The Roman’s Road to Righteousness (Chapter 2:1-16)‏‏‏

Hello Friends!

Welcome Back! Let’s continue our journey through the book of Romans – “The Romans Road to Righteousness.”

The Roman’s Road to Righteousness (Chapter 2:1-16)

This week we will begin reading chapter 2 verses 1-16 which will concentrate on the “religious” & “moral” man who remains dead in his sins without Jesus Christ…

As we have already examined, Romans chapter 1 details God's righteous judgment concerning the unsaved and willfully degenerate heart of men who are given over to a depraved mind. 

 

Up to this point in our studies, there are some very important questions that may come to mind:

What about the “good” people…?

What about the “moral” people…?

What about these “good & moral” people who aren't idolaters, murderers, liars, thieves, fornicators, adulterers, homosexuals and who have not abandoned all sense of right, wrong & morality…?

What about these people who do not outwardly commit these vices – Where do they fit…?

Great questions! There are six principles of God’s judgment outlined in our verses this week that answer them. 

 

We find that God judges men on the basis of their:

• Knowledge
• Truth
• Guilt
• Deeds
• Impartiality
• Motive

These are the six elements that come together to show how God judges people. Let’s take a brief look at them individually…

 

Knowledge – The first principle of judgment begins with "Therefore."

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things – Romans 2:1

In context, what Paul is saying here brings us back to the previous chapter. The implication here is that we have knowledge of the truth and “Therefore” prove it because we “judge another” and if we have a criterion by which to judge others, we prove that we must ourselves know the truth. We’re just as “inexcusable.” The term "O man" means anyone who thinks he's exempt from judgment because he has not sunk to the idolatry, homosexuality or to the reprobation of the former passage. That little phrase "O man" is used again in verse 3 and later in chapter 9. Paul then moves to the next statement, "for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself." When you show the law of God as applied to somebody else, you prove that you also know the law.

 

This is also what Jesus said in the book of Matthew 7 in which Paul too received his inspiration from the Holy Spirit:

Judge not that you be not judged – Matthew 7:1

It means to stop playing God. Stop trying to impugn people's motives when you can't even read their hearts. In other words, if you show that you can judge everyone else, then you demonstrate that you ought to be judged by that same standard. If you can apply it to other people, you better make sure it isn't going to be applied to you. Before you get the splinter out of another guy's eye, why don't you get the two-by-four out of your own eye? Therefore, if you hypocritically ”practice the same things,” you actually “condemn yourself” – A powerful statement!

 

Truth – The second principle of judgment is then found in the next couple of verses:

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? – Romans 2:2-3

The Greek word for “know“ here means to know something that is commonly known by external facts. It is an obvious Biblical principle that the judgment of God is going to be according to truth. Why? Because God cannot lie. And God is of truth, that's His nature. He is Truth. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? The unrepentant sinner will not “escape the judgment of God” as He will judge according to His truth.

 

There's also a great word in the Psalms pertaining to His judgment:

For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth – Psalm 96:13

Man's judgment does not square with the facts – but God's does! And the problem with the moralist is that he thinks he is okay because he is judging himself by himself. The hypocrite does not want to be judged by the reality of what he is – he wants to hide behind his national identity or his church affiliation or his baptism or his rule keeping or his morality or the fact that he's a "good guy" – so to speak – and so on…

 

There are many unsaved people today who go to church, albeit a Lutheran Church or a Presbyterian Church or a Baptist Church or an Episcopalian Church or the Roman Catholic Church and think they're going to escape. And they may sit in judgment on an immoral world while in their heart they're filled with the same sinful stuff. Jesus Christ addressed this very issue when He confronted the “religious leaders” of the day:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness – Matthew 23:27

They're like “whitewashed tombs” on the outside but inside they are “full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” to be sure. Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart. God hates sin!

 

Guilt – The third principle of judgment is then found in the next couple of verses:

Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God – Romans 2:4-5

God affirms that the moral and religious man namely in Paul's day – the Jew – is guilty of sin and can no way escape judgment. And these two verses show how profound man's guilt really is. Verse 4 says God has been good to all of you across the face of the world and His “goodness” and His “forbearance” and His “long suffering” had as its goal to lead you to what? – “repentance.” And when it did not lead you to repentance – because of your “hardness” and “impenitent heart” – you were just “treasuring up for yourself wrath” that would ultimately break loose at the final “judgment of God.” That's the essence of what these verses are saying. 

