2:1
“Therefore…”
Since men suppress the truth, and not just a few men here and there, but all men everywhere; and since the entire human race has been given over by God to its own ways, which are universally evil; and since all of humanity is involved, not only in sinning, but in boasting about its sinfulness, therefore…
“…you are inexcusable, O Man…”
Note that Paul is still addressing all of mankind. There are many groups, who, reading this first chapter of Romans, will say, well that doesn’t apply to me, though I surely understand what you are saying. There’s surely a lot of evil people in this world, but bless God I never sank to that level.
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Oh yes you did. And you’re proving it by that proud attitude.
Jews, you not only had nature and conscience like all men, but you had the very Presence and written words of the living God in your midst, and you eventually nailed Him to a cross.
Gentiles, you knew, but in every nation, you sank lower and lower in your filth until God had to let you go.
There are people who sit in every church service of every church across this land who smugly try to separate themselves from the words of Paul, but if they are human, Paul’s words come to them: Inexcusable.
“…whoever you are who judge…”
Condemn. In words or in thoughts how often have we sat in judgment on those around us. How we love to focus on a bad quality of another human being, and talk about it to our friends.
“Did you hear about that murderer in the school shooting? What an awful man! I could never kill innocent people…”
“Oh, John has left Judy, again! That poor woman. I could never be unfaithful to my spouse!”
“Look at that Pope! Covering up the sexual sins of his priests! How can he hold this high office and be so evil in his heart? I could never accept a position like this and be so evil secretly.”
“Look at that TV preacher, will you? Why, just sell his house and you could feed the poor of his city for years! I could never use God’s money this way.”
“Oh these gays, they make me sick! I could never love someone of my own gender. It’s so perverse.”
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“Killed her own baby, in her own womb, oh how did she do it? Abortion is so evil. I could never take an innocent life so routinely.”
“That politician is just a liar! How can he stand before his constituents and pretend to be helping them when all he does is tell lie after lie? I could never lie like that.”
That is what judging looks like. Condemnation of others’ sins with the assumption that we ourselves are without sin, or at least, without that sin. Every one of the sins I have judged in these imaginary judges’ mouths are worthy of judgment by a just God, for sure. But not by me. The moment I start judging, condemning, another human being, I need to hear from Paul…
“… for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”
Let’s revisit the imaginary cases:
You’re going to judge the murderer? True, murderers are in danger of the judgment, Jesus said. But didn’t Jesus, in the next breath also say that angry people are in danger of the judgment? Doesn’t murder start in the evil heart of man with anger, resentment, envy, jealousy? If you condemn all murderers to hell, haven’t you condemned yourself?
Note here, Paul is still talking to mankind, not the church specifically. He is trying to make people see that they are sinners, equally guilty before God. So, I will pretend that I am talking to the world also.
But we in the church are especially needy of a lesson on judgmental attitudes. Though our sins are forgiven, we have sometimes adopted a proud attitude over it.
Then there is the sin of adultery. Proud man judges others who have been unfaithful visibly. But oh if we could see the thoughts of the heart of these men! How many adulteries take place in the minds of men and women every day, every hour? The Bible talks about people whose eyes are full of
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adultery. But see them in church, upstanding citizens of the congregation, happily married, visibly. Then see them later going to their stash of porno literature, leaving their wives a hundred times in one day.
And excessive spending by TV preachers? None of your business. Let’s look at your own budget. Let’s look around your house and your garage. Did you really need all of that? No, then you are guilty of covetousness also. Sell those things you don’t need or better yet, give them away. Who told you that you could have just whatever your little heart desired, and that you were to become the judge of others who overspend?
Hurt by the inroads of the gay community, are you? You know the Bible calls these practices abominations, right? Actually, the Scriptures have a long list of things that are abominations to the Lord, not taking away from gay abomination of course. Proverbs alone talks about how the proud are an abomination to the Lord; a false balance, and diverse weights, that is, a cheater, are an abomination; lying lips; the very thoughts of wicked people; a scornful person; and a person who turns away from the Scriptures, even his prayer is an abomination!
