EXPOSITION OF ROMANS CHAPTER 2

1  Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are that judges, for wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself.

In the face of what has happened to mankind as a result of the fall, all people are subject to the consequences of it, therefore there is no basis on which any person can judge another for their shortcomings and failures.  People who are themselves in the grip of sin cannot judge others who are also in the grip of sin without bringing condemnation on themselves.

This shows the blindness of those in the grip of sin, and living Christless lives.  They are blind to their own sin before God, and they sit in judgement upon others whose shortcomings are visible to them.    When they stand before God on the day of judgement, they will have no excuse.  They will stand with the people they have judged and all of them will be judged as lost sinners before God.  He is no respecter of persons.

For you that judge, you do the same things.

This is the ridiculousness of one sinner sitting in on judgement of another.  There is no basis for judgement if you do the same things as the person you are judging.  People are quite selective on the types of sins - they categorise some sins as more serious than others, so that they who commit less serious sins think they have some sort of right to judge those who commit more serious sins.  But God looks below the surface of 'sins' and sees the inner condition of the sinner.   If both parties are in the same condition, then one has no position to judge the other.  It is like two prisoners in a jail cell and one is judging the other for his crimes.

2  But we are sure that the judgement of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.

There is no doubt in Paul's mind that when God comes to judge sinners, He will judge according to truth.  What is the truth behind the standards of Judgment?  The gospel of Christ.  They will be judged according to their attitude to Christ and His gospel.  That is the basis of truth as far as God is concerned.  Jesus said 'I am the way the truth and the life.'   All truth is contained in Jesus Christ.  Every person who stands before the judgement seat of God will be judged according to that truth.

3  And thinkest thou this O man, that judgest them that do such things,  and doest the same, that you shall escape the judgement of God?

So, the only way that a person can have the right to judge another person for their sins is to be sinless himself.  Jesus dealt with those who wanted to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery by telling the person who had no sin to cast the first stone.  None of the crowd could do that, because they knew that they were sinners themselves.   So the person who has sin his in life and then judges others for their sin will not escape the judgement of God, who will judge them on the same basis on which they judged others.   There will not be any escape from that judgement.

4  Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

These are asked as questions because the sinner is being challenged to think about his attitude toward God and the things He has done to lead him to repentance and a restoration of fellowship with God.  This is the condition of Christless sinners.  They are presented with God's goodness and they turn their backs on it.  God has shown forbearance and long-suffering toward sinners so they will have room to think about the purpose of their lives and reconsider their position before God.   He works hard to bring sinners to repentance, and if they continue to refuse Him, they will have no excuse when they stand before the final judgement of God.   At that point there will be no more forbearance or long-suffering.  There will be judgement and condemnation.  There is a question about whether sinners do not know what consequences await them, or they do not want to know, but prefer to live their sinful lifestyles anyway.

5, 6   but, after your hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up to yourself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds:

Because sinners prefer to continue sinning instead of turning back toward God, God sees their hardness against Him and their heart which refuses to consider asking forgiveness from God for their sins.  As long as they choose that condition, they are collecting a store of wrath, like a court file that continually adds one offence to another as the case gets nearer to the hearing date.  As the day of judgement gets closer, the list of offences against God gets longer and longer, until the scale of offence is so great that the sinner will know that as he stands before God, there will be no excuse, no forgiveness, and no escape from the punishment that he will receive.

God's judgement will be a righteous judgement, based on His standards.  God will look at the way the person has conducted himself and will make judgements accordingly.  For sinners, the judgements may be different, but the final outcome for them will be the same.

7  to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life;

Even though all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, not everyone will be judged negatively and be condemned.  So lets look at the things that make the difference:

patient continuance in well doing.

seeking for glory, honour and immortality.

This means that they will be doing the appropriate things that will lead them to the things they are seeking.  We will see later what they will be doing that will cause them to be judged on a different basis to the sinners who are heaping up offences against God.   The outcome for the ones who are doing the right things is eternal life.

8, 9   but unto them that are contentious , and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil: of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.

There are people who will not surrender to the Lord.  They want to argue and fight with Him.  They do not want to give up their sinful lives and will find excuses and arguments to justify their conduct.  But whatever their excuses or reasons for doing what they are doing, and they may appear to be valid at times, they are not obeying the truth.   The truth is that Jesus died for them on the Cross, and in the light of that sinners need to ask forgiveness and give up their sinful lives and come under the Lordship of Christ.  When sinners start doing things that support that, they are obeying the truth.  Those who are fighting and arguing against it are obeying unrighteousness.  They are doing the things that are causing them to have no standing with God.  That is basically what unrighteousness is:  being unacceptable to God.

