Romans 2:12-16

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Paul is reminding people that sowing disrespect of God’s Person and/or disobedience of God’s law reaps eternal condemnation. Now bear in mind that throughout this section Paul is trying to bring conviction of heart for those Jews who have rejected the gospel. He wants the Jews to run to God through the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy. The Jews have said, “No, Paul, we’ve got the law. We don’t need your gospel.” One of Paul’s responses is, “Well, you haven’t understood the law. If you understood the law, you would understand that the law was never given to justify you.” Romans 3:20 “Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” Another response is, “Though you have the law, you don’t obey the law.” Hearing the law doesn’t do any good unless you do it; it just intensifies guilt because only the one who does it is justified. The 2 problems Paul is dealing with here are hypocrisy and self-justification: either saying, “I know the law,” and not doing it, or attempting to justify one’s self by the obeying the whole law, which is impossible.

By the way, why is obedience impossible? Obedience is impossible due to our sin nature. Christ is the only one Who could (and would) obey, because He lacked the sin nature. The sin nature affects desire. James 1:15 “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Our sin nature gives us evil desires, which keep us from obedience. But the Spirit is life.

When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. Here we have Paul’s answer to the common objection we mentioned earlier. In chapter 1, Paul answered the objection regarding those who don’t know God. He said that everybody knows God! And here, the objection is that people don’t have the law. How could God judge them for disobedience if they don’t know the law? Paul says they know the law. It’s written on their hearts, and when they disobey it, their consciences let them know it. So if you say, “The person who has not heard the gospel cannot be condemned to hell, because they have not rejected Christ,” Paul will say, “But that person can and will be condemned by the law, for that person has broken the law, and they know it.” There is no one who is not culpable for their sin. In other words, Paul is saying everyone stands under the just condemnation of God. And even our conscience confirms it. All of mankind knows God, knows how they ought to behave, knows that they have not lived up to these standards, and knows that failing to live rightly deserves eternal condemnation, regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile. This is what all men know, yet they suppress it and turn against God, claiming unrighteousness or injustice in Him.

According to John MacArthur, there are 6 bases for God’s judgment: truth, knowledge, guilt, deeds, motive, and impartiality. God judges on the basis of those six things. He judges men on the basis of the truth, on the basis of their knowledge, on the basis of their guilt, on the basis of their deeds, and on the basis of their motives, all with impartiality. All of these appear throughout the first 16 verses of Romans 2.

This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. The gospel message inherently explains the final judgment of God. We tell people that they need to be saved, and that implies a coming judgment. The gospel of grace, God’s grace, requires judgment. Think about that. A lot of people think grace and justice cannot co-exist. They think a gracious, merciful God could not also be just. But grace is not the opposite of justice. Injustice is the opposite of justice. So a just God could not be unjust. But grace and justice can co-exist. In fact, there could be no grace for us apart from the justice of God; because God’s grace for us is based upon His enacting of His justice upon His Son. Until we understand our deserving of judgment, until we understand the seriousness of sin, until we believe that God’s judgment is just, then we will never understand how amazing grace is. But it is precisely because of the seriousness of sin and the reality of final judgment that God’s grace is so amazing.

Romans 2:9-11

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.

Paul tells us what will become of the self-centered: trouble and distress; He tells us what will become of the God-centered: glory, honor, and peace. Notice that this is for both Jews and Gentiles: God does not show favoritism. In other words, Jews and Gentiles are equally liable to judgment. They are both under the power of sin. Favoritism is: “preferring someone without good reason.” And this verse is a reassertion of the justice of God’s judgment. He will not show partiality. So the criterion of God’s judgment is not privilege. It is not position. It is the character of men’s lives. God doesn’t grade on the curve. Your genetic make-up doesn’t matter; your cultural background doesn’t matter. You’re either self-centered or God-centered, unrighteous or righteous, a goat or a sheep.

Here’s the objection: “God is going to judge all people according to their deeds, and therefore impartially, but, in fact, God gave the Law of Moses only to the Jews, and so they have access to what deeds are required of them, and the rest of the world doesn’t. So how can Paul say that God is impartial to judge according to deeds when he has only told one group of people what the deeds are that they should do?” Paul answers this great objection in the next section, verses 12-15, which we’ll look at next time.

Romans 2:5-8

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done" [Psalm 62:12; Prov. 24:12]. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Paul continues to drive home the point that everyone is a sinner. He goes on now, suggesting that those who take God’s mercy lightly, those who stubbornly refuse to live a life of repentance are storing up wrath against themselves. That alone is shocking, but the Old Testament quote that follows is most scary. God is going to judge according to works. Paul says this so that people will see that they cannot expect to stand before God in their own righteousness and live; Paul has shown that no one has righteousness in themselves!

Most people think that they are pretty good, and that God is going to grade on a curve. He is going to cut them some slack. And therefore, their hope of salvation rests in the fact that they are relatively nice people with good intentions, and that God will be benevolent in the way He administers His judgment. These people think God will judge them in a general way, looking at their overall good intentions while giving them slack for the mistakes they’ve made. Paul has two stunning surprises for a person thinking that way. First, in v.5, they are building a case against themselves. The people addressed here are God’s agents for piling up wrath against themselves by reason of hardness of heart. This is the same idea as God punishing sinners with more sin. Second, in v.6, God’s judgment is going to be strictly according to deeds. Matthew 16:27 Salvation is by grace, but judgment is by works. Justification is by grace through faith. But condemnation will be produced by our own evil works and in accord with God’s justice.

