Therefore you are without excuse, O man, everyone who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. 3 But do you presume this, O man—who passes judgment on those who practice such things and does the same—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who will repay to each according to his works: 7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; 8 but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and anger. 9 There will be affliction and turmoil for every soul of man who works out evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.
12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law naturally do the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they demonstrate the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. Romans 2: 1-16 LSB
Romans 2: 1-16
It is easy to convince the "religious" person as well as the Jew of the unrighteousness of the idolatrous pagans in Romans 1 because the flagrant nature of their sins. On the other hand, convincing the "religious" person (eg, one who goes to church or is a member of a church) or the Jews of their innate unrighteousness is another matter as many of us who have shared our faith have experienced.
The Jews thought they had it made because of their good "genes" which gave them a good spiritual heritage. After all they were God's "chosen people", possessors of His Law and His covenant sign of circumcision.
Paul's objective in Romans is to convince the Jew and all "religious" persons of his or her need for genuine salvation which "brings forth fruit in keeping with repentance" and exhibits a radically changed lifestyle as expressed in rhyme…
Your best resolutions must wholly be waived,
Your highest ambitions be crossed;
You need never think you are going to be saved
Until you have learned you are lost. - Precept Austin
Vs. 1-3 For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself - Anyone who acknowledges the law, that there's right or wrong, or that others do wrong is also acknowledging that the law is good. We can't endorse the idea of penalties unless we include ourselves. This is like the favorite verse of most of us, "judge not lest ye be judged", which in the context of that great chapter we find it is our duty to judge but not hypocritically. The Jews judged the gentiles but committed the same sins as them. They were greedy, and by Christ definition, that you are a murderer if you harbor hatred in your heart for someone else, or an adulterer for looking upon a woman to lust after her, they were also guilty of the same deviant nature that they despised in the gentiles. The problem for some was that they didn't acknowledge sin, but the problem for others was that they acknowledged a thing as sin, but thought that though they were unrepentant in it, they could continue without fear because of their relationship to Abraham, their genetics, their circumcision, their outward keeping of the law. Does this not sound familiar to many churches today, "I'm a good person, I go to mass, my mom and dad raised us Christian, I cried at the story of Jesus, I walked the aisle and said a prayer, so I am secure as I continue in my sin."
…12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 13 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter. … Matthew 23: 12-13
…32Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers. 33You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape the sentence of hell? 34Because of this, I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and others you will flog in your synagogues and persecute in town after town.… Matthew 23: 32-34
Vs. 4-6 Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance - "I know it says in the Bible not to do this, but I did it and it felt great. It says that people will die for doing this and well, I did that too, and look, I am still alive." Satan told Eve that, "you will not surely die". He said, not only that, but if you do this, you will be enlightened, your eyes opened, you will be like God. I will let you in on a little secret here, Adam and Eve didn't experience an immediate physical death, but they knew it was there, that things had changed, that they were naked and it was somehow awkward now. They gained the knowledge of evil not by listening to God, but by doing evil and becoming it's slave. Their perfect relationship with each other was also tainted. Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed God for giving him Eve, but he also chose his wife over God. Here's the big secret, the beginning of every problem and the answer in full to every question, that the wages of sin was and is death, but that you live and breathe and it didn't end immediately in the garden is solely because of God's kindness, forbearance and patience. It is not that He has in any way changed His view on sin, or that He no longer plans to punish the wicked, but in His patience you are either headed for repentance or filling up the cup of His just wrath. He is either going to take you to your bottom, where He brings you to look up and grants you the gift of faith and repentance, or He is turning you over to your sin, where you will look lightly upon His grace and too highly upon your so called good works and reasoning. I should have been dead after my first sin, for it gave evidenced to my depraved heart.
10Then too, I saw the burial of the wicked who used to go in and out of the holy place, and they were praised in the city where they had done so. This too is futile. 11When the sentence for a crime is not speedily executed, the hearts of men become fully set on doing evil. 12Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and still lives long, yet I also know that it will go well with those who fear God, who are reverent in His presence.… Ecclesiastes 8: 10-12
1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.… Ephesians 2: 1-3
…28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think one deserves to be punished who has trampled on the Son of God, profaned the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge His people.”… Hebrews 10: 28-30
Vs. 7-11 For there is no partiality with God - It doesn't matter that you were born in the line of Abraham, or that you walked an aisle as a kid, God looks at the heart, and verses 7 and 8 define what does matter, and look at the fruit. V. 7 After we hear in verse 6 that He will repay each according to their work, we see those first who persevere in doing good, not those who are circumcised or belong to a particular tribe. In V. 8 we see the contrast, they are selfishly ambitious, don't obey the truth, but do obey unrighteousness. It doesn't matter, Jew or Greek, sin is under judgment, but God saves sinners, yet He won't save those who say they have no sin. I have talked to a few women growing up who have had abortions and when the topic arises it is understandably difficult to confess this as sin; it's not how we want to see ourselves, and so they repeat what they believed from a culture nurtured by fallen mankind. They first tell me that it's not a human being, and use the world's wording to play it down, ie "clump of cells", like it's a parasite or a wart, or "it's my body", like the baby is a lower set of tonsils that can just be removed. Once they realize that this isn't scientifically accurate, that there is a human child in your womb, a person with their own identity, DNA, an individual, well then they move to the logic that it is moral because the state has declared it legal and compassionate. This doesn't work either because then we are saying that people can decide which lives hold value and which don't, which can be slaves, which can be killed for convenience. If you won't confess your sin then you are missing out on God's forgiveness. You have been lied to, come out of the lie and experience the wonder of God's immeasurable grace.