God wants you to hate sin, judge sin, in your own life. Now after that task is done, if you still have any time left, maybe you can start on the sins of others. When you are constantly harping on the sins of others, the condition of humanity, you start feeling more and more righteous. Proud. But when you cry out to God as the publican, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” only humility follows.
Paul Stookey of Peter Paul and Mary, started singing Christian songs exclusively after the trio broke up. This one says, partly in the words of Jesus, and with a little lighthearted approach, what I’m trying to say.
PEACE IN THE VALLEY
Well there'll be Peace in the Valley, Peace on the mountain too,
Before you tell a man he's got a splinter in his eye, You better pull the log out of you.
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There's a pigeon of peace in my backyard,
He's the wrong kind of bird but he tries so hard, One day I told him he should have been a dove,
He cocked his head and looked at me with love and he sang chorus
Remember the time the painted lady in town Came to church to lay her burden down?
The preacher turned his back, the room was filled, And the words that she spoke, I remember them still She said...
chorus
So, if you meet a man in a pastel suit With an alligator Bible to match his boots You might not like his style too much
But if he could reach a soul you could never touch You gotta say...
chorus
2:2
“But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.”
We cannot judge. But God can. And will. Who is the “we”? Paul and the other apostles were Jews. The Jews and the Christians to whom he was writing knew the truth, the obvious truth. Man is sinful, every man. And God has the right to judge man for his sins.
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Many men, maybe all men, have something inside that says, it’s OK, everything’s going to be all right in the end. God, if he exists, is too merciful to send anyone to hell.
But Paul disagrees. He says that truth allows, even demands, that God judge sin. Even the Gentiles, back in verse 32, knew that God’s judgment was righteous, “that those who practice such things are deserving of death…”
I’ve just said two opposing things. Did you catch it? Inside man feels everything will be OK. But man knows he deserves to be punished. That’s the conflict of the human heart. That is that suppression of the truth that man is forever engaged in. He knows what is right, he does the wrong; he knows he is guilty, but he thinks God will just overlook it because he is so nice.
We who are saved must be clear in what we tell others. God will rightly judge those who practice the things mentioned in Romans 1. He will.
2:3
“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?”
Paul is relentless. He takes no prisoners. Everyone must come under this condemnation. There are people who have set themselves up as judges in the world, sometimes in the church. They are in positions of authority, or think they are, and their business, like the Pharisees, is to look down on everyone else. They judge this sin, and that sin, and the more they judge others, the more confident they feel about their own standing with God.
In Donald Barnhouse’s contemporary version of this verse we read, “You dummy- do you really figure that you have doped out an angle that will let you go up against God and get away with it? You don’t have a ghost of a chance!” Barnhouse himself goes on, emphatically,
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“There is no escape. Do you understand? No escape- ever. And this means you – the respectable person, sitting in judgment upon another fellow creature, and remaining unrepentant yourself.”
Hypocrites will get double judgment, for being doubly guilty. They didn’t see their own sin, and they saw everyone else’s.
We said there is no escape. But of course, there is one. Receive Christ, who bore all your sin for you.
Macarthur tells the story of a powerful tribal chief of a nomadic tribe in ancient Russia. Russia had its native inhabitants just as we did. This chief ruled because of his great strength and his utter fairness and impartiality. During a period of time in the tribe, a rash of thefts broke out. The chief promised ten lashes to the thief if he was discovered. No discovery. The chief grew angry and now promised forty lashes from the tribal whip master.
This chief was by far the only one in the tribe who could bear such a beating. It would be a death sentence for anyone else. And then there was a discovery. The chief learned that the thief had been his own mother.
Would he rule by love or by law? What a crisis. He decided on both. His mother was brought to the place of public punishment. She bent to receive the first of the forty lashes. But just as the whip was coming down, he placed his body on her frail one, and took the beating he had sentenced her with.
There is an escape from the horrible judgments Paul is predicting. Jesus took your punishment Himself. The forty lashes. Crucifixion. Shame. He is the escape.
This bit of good news as we go back into the difficult legal case Paul is bringing against humanity.
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2:4
“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness…”
Paul is still addressing hypocritical judges here, and in much of the chapter. In Paul’s thinking, and we believe he is being guided by the Spirit, this judging thing is very serious, worse than all the sexual perversion he mentions in chapter one. It is the blindness of the Pharisee.