What is the outcome for people who are fighting and warring against the truth of God?

They are subject to Gods anger and wrath;

They are and suffering and will suffer tribulation and anguish not only in their physical bodies but right down in their souls as well.

The Jews will be the first to stand up before God because they were the first chosen people of God and had first call on all the good things that God has for us all.  For the Jew to reject the truth it is a much more serious thing, and the judgement will be more severe.   The Gentiles will follow, because ignorance is no excuse for rejecting the truth.

10  but glory, honour, and peace to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

There is quite a different outcome for those who work for good in their lives.  We are not talking just of good deeds.  We are talking about obeying the truth of the gospel of Christ in our lives.   Paul is not going into the specifics with what he means by 'good' at this stage.  He will deal with it later on.   He is just contrasting outcomes of those who disobey the truth and those who obey the truth.  Notice that it comes to the Jew first, because they are the chosen people of God, and therefore it is a particular joy to God's heart when a Jew accepts Jesus Christ as Saviour.  But the Gentiles are not left out, because it is largely through the Gentile nations that the truth of the gospel has been preserved for the last 2000 years.

There are three things that good people will receive from the Lord as part of their reward for obeying the truth:

Glory -  the wonderful sense of God's presence and glory with them.

Honour -  God Himself will honour those who won through and accepted the truth.

Peace -  All the conflicts will be settled and there will be peace between the person

             and God.

11  for there is no respect of persons with God.

God is not concerned with who we think we are.  He is more concerned with what we are in Christ.  When He is dealing with pre-Christian sinners, He takes no account of their natural attributes, how attractive they are, what status they have, how much money they have got or anything else that would make them have favour with others in the natural world.  He treats all the same under sin.  When He says 'the soul that sinneth, it shall perish' that is exactly what will happen to the sinner, not matter what skills or qualities he or she might have in the natural world.

12  For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.

There are two types of sinners in the world.  The ones who have never heard of the law, nor have they been subject to it.  This would apply to most of the Gentile nations then and now.  And the ones who have lived under the law and been subject to it, namely the Jews; and this would still apply to modern Jews all over the world who practise their faith and still try to keep the law.

It is possible that those who are outside of the law will perish even though they have not been subject to it.  There is another principle under which they are judged by God.  Paul outlines this later.  those who have been subject to the law, and who have sinned in it, in other words, broken the law, will be judged according to the standards of the law. Their behaviour will be compared to the standards of behaviour required by the law.

13  (for not the hearing of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified;

This is the beginning of a small aside (in brackets) where Paul is pausing to make the point clearer to the readers.   It is not enough to just hear the law and agree with it.  There can be a lot of listening, researching, discussing, debating, etc., of the law, but that will not justify a person.  It is doing what the law says - that will justify a person.  Jesus said  "Be ye not hearers of the Word only, but doers of it."  Every person is going to be judged on what they do regardless of whether they are subject to the law or not.  How they are going to be judged depends on the jurisdiction they are under.

14  for when the Gentiles, which have not the law do by nature the things that are contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves;

Paul is saying that the ones who are not subject to the law do the things that are specified by the law, yet doing it out of their own natures without even hearing the law.  there are people who do everything the law demands of them without having the law preached to them.  These people are justified before God, because they are meeting the law's requirements just the same as a Jew who does everything the law requires after having it taught to him.  The paths are different, but the outcomes are the same.  Do what the law says and be justified by God.

The ones who are able to meet all God's standards without having to be subject to the law, effectively become their own law, in that they have the equivalent of the law in their own hearts- and they are judged by God according to that law.

15  which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another;)

There is a class of people, outside of Christ, who are able to meet the requirements of God through the law written in their hearts.  This is a mystery, because these people will ultimately bow their knees to the Lordship of Christ as some time during their journey with God.  They would have to, we know that.  But Paul sees that it is possible for people to obey the law if they have never heard it, because their own conscience would be the moderator of what was appropriate or inappropriate behaviour.  They will be able to compare themselves with the others and be able to evaluate conduct by their own conscience.  Through their conscience they can either declare that someone has sinned or has conducted themselves well through the behaviour they have observed in the other which has been compared with the principles of appropriate behaviour printed on their conscience through the law written in their hearts.

This is the end of the part in brackets, and Paul moves back to the main thread of his discourse.

