Book of Romans Study
Romans Lesson # 6
By Rev. James May
Let us begin tonight by backing up just one verse into our last lesson.
Romans 2:11 For there is no respect of persons with God.
We had spoken concerning the fact that God is ultimately Just and Holy, and that He alone is Sovereign in all things. In Him there is perfect justice. When each of us stands before God, in the Day of Judgment, there will be no partiality shown in the justice that God metes out.
Whether those who stand before Him are Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, prisoner or free; male or female, young or old, God will judge all men the same. There are only two verdicts that can be given, guilty of sin and worthy of death; or free from sin, because of the blood of Jesus, and worthy of life eternal through Christ.
He will judge righteous judgment; he will judge people as they ought to be judged; according to their character and what they truly deserve; or by their trust in the power of the blood of Jesus as their substitutionary payment for sin.
This scripture does not pertain to every facet of life; only to the judgment which will be applied to the hearts of men.
It does not mean that God is obligated to make all his creatures equal in talent, health, wealth, or station in life.
It does not imply that he may not make differences in how we are made, such as size, talents, or physical abilities and appearances.
It does not imply that he may not give blesses to whomever, whenever and wherever he pleases, or to withhold those blessings for his own reasons.
It also doesn’t mean that he can’t make us different in our calling or gifts of the Spirit.
God’s equality in dealing with all men pertains to his judgments, whether we are either living in a state of rebellion against God and his law, or we are Born Again by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior. His rewards may differ according to the faithfulness of our works, but our guilt or salvation is the same for all men.
This idea of God not having any partiality in the Day of Judgment carries over into the rest of this chapter and even more.
Romans 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;
How does God prove that he is no respecter of persons? What measure of justice must he use to prove his impartiality?
Paul says that the Gentiles were without the law of God. They did not know the law that God had given to Moses, yet they had knowledge of right and wrong, and in spite of that knowledge, they rebelled against that which was right, and in so doing, they also rebelled against the law of God.
Gentiles, who knew not the law, need not be judged by the law that they didn’t know, but they will be judged as law-breakers for that which they did know. And if those who are ignorant of God’s law, break even one of those laws that are known, then they are guilty of the sin of rebellion.
Ignorance of the law of God is not an acceptable excuse in the courtroom of Heaven. By nature, a natural knowledge of good and evil, that is given by God and comes to all men through Adam, we all have that innate understanding of what is right and what is not. Yet, in spite of that knowledge, we still choose to do the wrong. That is a heart of rebellion that is opposed to the “right”, and where does that “right” come from? It comes from the very law and nature of God.
Even without the Law of Moses, the law of God is still revealed in nature, and disobedience to the law of nature is still rebellion in the eyes of the Lord and will bring judgment upon whoever breaks that law.
They sinned outside of the knowledge of the Law of Moses, yet they will be perish in their sin because they rebelled against the natural law of nature that God has put into place and that alone is enough to condemn the sinner.
On the other hand, the Jews have had the Law of Moses given to them, and still they have rebelled against that law. They that have lived in knowledge of the law and yet disobeyed that law, will be the basis on which they are judged. The Jew will be judged by the law they knew and did not obey.
Neither Jew, nor Gentile will be given any favoritism in the courts of Heaven. Those who aren’t washed in the blood will be judged, condemned and sentenced according to their rebellious hearts against what they did know.
Romans 2:13 (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
Those who are among the Jews, and I would say that many in the church today, somehow believe that because they have been given God’s law, and because they have heard the Word of God, that the hearing and knowledge of the law is enough.
Just hearing the preaching, or just reading the Bible, or just hearing the Law of Moses read and knowing it in your heart, does not save you. It has to move that 10 inches from your head to your heart and make a real change in your character and nature through the Born Again experience of the Holy Spirit. Being Born Again only comes in obeying and doing that which we have learned is the right thing to do. You have to do; before you can be. No one can be a Christian by the word until the word is acted upon and obeyed.
The Jews believe that to be given eternal life, meant obeying every letter of the Law of Moses, which was an impossible task. To the Gentiles, that meant obeying every revelation of the knowledge of right and wrong, yet that was just as impossible for the Gentiles as it was for the Jews. The breaking of only one law is enough to condemn; and only through forgiveness can that power be broken.
