Romans VerseQuest Commentary Essay 12: The Religious Man With the Bible in His Hand

Key Passage: Romans 2:17–20

Introduction

Romans 2:17–20 says, “Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.” Paul has spent the opening part of Romans stripping every sinner of his hiding place. Romans 1 exposed the Gentile world in idolatry, uncleanness, rebellion, and rejection of revealed truth. Romans 2 turns toward the moral and religious man who watched that indictment with folded arms and a satisfied expression. Now Paul addresses the Jew specifically, not to attack his race, but to expose the fatal mistake of trusting religious privilege while escaping personal judgment. The Gentile had creation around him; the Jew had Scripture in his hand. But a Bible in the hand is not the same thing as truth ruling the heart.

That distinction is the blade running through this passage. The man Paul describes possesses enormous privileges. He is called a Jew. He rests in the law. He boasts of God. He knows God’s will. He approves excellent things. He has been instructed out of the law. He considers himself qualified to guide the blind, illuminate those in darkness, instruct the foolish, and teach babes. This is not an ignorant pagan bowing before a stone idol. This is a religious man with verses, doctrine, heritage, vocabulary, confidence, and a teaching ministry. If religious equipment could justify a sinner, this fellow would have arrived at the Judgment Seat carrying enough luggage to need a porter. But Romans is about to show that possession of truth does not equal submission to truth. A man may know the road well enough to give directions and still refuse to walk it himself.

The principle reaches far beyond the Jew addressed historically in Romans 2. The doctrinal setting must remain where Paul put it, but the application walks straight into every church pew, pulpit, Bible study, Christian home, and religious heart where Scripture is possessed without being obeyed. A man can own twelve Bibles and submit to none of them. He can defend the King James Bible against every critic in town and then ignore the King James Bible when it criticizes him. He can explain dispensations, draw charts, quote Pauline doctrine, expose false religion, identify heresy at fifty yards, and still harbor pride, dishonesty, lust, bitterness, covetousness, hypocrisy, or rebellion. Truth in the hand is a privilege. Truth in the head is knowledge. Truth governing the life is submission. God did not give us the Book merely to win arguments. He gave us the Book to believe, obey, preach, and live.

1. Called a Jew — The Privilege of a Name

Paul begins, “Behold, thou art called a Jew.” The name carried enormous historical and covenant significance. God had called Abraham, established His covenant dealings through Isaac and Jacob, brought Israel out of Egypt, given the nation His law, entrusted them with His ordinances, raised up prophets among them, and separated them from the surrounding nations. Romans 3:1–2 will ask, “What advantage then hath the Jew?” and answer, “Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” The problem was never that Jewish privilege was imaginary. The problem was believing privilege could substitute for righteousness. A name connected with truth is a blessing, but no name can repent, believe, or obey for the man wearing it.

Religious men still love names. Baptist, fundamentalist, evangelical, conservative, Bible-believer, dispensationalist, preacher, missionary, teacher, deacon, pastor—some of those names may describe sound positions or legitimate offices, but not one of them can make an unsubmitted heart right with God. Men collect labels the way soldiers collect medals, except some never fought the battle represented by the ribbon. “I am a Bible-believer” means very little if the Bible is believed only when it agrees with you. “I am a fundamentalist” means very little if the fundamentals stop at your doctrine and never reach your conduct. A label can tell people what shelf you belong on; it cannot tell God what is inside the package.

The warning is especially sharp because correct identification can produce false security. The Jew could say, “I am not one of those idolaters in Romans 1.” True enough. But Romans 2 asks what he did with the light he possessed. The modern religious man says, “I am not Catholic, Calvinist, liberal, cultist, atheist, or modernist.” Fine. Now what are you before God? You can identify every counterfeit bill in the drawer and still be spiritually bankrupt. Paul does not permit a man to use another fellow’s error as proof of his own righteousness. The question is never merely what group you escaped. The question is what truth you obey.

