in the world. And not the dysfunctionality. The masochism is saying, oh, I'm not okay and everybody

else is. No. What the Bible says is, we're all sinners. We're all lost. Nobody is the right to look down at anybody else. We're all in trouble, we're all alienated from God. No one has the right to be trampling upon or exploiting anybody else. We all need God, I'm not okay, you're not okay. And if you don't know that, you're going to go to the bottom. And that's what's so unique about the gospel. There really isn't any other position like that.

And it's the right one. Now, why is it that religious people stand condemned? The reason is because, according to Paul, because of the terrible beauty of a law. And what we see here, when Paul talks about the fact the judgment is going to be according to the law, he shows us why nobody can stand in the judgment, no matter how religious and good you are.

He shows us both the inwardness and the intuitiveness of the law. Now here, let me give it to you here briefly. First of all, the inwardness. You remember how I mentioned in verse 1, Paul actually says to the religious people, you condemn all those Gentiles and those pagans out there for all those, but you do the same. It says, you who pass judgment, look, it says,

do the same things. Now what are the things? Well, it's the things that are not on the page. They're listed in the last verses of chapter 1, he made a list of sins. And then he says, you religious people, you do the same things. Now what was that list? Well, here's some of the things on the list. Evil, greed and depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossip, slanderers,

insulin, arrogant, boastful, senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. And if you look carefully, you'll see that almost all of these are not behavior, but inner attitudes of the heart. Greed, envy, malice, insulin, by the way, that's the Greek word hubris, have you ever heard of that word? See, arrogant, heartless, meaning not able to put yourself in other people's shoes, ruthless, obviously, meaning exploitative.

Now, here's what Paul is doing. And this is very important. Paul does what Jesus does. When we read the law, and I'll shout and I'll kill, I'll shout and I'll steal, we've read the law, because we're trying to justify ourselves, we actually read it just the surface. We read it only about the external behaviors. We see only the external behaviors and you go away from the law of God in the Bible, you can feel like, I'm not so bad. What Paul does and what Jesus does in this sermon on the Mount is they do what we all should do. The law of God is getting

at a kind of person, a kind of heart. You need to actually, when you read the law, you need to be reading through it, because the law of God is actually an outline of the kind of beautiful character, kind of incredibly beautiful heart, that we should have, and the law of God is getting at it. And it is absolutely wrong of us to read the law in the most self-justifying way.

Oh, I don't kill. You know? No. That's one law I'm not breaking. When you get to this sermon on the mount, you'll see that Jesus does exactly what Paul does here. What does he do? For example, listen, Jesus in this sermon on the mount actually expounds the 10 commandments

but shows the kind of heart and the kind of spirit the commandments getting after. So first of all, Jesus says this, I'll just give you one case. He says, you've heard it said, I'll show it not kill. But I say unto you, anyone who looks at other person and says, rockah has broken this commandment. Well, what's rockah mean? Is it mean you fool, you'll imbecile? Is it an insult? because Raka has broken this commandment. Well, what's Raka mean?

Is it mean you fool, you imbecile, is it an insult? No, it's actually a word that means nobody. It means you nothing, you nobody. And what Jesus is saying is, if you look at any other human being and feel like this person is an important, this person, in fact, if you can barely pay attention to them because they're nobody. If you look down your nose at anyone to disdain them or are indifferent to them or don't treat them with importance, he says, that's like breaking the commandment.

Well, how could that be? How could that be like murder for cry-out-a-let? You know what Jesus is saying? He's saying, look, murder's a tree. Trees grow from acorns. At least oak trees do. Okay. All right, well, what is the acorn?

What is the seed of the tree? What is the seed? What is murder start with? Superiority, hubris, arrogance, a disdain, a contempt, a treating a person not as a person, but as a thing, looking down using people. He says, the only difference when a murderer and you, unless you welcome every human being

that comes into your life, every human being that is presented to you, unless you treat that person as infinitely valuable, unless you treat every person as a person of infinite value and worth. If you just disdain certain people, ignore certain people, just can't, you know, don't even care about certain people. He says, that's a seed, the only difference between you and a murderer is the murderer's seed has been watered and fertilized.

