Romans
3
Romans 2 begins with man on trial – the Jew is in the dock. How man hates to be indicted. But God searches every heart and the secret places of the soul are naked before His all seeing eye. He always knows what’s going on.
A truth we often overlook is that judgement is certain. There’s no escape from God. Who has hardened himself against God and prospered? God’s wrath is operative continually in history. It is also cumulative, increasing until it overflows on the Day of the Lord.
The Living Bible paraphrases Romans 2:3-4 as follows: - “Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing (these things) and overlook you when you do them, too? Don’t you realize how patient He is being with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see that He has been waiting all the time without punishing you; to give you time to turn from your sin? His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.”
God’s kindness has been interpreted as weakness. His tolerance and patience have been misread as God’s unconcern for sin. The long-suffering and forbearance of God have been despised. Because God has not damned him instantly, sinful man wilfully misunderstands this to mean that God will not damn him at all. God is kind, but He’s not soft.
Solomon saw this so clearly when he wrote (Ecclesiastes 8:11), “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” But God’s forbearance is an extension of mercy. It’s not His will that any should perish. The self-restraint of God whereby He tolerates sinners and permits them to live is so they may repent and be saved.
Paul argues that through stubbornness and unrepentance “you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgement will be revealed.” If a person refuses ‘the riches of His kindness’, all he is left with is ‘the wrath of God.’ There are only two ways and two destinies, which are made unmistakably clear. The Message paraphrase puts it bluntly. “Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you. Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!”
It’s crystal clear from the gospels the way to hell does not terminate in heaven. Those who are saved shall be eternally separated from those who are lost. (Sheep and goats; good fish and bad fish; wheat and chaff; good seed and tares; wise virgins and foolish virgins). As the Master said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
I like the way “The Living Bible” summarises Romans 2:9-11: “There will be sorrow and suffering for Jews and Gentiles alike who keep on sinning, but there will be glory and honour and peace from God for all who obey Him, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. For God treats everyone the same.”
Paul emphasises there is coming a judgement for all. Those without the revelation of the law (the moral law as summed up in the Ten Commandments) shall be judged according to the moral law as written in their hearts.
One commentator writes, “The Ten Commandments received from God’s own hand by Moses are but the copy of a much older law, that law which the finger of the Maker wrote on Adam’s heart and which, though sadly defaced by the fall, may still be traced on ours.”
The Jews thought of themselves as invulnerable to the judgements of God. Were they not sons of Abraham? Disciples of Moses? The ex-Pharisee, now messianic Jew, Paul the apostle, delivers the killer blow. All the background of the Jew –his lineage and understanding of the Law – ought to have led him to God, but tragically he had wilfully, deliberately and consistently gone away from God.
If we saw in Romans 1 that the Gentile world was guilty, now we’re discovering in Romans 2 that the Jewish world is guilty. The law they knew, but failed to do. Romans 2:13 says “It is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.”
There’s something perverse in our human make-up that causes us to suspect that the Judge of all the earth may not do right. We want to know what will happen to the Amazonian Indian or the pygmies who have never heard the gospel. We look around and ask, “Lord, what shall this man do?” The very thought is indicative of our perversity. We think we’ve caught God out. His response is, “What is that to you? You must follow Me.”
The prophet Jeremiah expressed it so succinctly over 2,500 years ago.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (AV)
I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” (NIV Jeremiah 17:9-10)
Throughout Romans 2:17-29, Paul doesn’t pull his punches. Again it is the “Message” paraphrase that is easiest to understand. “If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation … ”
The Jew stands proudly at the bar, confident in his own righteousness and indignant that any charge should dare to be levelled against him. “I’m all right, Jake!” But Paul wants to know, “Do you practice what you preach?” If not, whilst the Gentile has sinned against a little natural light, the Jew has sinned against the greatest spiritual light. They had ‘in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth’ (Romans 2:20).
“Yes, you teach others – then why don’t you teach yourselves? You tell others not to steal – do you steal? You say it is wrong to commit adultery – do you do it?” (The Living Bible Romans 2:21-22).
These devastating questions are met with silence. The hypocrisy of the Jew is exposed. He taught others, but failed to heed his own instruction. This demeans God.
Moffat translates Romans 2:23-24 as: “You pride yourself on the Law; do you dishonour God by your breaches of the Law? Why, it is owing to you that the name of God is maligned among the Gentiles, as scripture says!”
The Jews had a religion of outward action, but God was looking for inward attitudes. The Jews, like the Gentiles, were ‘without excuse.’