Being a doer of the law seems to push us toward a religion of do’s and don’ts. Do obey, don’t fall – but in reality, a true faith in Christ brings us to desire to do, or not to do certain things. Obedience to perform the works required by the law are a proof of true and living faith and lack of works in obedience to the lawsis a proof of the lack of faith, or dead faith. Dead faith cannot save you!
If you are alive in Christ, born again by the Holy Ghost, there will be good works in your life, which are also performed in obedience to the law. The good works don’t save you, but without them, there is no home in Heaven for you. Good works alone earns nothing, until we have place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ and his shed blood.
Romans 2:14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Romans 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another)
Even though the Gentiles didn’t have the Law of Moses, they did, by nature understand many of the things contained in the Law. And even though they didn’t know it, they were either living in obedience to the law or not.
So, though they didn’t have the written law, they still had a law of nature by which they were to live, and that law was inborn by the life of God that was given to every man to understand right from wrong.
Even the Greek philosopher, Plato, though a man of idolatry, confessed in his writings these words: “the written law that exists today in the hearts of normal people is a law that is in every man according to nature.”
The law of God was not a written law, at least it wasn’t until men became so lawless that it had to be written so that it could be enforced easier among men. The natural, unwritten law says that people shouldn’t go around in public naked, or that men should not be clothed in women's clothes, or that children are to be protected and not exploited, and other things. These things, for most of the history of mankind were unwritten laws that all men obeyed until these last days when even the natural laws of modesty and decency are cast aside.
There was a time when exploitation of children was nearly unknown. There was a time when natural love flowed in families and among people. There was a time when common courtesy was common, but no more. There were things in society that were automatic because they were laws written on the hearts and minds of men.
But now, since man has grown more and more sinful and depraved, even the natural love one for another is disappearing, and the natural sense of right and wrong is nearly gone; and what is left is anarchy. Every man is doing that which seems right in his own eyes, with selfish, self-centered motives and objectives, and all of it is abomination and sin in the eyes of God.
What has happened to mankind? What happened to that inborn, God-given sense of justice, right and wrong?
The fact is that God created every man with a conscience. Whenever men would do wrong their conscience would bother them, convicting them of the wrong they had done. But when a man does enough wrong, ignoring the conviction of his conscience, then that conscience becomes seared, so hardened that there is no longer any conviction, and the result is that man goes ever farther from the truth.
Even though men refuse to listen to the convictions of their own conscience, they still love to use their “personal convictions and conscience” to condemn others of doing the same things that they are personally guilty of. It’s easy to condemn the splinter in someone else’s eye, but we don’t want to admit that we have a fence post in our own eye! We excuse our faults but love to point them out in everyone else with gusto! Either that, or we excuse their faults because we have the same faults and we know that if they are condemned, we are also condemned. We are constantly comparing ourselves among ourselves, and with others, in an attempt to justify ourselves.
Romans 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
This verse is connected to verse 12 and then we must apply the explanation of the parenthetical statement to get its full meaning. Let’s read it this way:
Romans 2:12 &16, "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."
Reading it this way should make it easier to understand, but God, knowing how confused we can get, let’s Paul give us some more information to help us see the truth.
If we, being Gentiles who had not the Law, die in our rebellion against the natural law of morality that God has placed in us, then we will also perish without knowing the law, because of our rebellion against what we did know.
If the Jews, having knowledge of the Law of God, still rebelled and sinned against that Law, then they too will perish because the Law they knew and disobeyed will be their judge to condemn them.
All of this will happen in the great Day of Judgment, when all souls will be judged by their obedience to God’s Law which always leads us to Christ as our answer.
Those who just hear the Law of God, but refuse to do the law will be condemned. Those who both hear the Law and obey the Law will be justified in the judgment!
Does this mean that if anyone is obedient to the Law alone, doing the good works commanded by the Law, that their good works will save them? The answer is Yes and No. Let me explain. When men live by the Law of God, and that Law is obeyed to the point that it leads them to Jesus, and they obey the Law of God, which says that only through Jesus Christ we can be saved, and our “Good Works” include repentance for sin and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior, being Born Again as the Law also teaches in God’s Word, then, Yes, our good works will save us.