And therefore, the commandment of God is getting after someone who cherishes people. Cherishes every person. Even the persons that the world considers unimportant of no consequence, you treat them as if they're kings and queens. That's a kind of heart, Jesus says, that the law of God is trying to get after. Or then he goes through all the... You know, if you read this sermon on the Mount, what does he say?

You should be so honest, that you don't ever have to swear a note. He says, every yes and every no, every interaction should be as honest as if you were had sworn on a stack of Bibles in the courtroom. Then he says, you should be so loving that if someone wrongs you, you don't just refrain from revenge,

but you forgive them in your heart and even when you go and confront them and even when you go and seek justice, you do it with no will at all, filled with love in your heart for your enemy. He says, you should be so generous to the poor that you give and give and give and give and you don't even care if you get any thanks. That's all in the circle on the mount. He says you should be so trusting of God that you don't worry no matter what the circumstances. Most Christians even pastors struggle to talk about their faith in a way that applies the power of the gospel

to change lives, especially in our skeptical culture. Tim Keller's book of preaching, communicating faith in an age of skepticism is a guide for anyone who wants to become more effective in communicating about their faith. Pastors and lay people alike. Drawing on his years of experience, Dr. Keller will help you share your faith in more

engaging, passionate, and compassionate way from the pulpit or in the coffee shop. Preaching is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So we request your copy today at gospelunlife.com slash give. That's gospelunlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Now some years ago, a woman who was teaching literature at a university, not locally, but a university, decided to have all of her students read the sermon on the mount.

And none of them had, and half of them hadn't even heard of it. So it was all fresh for them, so they read it, and they all hated it. They absolutely hated it. This is a typical comment that she got in the response papers. I did not like the sermon on the mount. It made me feel that I had to be perfect. And they all hated it.

They said, this is ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody can be like that. Nobody can be like, it's ridiculous. And then she said, but then she said, that's our presence. She listened to it. And then she asked them a question. Isn't this, aren't these though the kind of people you want around you?

Don't you want people who are so loving that they don't resent and they're never indifferent? That they're so generous, that they're always grateful? Aren't these the kind of people you want around you? Aren't these the kinds of things that you want in other people and you ask, you demand of other people? And they all get very quiet. In other words, I'm very angry

if you hold me to this standard. On the other hand, actually, I hold everybody else to this standard and therefore you're condemned from your own mouth. That's exactly what Paul's saying. Because the love God, if you learn how to read it, is after a kind of person, a kind of heart, a life of absolute beauty,

not just the external behavior, but the heart, the motivation, the attitude. And when we see that, and we see how we really demanded of other people, we refuse to demand it of ourselves, we're condemned. See, it's not just the inwordness that Paul talks about here. You notice how, you know what is so amazing about this middle section, where he says, you are condemned from your own mouth, and then down to verse 12, he says, all you, all who sent apart from the law will perish apart from the law. Indeed, the Gentiles

who do not have a law show that they do understand something of the law, and they will be held accountable for that. What is that? Well, some years ago, my name, Francis Schaeffer, summed this up beautifully and said, you know what Romans 2 is about? Romans 2 is about the invisible tape recorder. Romans 2 is saying that even though you don't know it, there is an invisible tape recorder that God has put around everybody's neck. No, no, you can't feel it. Or see it. So don't try. It's there. Rameshia says it's there. And on judgment day, all of a sudden, you're going to appear before God and you're going to, I'm not going to say, I didn't even know you existed. Wait a minute, you can't hold me responsible for the law of God or other people are going to

say, I've heard of the Bible, I've never read the Bible, you can't hold me responsible for this law, I mean, I didn't realize that the God of the Bible is the real God, okay, but here you are. But you can't hold me responsible. You can't judge me for something I didn't believe in or then God's gonna do. What is he's gonna, he's gonna reach around the back and he's gonna unclass, and he's gonna get off your invisible tape recorder and it'll become visible.

