Romans 2

28,29. If you take away a man’s knowledge, you do not bring him to the state of an infant, but to that of a brute; and of one of the most mischievous and malignant of the brute creation. For you do not lessen or weaken the man’s body by lowering his mind; he still retains his strength and his passions, the passions leading to self-indulgence, the strength which enables him to feed them by continued gratification. T. A.—The result of that old idolatry was the indulgence of fleshly lust. And the language of the apostle precisely describes the connection between the cause and the effect. They did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They had supplied to them ever by their conscience a higher ideal; not perhaps the highest, nor even in itself very high, but still higher than could be represented by their gross worship. They felt higher instincts, higher impulses. But they put the lower above the higher, and the end was the downright dominion of the lower nature. F. T.—The teaching here is plain and indisputable. God gave men the means of knowing his perfections and his will. From these they turned away, because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, and chose and worshiped the meanest reptiles, nay, even the images of beasts instead of the Creator. Against such awful impiety he displayed his displeasure, or made known his wrath, by allowing them without restraint to pursue their own course. He gave them over. The consequence was, a condition of the most degraded iniquity and more than brutish sensuality and lust. F. W.

1. THEREFORE thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. 2 But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit 3 such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and 4 doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches 5 of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God 6 leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up 7 unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of 8 God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient con- 9 tinuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto 10 them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation 11 and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew 12 first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh 13 good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. 14 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have 15 sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (for not the hearers of the law are just before 16 God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not 17 the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law 18 unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

17. Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and 18 knowest his will, and approves the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of 19 the law; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which 20 are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of 21 knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest 22 thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that 23 sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest 24 idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through break- 25 ing the law dishonourest thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gen- 26 tiles through you, as it is written. For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: 27 but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore 28 if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be 29 counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the 30 law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not 31 a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 32 but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, 33 and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

BEHOLD the goodness of God in the same view with the manifestation of his mind against sin—the expressions of denunciation accompanying his holy law, and mingled with all his communications to man—how many they are, how decisive, how solemn, and at the same time just! And yet, notwithstanding, the world around us is not made an unmingled scene of vindictive execution; sinful men are not, in every path and dwelling, crushed under the falling judgments of heaven. There is an immense dispensation of benefits. The series of the divine goodness, too, may be counted by the succession of a man’s sins. Not one sin, small or great, but close by it were acts and proofs of this goodness. If this had been realized to thought, what a striking and awful admonition! Each and every sin a testimony, a representative of goodness; and what a wonder that the train of goodness should still persist to go on! So, “the goodness of God” is to be viewed in its character of patience and long-suffering. All his lengthened indulgence, his train of favors—what should we in conscience deem it to have been for? What, but that there might be increasing gratitude, devotedness, wisdom, and service?

Conceive the state of a soul hardened under “the goodness of God!” No longer even a perception of his mercies as such—a fixed, impenetrable ingratitude; an established, habitual repellency to all his attractions; a cessation, nearly, of regret for not being at peace with him; the man’s mind made up, as it were, just to seize and enjoy as much temporal good as God will permit him (not give him) during the remainder of the brief space of life, and leave all that is to follow to be as it may. Consider, on the other hand, how happily the sentiment of “repentance” from a sense of “the goodness of God” mingles and harmonizes with all the noblest and most delightful sentiments of religion—with gratitude, humility, holy reverence, and zeal—and with the aspiration to a better life, where there shall be no more sin. J. F.

Chapters 2, 3, and 4.—The apostle goes on to show that, in this matter of sinfulness before God, all are alike; that none has a right to set himself up above and judge another; for that man’s unworthiness and God’s long-suffering are universal. And so he passes gradually to the case of the Jews, whom by and by he directly addresses, especially with reference to their supposed and real advantages over others in the knowledge of God; contrasting the pride of the Jews in their law and their God with their actual disobedience to both; showing that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified; and that Abraham’s real advantage was his faith, by which he was justified before God without the works of the law. And this justification by faith was not his alone, but shall be ours also, if we believe the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This is the state of the main line of argument as far as the end of chapter 4. A.

2,3. To what in yourself will you ascribe that which in others you ascribe to criminality? Compare yourself with others upon whom you have been sitting in judgment, and wherein are you dissimilar? Be not deceived, God is not mocked. What are you doing, as estranged from him who came to save you, but fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and walking in your own chosen way? E. M.