2. Resting in the Law

Paul says the Jew “restest in the law.” God’s law was genuine revelation. Psalm 19:7 says, “The law of the LORD is perfect.” The problem was not the law. The problem was the sinner resting in his possession of it instead of facing what it revealed about him. Romans 3:20 will say, “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The law is a mirror, but a fool can hang the mirror on the wall, admire its frame, write books about its construction, and never wash the dirt it reveals on his face. Israel had received what the Gentile nations did not possess, but increased light brought increased accountability, not an automatic exemption from judgment.

There is a modern version of resting in the law: resting in the Bible itself as a religious possession. A man can own the right Book, defend the right text, quote the right verses, and imagine those things make him right while the Book he defends is testifying against his conduct. That is a peculiar kind of blindness. He will fight a scholar who removes a verse but will quietly remove the same verse from his life when it interferes with his appetite. He objects when a printer changes a word, then changes the meaning by refusing to obey it. The man has become a security guard protecting a treasure he never spends.

There is no virtue in merely possessing Scripture while resisting its authority. The devil quoted Scripture to Jesus Christ in Matthew 4. The scribes could locate Bethlehem from Micah 5:2 when Herod asked where Christ should be born, yet they apparently did not travel the few miles to worship Him. They had the address and missed the Person. That is religion at its most tragic: enough Bible to answer the question, not enough submission to move the feet. The Book was never given as a religious rabbit’s foot. If Scripture sits open before you while your will remains closed to God, the problem is not insufficient revelation. The problem is rebellion with reading glasses.

3. Making a Boast of God

Paul continues, “and makest thy boast of God.” Israel could rightly say that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the true God. The surrounding nations worshipped idols, but Israel had revelation from the Creator. Yet even a correct boast can become fleshly when the man boasting in God refuses to submit to God. Jeremiah 9:24 says, “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.” Knowing facts about God is not the same as walking with God. A man can speak loudly about the Lord while living as though the Lord never watches him after the church doors close.

Religious boasting often borrows God’s glory to decorate man’s ego. A fellow begins by defending truth and eventually starts defending himself as though the two were identical. He boasts about his church, doctrine, Bible, preacher, education, ministry, years of service, separation, standards, knowledge, or spiritual lineage. Before long, the conversation has plenty of God in the vocabulary and a remarkable amount of self in the spotlight. The flesh is clever enough to carve its initials into a pulpit and call it testimony. Paul is not impressed. If your boast of God ends with everybody admiring you, somebody hijacked the parade.

The cross destroys that kind of boasting. Romans 3:27 will ask, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded.” Salvation by grace through faith leaves no room for the sinner to congratulate himself. First Corinthians 1:31 says, “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” That glory should make the believer smaller, not larger. The more clearly a man sees God’s holiness, Christ’s sacrifice, his own sin, and the riches of grace, the less interested he becomes in polishing his religious medals. Real knowledge of God does not inflate Adam. It puts Adam in the dust and gives the glory to Jesus Christ.

4. Knowing His Will and Approving Excellent Things

Paul says the religious Jew “knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law.” Knowledge is real privilege. Israel possessed commandments explaining what God approved and condemned. The Jew did not have to grope through pagan philosophy to discover whether idolatry, adultery, theft, murder, false witness, and covetousness were wrong. God had spoken. He could distinguish clean from unclean, holy from profane, obedience from transgression. Light had entered the room. But knowing where the furniture stands does not excuse the man who deliberately walks into it.

“Approvest the things that are more excellent” describes discernment. The man can examine matters and identify what is better. Modern Bible believers rightly value discernment. We should distinguish truth from error, law from grace, Israel from the Church, the Rapture from the Second Advent, salvation from discipleship, and sound doctrine from religious confusion. But discernment becomes grotesque when it operates only outwardly. Some men can divide a verse more carefully than they divide themselves from their favorite sin. They can detect doctrinal leaven in another preacher’s sentence while allowing bitterness to ferment in their own heart for twenty years. That is not mature discernment. That is a microscope pointed in only one direction.

