²³ You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? ²⁴ For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.

David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba and killing her husband Uriah has had repercussions to the reputation of God through the centuries up to modern times. Skeptics often point out that the Bible has God describing David as “a man after My own heart, who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22). “How could anyone worship a God who describes a murderer and adulterer like that?” they say. The sin of God’s people has a huge impact on the non-believer’s perception of God.

This indictment against the Jews splatters easily on any who hold to God’s Word and claim to live by it. We Christians are privileged beyond the Jews, for we have the whole counsel of God and are called “saints,” or holy ones of God. Even the Corinthians, those carnal Christians, are “saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (1 Cor 1:2). What makes us saints is not our holy living, but the fact that God has set us aside as His holy ones. He has sanctified us, which means He has separated us from the world of unbelievers as His own people. Like with Israel, this was not because we are somehow better or more holy than anyone else. The mystery of His choosing us has engaged the greatest of Christian minds, but somehow it has involved His grace and our faith. And our faith is not to be construed in any way as a meritorious act on our part. Faith is simply a recognition that what God says about our condition as sinners and His solution of Christ dying in our place is true. Through that faith, He justifies sinners.

So we have nothing to boast about, just as the Jews could not boast about the Law. We still sin, so if we care about the lost world around us and their perception of God, we have two choices: either stop sinning (not likely) or stop sanctimoniously moralizing about non-believers. The latter is much better, for it frees the way for simply demonstrating the true posture of God toward unbelievers, as we saw earlier: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom 2:4).

This teaching demands that evangelizing the lost is more than writing scathing blogs and letters to the editor, or standing on the street condemning the world. That makes us no better than other moralizers and religionists. Rather, we ought to demonstrate by our lives the kindness of God to unbelievers.

Lord, help me to love my enemies, even those who sin against me.