Of the latter, there is something which is particularly common and which seems to be growing. It’s found among the players, especially among professional players, and it is common to their fans. But as the school players and amateurs strive to join the pros, they are imitating the pros more and more. When a basketball player gets free on a fast break, And he jumps high and slams the ball through the hoop; he may come down screaming with emotion, and that team’s fans may join him. This is not necessarily a bad thing. When a football team is able to connect on a long pass for a touch down, there may be a lot of excitement. But there is a difference between excitement and the arrogant taunting and showing off that seems so common today. The dancing, sometimes almost obscene dancing; the posing and muscle flexing, and the verbal taunting disgust me. I don’t care if the most talented player in the league does something that is absolutely fantastic, I think that it is more becoming for him to drop the ball and get ready for the next play, than for him to dance around like a foolish drunkard, picking fights with men bigger than himself. And what is particularly ludicrous is when a team is losing by three touch-downs late in the game, but they have finally been able to put the ball in the end-zone, and they come up acting as if they were the greatest team in the world, and that they have just won the Super Bowl. When the stupid fan is shouting and screaming, pulling on his shirt with the team logo on it, and holding up his index finger suggesting that his team is number one in the world, when actually it isn’t going to make the play-offs for the sixth straight year, something is wrong. And that fan is even more asinine than his mentally-adolescent hero, because he contributes nothing to the team, except to make the children playing the game inordinately rich. Enjoying an exciting game is one thing, but the reveling, boasting, crowing, and prating is another.
Israel was like one of those teams, and her citizens were very much like those foolish fans. Without a doubt they were, in many ways, the most blessed nation on earth. But their blessings were because of the grace of God, and in themselves they had nothing which made them better people than the Romans or the Samaritans. Paul has just proven that “both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. There is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
The basic theme of for the rest of chapter 3 is that before God there is no room for any human boasting.
Paul was not the first to address this mistaken hero worship of Israel. The Lord Jesus dealt with David and Abraham several times. On one occasion “he said to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” If someone doesn’t possess the same faith as Abraham, then that hero becomes nothing more than a mill- stone around his Israel.
One of Israel’s great blessings was their possession of the Word of the Lord – the oracles of God. But Paul had already suggested that it was not the blessing that they thought that it was. To have a dozen dust covered Bibles laying around the house is not a blessing but a curse. Ownership of a Bible suggests a knowledge of the Bible, and knowledge raises responsibility. Four times in Matthew, twice in Mark and once in Luke, Christ Jesus said to the Jews: “have yet not read?” What’s wrong with you? You have been to the synagogue all your lives. You have read the scriptures from your youth, and many of you own copies of portions of the Word. Why haven’t you learned the lessons taught in God’s holy oracles? Israel couldn’t boast in their possession or knowledge of the Word or God or in the law of God. All that the law could do was condemn them, and that is certainly nothing in which to be proud.
Oh, but they could boast in their God couldn’t they? Over and over again, Jehovah had said to Israel, “For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Jehovah had chosen to reveal Himself to Israel and Israel alone. The Romans, Greeks and Egyptians had their panoply of gods and demigods. Other neighboring nations had specific national deities, in contrast to the Lord God of Heaven and earth. But just because the Philistines bowed before Dagon, and the Assyrians had their Nisroch, that didn’t change the fact that Jehovah was still God of Heaven and earth. Verse 29 – “Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.” Israel had no monopoly on Jehovah – He created ALL things, sustains ALL things and will judge ALL things.
The Jews had no grounds for boasting – it was excluded. “Excluded” means that it was kicked out the door, and that door was shut and locked tight. Boasting couldn’t get in the door because it had no key, and there were armed Seraphim carrying fiery swords, keeping the proud and wicked outside.
And what about their science? Human science is something like children playing in the sand. Those kids build their crude little villages, houses, roads, lakes and rivers imitating the real thing. They bring out their toy cars and their plastic people, and they think that they understand the real world. The scientist may dig as deeply as he likes into the smallest objects within the atom, but there is more. And he may peer into space with all the technology that he can muster, but there is still more. Then he analyzes and catalogues what he finds. There isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with this. But when he then presents these to God, or presents himself as the creator of such things, he reverts back to the sand box. Our best scientists in their ultimate knowledge, are only touching the hem of God’s garment of creation. And then there are the improper and atheistic conclusions, wishes and hopes. Evolution as an example.
Atheistic boasting? Gentile boasting? It is excluded.
In either case there is still no room for boasting. As has been proven, if that professing Christian thinks that he is Heaven-bound because of his sufficient obedience to God, he has been deceived. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in (God’s) sight.” The things that I have just described – honesty, morality, hospitality, affability, and amicability – may be the products of the saving grace of God, but they do not contribute to it. “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay.”
Let’s think about the word “boasting.” This is the first time that this Greek word is used in the Bible. The first definition of “boasting” in English is: “to glorify oneself; to talk in a self-admiring way.” That could be a part of what Paul was thinking when he used the Greek word “kauchesis” (kow’-khay-sis). But of the dozen times that we have that word in the Bible it is most often used in a positive way. “I have therefore whereof I may GLORY through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God.” “For our REJOICING is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.”
“For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of REJOICING? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?” The boasting to which Paul refers might be understood as an abundant joy – or the grounds of rejoicing. But even then “where is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay.” Our rejoicing, our glory, the joy of our salvation is rooted in the principle of faith.
Now, at this point we have to be careful. Nobody, not Abraham, David, you or me, none of us have any grounds to brag, to crow or to pound our chest that we are the children of God. Every aspect of our salvation from justification and glorification to repentance and faith are works of God’s grace and not works of ourselves. Although we should rejoice in salvation, the joy may be ours, but the glorifying must be given to God. “But can’t we boast about the fact that we put our faith in the saving work of Christ?” Not exactly.
“Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the LAW of faith.” Notice that Paul was talking about the “law of faith” not about faith itself. In contrast to the heretical idea of salvation by works, there is the principle of salvation by faith. And to speak of salvation by faith is to talk about salvation by the grace of God. God preplanned salvation before the foundation of the world – and we believe it. God chose to save people before those people were ever created – and we believe that too. God is the cause of justification and propitiation. God provided the redemption that was necessary to deliver us from the bondage of the law. Christ Jesus gave His life that we might live. By faith we believe each of these things and all the rest of God’s revelation about salvation. Every chapter in this Book of Salvation was written by the Lord and bound together by His grace. Every child of Adam who has ever benefitted from this salvation has done so by simply accepting the work that the Lord has done on his behalf. He humbly and repentantly believed that Christ died specifically for him on the cross of Calvary. He accepted that Christ died for him, and he accepted Christ as his personal Saviour. Even his repentance and faith were gifts of Divine grace. The Lord Jesus said, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”
When the saints finally reach glory, and they gather together to offer their united and eternal praise to God, there will not be a single one, who will be able to glory or boast in anything which they have done to get there. They will have been saved by the principle of faith, not of works, not of obedience, or anything else. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Those glorified saints will have taken the law and used it as it was meant to be used – to slay us and teach us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinners are saved by faith, not works, obedience or any human effort whatsoever.