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Readers of Tabletalk appreciate R.C. Sproul, who teaches doctrine with passion. His Gospel proclamation has centered on the holiness of God and Christ’s saving righteousness. With Latin phrases, he speaks of Christ alone, Scripture alone, and salvation by grace alone.
But one passage in Romans might raise a question about this. Paul writes, “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Rom. 2:14–15a).
Paul has shown in Romans 1 that all men are without excuse. They know God but have suppressed that knowledge. Through many generations, God has given them over to ignorance and idolatry. But then we come to this passage in Romans 2, which seems to refer to a remaining moral sense in all men. Philo, a Jewish writer at the time of Christ, held that all right reason is engraved by immortal nature on the immortal mind, never to perish. This is often taken to be Paul’s meaning in saying that Gentiles have the law written in their hearts. Is that truly what he had in mind?
The answer depends on where you put the comma in the New King James Version translation above. Try it for yourself. Read it as is in the quote above, then move the comma after “by nature.” You see the difference. Keep the comma where it is and the verse reads, “When Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things [contained] in the law.…” But move the comma and you have, “When Gentiles, who do not have the law by nature [as Gentiles by birth], do the things [contained] in the law.…”
Happily, the right place for the comma appears from verse 27: “and will not the uncircumcised by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge you.…” The NKJV translates “uncircumcised by nature” as “the physically uncircumcised.” Paul is not talking about Gentiles doing the law by their own nature, but about those doing the law who are born Gentiles.
We can see from the rest of the chapter that Paul is not thinking of Gentiles who may in some way keep some part of the law. He is thinking of Gentiles who have become Christians. Uncircumcised Gentiles who keep God’s law are the true, spiritual Jews. Their circumcision is of the heart, in the Spirit. Their keeping of the law is in the spirit. They keep the law not to score points but in the obedience of saving faith.
Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Later in Romans, however, he explains that he did not abandon the Jews to minister to Gentiles. Wherever there was a synagogue, Paul preached there first. And his zeal for the Gentiles really showed his love for Israel. He sought his own people even when they rejected his message, then went to the Gentiles to move Jews to jealousy. They would see the Gentiles streaming in as the Old Testament had promised. They must realize that the blessings the Gentiles were receiving were the very blessings their own Jewish prophets had promised.
One example is Isaiah 19, where the prophet foresees the day when the Lord will send a Savior to Egypt. “In that day,” Isaiah prophesies, “there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve the Lord with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and with Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance’ ” (vv. 23–25). Both Egypt and Assyria were heathen Gentile superpowers, opposed to Israel as the people of the Lord. But in the day Isaiah describes, a host of pilgrims from Egypt would walk right through Israel on their way to worship in Assyria. They would not turn aside to worship at Jerusalem, where God had set His name. An answering tide of pilgrims from Assyria would bypass Jerusalem to go down to Egypt—again, to worship the Lord there.
Has Israel been disinherited? No, God still calls Israel “ ‘My inheritance.’ ” The Israelites are still the people of God. But so are the Egyptians and the Assyrians!
The great Day of the Lord came with the coming of Jesus. Now the wild branches have been grafted into the olive tree. God also gave Him as a light to the Gentiles, His salvation to the ends of the earth. God said to Him, “ ‘You are My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified’ ” (Isa. 49:3). So does God name His individual Servant as the true Israel. Paul was not deserting Israel, but building her up. He was adding to the number of the people of God by bringing in Gentiles to become spiritual Jews, those who are Jews inwardly, whose praise is not from men but from God.
Dispensational Bible teaching rightly emphasizes the periods of Bible history. Its mistake has been in seeing different plans of salvation in the periods. That is assumed in the Left Behind books. It anticipates another Jewish period of salvation. That loses the finality and completeness of the work of Christ. It also loses the spiritual Jewishness of our salvation. Christ is the minister of the circumcision to confirm the promises made to the fathers. He was circumcised for us, and we in Him. “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3).