And you'll say, I didn't see that there. And he says, no, you couldn't have felt it. He was invisible. And then he says, I want you to know that I'm the fairest judge you could possibly imagine. I'm not going to judge you according to the Bible because you didn't know the Bible. I'm not going to judge you according to Christ because you'd never heard of Christ, if it's. I'm going to judge you by your own words because this tape recorder only record throughout

your life whenever you said to someone else, you ought. You should. See, this tape recorder has only recorded your standards for the people around you. And therefore, I'm not going to judge you by anything other than the standards by which you judge people your entire life. And nobody in the history of the world will be able to stand in the judgment day, because you're

not going to even be able to stand before your own words, before your own standards. And therefore, we're all lost. We are all absolutely lost. Well, where, okay, where's the hope? Is there any hope? And of course the answer is yes. The failure of religion because of the terrible beauty of the law means, now at the very end, that there is a need for a new heart. Suddenly at the end Paul begins to talk about circumcision. And he says, this is almost the end of the chapter. He says, circumcision has value if you observe the law. But if you break the law, there's no value.

If those who are not circumcised keep the laws requirement. They will be regarded as though they were circumcised. And then he goes on, and it's not printed, but let me read you the end. Then Paul says, at the end of the chapter, a man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward or physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly, and circumcision is circumcision of the heart by the spirit.

Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God. Now, here's what Paul is saying. He is saying. He is saying, you know, you religious people, and of course in this case, the Bible believing religious people were Jewish believer, Christians. He says, you know, all of your life, you've been trying to obey the law of God.

And circumcision was a sign of being a Jew who was trying to obey the law of God. But he says, there's something, what you you really need is circumcision of the heart. What you really need is a new heart. Not obedience outwardly, you need to be have a regenerated heart or you will never, ever do what the law requires. Now, why does he bring up circumcision?

What's the big deal? Here's the big deal. When God entered into a relationship with Abraham, that was the first time God showed up and said to a man and his family, I want to have a personal intimate covenant relationship with you. As a sign of that relationship, he says to Abraham, I want you to be circumcised. The circumcision was a sign of the relationship the way baptism is a sign of being in the church. Why, though, circumcision?

I think most people understand baptism, kind of like death and rebirth and of spirit and all. But what was the symbolism of circumcision? Now I don't want you to think about it too long, but that's the point. Why did God choose circumcision as a sign of this intimate covenant relationship he had with Abraham? He said, I want you to walk blamelessly before me.

And if you walk blamelessly before me, if you follow my covenant, I will bless you. But he said, if you disobey the covenant, if you later into a covenant with me and then you go your own way and you disobey me, then you'll be cut off," he said. From your people, you'll be cut off from the Lord. You'll be cut off from me. That's the natural punishment. So we know what circumcision was. In those days, you didn't sign a contract to bind a contract. You acted out the curse.

In other words, when a person would enter into a covenant with someone else, he might pick up some sand and he might drop it on his head and say, if I don't do everything I'm saying I will do today, if I disobey the words that I, the covenant that I've just made you today, may I be as this dust, or a person would cut an animal in half and walk between the pieces and say, if I don't do absolutely everything that I have said today in this contract, may I be cut into pieces myself? And what God was saying to Abraham was,

if you want to enter into a relationship with me, you may be circumcised, and that means you are admitting that if you disobey the covenant, you'll be cut off. Well, here's my question. Did Abraham really obey the covenant? Did Isaac really obey the covenant? Did Jacob has anybody ever obeyed the covenant? Has anyone ever walked before God? Blamelessly, that's the covenant.

Well, then why in the world? No, of course not. Well, then why does God have any people at all? Why is there anybody called the people of God? Why is there anybody that God says, you are my people and I'm your God? How could anybody be in a covenant relationship with God? And the answer is, in Colossians 2, there's a little verse that

almost always when you go by it, if you're reading through Colossians, it's one of those verses that you're reading and say, what was that about? And you just go on. You know, I asked him about it. I asked him about it someday, but right now I go and get it. But in Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 and 12, Paul says this. He's talking about the cross. He's talking about Jesus lying on the cross. And then he says, in him, you were circumcised. He's talking to Gentiles, by the way, who weren't literally circumcised. He says, in him, you were circumcised

and with a circumcision done by the hands of men, but in the circumcision of Christ. In him, you were circumcised, not with the circumcision of Christ. In him you were circumcised not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but in a circumcision of Christ. Now here's what he's saying. On the cross Jesus was cut off. That's why he calls it a circumcision. On the cross Jesus Christ said, my God, my God, I can't see you. I can't feel you. Where are you? Isaiah 53 says he was cut off from the land of the living.