Mankind is so unaware of the love of God. Have you considered lately the riches of His goodness? His crestotes. His moral excellence, whether speaking of His character (goodness) or His demeanor (kindness). Roll it all up into one. Because God is good in Himself, He is kind to us. How?
He made us a planet. A stunning universe. A body that could delight in it. A job to do. A purpose. And when we stumbled, He provided a way out of the darkness we created. But men “despised” that goodness. This is not the despising of hatred, rather it means to “think against.” To esteem lightly.
God is good. God is kind. But I am my own person. If He wants to be good and kind, let Him, but don’t let Him bother me. His goodness and kindness is not that important to me. Anyway, good and kind people are weak people. Give me a tough hard person that I can relate to. Oh, you’ll get that Person. If you despise His kindness long enough, the other Person will show up in your life.
Macarthur turns to Hosea here, and I follow him there, in one of my favorite passages of the prophets. Listen to a Daddy talking about His kid, to whom He was so kind and good (Hosea 11:1 and following):
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son… I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms… they did not know that I healed them…”
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See how it works? God is good and God is kind and we lightly esteem His goodness. Forcing Him to punishment: … the Assyrian shall be his king because they refused to repent.
“…forbearance…”
Mankind has also despised the forbearance of God. Forbearance is the holding back of judgment. Longsuffering. As Macarthur says, like a truce. The war is not over, but I’m stopping hostilities for the moment. North and South Korea, you must know, are still at war. But there’s been a decades-long truce, which either side can break at any moment.
In humanity’s case, we break the truce constantly. We despise, we lightly esteem this incredible power of God to take abuse from us. We assume that God’s holding back means everything is OK now. God has gone soft. It’s all been swept under the rug.
Then a bomb drops, or a destructive hurricane comes, and we realize God is trying to get our attention, letting us know that his forbearance won’t be forever. That if we do not repent, we will all likewise perish.
“… and longsuffering…”
What is the difference between God “holding back” and God being “longsuffering” or “patient”? This last word has to do with the length of both of the first words. He is kind for a long time. He is good for a long time. He holds back for a long time.
“…not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”
I love to tell my own story of an answered prayer, when I was a little boy. I knew nothing of God and salvation. But I did know that I missed my daddy. He was gone and I wanted to hear from him. He seldom called and
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when he did, it was to talk to my sister. I never understood until a couple of years ago why I was not favored at home.
Someone suggested I try God, so I did. Totally selfishly I went to God asking for me. No praise and worship, no thanksgiving, no blood of Jesus, just, God, if you are really there, let me hear from my dad tonight. And I did. And I knew there was a God. That He answered prayer. That He cared about me. Was I saved? Not at all, and my life continued to show it, but this goodness of God was one of the steps that eventually led me to salvation.
Paul says, look around. Look inside. Look at all the ways God has shown His goodness to the human race. His kindness to you. Man, you are alive and well and strong and on and on… But you have looked down on those gifts. You have taken them all for granted. You assumed that you deserved it all, and when something was removed you were angry, like all those things belonged to you.
What you did not understand is that God was being good to you so you would love Him, desire Him. So you would take a look at your life and see if it measured up to what God was wanting from you, which you never even bothered to find out.
So God keeps doing good things in the earth to bring people to Himself. The greatest thing He does is continue to send out His Gospel message into all the world. For, though we will not get through the book of Romans without being strong believers in the doctrine of election, there is another truth that must be set right next to that teaching, that God so loved the world. That He is not willing in His heart of hearts that any should perish. Though He had and has a plan to choose, He has a heart to save, to love. Do you believe that God created Adam with a desire to see him fall into sin and destroy all the goodness of the human race?
Let the tension continue, as Macarthur calls it elsewhere, between the all- consuming love of God for His creatures, and the choosing of some to
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salvation. “Whosoever will may come”. But, “Chosen from the foundation of the world.”
Back to Romans 2.