James 4:17 gives the frightening side of knowledge: “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Knowledge increases responsibility. The more Bible you know, the less excuse you have for refusing what you know. Fifty years of Bible study does not give a man fifty years of immunity; it gives him fifty years of accumulated light. Luke 12:48 says, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” God does not grade obedience on how many verses you can recite while avoiding the verse presently standing on your toes. Light rejected does not become less serious because the man rejecting it can explain its grammar.

5. Confident Thou Art a Guide of the Blind

Paul says the man “art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness.” Notice the confidence. He is not merely instructed; he considers himself qualified to lead others. In Israel’s proper calling there was truth behind that idea. God had entrusted revelation to the nation, and Isaiah spoke of Israel’s connection with light among the Gentiles. But Paul is exposing the danger of a guide who knows the map while refusing the road. Leadership multiplies the seriousness of hypocrisy because other people may follow where the guide himself is spiritually unwilling to go.

The Bible-carrying religious man faces exactly that danger. Teaching truth can create the illusion that speaking truth equals obeying truth. It does not. A preacher may deliver a sermon on prayer and neglect prayer. He may preach against pride while being furious that somebody failed to praise the sermon. He may teach charity while carrying grudges, teach giving while worshipping money, teach purity while feeding secret lust, and preach humility like a peacock lecturing chickens on modesty. The pulpit does not disinfect hypocrisy. Sometimes it only gives hypocrisy amplification.

A guide of the blind must first see. Jesus asked in Luke 6:39, “Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?” The man in Romans 2 assumes his possession of revelation guarantees his sight, but Paul is preparing to question whether his conduct matches his instruction. The lesson is severe: never confuse the ability to help another man see with proof that your own eyes are clear. A man can give excellent directions to a hospital while bleeding to death himself. Ministry does not eliminate the need for self-examination. The teacher still has to sit beneath the Book he teaches.

6. A Light to Them Which Are in Darkness

Paul next describes the religious man as “a light of them which are in darkness.” Light is a powerful biblical picture because darkness cannot correct itself. The Gentile world of Romans 1 had become “vain in their imaginations,” and “their foolish heart was darkened.” Israel possessed revelation capable of exposing that darkness. Yet a lamp is useful only when its light is not obscured by the conduct of the person carrying it. Truth shines because it is truth, but the testimony of the messenger can either adorn that truth or give enemies occasion to blaspheme.

The Christian is likewise called to shine. Philippians 2:15 tells believers to “shine as lights in the world.” Ephesians 5:8 says, “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” Notice that the New Testament connects light with walking. It does not say merely, “Talk as children of light.” The world has heard enough religious talk to wallpaper the planet. What it rarely sees is truth embodied in a life that refuses the darkness when nobody is applauding. A flashlight with dead batteries still has the right label on the case, but it is not helping anybody find the door.

This is where hypocrisy becomes more than personal failure; it damages testimony. When the Bible-carrying man cheats, lies, lusts, slanders, mistreats his family, worships money, or behaves dishonestly while loudly announcing biblical authority, unbelievers do not always distinguish the Book from the hypocrite carrying it. They should, but often they do not. Romans 2:24 will soon say, “For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.” That ought to make every teacher tremble. Your sin cannot make God unholy, but it can hand His enemies an excuse to mock the holy name you profess.

7. Instructor, Teacher, and the Form of Truth

Paul finishes the description: “An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.” The man has become an instructor. He can take somebody less knowledgeable and teach him. He possesses a “form of knowledge and of the truth.” Again, Paul does not say the truth itself is false. The law genuinely contained divine revelation. The tragedy is that a man can possess the form, communicate the information, and still fail the moral test created by the very truth he teaches. The medicine is real even when the pharmacist refuses to take his own prescription.