Why? He was getting what circumcision represented. He was being cut off. He was going under the knife. It was bloody. It was violent. He was getting the the knife. It was bloody. It was violent. He was getting the curse that we deserve because we can't stand in the judgment. We can't stand before the law.

But that's not all. It doesn't just say he was circumcised on the cross. It says, in him, you were circumcised. Not a circumcision made with hands, he says, because the Gentiles weren't. You've got a new heart, you've got new life. Why? Because your circumcise and Christ, what does that mean? It means that now you stand in Him in this way.

When you read the law properly, when you read the sermon on the Mount and you see what the law is getting after, the love, the peace, the generosity, the integrity that it wants. Instead of saying, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I hate this, I hate this. And I'll never be like this and say realize what that is describing. You know, it's just describing a person. Whenever you read the law of God and you see this incredible, perfect standard, you know

it's describing Jesus. Don't be crushed by the standard. See the beauty of Jesus. And according to the Bible, when you believe in Jesus Christ and you give your life to him, then all of your sins and what they deserve is transferred to him. He's cut off for you. And all of the beauty of his law keeping. All the beauty of his life is transferred to you

and in Christ we're told, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And once you understand that, it pricks the heart. You know, the idea of a circumcised heart is pretty weird. Quite a metaphor, it's intimate and it's tender and it's scary. And what it means is your heart of stone begins to be a heart of flesh and you have a new attitude toward the law. Because when you see that God sent his son to die so that the requirements of the law were fulfilled, you never look at the law of God and say,

oh, I'm saved, so it doesn't really matter. The law is so important, so important, that Jesus died to fulfill the requirements of the law. So when you, you don't look at the law as a Christian and say, oh, it doesn't matter how I live, because after all, I'm not condemned. Jesus died because the law was so important, and so you try like crazy to live according to the standards of the law.

And yet when you fail, you don't get crushed with guilt. You're not crushed like, oh, I'm an awful person, I am. Because you know what he did for you. There's this paradoxical attitude toward the law. We're absolutely, fastidiously, diligently seeking to obey it and never crushed, never crushed into the ground by it. Nor hopeless when we disobey it.

We get back up on the horse. It's fascinating. In other words, we're not, I'm okay. You're okay. Everybody's okay. After all, we can live anyway we want, or I'm not okay. Everybody else is okay. Or I'm okay, and you're not close to being okay.

It's none of those things. I'm not okay. You're not okay. I'm no and you're not close to being okay. It's none of those things. I'm not okay, you're not okay. I'm no better than you, yet in Jesus Christ, I'm a beauty when God sees me. I'm beautiful. And as a result, I don't judge anybody because God's the judge. When somebody wrongs me, I leave that to God,

I forgive them. I don't even judge myself. Oh, how bad I am. No, I've been judged in Jesus. Don't you see that at the center of your life ought to be Jesus Christ, the judge of the earth, but the judge who was judged. If you bring into the center of your life the judge of all the earth who was judged in your place, you have both a healthy respect for moral absolutes.

You know that there's right and there's wrong. You know there's injustice. You know it's important to seek justice. You know it's important to be a good person and a morally upright person. But on the other hand, you don't, are not judgmental toward people, you forgive people, you're not down on yourself judging yourself when things go wrong. Oh, the uniqueness of the gospel, the uniqueness of a Christian.

Bring into the middle of your life the judge who was judged in your place. Let's pray. Thank you, Father. For giving us the bad news about judgment day, the bad news that no one can stand in the judgment and the good news that your son, Jesus Christ Christ was circumcised for us on the cross. He was cut off for us so that now in him we have new hearts. And we thank you for all that. Oh my word, Father,

we thank you for it and we ask, would you please help us to live in accordance with it, to appropriate it, to have the joy and the poise and the power that would come with what we believe and what we know. So we ask you to grant it for Jesus' sake in His name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner.

Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit Gospel and Life.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2009 and 2016. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.