4. Where, if not in Christ, is the power that can persuade a sinner to return, that can bring home a heart to God? Common mercies of God, though they have a leading faculty to repentance, yet the rebellious heart will not be led by them. The judgments of God, public or personal, though they ought to drive us to God, yet the heart, unchanged, runs the further from God. Do we not see it by ourselves and other sinners about us? They look not at all toward Him who smites, much less do they return; or, if any more serious thoughts of returning arise upon the surprise of an affliction, how soon vanish they, either the stroke abating, or the heart, by time, growing hard and senseless under it! Leave Christ out, and all other means work not this way; neither the works nor the word of God sounding daily in his ear, Return, return. Let the noise of the rod speak it too, and both join together to make the cry the louder, yet the wicked will do wickedly. L.—Sin hath by so much the greater evil in it by how much it is committed against the greater goodness. As good things received bind us stronger unto duty, so good things abused bind us stronger under guilt. Caryl.—God gives us all the mercies of this life as helps to an immortal state of glory, and as carnests of it. Sensualists know not what a soul is, nor what soul mercies are, and therefore know not the just value of all bodily mercies; but take up only with the carcass, shell, or shadow, instead of the life of their mercies. No wonder they are so unthankful for God’s mercies, when they know not the real excellency of them. Baz.

7. Patient continuance.** If duty be not so holy a power as love, yet, as long as we remain here, we need the strength of duty as much as we do the fire of love. The steady discharge of the duties of the day saves our religious life from being a mere weak alternation of fits of joy and fits of depression. The resolute will that allows no mere mood ever to interfere with the appointed work of the present moment is the backbone of the truly religious character. The instinct of love, glorious as it is, yet may degenerate into mere dreamy feeling, into sentimental sorrow for sin, and sentimental longing for a holier life. That which saves it from this degenerate end is the strong, steady sense of duty. And there is no one quality which it is better for us, in every sense, to form, to retain, to cherish in our souls than this. F. T.

Glory and honour. Nothing in all the success of Satan in his management of the world’s affairs is so saddening to contemplate as the false direction he has been enabled to give to the enthusiasm of men. Enthusiasm is a beautiful and sacred thing, implanted in us that we might launch forth on sublime enterprises of mercy to man and of glory to God. Enthusiasm would make of a holy man a seraph. Men hardly know what to do with this divine faculty. They thirst for glory, honor, immortality, but limit their conceptions of these things to what the world, the fallen, doomed world, can give. G. B.

Eternal life. Christ and his apostles seem to have given less space than we might have expected to the particulars of the soul’s condition after death. A few great, simple, commanding, comprehensive assurances are made to stand out before us, with outlines that are very sharp and foundations that are very broad and firm. The fact of the Christian’s immortality, the fact of the judgment at the entrance, the fact of the separation of the righteous from the wicked, the fact that this judgment proceeds on one principle, and that this separation is determined by one affection or the absence of it, the fact that afterward there are two parted families, each of them a social state, the perfect blessedness of the one consisting supremely in the fully recognized presence and love of the Lord, and the complete wretchedness of the other in absence from Him—these are all. On these the Scriptures lay all the stress. Around and under them they spread out all that immortal land. To the faithful who seek by patient well-doing there shall be glory, honor, and immortality, but tribulation and anguish to every soul that loveth and doeth evil. F. D. H.—When it is told us that the consciousness we inherit is strictly indestructible—that no mutations in the mode of existence, no accidents, no alterations in the laws of nature, not even the upturning of the material universe, not the extinction of all things visible, can bring about the annihilation of man—then, indeed, it becomes a question of unutterable consequence, “What is God?” for we, even we, are to be the companions of his eternal duration! The creatures of a day, of a summer, of a century, might be imagined, when they stand upon the threshold of their term of existence, to make inquiry concerning the attributes and dispositions of the Creator and the rules of his government: for these are to give law to their season of life, and to be the measure of their enjoyments. But with what intenseness of anxiety might the Sons of Immortality put such questions, as they come severally to set foot upon a course that shall have no end, and that must always be gathering to itself importance! Apart from the doctrine of immortality, the doctrine of the divine attributes might be tranquilly dealt with, as we deal with any abstruse matters, or with mathematical principles. They are of some moment; but it is bounded by the brief period of our own connection with the material world. How much otherwise is it when every attribute, natural and moral, of the Infinite Being shall for ever concentrate its rays, as in a focus, upon the immortal created spirit; so that this spirit shall draw to itself, in some manner, and without end, a special consequence from the omnipotence and the omniscience, from the rectitude and the benignity of God! When once the soul awakes, as from a dream, to the rational consciousness of either truth, with what force and majesty does the other present itself to the mind! The belief of immortality brings God before the soul, as if visibly manifested; the knowledge of God kindles the conception of endless life. I. T.