 

Ezekiel talked about the fact that the people had a “stony” heart:

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh – Ezekiel 36:26

Although God has been leading a “few” people to repentance, “many” of them have been going to judgment instead:

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it – Matthew 7:13-14

The context here from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is that MOST people are on the “broad” road that “leads to destruction” – Hell. Most people are piling up a storehouse of guilt that is going to come back on them in God’s judgment. Man is guilty of rejecting God's goodness. Man is guilty of abusing God's mercy. Man is guilty of ignoring God's grace. Man is guilty of spurning God's love. Man is guilty of mocking His kindness…

 

Deeds – The fourth principle of judgment is then found in the next few verses:

who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek – Romans 2:6-10

The basic truth is in verse 6 – men will be judged according to their “deeds” – their works. With that said, we must understand one very important thing – Paul is not talking about salvation here. He doesn't talk about salvation till chapter 3 verse 21. He is simply dealing with one of the elements of judgment. He doesn't yet say how the righteous people got righteous and he doesn't say why the unrighteous people were unrighteous. He just says we can judge them by their works. 

 

We learned in our past studies when we read through Revelation chapter 20 that God is going to judge unbelievers according to their “deeds.” In fact if you’ll remember, it was said twice:

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his deeds – Revelation 20:12-13

However, a true Christian is known by his righteous, God-honoring deeds. A non-Christian is known by the absence of righteous, God-honoring deeds. Please note that this is not only a New Testament concept. It is a concept that is found all throughout the Scripture. For example, in Jeremiah we see:

I the Lord search the heart, I test the conscience, even to give every man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings – Jeremiah 17:10

So, whether you're looking in the Old Testament or the New Testament, you will find many Scriptures that remind us that God will judge men on the basis of their deeds. 

 

The primary thrust here is that God does not judge us on the basis of our profession. He does not judge the Jew on the basis of his Abrahamic heritage. He does not judge you on the basis of your identification with a particular church or denomination. He judges on the basis of the product of your life. The question will not be whether a man is a Jew or whether he's a Gentile, whether he is heathen, whether he is religious, whether he goes to church or doesn't go to church. The issue is does his life manifest obedience to God. The Scripture says “by their fruit you shall”... what?... you shall “know them.” The life pattern – the works and the deeds of life – are an infallible index to character. And so this forms one of the unchanging standards by which God judges.

 

Christians were “created in Christ Jesus for good works” and will be judged according to our works. But the Scriptures are very clear – we have been “saved through faith” and cannot be born again by our works:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them – Ephesians 2:8-10

Impartiality – The fifth principle of judgment is then found in the next several verses:

For there is no partiality with God. For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) – Romans 2:11-15

Verse 11 sets this section of Scripture in motion. What that verse is saying is that God is righteously impartial. He is not looking at the person on the outside, He is looking at the conduct to see whether it represents righteousness or unrighteousness. He's looking at the works. God's sentence will be strictly judged on the basis of character and God will be impartial and cannot be bribed. God is not partial. Partiality is the fault of one who gives judgment with respect to the outward circumstances and not the inward merit. To have respect of a person's appearance is to rule in their favor for what you see on the surface, rather than what you know to be true in the heart. God cannot and God will not do that. Only God knows the true heart and intentions of a person.

 

The Old Testament also shares this same principle. The most elevated and exalted creature that God ever made was Lucifer – “son of the morning“ – who rebelled and is now known as the devil or Satan. In the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, we read of his five famous “I will” statements:

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit – Isaiah 14:12-15

If there was ever one that God might have dismissed because he was so exalted, it would have been Lucifer. But God cast him rapidly out of His heaven. For “there is no partiality with God” – not even the supreme personage of all of His creation. And if He has no “partiality” for the devil when he sinned against God, He will have none toward someone lesser than that being.

 

Now notice in verse 12 there are two distinct groups of people referred to here – Jew and Gentile. First of all, "as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law" – the Gentile. They don't have the “law” of God – the Mosaic law. This is a term to designate Gentiles who do not have the written Scripture. As with the Jew, the Gentiles had no prophets or biblical writers. They did not have the written revelation of God – the “law” of God. 