16  in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

There is coming a day, a real and tangible event when God will judge the secrets of men.   The Judgement Day of God is not a myth.  It is a carefully planned future event that God is going to conduct to bring about the resolution of all the things that have happened in the world.  What we see a lot of the time is not always the reality of the way things really are.  When we watch the news on television, we are watching a carefully compiled and staged version of the news.  Many things are left out of news items that would completely change the perspective of the item if they were left in.  Nations based their security on their national secrets.  We have privacy laws that prevent secrets being told

On the personal level, people are not always what they appear to be.  They give a different impression to others to what their attitude really is toward them.  There is a lot of role playing and acting in our society.  People pretend to like people they really hate.  In the work place, employees are told one thing by their employers while the employers are planning something different.   On the great Day when God stands in judgement, there will be no more secrets.  We will see our society as it really is with all the hidden parts and lies exposed.

What is going to be the basis of God's judgement?  Jesus Christ is the standard, set out in the gospel of Christ.  Paul calls it 'my gospel' because he is called to preach the gospel.  The gospel is so much a central part of his ministry, that he takes personal ownership of it.    After the discussion of those who are living with and without the law, he brings both threads together under Jesus Christ.  Whether a person seeks to be justified by the law or outside of the law, they are brought under Jesus Christ and the gospel.  It is really important that we know what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about, because the day is going to come when everyone is judged by it.

17, 18, 19, 20  But if you bear the name 'Jew', and rely on the Law, and boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth,

Here is an account of how the Jewish person sees himself in relation to God.  Up until the death and resurrection of Christ, Jews had the distinction of knowing that they were a chosen people with special privileges with God.  In fact, the earthly ministry of Jesus was primarily for the Jews.  The Gentiles, with one or two exceptions, were excluded from His ministry.  This reflects the privileged nature of the Jewish nation.

This is the way the Jew saw (and still sees) himself:

*  Relies on the Law to guide him for living.

*  Boasts of his special relationship with God.

*  Knows His will and purposes.

*  Approves of the things that are essential to God's favour.

*  Having true instruction of the Law.

*  A guide to the blind.

*  A light to those in darkness.

*  A corrector of the foolish.

*  A teacher of the immature.

*  Through the Law, the holder of the truth and of knowledge.

This is where there is a conflict between the Jew and the Christian.   After the death and resurrection of Christ, the Jewish nation lost its privileged status with God.  Some thing that because they rejected Jesus, they threw their privileged position away.   Now the position is completely changed.   If we look at the list of privileges that the Jews had before the resurrection of Christ, we can then see how they were transferred to Christ.

The Christian now relies on the Holy Spirit as counsellor and guide to lead him into successful living before God.

The Christian has a special relationship with God through Christ.

The Christian now receives wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God and His plans and purposes.

The Christian becomes the righteousness of God in Christ and therefore walks in the favour of God.

The Holy Spirit becomes the Christian's instructor, and the Law is written upon the heart of every believer.

The Holy Spirit in each Christian works to open the eyes of the blind so they can see Christ as their Saviour and Lord.

Christ becomes the light to those in darkness.  As they look on him, they start walking in the light where there is no darkness at all.

If we lack wisdom, we can approach God in Christ and ask for it.  God gives liberally and does not upbraid people for asking.

The immature are taught Christian discipleship through the Holy Spirit.

Christians look to Christ through the agency of the Holy Spirit for all wisdom and knowledge of the things of God.

The Jewish person now has the same status as anyone else in the world to come to God through Christ.  They no longer have a privileged status.  Instead of the Law being the focal point for faith in God, Christ has become the focal point and everything anyone needs radiates from Him.

21  you therefore , who teach another, do you not teach yourself?  You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal?

Here is the challenge.  If we teach others the principles of the Word of God, do we apply the same teaching to ourselves.  If I decided to run a Christian discipleship group, then I must have not only learned the principles of discipleship myself, but I am living everything that I am teaching.  My students should be able to see the principles being modelled in my life, and not only within a church situation, but also at work and at home.

If we are going to teach moral and spiritual values, then we need to have those values shining out through our own lives.  When people read us, they will believe what we teach because those things will be in us.

We have the first example.  If we preach that people shouldn't steal, do we steal ourselves?  Paul asks the question, knowing that most committed Christians will answer in the negative.   He is appealing to people's natural common sense.

22  You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

Paul carries on with other familiar examples.  In his day temples and idols were familiar.  The reference to robbing temples could mean that people went into temples and took things that did not belong to them.  In many places robbing temples were something that was well known.   Someone who abhorred idols would keep right away from temples and anything contained within them.

