In our first chapter, following brief introductions Paul writes about the Gentiles, how God had not left Himself without a witness amongst them, how people made in God’s image could be open to God… yet people preferred to go on their own way which led them down a slippery slope towards idolatry and immorality. As they slid away from God, increasingly they placed themselves under ‘the Wrath’… the experience of being under God’s judgment rather than enjoying God’s favor.
The earliest church struggled with tensions between those who were of a Jewish background and those who had come to the faith as Gentiles. The Jews were God’s chosen people. Didn’t they therefore have a head start on the Gentiles? Shouldn’t they expect to enjoy a more favorable place in God’s plans than the Gentiles?
In Chapter 2 Paul reminds those who may be thinking along those lines that all peoples hope of salvation lay in God’s grace, not their background. He saw how there were those amongst the chosen who had judgmental attitudes towards those outside of their circle and begins by challenging them.
Romans 2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, every man of you who passes judgment, for in that cyou judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 And we know that the judgment of God 1rightly falls upon those who practice such things. 3 And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment upon those who practice such things and do the same yourself, 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?
One of the complaints of Jesus against the Pharisees (and their like) was that they kept making laws that they couldn’t even keep to themselves! He taught that before we try and take the speck of dust out of another person's eye we should remove the plank that is in our own. That we should not judge others lest we find ourselves judged.
‘Don’t think’, Paul is telling them, ‘That by pointing the finger at another person's sins that it gets you off the hook in the matter of your own shortcomings’. He invites them to think it through one more time, from the beginning. They, as God’s chosen, had known how rich the kindness and patience of God had been with them. That patience, that kindness, was not given so that they could lord it over others, but that they may have time to turn from the error of their ways, to repent and change their way of thinking.
Have you ever come across people with a really critical spirit? People who no matter what or who it is always find fault? Do you know where that critical spirit comes from? A sense of insecurity and unworthiness in themselves. The only way they think they can make them selves look better is by pointing out what’s wrong with somebody else. The only security they know is of saying, “Hey, I may be bad, but look at them before you ask me to change my behavior. If anybody needs to repent, it’s them, not me!”
Critical people are often those who have not allowed themselves to be fully embraced by the grace of God, who are still clinging to the idea that somehow, because they can point out the faults in others, that makes them one step further up the ladder to heaven, and God is sure to smile on them rather than the other person.
Last time we were speaking of “The Wrath” of God. How as we flee from God’s love so we delve deeper and deeper into entanglement with sin and so place ourselves in a position where we are not experiencing God’s blessing, but experiencing 'The wrath’. Once a person develops a critical spirit it just keeps growing. They can’t stop themselves. Often they are so hardened to it they don’t even know they are doing it!
That’s what had happened with some of those Jewish believers. They had become so accommodating to the thought that Gentiles were second class citizens, whom they had a God-given right to look down there noses at… so much so that even when those Gentiles had become their brothers and sisters in Christ, they didn’t even consider they needed to change their attitude.
Let’s continue as Paul tries to pull them out of themselves.
5 But 1because 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 render to every man according to his deeds: 7 to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; 8 but to those who areselfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.
Paul offers here a picture about final judgment. He writes of those who are ‘storing up wrath’ for themselves. The word used for ‘storing’ is the Greek word ‘thesaurizo’ translated in some versions as ‘treasuring’.
Jesus spoke about how where our treasure is our heart will also be. He encouraged us to lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. Paul is saying, “Every thing that day by day you are building your life out of is an investment. Every investment you make produces a corresponding reward. If day by day you are welcoming things that pull you away from God, that place you under ‘the wrath’, then think about where that leads to. There is going to be a pay off.'
And that pay off is something they need to be concerned about. Because on that day everything is going to be revealed. All our motives, all our short cuts, all our game playing and finger pointing won’t help us one bit. It will be our lives being evaluated in the light of what we have filled them with, by what we have treasured and welcomed.
This kind of judgment completely levels the field. Those who insist on getting their own way and taking the path of least resistance will be judged, not by the standards of others, not by how well they fared in comparison to others, but on their personal worth.
I know some people struggle trying to balance the idea of a God of love and forgiveness, with that of a God of judgment. Personally the tension doesn’t trouble me as much as it assures me. For when I read or hear of the terrible things some people do and how sometimes they seem to get away with it, either because of their social standings or their connections or whatever it may be, it puts a smile on my face to know that in the kingdom of God, it isn’t like that. That there will be a pay off for all the things we have invested our lives with.
The Message Bible transliterates the next two verses, 9 and 10 like this “If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you're from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up.”
As we heard in verse 11; “For there is no partiality with God”. God doesn’t play favorites. God won’t be swayed by what we or others may think. The only judgment that ultimately counts for anything is the one that God makes upon our lives. Some people go through their whole lives worrying about what other people think of them and never consider how their lives may seem in God’s eyes.
They worry about what their families think, what their friends think, what their boss thinks, what their colleagues think, what the neighbors think, what a person they’ve never seen before nor may never see again whom they meet briefly while shopping thinks… but they never sit down and soberly consider “I wonder how my life looks in God’s eyes? I wonder how.. .in the light of the things that God’s Word says are important... I wonder how I shape up?” Yet the only judgment that ultimately counts for anything is the one that God makes upon our lives.
And the way God judges us will not be in the way we judge each other. Only God knows what is truly in our hearts and what we have in reality built our lives out of… what treasures we have stored up.
