Romans 2:1 - 2:10

Romans — Steve Gregg

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Romans 2:1 - 2:10

RomansSteve Gregg

The second chapter of Romans continues the previous chapter's description of a sinful society, establishing universal guilt for both Jews and Gentiles. The concept of Gentile guilt is controversial, and instead, Paul focuses on establishing Jewish guilt, bringing Jewish listeners to the realization that they are no better than Gentiles. God's justice and judgment are emphasized, with the understanding that God gives people the opportunity to repent before judging them. Believing in Jesus is important, but faith without works is dead.

Transcript

Now we're going to take Romans chapter 2 this morning, and before we actually get into chapter 2, since it begins with the word therefore, it's obvious that chapter 2 is not the starting point of a flow of thought. It's a conclusion to certain premises. And we talked about what the premises were yesterday when we were talking about chapter 1, and I just want to say again so we won't be forgetful of that, that chapter 1 was describing an utterly sinful society.

And as I mentioned, I have a slightly different take, or maybe a significantly different take than what we often encounter among commentators on Romans, because it is commonly thought that in Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul is respectively speaking about the sin of the Gentiles, the sin of the Jews, and then the sins of both Jews and Gentiles, and therefore simply establishing a case for universal guilt. Now, I don't disagree that Paul is establishing a case for universal guilt. My position though is that he doesn't have to waste any time establishing the concept of Gentile guilt.

This was never controversial. Gentiles who were not Christians were pagans. They did horrendous things, things that any moral person informed by either Judaism or Christianity would condemn.

Paul does not have to write to Christians and somehow convince them that the Gentiles need to be implicated. They are implicated by default just because paganism is so gross. So Paul didn't really have to establish pagan guilt or Gentile guilt, and I don't believe that's what he wrote chapter 1 to do.

I think he can count on his readers knowing about that. What he cannot count on them understanding is that there is an equal amount of Jewish guilt, that the Jews are not really, as a race, superior to Gentiles. They are different in that they were given the law, and that was a privilege they had that the Gentiles did not have.

They are distinguished from Gentiles, but only in certain ritual ways, especially circumcision. These are not the things that count most to God, and they certainly do not predict one's moral behavior because a circumcised man may be just as evil in his conduct and thoughts as an uncircumcised man. And we, of course, that seems obvious to us, and it probably would seem obvious to anyone who thought carefully about it even then, but among the Jews that was not simply the way their thoughts ran.

They believed that being circumcised put them in a category that gave them favorable status with God over those who were not circumcised. And therefore I have argued that chapter 1 really is Paul's way of ramping up to an argument for Jewish guilt, that he is given a description of a very depraved society. He has not said which society he is talking about.

Because he has been unspecific, his Jewish readers likely to think he is talking about the Gentiles, and therefore to have one's guard down, to be able to look objectively at what Paul is saying. He says, yes, I agree, you are truly describing people worthy of judgment, worthy of God's wrath, but them not knowing that what he is really describing is the Jewish people. Not that his description would be unfitting for Gentiles, because Gentiles are just as bad as Jews, but that is not something he needed to establish or convince anybody about.

And actually the description he gives is less applicable to Gentiles in some respects than it is to Jews, because the people he describes began with the knowledge of God. They knew God, and they did not want to remember God, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible of God, and God gave them over to eventually a debased mind. These facts are documented in the Old Testament in the very same language as being true of the Jews, and in some respects they are not quite as true as the Gentiles.

Now, in all fairness to the other position, there is another way to look at that and to suggest that this is talking about the human race as a whole. This is not the way I understand Paul's argument, but one could argue that the human race as a whole once did know God, if we go back at least to the days of Noah. Noah and his family were the whole human race after the Flood, and everyone in the human race came from them.

And one could certainly say that the whole human race, if you go back far enough to the time immediately after the Flood, the whole human race did know God, and it was after that that they did begin to make idols and did form pagan religions and so forth. And so it is possible, even for this suggestion that they knew God and departed from Him, it's not talking about the current generation of pagans, but of the human race, if you go back far enough, once had the knowledge of God. And by the way, although I don't think that's what Paul is saying, it would be, of course, correct, and it can be even, in some respects, demonstrated to be correct that the whole human race once knew God, if we go back to the time of Noah.

