No one has an excuse
Notes
Transcript
Paul has just got done explaining that the wrath of God can be seen today against all sin committed by all humanity. He emphasized the progression of Gentiles, since it was a broad overview of all humanity. This meant that a certain group of people would be sitting there listening to his letter read with a quiet sense of smug satisfaction. They would be thinking, “well, I don’t do those things. God is quite right to condemn them. Too bad for them, I’m better than that.” In Paul’s day, that would have been exclusively non-Christian Jews. Of course even then, self-righteous Gentiles did exist; but a self-righteous Gentile wasn’t going to be coming to a church service where the book of Romans was being read anyway; the only people who might attend who were excusing themselves in self-righteousness would be Jews. But it’s not like Paul was Ok with a self-righteous Gentile but not a self-righteous Jew. Instead, he directs his argument against all self-righteousness based on having a pretty moral life in comparison to the disgusting and depressing catalogue of vices he has just listed.
This is because he knows that while he already stated that God is angry with “All unrighteousness,” human beings have a remarkable capacity to ignore their own sins while smugly condemning others for theirs. That’s the issue he wants to deal with next. No one has an excuse, for we all stand guilty before God.
By Judging Another You Condemn Yourself
By Judging Another You Condemn Yourself
If unbelievers know anything it’s “don’t judge me.” But Paul does not mean quite the same thing. He emphasizes that “the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.” When someone accuses you of being judgmental, they really want you to affirm what they are doing as right. That’s not what Paul wants you to do. Instead, he wants you to agree with God’s judgment on evil. What is missing from our cultural understanding is that God’s judgment is objective and correct. There is an absolute moral standard set by God himself, and everyone who is truly good agrees with that standard. In other words, you ought to condemn what God condemns.
But that’s the problem. If good people condemn what God condemns, then what happens when you are guilty of the same things yourself? Your judgment on them is actually correct; they do reprehensible things that should be condemned. But if you are honest with yourself, some of those traits are also something on your record. The fact that you recognize real evil in others is proof positive that what Paul said in 1:32 is right; you do know the righteous judgment of God. So by condemning real evil you see in others you prove that you aren’t ignorant, and thus worthy of being condemned by God yourself. God can simply use the same standard you apply to others on yourself, and that will more than condemn you. You don’t even need to get exactly everything correct about right and wrong; there’s more than enough condemnation just from what you already know.
That puts you on the horns of a dilemma. To remain smugly self-righteous means assuming you will escape the judgment of God. You can’t maintain that attitude if you know God will also judge you. But you already know that you are guilty of some of the same things. God holds back partly because he is a God of mercy. He is kind and patient to wicked people. This kindness exists because he wants to lead you to repent so he can forgive you. But since by your smug self-righteousness you assume that God will just let you escape, you instead presume on his kindness and patience. That means choosing to think that God’s kindness means that he is just making an exception for you.
But that’s not what a just God does. He is waiting patiently for you to repent, but his patience will only last so long. When he has had enough, he will unleash all his pent-up anger at sin directly on your head. To assume you will escape is to refuse repentance and maintain a hard, unrepentant attitude. That means that the wrath of God is stored up, and will just be all the worse for you when the time is up. Notice that Paul calls it “God’s righteous judgment.” He has invented a word here, because in Romans he normally uses righteousness to mean the righteousness that God gives to those who believe; but here he means the exact kind of justice that Martin Luther was afraid of; the righteousness by which God is just and punishes sinners.
So in the last chapter Paul emphasized that you can see the wrath of God in the present day; it is seen in how God gives people up to destroy themselves with their own sins. But here he emphasizes that the wrath of God is also going to fall later, and in fact God holds back the vast majority of his wrath against sin. There is a day - period of time - when the wrath of God will be poured out. You need to protect yourself from that day, for it will surely come. Indeed, the idea here is that almost none of God’s wrath is visible in the present time. He holds back almost all of it.
He Will Render to Each According to His Works
He Will Render to Each According to His Works
In contrast to the assumption of the self-satisfied self-righteous moralist, God’s judgment is completely impartial. His righteous standard isn’t different from one person to another. Instead he will render to each person according to their works.
Now here Paul is blunt about the difference between good works and bad so much that we might get a bit uncomfortable. he states that those who do evil will have wrath and anger, tribulation and distress. They “obey unrighteousness” rather than “obey the truth.” We normally think of truth as something to believe, whereas commands are something to obey. But the truth here means the truth about God, and truth about God carries with it the demand to live by the standard of the Righteous Judge. They are “self-seeking” that is selfishness is at the heart of all sin, and therefore “unrighteousness” is what you will automatically follow if you reject the truth about God.
So far, so sensible. But he also states that he gives eternal life to those who have patience in well-doing. He states that “glory, honor, and peace for everyone who does good.” What’s going on? that sounds like good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell, doesn’t it? Now whatever Paul means, he doesn’t mean you can work your way to heaven, because elsewhere in Romans he says you can’t do that.
Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
So what does Paul mean? He isn’t talking about being justified by doing the law; he is talking about the fruits of regeneration. In other words, those who are truly saved will act like it. They will persist in a Christ-honoring lifestyle, and this lifestyle demonstrates that God has changed them on the inside. So the regenerate live differently from others. A righteous life does not earn your salvation. That’s impossible. A righteous life is evidence that the faith you claim to have is real. If someone says all the right words but they have a scandalous lifestyle, you have every right to call them a liar. So those who demonstrate a consistent Christlike life do receive eternal life, not because their moral life earns them a place in heave, but because their moral life shows the reality that they already have eternal life.
By the way, “eternal life” is richer than just living forever. He defines eternal life as “glory, honor, and immortality.” That is, eternal life means living in glory and honor and peace for all time; it isn’t just an extension of the life you presently live. In other words, this kind of life is the kind of living everyone should long for.
Eternal life is the inheritance of everyone who is saved, but God does indeed judge believers according to their works as well. Believers will never be condemned, but that’s not the same as being judged.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Believers will appear before the Judgment seat of Christ
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
In other words, the Judgment Seat of Christ is a judgment of Commendation. It’s the difference between the Judge of an athletic event vs. the judge in a courtroom. In a Courtroom the Judge needs to figure out who is guilty and how much punishment they deserve. At an athletic event the judge is figuring out who wins and what medal they deserve. Believers will never be punished for their sins, but they will receive rewards for faithful service; and this judgment is according to their works.
Notice also that he declares that the wrath and anger, tribulation and distress is “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” That’s a chronological priority, since God using the same standard for everyone. Meaning that historically God did not let the Jews get away with much while the Gentiles seemed to get away with the same sins. For example, Israel was punished many times for idolatry; meanwhile the whole world worshipped idols and did not get anything. God is not being unfair, since he will also judge Gentiles for those same sins. He just judged the Jews first.
But the reverse is also true. Israel will be elevated to the highest of the nations in the Millennial Kingdom. In other words, God judges everyone with the same standard, but not necessarily all at the same time. If he judges the Jews first, he also rewards them first; if he judges the Gentiles later, he also rewards them later. But everyone gets the same standards.
Everyone Has Enough Law to be Judged
Everyone Has Enough Law to be Judged
Those standards take into account how much of God’s Law you know. The Jews who have received God’s Law are judged according to what they knew they were supposed to do. They don’t always do what they know they are supposed to do, so God will condemn them for not living up to what they know. But the same is true of Gentiles. Gentiles did not grow up hearing the Old Testament, so they don’t know all the things God told Israel that they were supposed to do, but this does not excuse them from judgment.
The whole thing is that just hearing what you are supposed to do doesn’t help you. What matters is what you did, not what you knew. Again he is not saying that you can be justified by doing the law; he is saying that you should not think you are better just because you know what you are supposed to do. This was a problem in Israel. John the Baptist confronted it.
Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
John the Baptist was trying to confront the idea that Jews would be accepted before God just because they were Jews. He wanted them to realize that if they did not repent, they would also be destroyed.
Paul wants to bring home the point that everyone is judged according to the Law they know. Jews obviously had the Law given by Moses. They will be judged according to that Law. But the Gentiles don’t get off scott free. Instead, the Gentiles show that they too know something about God’s Law. They never had anything written down; they don’t even acknowledge God as the one true God. But sometimes they do moral things. In other words, the moral unbeliever is evidence that unbelievers do in fact know what God wants. Maybe they get some things wrong; maybe sometimes they call good evil and evil good. But they don’t always get everything wrong. Sometimes they call evil evil and good good. In other words, it is human to operate with a sense of right and wrong. Humans don’t have a choice about this. You are going to live as if certain things are right and certain things are wrong whether you want to or not. That’s the “Law written on their hearts.” it means that their conscience sometimes accuses them of wrong and they feel bad for doing wrong things; sometimes their conscience acquits them and excuses their actions. But either way, God will judge them based on what they knew they should do. And this knowledge is more than enough to condemn each person. He won’t bring up rules they didn’t know existed; he will simply ask them if they lived up to what they know they ought to do. And nobody will measure up.
He won’t judge the way human judges have to. He will bring up sins that no one else was around to witness. He can bring up motives and thoughts, not just external actions. And the “Day” is the Day of Judgment. On that Day God will reveal everyone’s deepest secrets; no one will be able to hide.
And it is Christ Jesus who will do the judging. Everyone will have to appear before him and be judged. His judgment will go deeper than anyone else could possibly go; and it will be perfect and unbending in its justice.
This judgment is “according to Paul’s Gospel.” But Gospel means good news. How is the absolute justice of God “good news?” It is as long as you also accept God’s mercy. If you receive God’s mercy then the absolute justice of God really is welcome. You receive forgiveness for your sins, but inevitably everyone is hurt by the sins of others. Everyone dies not only having committed a great deal of injustice themselves, but they have suffered a lot of it from others too. The scales of justice don’t ever completely balance at death. But if you have received God’s mercy, then you can have confidence that when God balances those scales, it will turn out in your favor. That’s good news to me.
Also, the gospel requires the justice of God as the starting point. The grace of God in salvation can only exist if God is also a God of perfect justice. So if you want God’s Grace you must first accept that he is just. I’d call that good news, wouldn’t you?
