ROMANS 2:1-16

Paul seems to be confronting every human being who is a moralizer, who presumes to pass moral judgments on other people, e.g. social-justice warriors. Paul turns from the world of shameless immorality to the world of self-conscious moralism. They set themselves up as judges of others.

1. God’s judgment is inescapable (1-4). By passing judgment on others, they condemn themselves because they do the same things. They are hypocrites and cannot escape God’s judgment. They show contempt for God’s kindness, tolerance and patience when they should repent. They maintain that God is much too kind and longsuffering to punish anybody, and that they can therefore sin without impunity. We see this today in terms of identity groups who accuse others of oppressing and hating them and harming the world. We are harsh in our judgment of others and lenient towards ourselves. We gain a vicarious satisfaction from condemning in others the faults we excuse in ourselves. By projecting on others we avoid examining ourselves so feel ourselves superior to them. This is not a call to suspend our critical faculties or renounce criticism and rebuke of others as illegitimate but a prohibition of standing in judgment on others when we fail to condemn ourselves.
2. God’s judgment is righteous (5-11). Stubbornness and lack of repentance, thinking oneself right all the time and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong is asking for divine wrath for God “will give to each person according to what he has done” (Ps.62:12; Prov.24:12; Matt.16:27). It is the principle of exact retribution, which is the foundation of justice. What he is affirming is that, although justification is indeed by faith, judgment will be according to works. The day of judgment will be a public occasion. Its purpose will be less to determine God’s judgment than to announce it and to vindicate it. Such a public occasion on which a public verdict will be given and a public sentence passed, will require public and verifiable evidence to support them. And the only public evidence available will be our works, what we have done and have been seen to do. The presence or absence of saving faith in our hearts will be disclosed by the presence or absence of good works of love in our lives (cf. James 2:18; Gal.5:6). The basis on which this judgment is made will be the combination of what we seek (our ultimate goal in life) and what we do (our actions in the service either of ourselves or others) cf.Matt.6:31ff.; 7:24ff. To sum up, those who seek God and persevere in goodness will receive eternal life, while those who are self-seeking and follow evil will experience God’s wrath.
3. God’s judgment is impartial (12-16). “The requirements of the law are written on all human hearts” (15) so that all men and women know what God requires of them and have fallen short – all have sinned. We are all judged by the standard we have known. There is a universal moral sense of right and wrong. God has created us as self-conscious moral persons. Our consciences bear witness by a negative, disapproving voice when we have done wrong. Our thoughts, in a kind of interior dialogue now accuse and now defend us as in a lawcourt in which the prosecutor and the defense develop their respective cases. The greater our moral knowledge, the greater our moral accountability will be. God knows our hearts. God will judge our secrets. All the facts will be known at the day of judgment, including our motives. Jesus Christ will be the judge. This is part of the gospel. We cheapen the gospel if we represent it as a deliverance only from unhappiness, fear, guilt and other felt needs, instead of as a rescue from the coming wrath of God.
4. Conclusion: God’s judgment and God’s law. First, the law is a basis of divine judgment. Both Jew and Gentile have some knowledge of God’s law. No one can plead complete ignorance. We have all sinned against a moral law we have known. The point is that all human beings have known something of God (1:20) and of goodness (1:32;2:15), but have suppressed the truth in order to indulge in wickedness (1:18;2:8); so we all come under the righteous judgment of God. The purpose of these chapters is to prove that all human beings are guilty and inexcusable before God (3:9,19), and in particular that nobody can be justified by observing the law (3:20).Secondly, the law is a basis of Christian mission, of both evangelism and social action. “I don’t think it is Christian to want to get to the New Testament too soon or too directly.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) Until the law has done its work of exposing and condemning our sin, we are not ready to hear the gospel of justification. Human beings are moral beings by creation (young children and the mentally handicapped are obviously not as morally responsible as adults and the mentally mature). That is to say, not only do we experience an inner urge to do what we believe to be right, but we also have a sense of guilt and remorse when we have done what we know to be wrong. This is an essential feature of our humanness. There is false guilt. But guilt feelings which are aroused by our wrongdoing are healthy. They rebuke us for betraying our humanity, and they impel us to seek forgiveness in Christ. Thus conscience is our ally. In all evangelism, I find it a constant encouragement to say to myself, ‘The other person’s conscience is on my side.’

In every human community there is a basic recognition of the difference between right and wrong, and an accepted set of values. This has important social and political implications. It is not a case of Christians trying to force their standards on an unwilling public, but of helping the public to see that God’s law is ‘for our own good at all times’ (Deut.6:24), because it is the law of human beings and of human community.

LESSON 3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How do you define hypocrisy?
2. What is the difference between just criticism and being a moral scold?
3. How does condemning others make us feel superior to them?
4. If the basis for judgment is on what we have done with our lives how come eulogies focus on our goodness?
5. How does conscience operate in our lives?
6. If there is a universal sense of right and wrong why do people violate it?
7. How do you envisage the day of judgment?
8. Why is the Old Testament so important?
9. Why is a sense of guilt healthy?