Romans 2

Romans 2:1

2:1 This second class consists of those who look down their noses at the heathen, considering themselves more civilized, educated, and refined. They condemn the pagans for their gross behavior, yet are equally guilty themselves though perhaps in a more sophisticated way. Fallen man can see faults in others more readily than in himself. Things hideous and repulsive in the lives of others seem quite respectable in his own. But the fact that he can judge sins in others shows that he knows the difference between right and wrong. If he knows that it is wrong for someone to steal his wife, then he knows that it is wrong for him to steal someone else’s wife. Therefore, when someone commits the very sins he condemns in others, he leaves himself without excuse. The sins of cultured people are essentially the same as those of the heathen. Although a moralist may argue that he has not committed every sin in the book, he should remember the following facts:

1. he is capable of committing them all.
2. by breaking one commandment, he is guilty of all (Jam_2:10).
3. he has committed sins of thought which he may never have committed in actual deed, and these are forbidden by the word. Jesus taught that the lustful look, for instance, is tantamount to adultery (Mat_5:28). 2:2 What the smug moralist needs is a lesson on the judgment of God. The apostle proceeds to give that lesson in verses 2-16. The first point is that the judgment of God is according to truth. It is not based on incomplete, inaccurate, or circumstantial evidence. Rather, it is based on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 2:3 Secondly, the judgment of God is inescapable on those who condemn others for the very sins they practice themselves. Their capacity to judge others does not absolve them from guilt. In fact, it increases their own condemnation. The judgment of God is inescapable unless we repent and are forgiven. 2:4 Next we learn that the judgment of God is sometimes delayed. This delay is an evidence of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering. His goodness means that He is kindly disposed to sinners, though not to their sins. His forbearance describes His holding back punishment on man’s wickedness and rebellion. His longsuffering is His amazing self-restraint in spite of man’s ceaseless provocation. The goodness of God, as seen in His providence, protection, and preservation, is aimed at leading men to repentance. He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2Pe_3:9). Repentance means an about-face, turning one’s back on sin and heading in the opposite direction. It is a change of mind which produces a change of attitude, and results in a change of action. It signifies a man’s taking sides with God against himself and his sins. It is more than an intellectual assent to the fact of one’s sins; it involves the conscience too, as John Newton wrote: My conscience felt and owned my guilt.2:5 The fourth thing we learn about the judgment of God is that it is graduated according to the accumulation of guilt. Paul pictures hardened and unrepentant sinners treasuring up judgment for themselves, as if they were building up a fortune of gold and silver. But what a fortune that will be in the day when God’s wrath is finally revealed at the judgment of the Great White Throne (Rev_20:11-15)! In that day the judgment of God will be seen to be absolutely righteous, without prejudice or injustice of any kind. 2:6 In the next five verses Paul reminds us that the judgment of God will be according to one’s deeds. A man may boast of great personal goodness. He may rely heavily on his racial or national origin. He may plead the fact that there were men of God in his ancestry. But he will be judged by his own conduct, and not by any of these other things. His works will be the determining factor. If we took verses 6-11 by themselves, it would be easy to conclude that they teach salvation by works. They seem to say that those who do good works will thereby earn eternal life. But it should be clear that the passage cannot mean that, because then it would flatly contradict the consistent testimony of the rest of Scripture to the effect that salvation is by faith apart from works. Chafer points out that about 150 passages in the NT condition salvation solely on faith or believing. No one passage, when rightly understood, can contradict such overwhelming testimony. How then are we to understand this passage? First we must understand that good works do not begin until a person has been born again. When the people asked Jesus, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? He replied, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent (Joh_6:28-29). So the first good work that anyone can do is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we must constantly remember that faith is not a meritorious work by which a person earns salvation. So if the unsaved are judged by their works, they will have nothing of value to present as evidence.