How does God’s judgment “according to works” fit with salvation by faith? There are two possible answers to this question. One says that eternal life would be based on perfect obedience if anybody had it. But nobody does, and so the only way to eternal life is by faith in Christ. The other answer says that God never promised eternal life on the basis of good deeds, but always makes works the evidence of faith in Christ, Who is the basis of eternal life (His good deeds). The first is wrong: Luke 17:10. The second is right: Romans 3:20.

To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, God will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. Paul again depicts 2 kinds of people in this world: God-centered or self-centered, godly or ungodly, righteous or unrighteous, sheep or goats. You’re either a good tree or a bad tree, a good fish or a bad fish; there’s no in between. You’re either a believer or an unbeliever. It’s final. That’s it.

The believer, the God-centered person, seeks the glory not of worldly success, but of being conformed to the image of Christ, the honor not for the world to approve, but for Christ to approve, the honor whereby Jesus says at the end, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and immortality, the hope of the resurrection, the hope not of a glorious, honor-filled worldly life, but of eternal life in the presence of God. Notice that this person, the godly person, the believer, is already a believer, is already saved, and now strives for these things. It is not this lifestyle, or these aspirations that make one a believer; rather it is being a believer that makes one aspire to these things. And the ungodly person despises this attitude. The unbeliever wants worldly success, self-seeking glory and honor; the unbeliever rejects God and His law and desires the world. The believer strives to do good for the glory of God (which in the end will be shared by God with us); the unbeliever strives to do good for the glory of self. We’ve already seen how God’s judgment plays out.

Romans 2:1-4

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

You who pass judgment on someone else have no excuse, for you are condemning yourself, because you do the same things. Paul spends the second half of chapter 1 writing against the “bad” pagans, those who do not even claim to worship the Judeo-Christian God of the Old Testament, those who are outwardly immoral and impious. Then he turns his attention to the “good” pagans, those who are outwardly moral and pious folks who are inwardly immoral and impious. Paul here addresses the non-Messianic Jews, and even professing believers to whom this letter was written. He has separated the world into 2 groups: those without the law, addressed in chapter 1, and those with the law, now addressed in chapter 2. And what Paul does is show that both groups are condemned. He’ll drive home that point in chapter 3. Now, Paul’s audience was likely shocked upon reading this first sentence of chapter 2. The beginning words, “You, therefore,” don’t seem to follow, but Paul is offering his conclusion in v.1a (there is no excuse) before he sets the stage in v. 1b-3. “You, therefore, have no excuse,” implies that the Jews are just as guilty of the things listed in Romans 1:18-32 as the pagan gentiles he was talking about.

All of us could very easily feel superior to some of the very sinful folks out there in the world. We’re not murderers (in the strict sense), we’ve not embezzled millions of dollars from our companies, and we’re not promiscuous homosexuals. We’re probably not habitual liars. So it’s easy to see ourselves as morally superior to those kinds of folks. But Paul’s point here is that everyone who is not in Christ, everyone who has not experienced the grace of Christ, no matter how nice they are, no matter how outwardly moral they are, they are guilty of the same kind of sin that we often criticize in others. That’s what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. Paul is saying that the outwardly moral folks who have not embraced Christ are self-condemned hypocrites. Paul here attacks the hypocrites.

We often forget the powerful message of James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” This is truth. And Paul says that God’s judgment is based on truth. God’s judgment is just. He will acquit the innocent; He will condemn those who are guilty. Don’t forget the words of Luke 17:10 “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’.” Keeping the law merits nothing.

Do you ever wonder, “How could God allow that to happen?” Do you ever say to God, “You should not have let that happen”? That’s idolatrous vanity. You think your definition of justice and righteousness is better than God’s. And that wrong. Paul’s point here is that God’s judgment, His righteous condemnation of sin is just. It’s perfect. And this is tough for us to handle. Just knowing that something is wrong doesn’t spare us from condemnation. It is not the possession of the truth that saves us from condemnation, it is the action of righteousness; and if we are unrighteous people (which we are), then the only thing that can save us from condemnation is the righteous action of another imputed to us. Praise God for Jesus Christ!

It’s ironic that the only escape from God’s judgment is to accept God’s judgment. The only escape from God’s judgment is to acknowledge that His judgment is right, to embrace that judgment and say, “Lord, You are right about me. I do deserve condemnation.” That is the beginning of repentance. Paul says that unless we have had that experience of seeing our sin and then seeing the Savior, then we are in no different situation than the immoral, openly godless pagan, who sees his life ongoing to the logical conclusion of rebellion against God.

Do you show contempt for the riches of God’s kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that His kindness leads you toward repentance? Paul asks here, “Do you think lightly of God’s mercy?” Do you think that just because God has been kind to you and has not handed you over to sin like the folks in chapter 1 that He is in fact pleased with you, and that you are at peace with Him? If so, then you have a false sense of security. His forbearance of your sins is in order to bring you to repentance. All you have to do to prove to yourself and others that you think lightly of God’s mercy is avoid repentance and refuse to live a life of constant repentance.

Paul here is asking his audience if they really understand Who God is. He’s asking the Jewish people of his own time to go back and reflect upon the mercies of God, heaped upon them in His covenant. Paul tells us in v.4 a little bit about the character of God. Paul is showing us Who God is and what He’s like, and why He does what He does. We’ve seen that God is just; God is also kind. Paul points us to God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience. Those 3 characteristics of God are to lead us to repentance. And if we do not repent, then we’re really not seeing God as He is. God’s mercy and patience have a purpose, and when we do not appreciate that purpose, we are despising God’s mercy; we are thinking lightly of His kindness.