Follow his thought. Judges, hypocrites, stop it. You are all sinners, and all men deserve the inescapable judgment of God, and you are wrong to so lightly esteem what God has done for you to bring you to repentance, out of His great love. Here’s where all that leads:
2:5
“But in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath…”
Sinners who are not repentant are said to have a hard heart. An unrepentant heart. The goodness of God was meant to break that hardness and bring you to Himself, but your heart is still hard. The Greek here is sklerotes from whom we get “sclerosis”, a hardening of the arteries. It’s a term I have lived with for many years. My own arteries are narrow, and can clog up and get hard.
Hardening of the arteries, as Macarthur says, can bring a person to the grave. Hardening of the spiritual heart will send a person to hell.
Don’t let your heart get hard. Don’t lay up treasures in hell. You see how Paul, possibly, was using Jesus’ own terminology here? Remember Jesus told us not to lay up treasures on earth, but to lay up treasures in Heaven?
When you love the things of this present world and go after them, your spiritual heart grows harder every day to the things of God. After a while you are not even interested in reading your Bible or praying or showing up at church. That’s not old age. That’s hardness of heart. Many old
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people keep reading and praying and fellowshipping, because they have guarded their heart against the treasures of earth.
That treasure that is mounting up, those houses and lands and cars ands boats and clothes, may look nice here, but in fact if you could see the label on each package of stuff you have stored up, it says, “Subject to the wrath of God.” You thought you were storing up goods for yourself and your family, but you were storing up God’s eternal anger instead.
(Of course, caring for your own in the normal way is not the issue here, but gathering to yourself more than you actually need.)
“…in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
God has not balanced the books yet. Jesus took the punishment for “whosoever believes in Him” John 3:16. The rest of the world has decided they will bear their own judgment. They don’t need Jesus. They don’t need His kindness and goodness and patience. They are going to go it alone. The Scriptures are explicit about what is coming to them. Let me remind you of them, starting with the prophets.
Isaiah 66:15, 16, 23-24. “For behold the Lord will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury and His rebuke with flames of fire, for by fire and by His sword the Lord will judge all flesh… and from one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come to worship before Me… and they shall go forth and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, and their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Jeremiah 30:6-7. “… why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great so that none is like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s trouble…”
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Ezekiel 39:21. “I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them.”
Daniel 12: “…And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time… and many of those who sleep in the dust shall awake… some to shame and everlasting contempt…”
Joel 2:1-2, 11. “…the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand. A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness… strong is the One Who executes His Word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can endure it?”
Amos 5:18-20. “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, and not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him… is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?”
Micah 1:2-4. “Listen, O earth, and all that is in it! Let the Lord be a witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple. For behold the Lord is coming out of His place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. The mountains will melt under Him, and the valleys will split like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.”
Nahum 1:2,5,6. “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges; The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies… the mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth heaves at His presence, yes, all the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before His indignation? And who can endure the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.”
Zephaniah 1:14-17. “The great day of the Lord is near [notice imminence, by the way, even in Old Testament speaking of the coming of Christ!] It is
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near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm… I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like refuse.”
Haggai 2:6-7. “For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once more I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land, and I will shake all nations…”
Zechariah 14:1-6. “Behold the day of the Lord is coming… I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken… then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations… it shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light…”
Malachi 4:1. “For behold the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up…”
Do you get the impression that these Old Testament prophets had a prophets meeting and all decided to say the same thing in their various ministries? No, for the most part these men never met, nor did they, for the most part, read each other’s writings. Sovereignly, individually, the Lord put His own word inside their mouths, they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit unanimously spoke a word of judgment on this planet, equal to the sin outlined by Paul in chapter 1.
But, you say, that’s Old Testament. God’s in a good mood now. He’s changed from that angry style of the past. Wrong.
It is right to say that Christ has turned away God’s wrath from us. Romans will make that clear. But “us” is not everyone. For most of the earth’s people, past and present, and future, the judgment is still coming. If not,
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there’s some New Testament characters and writers who didn’t get the memo: Let’s start with Jesus Himself:
Mark 9:42-44. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched – where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”
Luke 21. Speaking of the time of Tribulation, Jesus says, “… these are the days of vengeance… there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.”