Now, until the time that God appeared to Abraham, it would appear that all, or all that we know of, of the Gentiles were polytheists, and Abraham was a monotheist. It was their monotheism, or the belief in one God, that set Abraham's family apart. I'm not saying there were no other monotheists.

Zoroaster had arguably been monotheistic, though that's arguable, too. But the thing is that polytheism, the idea that there are many gods and they can be represented by images and so forth, was essentially universal Gentile, universal pagan worldview. But how did it get to be that way? Well, it started out better than that.

You know, there are different forms of ancient and current religious thought, different worldviews, including the most, what is usually called the most primitive, the tribal peoples, in the most primitive, as we would say, societies. Those who live in remote jungle areas, not in touch with what we would call civilized man, that is, Western civilization or even Asian civilization, but in the jungles of the Amazon or of Africa or the aboriginals of Australia or other places where there are people who have not really been affected by modern culture. The common religion of these groups, these tribal groups, by default, is what we call animism.

Animism is simply, it's not so much a distinctive belief in God or gods as it is the belief that there are spirits in everything, spirits in the trees, spirits in the rocks. The making of images simply is trying to draw visually out of a rock the spiritual entity that is in there. And so there's sort of a worship of nature and a superstition and a fear of spirits that are in the sea and in the volcano and in the trees and in the rocks and in the dirt and in the plants and so forth, in the caves.

There's spirits everywhere. This is considered by modern sociologists to be a very ancient primitive form of religion. It is assumed that the first humans that evolved from apes, among those who believe that humans evolved from apes, that they also evolved religious ideas beginning with animism, the idea that there's a spirit in things.

Then eventually these spirits began to be personified more as deities and so eventually there was another ancient form of religion called polytheism, many gods. And then it developed from that point to henotheism. Henotheism, H-E-N-O, theism, is the belief that there may be many gods but each nation has its own primary god.

And this was the view that dominated the Middle East in Abraham's time and in much of the Old Testament time. Each nation had their own national gods but they believed the other nation's gods were real, they just weren't theirs. There were lots of gods but each nation had its own sponsor god and that Yahweh was the sponsor god of Israel.

That's the way the unbelievers outside of Israel, the pagans, looked at Israel and Yahweh. They believed that Yahweh was a real god for sure but he was just their god. We have Bel, we have Dagon, we have Chemosh, we have Baal, we have Nebo or whatever, these different gods that the pagans had.

Each had their own tribal or national gods and they just considered Yahweh was the national god of Israel. This is a developing form of polytheism where they still believe there's many gods but are beginning to narrow it down to individual gods, single gods for single nations. That's called henotheism.

And it is believed by sociologists that then as religion evolved further, henotheism gave way to monotheism, that the god of one nation, Yahweh, came to be seen as the only god. And this would seem to be agreeable with the whole elitist idea of the Jews anyway. The god of our nation is the only god that is.

He's the god of the whole world. So this is how secular sociologists have tracked the evolution of religion, beginning with primitive religion of animism, moving in the direction of polytheism, henotheism, and then monotheism which they consider the most modern development in religious thought. And this is an evolutionary view of religion, of the history of religion.

The Bible gives the opposite position. The oldest view is the monotheistic view. Adam and Eve believed in one god.

Noah and his family believed in one god. All nations, all people came from Adam and Eve initially and more recently all came from Noah and his family, which means Noah and his three sons were monotheists and any other forms of religion are degenerate forms of religion. There has not been evolution but devolution.

And some would use Romans 1 to establish that. It says they knew God but then they didn't want to know God so they replaced him with idols and other gods. And so this would certainly follow a biblical and true history of how religion evolved.