Teachers face a peculiar temptation because repeated familiarity with Scripture can make holy things feel ordinary. A passage that once convicted the heart becomes sermon material. A warning that once produced trembling becomes an outline. A verse that once drove the man to prayer becomes something he can quote automatically while thinking about lunch. Familiarity is not maturity. Knowing where a verse is located does not mean the verse has found its proper location in you. The religious professional can become so accustomed to handling the sword of the Spirit that he forgets it has an edge pointed toward him.

The answer is not less Bible, less doctrine, less teaching, or less confidence in Scripture. The answer is submission to the Scripture we possess. Second Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and then tells us it is profitable “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Men love doctrine when it arms them, but reproof when it aims at them is another matter. The same Book that equips you to correct another man has authority to correct you. If your Bible is always a sword for somebody else and never a mirror for yourself, you are carrying the right weapon in the wrong direction.

Conclusion

Romans 2:17–20 leaves the religious man standing in the brightest light available to him and removes every excuse he might have tried to hide behind. He “restest in the law,” “makest thy boast of God,” “knowest his will,” and “approvest the things that are more excellent,” because he has been “instructed out of the law.” He possesses truth. He knows doctrine. He can distinguish right from wrong. He can open the Book, point to chapter and verse, correct the ignorant, instruct the foolish, and describe himself as “a guide of the blind” and “a light of them which are in darkness.” None of those things is evil. The tragedy begins when possession of truth is mistaken for submission to truth. A Bible in the hand can become a dangerous thing when pride sits on the throne of the heart. The Book was not given merely to make a man informed enough to correct everybody else; it was given to put him under the authority of the God who wrote it. A man may know where every verse is located and still refuse to let one of them locate his own sin. He may carry the truth under his arm while rebellion rides comfortably beneath his ribs. The most dangerous distance in religion is not the distance between a man and a Bible; it is the distance between the Bible in his hand and obedience in his heart.

That principle reaches far beyond the Jew in Romans 2 without erasing the Jew from the passage. Paul is addressing the man who bears the name Jew, possesses the law, and claims the privileges of covenant revelation; the doctrinal setting must remain exactly where God put it. But the spiritual application walks straight into every Bible-believing church, every pulpit, every Sunday school room, every theological argument, and every home where somebody knows enough Scripture to instruct others. Having the right Bible does not automatically make a man right with the God of that Bible. Knowing dispensational distinctions does not excuse disobedience. Defending sound doctrine does not sanctify hypocrisy. Quoting the King James Bible does not give the flesh diplomatic immunity from the King who gave the words. A man can defend inspiration while ignoring instruction, preach holiness while feeding secret sin, expose false doctrine while refusing correction, and boast that he possesses the truth while the truth he possesses testifies against him. The devil is not frightened because somebody owns a Bible; he is confronted when that Bible is believed, obeyed, preached, lived, and allowed to cut where it cuts. Truth carried as a badge produces religious pride; truth received as authority produces submission.

So the question at the end of Romans 2:17–20 is not merely, “Do you have the truth?” It is, “What has the truth done with you?” Has the Book humbled you, corrected you, searched you, changed your conduct, governed your tongue, exposed your pride, restrained your flesh, and brought your life under the authority of God? Or has it merely furnished you with ammunition for everybody else? The religious man in Romans 2 is about to discover that the teacher will be examined by the lesson he teaches and the preacher will stand beneath the sermon he preaches. God is not impressed by a man pointing a Bible at the world while keeping its edge away from his own conscience. Scripture is not a telescope designed only for spotting another man’s errors; it is also a mirror, and the fellow who refuses to look into it has missed half the reason he opened the Book. Possession is privilege, knowledge is responsibility, and greater light brings greater accountability. Do not merely carry the Bible. Let the Bible carry authority over you. Do not merely know the truth. Bow to it. For the religious man’s greatest danger is having enough light to guide the blind while remaining too proud to let that same light search himself.