Revelation 3. To the Laodicean church, which is still with us today and has been, all through church history: “… because you are lukewarm… I will vomit you out of My mouth…”
Revelation 6:15-16. When Jesus returns in judgment, look at the reaction of all kinds of men, “… they hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him Who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.”
Revelation 19:15. “And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations… He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
The day of judgment is coming! Listen now to Paul and Peter and Jude:
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12. “… God will send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth…”
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Romans 9:22. “God [the potter] wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.”
2 Peter 3:7. “the heavens and the earth… are now reserved for fire, until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
Jude 23. “… others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire…”
And that final awful scene in Revelation, 20:11-15. “.. I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it… I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God… and the dead were judged according to their works… Death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire… anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire…”
We are premillennial. We believe Jesus comes before the Millennium, takes up His own, and sets them before His own judgment seat, to give them rewards. The scene I just read to you is post-millennial. The millennium is over. Now the resurrection of damnation that Jesus spoke of. The great Day of Judgment.
There will be judgment and wrath when Jesus comes. There will be judgment and wrath during the Tribulation. And there will be judgment and wrath on this last encounter with a very angry God.
The Book has not changed. Paul is right. There is a “day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”
God will be proved to be right and good and holy. Never will that question arise again when all this judgment is finished. No one will doubt who has the right to rule the world. No one will lift a voice against God or any of His people in that day. The world will be turned right-side up, and what God had in mind from all eternity will be the norm. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, the prayer that millions of believers have prayed countless times, will be answered. And Jesus shall reign, as Watts wrote,
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“where’er the sun doth its successive journeys run.
“His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more.”
2:6
“who will render to each one according to his deeds.”
Those who are not reading the KJV here will note that that verse is in italics and quotes. Paul is using the Old Testament here, as he will often. I was struck with just how many verses in the Bible say this same thing.
Let’s take a look. This concept is very important as we transition to another concept in Romans, namely the two classes of people in the world. We’ve been talking about mankind as one huge class called sinners. But for the first time, Paul suggests that there are really two classes, and he uses this popular saying to introduce it. He is telling us the basis for the two classes of people. For those of us who believe in the grace of God, this concept may come as a shock, but it is all over the Bible.
Job 34:11. “…He repays man according to his work…” (Elihu)
Psalm 62:12. “… to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; for You render to each one according to his work.”
Proverbs 24:12. “…will He not render to each man according to his deeds?”
Jeremiah 32:19. “You… give everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Ezekiel 33:20. “O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways.”
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Matthew 16:27. “The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.”
John 5:28-29. “… all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
Revelation 2:23, to the church in Thyatira, “I will give to each one of you according to your works.”
Revelation 20:12, “… and the dead were judged according to their works…”
I confess that Romans 2 gave me pause for a while. And if you are not saturated with Romans 1, Romans 2 will cause you some problems, too. Romans 1, as elsewhere in the letter, condemns every man and woman to eternal damnation, because all sin.
But now there are two groups. You mean there are people who aren’t so bad after all, and they get to go to Heaven? Where is salvation in this chapter? Where is grace and faith? They are coming later, and they are clear.
But Paul is giving us in chapter 2 the basis upon which God will judge all men, saved or not. And that basis is your works.
So we are saved by works? No! We are judged by works. It’s such a critical distinction. And that distinction is brought out in Ephesians and Philippians. We learn that we are His workmanship. Then we learn that we, believers, were created for good works. He made us in Christ with the very purpose of producing good deeds. Philippians tells us we are to work out our salvation, because it is God working in us.
You did not get saved by doing any work. How can a corpse bring itself to life? But when you were given that new life, it immediately started you on
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a path of good works. Most of you wanted to do something right away, so you got baptized to show there was some new life in there. Other things followed, you knew not how. You started giving. You started showing up whenever the church doors were opened. You started loving that cantankerous member of your family or neighborhood. All things became new, from within.
God had literally written His ways on your heart, as he promised He would do, through Jeremiah. Not just reading a book and trying real hard, but staying in touch with God and following those new inner desires.
Since God gave us these works, He can judge us on the basis of these works. And that is the basis of all judgment of all men. Works.