It changed from a knowledge of the true God in the times of Noah until eventually there were lots of degenerate forms of religion. Now again, I believe that that is the true story of the history of religion but I don't believe that's what Paul's talking about. And this is what I have to get across because when I debunk a popular view of a passage, I'm not necessarily trying to say that what was supported by those who saw that view, I'm not saying that what they were believing is wrong, I'm saying that the passage in question is not talking about that.

At least I don't think it is. And so as I pointed out, the specific language scattered throughout chapter 1 seems to deliberately depict Paul's aim at the Jewish listener and to bring the Jewish listener to the point of recognizing that they are not better than the Gentiles. The Gentiles may very well have followed a course similar to what is in chapter 1 but the point Paul's making is so did the Jews.

And that's the most important fact to his point because he says in chapter 2 verse 1, therefore you, and we shall find in verse 17 of chapter 2 that you means you Jews, you the Jew. You see he says in verse 17, indeed you are called Jew. So he now turns to the Jewish reader and he says now you are inexcusable, oh man, whoever you are who judge.

For in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself because you who judge, as you Jews, practice the same things as the Gentiles do. And that's the point he's been making. And he could not begin chapter 2 with the word therefore unless he had been talking about them in chapter 1. He could say if he had been talking about the Gentiles in chapter 1, he could start chapter 2 with the word additionally.

He could have talked about the Gentiles in chapter 1 and in chapter 2 he could say and in addition to that you Jews have done the same things. But he doesn't say that. He says therefore.

In other words, my conclusion based upon what we have just seen and which I'm sure you agreed with me about, my conclusion is you Jews are as guilty as anybody and that wouldn't be true unless chapter 1 had described them. Therefore is the conclusion of an argument. And if the conclusion is that the Jews are guilty as Gentiles then the argument that preceded it must have been making that point.

Now I want to say before we go entirely from chapter 1 that I mentioned in our introduction when it comes to reading Paul's letters we want to follow his train of thought and know what he's getting at and so forth but there's also indicators and hints in the way he'll word things as to what his opinions are about certain other peripheral thoughts. We give ourselves away all the time when we're talking at length about something. Incidental points we make the way we say something.

Tells someone who might not have known what we probably think about some other things that we're not specifically discussing because in the process of discussing one thing certain comments have relevance to other subjects. And since Romans has been such a treasure trove of proof texts for certain theological camps and so leaned heavily upon by those who want to establish their theological views even though this is not Paul's primary focus I would like to just point out that those who take the Calvinist view of what's called total depravity use chapter 1 of Romans and chapter 3 of Romans as favorite passages not their only passages but favorite passages to prove total depravity. Now what is total depravity? I just need to familiarize you what I'm referring to here.

Calvinism sometimes its distinctives are distilled into an acrostic which is the word tulip. T-U-L-I-P. Each of these letters in tulip is the first letter in a concept which is part of the distinctive of the Calvinist system.

The T stands for total depravity. The U stands for unconditional election. The L stands for limited atonement.

The I stands for irresistible grace and the P stands for perseverance of the saints. And basically this makes a logical sequence beginning with the T it logically follows that the U, L, I, P are correct too if the T is correct. If total depravity is correct as it is understood in the system then unconditional election must be true because some people certainly are saved and how in the world would anyone be saved if total depravity is true? God must have chosen to save some people and done so unconditionally because the total depravity of man is so great that they could meet no conditions however simple that God might lay out.

If God had said I will save everyone who can close one eye, who can rub their stomach and pat their head at the same time. Okay well in the Calvinist system if that was the requirement then men couldn't do it because total depravity means they cannot do anything that God would require for salvation. So God must save people without reference to any conditions, without one man being different than another man.

He just chooses one, taking nothing into account inside the person. That's called unconditional election. Limited atonement teaches that Jesus only died for the elect.

The atonement was not for everybody it was for only the ones that God had unconditionally elected. The I, irresistible grace, teaches that once God has elected you and Jesus has died for you, you are irresistibly drawn to God. It is inevitable.

One could call it not irresistible grace but inevitable salvation if you wanted to because the idea is that now God has chosen you and he's sovereign. He gets whatever he wants. He's going to draw and no one can resist his drawing.