23  You who boast in the Law, though your breaking the Law, do you dishonour God?

He then gets closer to home as far as the Jews are concerned.  He challenges those who boast in the Law, and tells them that they are breaking the Law.  He is not asking them a question.  He is making a statement.  He is assuming, and he is expecting his listeners to assume the same thing - that although the Jews are boasting in the Law, they are breaking it at the same time.   Then he asks the question - "do you dishonour God?"  Of course they are dishonouring God,  Paul knows that already, and he is challenging his readers to consider the question and answer it according to their common sense.

He is basically telling the Jews that they are dishonouring God because they are boasting in the Law and breaking it at the same time.  He could have come right out with it in a direct way, but in order to make them think, he uses logical questions.

24  For "he Name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you,"  just as it is written.

The gentiles are aware of the Jew's God.  The Athenians had an altar to the Unknown God.  But when they see the hypocrisy of the Jews  they do not seem to put the Jews down, but they put God down.  They blaspheme His name through the lack of consistent living by the Jews.   This is what happens with anyone who is preaching faith in and obedience to God, but are not living the type of life that would back that up.   The observers are more likely to make fun of God, and say  that He is either not real,  or make errors concerning His nature.   Paul treats any wrong appreciation of God as blaspheming His name.  For Paul, there is only one true God who has a distinctive nature and personality.   Anything of a disrespectful nature that is said against God is blasphemy in Paul's mind.

25  For indeed circumcision is of value, if you practice the Law;  but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

Now Paul starts to examine one of the principal signs of the Jew's identification with God.   It is circumcision that sets God's chosen people apart from the ungodly nations around them.  Being circumcised is a way of declaring that they are set apart for God (not that they would display themselves to all and sundry and disgrace themselves in that way).

But Paul declares that the outward physical symbol has value if the person who has it practises the Law.  Outward symbols are reflections of inward commitment.  There is nothing wrong with the two of these existing together.   This is something that we can bear in mind concerning our own worship.  There is nothing at all wrong with symbolism, such as the Anglican or Roman Catholic liturgical symbolism, as long as the principles of Christian faith are practised from the heart.

But if a person is not keeping the Law, and is violating its principles, then the circumcision itself becomes so meaningless that it would be as if the person is not circumcised at all.  If there is not the heart felt practice of the principles of faith and Christian life, then the symbolism becomes totally meaningless.  This is the reason why many people look at the symbolism of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and then at the inconsistent lives of the people who say they are members of those churches, and believe that the symbolism is a load of nonsense.  It is nonsense to them because they see the congregation members conducting themselves in a way that makes their religious observance a lie.

26  If therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

Now Paul puts it the other way around.  He gives the example of a gentile person who is able to keep the requirements of the Law, although he does not have the physical sign of circumcision in his body.   It is as though he is actually circumcised.  For a person who keeps the law, God sees that person as circumcised, as much so as a Jew who is actually circumcised.

Therefore it is the keeping of the Law that is important.   If a person, Jew or gentile is able to keep the requirements of the Law, God sees him as truly acceptable to Him.  Circumcision is an outward sign of acceptability to God, but it is only real if the person keeps the Law.

27  And will not he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who through having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?

Paul takes it to the next step:   The physically uncircumcised person who keeps the Law can sit in judgement on a circumcised person who fails to keep the Law.   It does not matter if a person has knowledge of the letter of the Law, and any other outward signs of being a righteous person.  It is the keeping of the Law that is important.   A person who keeps the Law has the right to judge a person who is not keeping the Law.

28  For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly;  neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.

Paul gets to his point:  He identifies a true Jew, or in other words identifies someone who is not a true Jew, even if he is born a Jew.   Being born a Jew then, does not make him a true Jew in God's eyes, nor is a person truly circumcised if it is just outward on his body, but not in his heart.

29  But he is a Jew who is one inwardly;  and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter;  and his praise is not from men, but from God.

Paul makes the point that he is leading up to.  The true Jew is one from the heart, and true circumcision is also from the heart through the Holy Spirit.  This shows that what makes a person able to be truly righteous and acceptable to God is by the work of the Holy Spirit.   The printed text by itself is not sufficient to make a  person righteous before God.   It has to be the Spirit working with the text.  The text may enlighten the mind, but it is the Spirit that applies it to the heart.

When a person is a truly righteous person in the Spirit, then the affirmation of this comes from God, and not from other people.  There is a snare with the approval of men and women, and if a person relies solely on that, then he or she comes short of what would be required.  Although the approval of the mentors is pleasurable and uplifting, it is the approval of God that is the most important.  There is a definite instruction in scripture that tells us to seek to be approved of God.  This is the key to true Christian faith and spirituality.

[End of Chapter 2]