Not saved by works. Not earning God’s favor by trying so hard. Saved by grace. But when all is said and done, God will not be looking at your words, but your works. Remember Matthew 7, a frightening word to many. Not those who call Jesus “Lord,” but those who practice God’s ways, will be entering the Kingdom.
I encourage you to read your Bible carefully. It would be so easy to dive into chapter 2 without looking and hit your head on a rocky passage that could hurt you for a long time. God give us grace to “sneak up” on troublesome passages. Read the context! Slowly let God unfold every thought surrounding the difficulty. Here is the progression of Romans 1 and 2:
Men are sinners. All men are going to be judged. And the basis of that judgment will be the fruit they produced with their lives. Paul does not tell us here how that fruit came to be. That will be in later chapters. But write it down: No deeds, trouble.
Let him spell it out more in the verses to come. He starts with the good deeds that God will be looking for. Isn’t it wonderful that the answers for the test are spelled out? The test is your life. A final evaluation, a final
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grade, is coming. Here’s what you do to get a passing grade, and please understand, you can’t do any of this without Christ being in your heart… So if I paint a picture that seems impossible to you, check your heart to see if Christ really lives there. What Paul is about to say is not a heavy thing for the born again, but it is very heavy for the lost, or at least those who have backslidden seriously. Let’s see who needs to repent even tonight…
2:7
“Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good…”
As in the Greek, the King James has “eternal life” last, so we will deal with that later. It’s the reward for the behavior that is being spelled out.
Here’s the requirement, produced by the Spirit in us as we are led by that Spirit: You’ve got to do good, and keep doing good. All the time.
Perseverance. Continuing every day, moment by moment. Doing good. He doesn’t tell us what good is, but we know. Loving one another. Caring for people. Being faithful to read the Word, pray, stay in church fellowship.
Giving. Worshiping.
At first glance this verse seems to be a no-brainer and an obvious sentiment. But look again. Paul is saying, you must be perfect to get to heaven. Didn’t Jesus say that? You will be perfect as My Father in Heaven, right? When we confess our sins, God perfects us. If we sin again, He forgives us again. Sin is not going to get into heaven. Get rid of sin by His holiness and His forgiveness. Yes, the righteous will scarcely be saved.
Some will be lax in their repenting, and God will have to let them in by the skin of their teeth. Others will be constantly being filled with the Holy Spirit.
You say, I’ll be like that former person. I’ll just sin a little, repent a little. If that is your attitude, there’s a possibility you are not saved to begin with. God’s true people do not think like that. But some of God’s people do fall
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into sin and gratefully accept God’s forgiveness. They don’t keep doing that, but it does happen.
An unsaved person who hangs around church says, I’m just as good as the rest of these folks. I’ll just do what they do, and God has to save me. No He doesn’t. God saves those who call on His name and repent of all their sins. Some of you need to repent for the first time.
“… seek for glory, honor, and immortality.”
The way the verse is worded, we must understand it to say this: If you are a person who does good all the time, it is evidence that you are looking for some things that the world is not looking for. What is the world looking for? Money. Earthly security. Self-indulgence, happiness. Fun.
Power. What is the true child of God looking for, as evidenced by his constant doing of good works? Paul mentions three things.
Glory. Not self-praise as the world seeks. “I did something great, look at me!” And not, in this passage, I think, God’s glory, although it is connected. There’s another glory we are seeking. 2 Corinthians 4:7 tells us that the light afflictions we are bearing are producing a weight of glory beyond anything we can imagine. Aren’t you hoping for that glory?
Philippians 3 talks of the time when Jesus will come and transform our vile bodies in such a way that they will look and act like the glorious body of Jesus.
Jesus prayed to the Father about His disciples in John 17, and said that the glory given to Christ was given to the apostles. When we do good works we are seeking that glory of Father and Son to be manifested in us by the Spirit.
Honor. Jesus said to the Pharisees, I do not receive honor from men. Oh, every knee shall bow to Jesus one day. They will praise and honor Him. But no matter what we give Him, supposedly, it does not increase His
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supply of honor. Jesus doesn’t get more honorable when we honor Him. He cannot.