Faith acts its noble energy forth into righteousness, works by love, bears the fruit of philanthropy, integrity, patience, temperance, emancipation, brotherly kindness, charity. Everlasting life is the result. The soul has reached its period of victory. From the far country it has traveled back till it has come home—home—O word of unspeakable and unexhausted meaning! The door of the Father’s house was open, and it has entered in. This is life eternal. Henceforth there shall be labor, indeed, because labor is the best satisfaction of a spiritual being. But it shall be labor in the Master’s society—labor under the encouragements of his friendship—labor with the crown on the head, and the seal in the forehead, and the reconciliation in the heart. Faithful continuance in well-doing has brought the disciple to his Lord; and when he looks up, behold! glory and honor and immortality are the spiritual trophies that adorn his dwelling. F. D. H.

8. In the end of this verse “damnation” does not mean what we now commonly understand by it, and would be better, therefore, expressed by “condemnation.” A.

11. God has no respect to the outward appearance or circumstances of a man in dealing with him. God takes him for what he is, not for what he seems. The word translated “person” means mask or face-covering; that which disguises a man, and makes him look different from what he is. God regardeth not the person or appearance of a man. To God the man is just what he is, exactly, and neither more nor less. An.

12-16. The whole world is under a solemn economy of government and judgment. A mighty spirit of judgment is in sovereign exercise over all, discerning, estimating, approving, or condemning. Now, it was requisite there should be something in the soul to recognize this; that it should not be as some vague, unperceived element around us; and something more and deeper than the mere simple understanding that such is the fact; a faculty to be impressed, to feel obligation and awe and solemn apprehension; something by which the mind shall be compelled to admit the indwelling of what represents a greater power. Conscience is to communicate with something mysteriously great, which is without the soul, and above it, and everywhere. It is the sense, more explicit or obscure, of standing in judgment before the Almighty. And that which makes a man feel so is a part of himself; so that the struggle against God becomes a struggle with man’s own soul. Therefore conscience has been often denominated “the God in man.” J. F.—Conscience is a very busy faculty of the soul, and it hath many offices. It is a register, to take notice of and record what we do. It is a witness against us when we do amiss. It is a judge, and gives sentence; it sits upon a throne as God’s deputy to award life or death. It has the office of a tormenter; it is that worm which dieth not and a fire that never goeth out. The lost shall feel the sting of conscience for ever, though here they have bribed it and blinded it that it might not trouble them. Caryl.

Men who have not the revealed law of God do have in their consciences the sense of obligation to the self-same duties which that law commands; and even when they disregard truth, justice, honor, purity, fidelity, in their own actions, they exact these virtues from others toward themselves. But he who condemns another for theft, fraud, lying, murder, shows that he has in his own heart a law, a standard of right and wrong; and by that law he himself shall be judged. God deals with men according to their light; but all men have light enough to know the difference between right and wrong. God is patient toward sinners and seeks to win them by his love; but, if they will not repent, the warnings of conscience shall be followed by the judgment of the last day. J. P. T.—These acts of conscience, in the present life, have a final respect to God’s tribunal; and, though the accounts are so vast, there shall be an exact agreement between the books of God’s omniscience and of conscience in the day of judgment. It will be one of the miracles of that day, to enlarge the view of conscience to all sins. Now the records of conscience are often obliterated, and the sins written therein are forgotten; but then they shall appear in so clear an impression, that the wicked shall be inexcusable to themselves, and conscience subscribes their condemnation. And oh the formidable spectacle, when conscience shall present to a sinner in one view the sins of his whole life! Bates.—Conscience! it will cry amen to every word that the great God doth speak against thee. It will hold pace with the witness of God, as to the truth of evidence, to a hair’s breadth. The witness of conscience is of great authority; it commands guilt and fastens it on every soul which it accuses. Bun.

16. The thought of the coming of Christ to judgment almost inevitably leads the mind to the two great revelations which will then be made: the revelation of the secrets of the hearts of men and the revelation of the true substance and nature of things. At present there is a perpetual contradiction between faith and experience; justice does not rule the world,

and obedience to the Law of God, which ought to be the one supreme force in the world, is thrust aside by what is plausible, by what is resolute, by mere accident even and blind chance. But on that day the higher harmony which rules all these discords shall be revealed; the wrong shall either be set right before our eyes, or shall be shown never to have been wrong, but only to have been misunderstood. So, again, at present we live with good and with evil, which none knows except the man himself, and even he but imperfectly and fitfully. But then we shall be seen and known of all men; for

the judgment will be a public judgment, and all will acknowledge its justice. F. T.—All sins, whether secret or open and visible, shall be accounted for. Those sins that have been acted in the most secret retirement, so that no eye of man could take cognizance of them, shall then be made manifest. Nay, the sins of the thoughts and affections, of which Satan could not accuse men, when the inward fire of lust or malice is not discovered by the least smoke or sparkles, by no expressions—all those shall be brought to judgment. God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. Bates.