But when the Law teaches good works, but we refuse to obey that Law to the Point of accepting Jesus, then our “good works” are no longer “good” and we will be lost in our sin and rebellion.
When all men stand before God on that Great Judgment Day, they will be judged according to their acceptance of Jesus Christ and the gospel that Paul preached and salvation will be based upon that alone. The Law of God must lead us to faith in what Jesus did on the Cross. Otherwise, the Law will condemn us for failing to learn its lessons.
When that judgment is passed, based upon salvation through Jesus Christ and his shed blood, then the works of all men shall also be judged.
Only those works that have been performed in obedience to the law and the Word of God, after accepting the blood of Jesus as our sacrifice for our sin, will be deemed as justified before God. All other works will be condemned and burned by the Holy Fire of God.
None of the works of those who are lost will survive that fire, for all has been done while in a rebellious condition. And only the works that were accomplished by those are saved, which are done according the Laws of God, and the obedience to the life that we live by the gospel, shall be justified and receive a reward in Heaven.
The question here is this. Are we not obeying the law of God when we come to Christ? Does not God’s law, written in the New Testament, tell us that only by coming to Jesus and accepting his sacrifice for our sin, we can be saved?
When we then obey that law, not just hear it, but do it; then we are saved. After that, all the works that we do shall be judged as well; either as justified through the blood of Jesus; or as disobedience because of the motives and reasons of why we did them.
By the way, it’s not Paul’s gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. But Paul lays claim to it because it is his gospel given to him by Jesus Christ to go and preach to all men. This message is my message, given to me by the Word of God and the Holy Ghost. It is God’s message, yet it is my message. So you must live according to my message of the Word of God, as long as my message agrees with God’s Word, or there is no salvation. It’s not about me, or about Paul. It’s about Jesus.
Romans 2:17 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,
From this point to the end of chapter two, Paul addresses the Jewish saints that are in Rome. He speaks directly to the condition of the Jews and their relationship with God as a chosen nation, and their dependence upon being Jews for their assurance of salvation.
The Jews tended to believe that they had a lock on salvation because of the Law of Moses that had been given to Israel alone for many centuries before Christ. They thought of themselves as privileged among all men, which they were in a way, but not to the point of salvation just because they had and knew the Law of Moses.
Paul has to teach them that just having and knowing the Law of Moses wasn’t enough. This alone could not justify the Jew as he stood before God in judgment.
The Jews didn’t just brag on the fact that they were the only ones God sent his Law to. They bragged because they had the Law, even when they didn’t live by it. Paul is saying, “What are you bragging about? You have the Law, but you’re not obeying it. You are no better than the Gentiles who didn’t have the law and disobeyed it. There are no bragging rights for being in rebellion against the Law of God, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile. Both are wrong and both will be judged for sin.”
Romans 2:18 And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;
The Jews didn’t know the complete will and purpose of God, nor did they understand the will of God revealed in the gospel any more than the Gentiles did. And what few things the Jews might have learned about the will of God that the Gentiles had not learned, they didn’t do. They had knowledge of the Law, but did not obey it. They also had knowledge of the greater gifts and presence of God, but they didn’t let God be God in Israel. And even now, most of the Jews were attempting to destroy the message of the gospel. What right did the Jews have to brag about anything?
Romans 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
The fact that they were Born Again Jews, saved by accepting Jesus, didn’t make them anymore qualified to be teachers than anyone else. They might have been full of pride, and puffed up, thinking they were special, but that wasn’t how God looked at it.
Without the leading of the Holy Spirit and obedience to the laws of God, these Jews were just as blind as the Gentiles. Those who claimed special privilege and knowledge just because they were Jews were more like blind guides, blind leading the blind. They had no more light of understanding than their Gentile brethren and should not attempt to lead the Gentiles just because they were Jews.
Romans 2:20 An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.
All people who are lost are foolish in God’s eyes, and they all need instruction. The common people among the Jews didn’t know the law and often looked to instructors, more learned and educated people to teach them.
These Jews in Rome came from among those who were called common Jews. They had little real understanding of the Law, and here they were trying to teach babies in Christ among the Gentiles thinking that they knew more.
These Jews had a little knowledge of the Law and of its truth, but they were in no way qualified to be instructors of the Gentiles in the gospel of Jesus Christ based on the fact that they were Jews alone.
