THE REVELATION OF GOD’S TRUE PHILOSOPHY

ROMANS 2:17–24

You [Jews] have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth

(Romans 2:20).

Paul begins his discussion of the Jews’ failure to keep God’s standards by focusing on their sense of superiority over all other peoples. He notes their pride in their relationship to God (Romans 2:17), and their conviction that they are guides for the blind, lights for those who are in the dark, instructors of the foolish, and teachers of infants (Romans 2:19–20).

What the Jews possessed

How could the Jews have such confidence in their position? Paul’s answer in verse 20 is that they did indeed possess the truth and the law of God. They possessed something so magnificent that it transcended the greatest insights and wisdom of even the highest period of Greek culture.

Moses had more wisdom than Plato; Jeremiah knew more truth than Aristotle; Amos understood righteousness far better than Socrates. It was not because these men had better minds, but because by the grace of God they had been given revealed Truth. God Himself had revealed from heaven what authentic wisdom was.

True philosophy

The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.” Greek philosophy claimed to be the “love of wisdom,” and some of the most revered citizens of Greece were their philosophers. Yet the “wisdom literature” of the Old Testament was given that name because the Jews understood that this was wisdom that came from the very mind of God. So Paul says that the Jewish people were the repository of truth because they had God’s thoughts in written form. No wonder they felt confident that they could be guides for the blind.

Even so, they were without excuse before God, for as Paul says to them, “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?” (Romans 2:21–22). The Jews had misused what God had given them.

CORAM DEO

As a Christian do you find yourself rejecting the wisdom of God’s revealed truth? In your prayer time today ask God to give you a delight for His Truth and an eagerness to live it out in your life.

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