Five Important Questions

Five Important Questions
By: Dr. Danny Purvis

It is reassuring to note that the same issues plaguing the First Century Church are still alive and well in the 12st Century Church. Not reassuring in the sense that misery loves company, but reassuring in the sense that these new problems for us have been successfully dealt with in the past. Our Brother and Sister ancestors encountered and, for the most part, have left us a blueprint on how to deal with these things. I find that reassuring.

In this particular case we are dealing with a group of people who have existed since the inception of the Church…mainly…people who believe they have a saving relationship with God when they don’t. They are as lost as people who have never even heard the Gospel in the first place. That is the point Paul is making in the first 2 chapters of his amazing letter to the Roman church. Beginning in the middle of chapter 1 Paul specifically references people who have never been exposed to the Gospel but are nonetheless still guilty of their sin. This thought culminates in Romans 1:20 where he states that evidence of God is so overwhelming that everyone (including those with no knowledge of the Gospel) are “without excuse”.

But then something interesting happens. Paul switches audiences. He stops talking about non-Jewish Gentiles who know nothing of God and turns his attention to “his” people…Jews. These are a group of people who a well versed in God’s Word. They have been (at least the males) circumcised. They are children of Abraham. They know God’s law. However, what Paul is attempting to do here is to communicate to his Jewish audience that because they have not embraces Christ, they are just as lost as these Gentiles who had never even heard of God. I imagine this was a pretty hard sell. Why? Because they had based their salvation on external religious things instead of the internal transformation that can only come through Christ. They thought they were fine because they had been born children of Abraham, knew Gods law (but wasn’t obeying it), and because they had been circumcised.

But in layman’s terms, they were a group of people who thought they were saved but were not. And there is no harder person to reach with the Gospel than the one who falsely believes they already have it. This reality exists today. Because the totality of the Gospel is not preached in a wide swath of churches all across America, churches are filled with people who have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gospel. And if we do not even have a fundamental understanding of the Gospel…how can we really believe ourselves to be a Christian? It’s a good question. How do we know if we are going to be one of the false Believers Jesus talked about in Matthew 7:21-23 when He said: “21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Jesus clearly says that they will actually be at the point of judgement thinking they belonged to Christ but will hear Jesus say: “I never knew you; depart from Me”. He also says that there will be “many” on that day who believe this. You see? Two thousand years later and we still deal with this problem in the church. But Paul specifically addresses this as he ends us the 2nd chapter of Romans albeit in a bit of a complex way. I’m sure the verbiage was a bit clearer to the audience of that day than it might be for us (but then again maybe not). To be clear…the message is fairly clear and simple. However, Paul’s use of words can, if we are not careful, lead us to an errant conclusion about the message. He uses familiar words and phrases, but he uses them euphemistically. He uses them to make a bigger point rather than using them from their technical definition. This is especially true in the last 5 verses of Romans 2.

He uses terms like circumcision, uncircumcision, Jew, obeying the law. However, he uses them as figures of speech to make a more salient point. He tells his Jewish audience, who were circumcised, that the uncircumcised Gentile who follows Christ is in reality the one who is circumcised while the circumcised Jew who did not follow Christ was actually uncircumcised (Romans 2:25-26). The technical definition of these words can get in the way of our understanding what Paul is saying here. But let’s simplify it. There is no external act you can do to make you a Christian but only the internal working of the Holy Spirit. So, the uncircumcised Gentile who follows Christ is truly saved while the circumcised, religious Jew is not…because they have not had that internal transformation that only the Gospel can give.

And the cool thing is that each of these last 5 verses have embedded in them implied questions that all Believers (and those who think themselves to be Believers) have to ask themselves. These are implied questions…the questions that would logically revel themselves as a result of a declarative statement. Every declarative statement has an implied question attached to it. And these five statements have attached to them 5 of the most important questions in the world related to whether we are true Believers…or whether we are fooling ourselves. Here are the verses and the implied questions.
1.Verse 25. What are you basing your salvation on?
2.Verse 26. Have you been transformed by the Gospel?
3.Verse 27. Do you truly understand your sinful nature?
4.Verse 28. Are you a new creation?
5.Verse 29. Do you have a heart of flesh?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves to avoid a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gospel. These are the questions implied by Paul’s God inspired words and euphemisms related to the difference between thinking you’re a Christian…and knowing you’re a Christian. These are the questions that can help lead us to not hear: “I never knew you”. But instead can guide us to the point where we will hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant”.

-Dr. Danny Purvis