Those who are elect will be saved. They cannot help it and nobody else can be because everyone else is totally depraved. And then the P stands for perseverance of the Saints which simply means if you're one of the elect and God is irresistibly drawn you, you'll persevere to the end.

You'll never fall away and you'll you're not only saved at the moment of conversion you're saved forever and ever and nothing will ever change that because God had determined that before the foundation of the world. Now all of this is necessarily true if the first point is true. The first point is total depravity and total depravity doesn't just mean universal sinfulness.

If you had asked me when I was growing up in the Baptist Church do you believe in total depravity I would have said of course because I would have thought that means everybody's sinful, everybody's depraved, the whole human race is depraved and needs grace. No one can be saved by their own righteousness, their own goodness. I would have said of course and I would still say of course if that's what I understood total depravity to be because I do believe in universal sinfulness.

I do believe in universal unworthiness. I believe that everyone needs grace. I believe that doctrine.

What I don't necessarily believe are the special features of the doctrine as Calvinists describe it and total depravity to the Calvinist view is this. When people are born they are born enemies, sworn enemies of God and dead spiritually so dead that they cannot do one thing positive in the direction of God. They cannot believe, they cannot repent, nothing can induce them to do that because they are totally by nature enemies of God.

It's not that it's psychologically impossible to repent it's that it goes against their grain so much they can't repent any more than a leopard could change his spots and so they say there's no possible way that God could save anyone based on the choices they make because all the choices a totally depraved person make are the choices of a spiritually dead person who can't do anything that would bring them to life and so they believe that such things as repentance and faith which in fact do bring about salvation and they acknowledge that they say that God produces the repentance and faith. The totally depraved person has no resources with himself to do that. God has to say I've chosen to save you so I'm going to give you repentance and faith.

I have not chosen to save you so I will not give you repentance of faith and you will never do it. You can't ever repent of belief because I'm not giving it to you. In other words the only player in this game is God.

There is no respondent. There's no responsible person who is given a choice about whether they will be saved or not. Now Calvinists often say well we are given a choice but our choices are limited to those which God has already chosen for us which is just a lot of double talk.