Those who do good works are seeking a similar honor. If you receive honor from men, you’ll find it fades away in a few days. Even the greatest of the athletes get bored with life after a while, no matter what victories they have won. Politicians soon find that all the attention wasn’t worth it as their lives are subject to the media and corruption of evil men. What honor are we seeking?
The honor of hearing Jesus say to us one day, Well done, good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful, I have more work for you to do now. Good job! Jesus imparts His honor to us, and that sticks. Aren’t you looking for His well done?
Immortality. You who are doing good deeds every day are hoping for immortality. One day this mortal body which keeps falling apart and eventually stopping altogether, will be transformed into a body that will never die, never even catch a cold. This is not the end; we’ve only just begun.
That immortal body will need a place to be. That’s what we call eternal life. There’s been some confusion about this over the years. “Existence” and “life” are not the same. The unsaved are going to exist forever in torment and experiencing God’s wrath. But they have not been given eternal life. They live in constant death.
Death does not mean, I’m unconscious and unaware, out cold. Death in the Bible is separation. God said, in the day you eat of that fruit you will die. They ate. Their bodies existed on for 900 years, but they were separated on that day from God. Their bodies finally ran out of human life in what we call death, the visible death.
But invisible death is all around us. Before you were saved, the apostle says you were dead in your sins. You needed life to make you aware of
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your need of God. God in His graciousness gave you that life and you were born again.
The old Adamic part of you is going to the grave because of the curse in Eden. But you are going on. If Christ is in you now, you actually have that eternal life in you already. It’s not about time, it’s about the essence of the life principle, which is God Himself. If God lives in you, you can never be in death, or separation, again. Didn’t the apostle say that, “I am persuaded that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ”? Nothing!
1 John 5:20 says that to know Jesus is to know God and to know God is eternal life. Not just “has it” but is it.
This is the eternal life that is given to those who are always doing good, and therefore are looking for immortality, looking for honor that comes only from God, glory that comes only from God.
But there is that other class…
2:8
“but to those who are self-seeking (contentious) and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness…”
Not sure where the newer translations came up with “self-seeking” although the idea is remotely related? KJV has it right, literally “of contention.” In regards to the truth, they are in disagreement. What a description of our modern America. Come up with a truth, and half the country and more is “in contention” ready to argue against it.
Wrong to kill babies? Those aren’t babies, those are products of pregnancy.
Wrong to be intimate with the same gender? Not at all. Man must be free to love whom he will.
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The Bible is enough? No, God is still talking. We need a new translation, we’ll call it the “New World” Translation for this new world we are in. No, God is still talking, we need a different book altogether, maybe more.
Joseph Smith has found such a book for us latter day saints. No, God is still talking. And by the same angel that announced Jesus, He talked to Muhammad and gave him the correct revelation. No, God is still talking, we need prophecies and tongues and revelations from Heaven to guide us. The old Book is not enough. We contend! We are contentious.
Every sin imaginable is contended for by a lost person. They must justify everything. And their arguments are against the truth; they will not obey the truth.
So what do they obey? If a wife does not obey her husband, who does she obey? If children do not obey their parents, whom do they obey? If a man will not obey the truth, what does he obey? Unrighteousness. Notice that truth is the opposite of unrighteousness. When you obey lies instead of the truth, you are in league with the father of all lies, the Devil, the lawless one, the epitome of unrighteousness. Lying, self-deceit and deceiving others is at the heart of evil.
What is coming to these people? The answer to that is split up into two verses but should be just one awful list. Here is what a liar, a contender for sin, a justifier of sin, an unrepentant sinner, an unrighteous person, can expect:
“… indignation and wrath,
2:9
“tribulation and anguish…”
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They are given as two pairs of curses, thus the verse division. Each word demands a closer look, as we tend to overlook words we hear a lot in the Bible. I use research from Macarthur here.
Indignation. Thumos. Passion. Fierceness. It’s the passion of the pursuer of an enemy while outraged. You just killed a member of my family.
You’re going to die. I’ll come after you until you have paid for this.
Pharaoh had this fierce passion in regard to Moses, Hebrews 11:27. The Jews in the synagogue of Nazareth were roused with passion as the man in front of them claimed to be a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They were going to throw Him over a cliff. Paul ran into thumos when the idol merchants of Ephesus challenged his right to preach an idol-free God.