…7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Therefore, since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from wrath through Him!… Romans 5: 7-9
…8If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and His word is not in us.… 1 John 1: 8-10
Vs. 12-13 Without the law...under the law - Either way you are going to die, sin is always accompanied by death. The advantage of the law was getting to see the trespass, finding out what God expected, but in not obeying the advantage becomes more loss.
…49Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and complacent; they did not help the poor and needy. 50Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them, as you have seen. 51Furthermore, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have multiplied your abominations beyond theirs, and all the abominations you have committed have made your sisters appear righteous.… Ezekiel 16: 49-51
…22But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. 23And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. 24But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”… Matthew 11: 22-24
Newell comments on "sinned" writing that "the tense of the verb sinned, in both cases is the aorist; and cannot refer to the mere fact that they committed sin; for "all have sinned." The word "sinned" must refer to the general choice of sin as against righteousness and holiness. Therefore have we translated it "life-choice of sin," because the whole life is here looked at as a unit, and that life was a choice of sin, whether by Gentiles without the Mosaic law, or "Jews under it"… Always remember that the contemplation of an especially heinous degree of iniquity and consequent judgment is accompanied in the deceitful human heart by the delusion that those not chiefly guilty shall somehow wholly escape. But Romans 2:12 distinctly says as many as chose sin, even though they be "without the law" (anomos, cf.1Co 9:21 without externally declared divine revelation), shall also perish. (Romans 2) (Bolding added)
Augustine wrote that "Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.
Susannah Wesley defined “sin” to her young son, John Wesley declaring “If you would judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure, then take this simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things—that to you is sin.”
According to sociologist Robert Bellah, “One of our current psychological gurus says that 98 percent of Americans are dysfunctional."
No doubt he is right. He has just discovered original sin, though he is mistaken if he thinks 2 percent are without sin. - PA
Vs. 14-16 When gentiles who do not have the law naturally do the things of the Law - Though they did not have the ten commandments, did not have the temple, nor the prophets, yet by nature they do attest to right and wrong, even taboo. Even those who hate the idea of God, Who is the only grounds for absolute morality, yet they do not like it when people steal from them, try to murder them, slander them, or lie to them. Many will not do these things to avoid the consequences, even those who do them try to avoid the consequence, and this bears witness to a law unto themselves. Oddly, though they don't accept God's law, because they love their sin and can't stand the thought of not being antonymous, yet they make up there own laws, even those that would call evil good and good evil. I was watching a report on television of a woman in the UK being arrested for quietly praying in front of an abortion clinic, how twisted can we be? You have a law that says it is okay to murder this sort of human being, and another law that says it's not okay to make people feel bad about themselves by quietly praying that they will not murder.
Ray Stedman - Now, men are continually charging God with injustice because, they say, He condemns men to hell who have never heard of Jesus Christ. This is the most frequently voiced charge against the Christian gospel. We are always hearing somebody say, "Well, what about the heathen who never hear about Christ? How can a just God condemn them to hell without their hearing about Christ?" But, you see, God never condemns anybody on that basis. As we are told right here...That is, if you disobey the truth that you have, even though you have never heard of Moses or of Christ, you perish, not because you didn't hear of Moses or of Christ, but because you have disobeyed truth that you already know -- that is the whole point. If you know of Moses and of Christ, and you still disobey the truth, you perish also, because your condemnation is even greater -- because of the greater light involved. (Ed note: See above for discussion of the principle of judgment proportionate to light received) But, as it says here, even pagans have a form of basic law written on their hearts, and this is the basis of God's just condemnation of man. It is because they are not what they themselves know they ought to be. In other words, God judges you, not by some artificial standard of His, but by your own standard. (The Secrets of Men)
Stedman goes on to give an illustration of Paul's point - "Recently, I was down in Newport Beach, teaching a Bible Class in a home. Quite a number of non-Christians were there, and one of them was a man from just across the street. He was a very charming individual, but he had made it known in the neighborhood already that he had no use for Christianity. As he came in the door, the first thing he said was, "I have come to be the Devil's advocate. I think the Devil needs a representative here tonight." We welcomed him, and told him to curl his tail around a chair, and sit down. As I began to speak on the opening chapter of Genesis, dealing with God's word to man, I could see in his face that this man had let down his guard. I don't think he was aware of how much he was revealing, but in that man's eyes I saw hunger written like I had never seen it before. At the question time, he, of course, came up with the usual question: "How about those that God condemns who never hear about Christ?" I answered (to all in the room), "Let me ask you this: Which of you has lived up to your own ideals? -- because God won't judge you on the basis of something that you have never heard, but on the basis of what you already know. Now tell me: Who of you has lived up to his own ideals? Which of you has never deliberately done wrong? Which of you can say that you measure up to your own standard of what you ought to be?" You could just hear the silence in that room! You see, it is not by some artificial standard that we stand condemned before God; it is because of what we know in our hearts about ourselves. This indicates that God measures us by our own yardstick." (The Secrets of Men) - PA
…31Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Luke 5: 31-32