All their supposed righteousness will be seen as filthy rags (Isa_64:6). Their condemning sin will be that they have not believed on Jesus as Lord (Joh_3:18). Beyond that, their works will determine the degree of their punishment (Luk_12:47-48). If believers are judged according to their works, what will be the outcome? Certainly they cannot present any good works by which they might earn or deserve salvation. All their works before salvation were sinful. But the blood of Christ has wiped out the past. Now God Himself cannot find any charge against them for which to sentence them to hell. Once they are saved, they begin to practice good worksnot necessarily good works in the world’s eyes, but good works as God sees them. Their good works are the result of salvation, not the meritorious cause. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, their works will be reviewed and they will be rewarded for all faithful service. But we must constantly remember that this passage does not deal with believersonly with the ungodly. 2:7 In explaining that judgment will be according to works, Paul says that God will render eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. As already explained, this does not mean that these people are saved by patient continuance in doing good. That would be another gospel. No one would naturally live that kind of life, and no one could live it without divine power. Anyone who really fits this description has already been saved by grace through faith. The fact that he seeks for glory, honor, and immortality shows that he has already been born again. The whole tenor of his life shows that he has been converted. He seeks for the glory of heaven; the honor that comes only from God (Joh_5:44); the immortality that characterizes the resurrection body (1Co_15:53-54); the heavenly inheritance, which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading (1Pe_1:4). God will award eternal life to all who manifest this evidence of a conversion experience. Eternal life is spoken of in several ways in the NT. It is a present possession which we receive the moment we are converted (Joh_5:24). It is a future possession which will be ours when we receive our glorified bodies (here and in Rom_6:22). Although it is a gift received by faith, it is sometimes associated with rewards for a life of faithfulness (Mar_10:30). All believers will have eternal life, but some will have a greater capacity for enjoying it than others. It means more than endless existence; it is a quality of life, the more abundant life which the Savior promised in Joh_10:10. It is the very life of Christ Himself (Col_1:27). 2:8 Those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but rather obey unrighteousness, will be awarded indignation and wrath. They do not obey the truth; they have never answered the gospel call. Rather, they have chosen to obey unrighteousness as their master. Their lives are characterized by strife, wrangling, and disobediencesure proof that they were never saved. 2:9 Now the apostle repeats God’s verdict concerning the two kinds of workers and works, except that this time He does it in inverse order. The verdict will be tribulation and anguish to everyone who does evil. Here again we must stress that these evil works betray an evil heart of unbelief. The works are the outward expression of a person’s attitude toward the Lord. The expression of the Jew first, and also of the Greek shows that the judgment of God will be according to privilege or light received. The Jews were first in privilege as God’s earthly chosen people; therefore, they will be first in responsibility. This aspect of God’s judgment will be developed further in verses 12-16. 2:10 The verdict will be glory, honor, and peace to everyone, Jew or Gentile, who works what is good. And let us not forget that no one can work good, as far as God is concerned, unless he has first placed his faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The expression to the Jew first, and also to the Greek cannot indicate favoritism, because the next verse points out that God’s judgment is impartial. So the expression must indicate the historical order in which the gospel went out, as in Rom_1:16. It was proclaimed first to Jews, and the first believers were Jews. 2:11 Another truth concerning the judgment of God is that it is without respect of persons. In human courts of law, preference is shown to the good-looking, wealthy, and influential; but God is strictly impartial. No considerations of race, place, or face will ever influence Him. 2:12 As mentioned above, verses 12-16 expand the point that the judgment of God will be according to the measure of light received. Two classes are in view: those who do not have the law (the Gentiles) and those who are under the law (the Jews). This includes everyone except those who are in the church of God (see 1Co_10:32, where the human race is divided into these three classes). Those who have sinned without law will also perish without law. It does not say will be judged without law but will also perish without law. They will be judged according to whatever revelation the Lord gave them, and, failing to live up to that revelation, they will perish. Those who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law, and if they have not obeyed it, they too will perish. The law demands total obedience. 2:13 Mere possession of the law is not enough. The law demands perfect and continuous obedience. No one is accounted righteous simply because he knows what the law says. The only conceivable way of obtaining justification under the law would be to keep it in its entirety. But since all men are sinners, it is impossible for them to do this. So this verse is really setting forth an ideal condition rather than something that is capable of human attainment. The NT teaches emphatically that it is impossible for man to be justified by law-keeping (see Act_13:39; Rom_3:20; Gal_2:16, Gal_2:21; Gal_3:11). It was never God’s intention that anyone be saved by the law. Even if a person could keep it perfectly from this day forward, he still would not be justified, because God requires that which is past. So when verse 13 says that doers of the law will be justified, we must understand it as meaning that the law demands obedience, and if anyone could produce perfect obedience from the day he was born, he would be justified. But the cold, hard fact is that no one can produce this. 2:14 Verses 14 and 15 are a parenthesis, looking back to verse 12a, where we learned that Gentiles who sin without the law shall perish without the law. Now Paul explains that although the law was not given to the Gentiles, yet they have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. They know instinctively that it is wrong to lie, steal, commit adultery, and murder. The only commandment they would not know intuitively is the one concerning the Sabbath; that one is more ceremonial than moral. So what it boils down to is that the Gentiles, who do not have the law, … are a law to themselves. They form their own code of right and wrong behavior from their moral instincts. 