In the next section Paul makes a contrast between ‘those without the law’ and ‘those with the law’. When he uses those terms he is meaning two specific groups of people. By 'Those without the law' he means Gentiles (for it was not to the Gentiles that Moses bought the 10 commandments). By those ‘under the law’ he is referring to his fellow Jewish believers. He speaks first of the Gentiles.
12 For all who have sinned 1awithout the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show 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.
Here Paul is returning to his argument in chapter One. That although the Gentiles had never been given the law in the way that the Jews had, by virtue of the fact that every one on the planet has been made in the image of God, all people had been born with a capacity for reasoning and some ability to know the difference between good and bad, right and wrong.
The first human beings in the bible, Adam and Eve, were not Christians, nor where they Jews nor were they Gentiles. They were simply humans. And as humans in the image of God they struggled with making choices and knew the difference between right and wrong, knew shame when found guilty and blessing when God covenanted with them to begin a new life outside of Eden.
Noah and his family were not Christians, nor were they Jews nor were they Gentiles. They were simply humans. But in the midst of an idolatrous and disbelieving culture Noah was able to discern the guidance of the One true God for he was a person of faith who sought to live a decent life and through doing so was saved by God from the flood of judgment.
So Paul tells us of ‘humans’ verse 15 “they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them”… or to put it another way… ‘they show that God’s law is not something alien… but woven into the very fabric of creation.’ (The Message)
I was following a discussion thread the other day on a web site that featured debates between atheists and those of faith. One person arguing for the existence of God, speaking of intelligent design, used as the basis for his argument the genetic coding that exists within D.N.A… the basic building block of all life on the planet.
‘Coding’ he maintained is not something that in the realm of mathematical possibility can just happen. It’s not a snow flake, which though can be infinite in variety of form, always makes a similar pattern, coding always produces a particular intended result. Coding is something that is written in. It’s not like putting monkeys around typewriters and expecting that sometime over a span of millions of years one of them will accidentally produce a work of Shakespeare, coding shows evidence of a design outside of its self.
‘Woven into the fabric of creation’ are things whose best explanation is that they are produced by something other than blind chance or accident. Now, to an atheist, such will never prove the existence of God, but it sure makes for some interesting conversation. Is morality just a self-protection mechanism that has evolved or is there built into human life discernment of good and bad? Is ‘the conscious mind’… this sense that we are here for some reason or purpose beyond ourselves something that logically serves for the protection of the species? And why is it humans are the only creatures who ask ‘Why?”
Paul maintains that all humanity bears God’s creative mark and therefore has the capacity to make right choices and relate to God. He argues therefore that judgment, for the Gentile, will be on that basis. That’s it’s what people do with what they know that counts. That doing not hearing is what makes the difference. So much for the Gentiles. What of his own people - the Jews.
17 But if you bear the name "Jew," and rely 1upon the Law, and boast in God, 18 and know His will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, 19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 a 1corrector of the foolish, a teacher of 2the immature, having in the Law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth, 21 you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one should not steal, do you steal? 22 You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? 24 For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," just as it is written.
Again Paul is insisting that as it was for the Gentiles so it was for the Jew. That doing not hearing is what made the difference. Okay, they had been given the law and a greater revelation of God’s will, but what had they done with it? Again… as I will continue to do… I’m enlisting 'The Message'. (21-24)
“While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I'm quite serious. While preaching "Don't steal!" are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law.”
You see what he’s getting at? He’s saying that just because somebody claims to be the religious sort, (and he could be just as well writing to a Presbyterian as a Jew) that doesn’t mean you can get away with sins that you wouldn’t tolerate in other people. It doesn’t give you any kind of moral superiority.
Then the sting in the tail comes. He tells them that it’s because of their holier than thou attitude and hypocrisy, that other people wanted nothing to do with God. How many times have you and I heard that? 'I would go to church but I’ve tangled with those people and what they say and what they do are two different things.'
He quotes a scripture based on Ezekiel 36:22 "Therefore, say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord God, "It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.” This he paraphrases as “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you”.
And as if all this wasn’t enough to set their heckles rising he finishes the chapter hitting out at one of their most sacred institutions; circumcision. We know from the Book of Acts that arguments as to whether new converts should or should not be circumcised threatened to rip the early church apart.
25 For indeed circumcision is of value, if you practice 1the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, by our circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 If therefore the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 27 And will nothe who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 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.
For Paul true religion is not just about what we do, but why we do what we do. ‘Circumcision’ says Paul 'Great thing. Marks you out as the people of God. But what’s the point if you then don’t live like people of God. Uncircumcised Gentiles who do what God wants are more use than those who are circumcised and ignore everything God says!'
It seems to be all about where our hearts are. If our hearts are in touch with God and being molded by the work of God’s Spirit, if we are more concerned about our relationship with God than we are about how we seem to each other, if we are students of God’s Word in order that we can be doers of God’s Word… then we are doing something right!
However if our religion is just an act… a feeble attempt to try and impress God or others by paying lip service to God’s requirements… if we are constantly asking how much we can get away with or seeing how little we have to give to impress people… then we may fool others, may even fool ourselves, but God sees right through us.
Where’s Paul going with all of this? I suspect in coming weeks we’ll see that it’s not about being Jews or being Gentiles, it’s about all of us falling short of being the people God wants us to be and all of us needing to be put right with God through our faith… faith not in what we can do… but in what God can do in Jesus Christ and through the working of His Holy Spirit.
But for more of that we’ll have to wait till next time!