Mankind, you have challenged Almighty God. He’s coming after you. You can get rid of your sins in an instant now, but reject this Jesus and you will see the indignation of God, His rightful hatred of your sin.
Wrath. Indignation coupled with wrath. Fury. Extreme anger. No more mercy. No more grace. It’s over. The Lamb has become the Lion. The gentle Jesus meek and mild will tread out the vengeance of God on a rebellious people. Don’t forget Noah. Don’t forget Lot. Don’t forget Nebuchadnezzar and Antiochus Epiphanes and Titus the Roman Commander. Vengeance is coming.
Tribulation. Didn’t get the message yet? Tribulation, pressure. Affliction. Anguish. Persecution. The early church received this. The saints in general, who did not deserve it, received it. How much more those who do deserve it by their lying against the truth? This is the word used in Revelation 14 to describe the crushing of the grapes of wrath at Armageddon.
Distress. Stenochoria. A narrow place. Came to mean confinement. Some say this is the very worst form of punishment. Cut my head off and I’m gone, it’s over. Stick a sword in my belly, shoot me in the head, I’m done.
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Goodbye world, hello Jesus. But put me in a cell all by myself, with just a few feet to move in, and no possible hope of release. That’s distress. And that’s what’s coming.
Eternal hell will be the confinement of all confinements. Locked in place. No hope of escape. No Savior to say, you can come out now, your God has rescued you, Daniel, Shadrach, Mescach, Abednego. Jeremiah, it was horrible down in that pit, but it’s over now, come on up. Here, I’ll pull you with this rope. None of that. Confined forever. That’s distress.
This is what the lost have to look forward to. Can we do something to help them?
“…on every soul of man who does evil…”
Any exceptions here tonight? Anyone who has never done evil? Aren’t you glad you’re safe tonight? Have you come into Christ and Christ into you? Then you are indeed safe from this very angry God who is coming to judge the earth.
“… of the Jew first and also of the Greek.” (Gentile)
First, the chosen people. Amos 3:2, Macarthur brings out, and this is a tough one, speaking to Israel, from God Himself:
“You only have I known, or chosen, of all the families of the earth…”
Think of it. How many people groups, nations, families, societies are there in the world? Abraham himself was called out of a pagan nation-empire to be God’s special person. Isaac, Jacob, Judah. The people Israel, called out of Egypt by God’s mighty hand, brought by miracle after miracle to the land that shall be forever theirs, though Israel may have to be re-defined.
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Has there ever been a nation like Israel, ever been a people like the Jews? Absolutely not. And we can weep with Jesus as we hear the rest of Amos 3:2,
“Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities…”
B-b-b-ut God is love, He doesn’t punish. Use another word. The Bible I have says punish. Let me look that up to be sure I read it right (Merriam- Webster):
“to impose a penalty on for a fault, offense, or violation. To inflict a penalty for the commission of an offense in retribution or retaliation…”
Grandpas don’t punish. They give candy and cash. Fathers, good ones, punish. Oh how God- Jesus – loved Israel. The tears are real. And so is the punishment. Jacob’s trouble is coming. We call it the Tribulation. The entire world will suffer because of Jacob’s sins. Many of Israel will be saved after that.
Well, at least we Gentiles are off the hook! No, just wait your turn. The Jew is first, not only. After the Jewish Tribulation, here comes King Jesus, the Jew. The Jew of all Jews. He’s on a mission. He’s riding a white horse. You see Him? Eyes like fire, robe dipped in blood, sword coming out of His mouth. See Him? What’s He doing? He’s striking the nations. The Gentiles. Oh, His church is with Him, safe and sound at that time, but the nations are being trodden down by this conquering King. Trodden down in the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
Oh yes, to be sure, the Jew first. The Jew received the first call, the first revelation, the Scriptures, the prophets, the Messiah, the Gospel, the first church. With responsibility like that they must have first judgment for rejecting it all. But the Gentiles will be a close second, for they too rejected the revelation given to them and suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.
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Of course, that’s not the whole story. Remember, there is a class of people in the world, a third force, if you will, that will receive