 

Paul doesn't mean they're without any law and he certainly doesn't mean they have no sense of what is right and what is wrong – of course they do! They have a law written in their “hearts.” But they are “without law” in the sense of the Mosaic law. They are without special revelation of the Scriptures, Moses or the prophets. They will also “perish without law” because all people were created for the glory of God and for fellowship with Him and when they do not come to God, they “perish” and are ruined as to that purpose and intention.

 

Then Paul says in verse 13, "for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified." God's law doesn't protect “hearers” from judgment. No, the more they hear the deeper the judgment. The more we know God's law, the more it intensifies the consequence unless it is obeyed – the “doers.” So, does God hold people responsible who never heard the written law of God? We find that answer in verses 14 and 15:

for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them – Romans 2:14-15

What is Paul saying? He's simply saying this – you do not have to have the written “law” – Scripture – to be responsible! For you have a natural law within you manifest in your behavior, in your thinking patterns and in your “conscience.” There's a conscience in all of us – Jew and Gentile alike. There's a thought process in all of us that knows right from wrong and deals with us appropriately when we violate it.

In the Christian, the conscience is tremendously intensified because we not only have that basic natural law within us but we also have the “law” of Jesus Christ from His Word added to the natural law and this compounding excites the conscience even more to respond.

Con means “with” and Science means “knowledge.” When we sin, we sin with the knowledge of offending a Holy, Righteous and Just God. We KNOW we have sinned. This is Conscience!

Motive – Finally, the sixth and final principle of judgment is found in the last verse of this week’s segment:

in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel – Romans 2:16

God will judge on the basis not only of what a man's “deeds” were but what his reasons were – “secrets.” You can falsify the deed but you can't falsify the motive. Judgment will finally reach down into the private place of motives. Our inmost “secrets” may be hidden from human judgment. However, they are not hidden from God. We will be judged for our motives. We either do what we do for the glory of God or we do it for the glory of man.

 

In 1 Chronicles it says:

As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever – 1 Chronicles 28:9

Yes, God judges deeds. Yes, He judges intents. But He judges the “intent” behind them as well. In fact, Jesus explained this point further in the book of Matthew:

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly – Matthew 6:6

And as our closing verse in Romans 2 states, it will all be determined “in the day” when God shall judge “by Jesus Christ” at the Great White Throne Judgment when all judgment is committed unto Him. As you’ll remember, this truth was also outlined during our studies in the book of Revelation… In that glorious climactic culminating “day” when the Lord Jesus Christ judges the unbelieving, these six principles of God’s judgment will be put to use…

 

In closing:

 

Today, many moral and outwardly good people would probably agree with Paul's condemnation of the godless pagan world in Romans chapter 1. In fact, they would probably utter a healthy “amen!”

 

The Jew would hurriedly agree with Paul's condemnation of the Gentile world. The Jew would then state that he himself believed that he was exempt from any such judgment. The Jew traditionally believed that God was going to blast the heathen out of existence because of their sin. As in the case of Jonah, God would wipe out the Nineveh's of the world unless they repented. But Israel also believed that no Jew would ever experience that kind of condemnation with the pagan Gentiles. They believed that because they were Jewish born into the line of Abraham, because they were circumcised and because they kept the trappings of the Jewish religion – Judaism – that they were exempt from God’s judgment. 

 

Ultimately, the Jews believed in legalism – salvation by works. They also trusted in their covenant sacraments – salvation by sacramentalism. And they trusted in their traditions. Sound familiar? 

 

This is also true of the Roman Catholic religion. This is also believed in many Protestant denominations today. For example: If a child is baptized as an infant – a sacramental act – that infant enters into the covenant. The child is then “confirmed” in adolescence and therefore by sacramentalism that child is guaranteed a place in God's Kingdom and will not be condemned with the world. 

 

The prominent Covenant Theology that we see today is basically an adaptation of the false securities given through the Jews from their teachers who believed that by keeping the traditions outwardly and by being sacramentally attached to the covenant, they were exempt from God’s judgment. This is heresy.

 

The first sixteen verses of Romans chapter 2 represent a single section and they present to us the principles for divine judgment, the principles on which God judges men…

 

Please begin by reading verses 1-16 of the second chapter of Romans.

We are not guaranteed tomorrow – tomorrow may be too late! If you haven't yet made that most important decision of your life, won't you make Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior today - before it's too late? Today is the day of Salvation!

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