Who God views as a Jew !
Who God views as a Jew !
Rom 2:28-29
28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Now basically,essentially what Paul is teaching here is that being a Jew in God's reckoning and estimation has nothing to do with racial ethnicity, but most certainly has to do with a inward change of the Heart by the Spirit, in fact this was intimated in the OT, for David writes Ps 73:1
Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.
None by nature has a clean Heart, thats a New Creation from God Ps 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Now any person born again of the Spirit is a Jew, as when Jesus said Jn 3:7-8
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.[is a Jew]
Everyone Born of the Spirit is in God's reckoning a Jew, it has nothing at all to do with bloodline. Remember whom Jesus said it was that believed on Him and or received Him ? Lets read Jn 1:12-13
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
It was those, not born of blood, but of the Spirit of God !
God reckons a Gentile a Jew or of the Circumcision if he is Righteous Rom 2:26
26 Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
See that is exactly the case with all for whom Christ Lived and died, by and through Him they have kept the Righteousness of the Law Rom 5:19
19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
That means the many have been made Keepers of the Law for Righteousness. The word righteous dikaios means:
I.righteous, observing divine laws
A.
in a wide sense, upright, righteous, virtuous, keeping the commands of God
By this, they are the Circumcision, a Jew, thats what Rom 2:26 intimates, all whom God sees Christ acting in behalf of when He kept the Righteousness of the Law, they were of the Circumcision, but it has noting to do with ethnicity. All Believers are the Circumcision and therfore Jews, Paul when writing Believers in Phillipi wrote Phil 3:3
3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
Now if Paul meant this to only refer to jewish believers as some ignorantly may teach, then he immediately becomes a liar because then he would in deed be having a little confidence in the flesh !
But alas, Gods Jews have nothing to do with ethnicity and bloodline, but all to do with the Blood of Christ and subsequently the Work of the Spirit in New Birth !