2:15 They show the work of the law written in their hearts. It is not the law itself which is written in their hearts, but the work of the law. The work which the law was designed to do in the lives of the Israelites is seen in some measure in the lives of Gentiles. The fact that they know that it is right to respect their parents, for example, shows the work of the law written in their hearts. They also know that certain acts are basically wrong. Their conscience, serving as a monitor, confirms this instinctive knowledge. And their thoughts are constantly deciding the rightness or wrongness of their actions, accusing or excusing, forbidding or allowing. 2:16 This verse is a continuation of the thought in verse 12. It tells when those without law and those under the law will be judged. And in doing so it teaches one final truth about the judgment of Godnamely, that it will take into account the secrets of men, not just their public sin. Sin which is secret at the present time will be open scandal at the Judgment of the Great White Throne. The Judge at that solemn time will be Jesus Christ, since the Father has committed all judgment to Him (Joh_5:22). When Paul adds, according to my gospel, he means so my gospel teaches. My gospel means the gospel Paul preached, which was the same one which the other apostles preached. 2:17 The apostle has a third class to deal with, so now he turns to the question: Are the Jews, to whom the law was given, also lost? And of course the answer is, Yes, they are lost too!There is no doubt that many Jews felt they were immune from God’s judgment. God would never send a Jew to hell, they thought. The Gentiles, on the other hand, were fuel for the flames of hell. Paul must now destroy this pretension by showing that under certain circumstances Gentiles may be closer to God than Jews. First he reviews those things which a Jew prized as giving him an inside track with God. He bore the name of a Jew and thus was a member of God’s chosen earthly people. He rested on the law, which was never designed to give rest but rather to awaken the conscience to a sense of sinfulness. He gloried in God, the only true God, who had entered into a unique covenant relationship with the nation of Israel. 2:18 He knew God’s will, because a general outline of that will is given in the Scriptures. He approved the things that are excellent, because the law taught him how to assess moral values. 2:19 He prided himself on being a guide to the morally and spiritually blind, a light to those who were in the darkness of ignorance. 2:20 He felt qualified to correct the foolish or untaught and to teach babes, because the law gave him an outline of knowledge and of the truth.2:21 But these things in which the Jew boasted had never changed his life. It was simply pride of race, religion, and knowledge without any corresponding moral transformation. He taught others but did not take the lessons to heart himself. He preached against stealing but did not practice what he preached. 2:22 When he forbade adultery, it was a case of Do as I say, not as I do. While he did loathe and abhor idols, he didn’t hesitate to rob temples, perhaps by actually looting heathen shrines. 2:23 He gloried in the possession of the law, but dishonored the God who gave it by breaking its sacred precepts. 2:24 This combination of high talk and low walk caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of God. They judged the Lord, as men always do, by those who professed to be His followers. It was true in Isaiah’s day (Isa_52:5) and it is still true today. Each of us should ask: If of Jesus Christ their only view May be what they see of Him in you, (Insert your name), what do they see? 2:25 In addition to the law, the Jew prided himself on the rite of circumcision. This is a minor surgical operation performed on the foreskin of the Jewish male. It was instituted by God as a sign of His covenant with Abraham (Gen_17:9-14). It expressed the separation of a people to God from the world. After a while the Jews so prided themselves on having had the operation that they contemptuously called the Gentiles the uncircumcision.Here Paul links circumcision with the Law of Moses and points out that it was only valid as a sign when it was combined with a life of obedience. God is not a mere ritualist; He is not satisfied with external ceremonies unless they are accompanied by inward holiness. So a circumcised Jew who transgresses the law might just as well be uncircumcised. When the apostle speaks about keepers or doers of the law in this passage, we must not take the words in an absolute sense. 2:26 Thus, if a Gentile adheres to the morality prescribed by the law, even if he isn’t under the law, his uncircumcision is more acceptable than the circumcision of a Jewish transgressor. In such a case the Gentile’s heart is circumcised, and that is what counts. 2:27 The superior behavior of the Gentile condemns the Jew, who, with his written code and circumcision does not keep the law or live the circumcised life, the life of separation and sanctification. 2:28 In God’s reckoning, a true Jew is not simply a man who has Abraham’s blood flowing in his veins or who has the mark of circumcision in his body. A person may have both these things and be the scum of the earth morally. The Lord is not swayed by external considerations of race or religion; He looks for inward sincerity and purity. 2:29 A real Jew is the one who is not only a descendant of Abraham but who also manifests a godly life. This passage does not teach that all believers are Jews, or that the church is the Israel of God. Paul is talking about those who are born of Jewish parentage and is insisting that the mere fact of birth and the ordinance of circumcision are not enough. There must also be inward reality. True circumcision is a matter of the heartnot just a literal cutting of the body but the spiritual reality of surgery on the old, unregenerate nature. Those who thus combine the outward sign and the inward grace receive God’s praise, if not man’s. There is a play on words in this last verse that is not apparent in the English. The word Jew comes from Judah, meaning praise. A real Jew is one whose character is such as to receive praise from God.