The question is am I saved because God decided before I was born that I would be saved and all the choices I made that seemed to save me are all they were all pre-planned I didn't make them freely I just following the script or did I really have something to say about it those are the only two choices. If God made the choice before I was born I really didn't have anything to say about it although there might be the appearance of choices I'm making every one of them has been pre-planned and pre-choreographed before I was ever born. I'm just doing the script and I'm like a they would refuse to say I'm a puppet or a robot they don't like those images but what else is it if I'm programmed to do a certain thing and I can't do anything else okay object to the word robot if you want to but I can't think of a better word for it object to the word puppet if you want to the Calvinists do not like to be characterized as saying that God's a puppet master they don't like that but however little they like it their system demands it if God has ordained every move I'm gonna make and everything I'm gonna say and think maybe I'm not literally a puppet but I'm no better than a puppet and so this is the popular this is Reformation theology this is something that Calvin popularized though Luther believed it too before Calvin a generation earlier and Augustine before that and those who teach this need to first establish total depravity that is that every human being is under the wrath of God because every human being hates God now where do you find scriptures that say that about every human being well I don't believe you do among the favorite texts they use are those in chapter 3 which we will look at later when we go through the chapter 3 where Paul quotes six passages from the Old Testament about how nasty people are but Paul himself tells us what he's doing with these quotes and what he intends to prove and what he is not necessarily trying to prove and we'll wait until we get to chapter 3 to go back into that I've given you a preview of that I think in a previous chat previous lecture but chapter 1 is also seen as a proof of total depravity I was debating a fairly well-known Calvinist on my radio show some years ago and I said could you give me a proof text for total depravity and he gave me among others but this is the main one Romans chapter 1 verse 18 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness I said but does that say that all people suppress the truth and unrighteousness it doesn't say God's wrath is against all people it says his wrath is against all those who suppress the truth and his answer to me was are you saying there's unsaved people who don't suppress the truth well that's not my point I don't know if there are or not I don't know all the unsaved people out there I don't know whether there's some that don't suppress the truth but I don't I know what Paul says and what he doesn't say he doesn't say that all people suppress the truth if there were some who do not it would not contradict anything he's saying he's not telling us all people suppress the truth he's saying there are people who suppress the truth and God is angry about them that's what the verse says it says no more and no less now why is he angry at them it would appear it's because they suppress the truth was that a birth condition or an acquired state our babies born suppressing truth or is this a decision people make later in life is a baby born condemned in other words Augustine and the Calvinist belief that babies are born damned and a baby who dies as a baby dies and goes to hell unless I mean some some Calvinist say it that way some say no some of the babies were elect we just never know which one some some do go to heaven because they were like and other go to hell in any case Calvinist believe that a great number of babies are in hell and that's because they're born haters of God and while they don't show it because they're only babies if we could really see their heart like God does they're they're wicked little vermin and they you know death is too good for him essentially hell it's got to be more than death it's gotta be hell itself gotta be eternal torment now it may sound like I'm saying these in stark and unflattering terms but frankly no Calvinist can claim to deny this this is what they teach they don't say it in those terms that seem so unflattering to the system but they cannot deny that this is what they actually believe because it is what they teach does Paul teach in chapter 1 that all people babies are born utterly wicked and opposed to God that's the question I'm not asking whether all people are sinners or whatever I believe that of course all people have a tendency to sin and when they reach an age of accountability they become very responsible for their sins that's not the same question the question is is Paul here talking about a doctrine of total depravity by which he is affirming that all human beings by nature of being an atom are haters of God and are all born under the wrath of God if so where here does he say it and my Calvinist friend got very upset with me for asking the question that way because of course the answer cannot be given in favor of his position Paul does not say anywhere here that all people are born haters of God he describes people who are and become hate haters of God but that's just it they become that he talks about people who started out actually on the right path if we want to talk about this as a group of individuals rather than the history of mankind or of Judaism if we're talking about individuals here we'd have to acknowledge they all start out as believers and then they all go bad but of course so we're we're talking about what is the birth condition of all people and does Paul address it he does not address this on an individual basis he does say there are people who suppress the truth and of course there are people who do that they generally do that once they've reached an age where they can actually have moral choices that they make of significance they hear truth they don't like the truth they try to they try to silence the messenger they try to block their ears they try to argue against truth they want to suppress it well once a person started doing that the wrath of God is against them got the wrath of God is revealed against those who suppress the truth may be against others too but Paul doesn't mention any others and he does not tell us whether everyone on the earth if it's this category in my opinion he's talking specifically about the Jews here it may well be that every human being suppresses the truth eventually but Paul doesn't say so what what I'm trying to get you to do is look at what the Bible does and does not say so that we don't end up supporting doctrines that we have been told are true from scriptures that don't support them if the doctrine of total depravity is true maybe it's found somewhere else in the Bible in which case we have to give it serious consideration obviously but is it found here is our question and I'm pointing out that this is not what Paul says God's wrath God's judgment God's condemnation is on those who at least heard the truth presumably had some opportunity to respond one way or another to it and did not respond favorably they instead suppressed it if you look back at John chapter 3 Jesus said something that is not very different than this John 3 18 through 21 says he who believes in him that is Jesus is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God and this is the condemnation okay we said there's a group of people who are already condemned because they don't believe what is the basis of their condemnation here it is this is their condemnation that light has come into the world and men loved darkness he didn't say babies did but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil so here's why people are condemned people have evil deeds that they have done light has come to them exposing their deeds they instead of repenting they have chosen to suppress the light to suppress the truth in their unrighteousness they loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil for everyone practicing evil and this is what's wrong with them they're practicing evil hates the light they don't like to have their evil deeds exposed who would like to have their most shameful acts you know publicized on page one of the newspaper no one wants that and does not come to the light lest their deeds should be exposed but he who does the truth oh there are some people who do that apparently not everybody is doing evil deeds there are some in another category who do the truth those people come to the light that their deeds may be clearly seen that they've been done in god so jesus says there's condemnation for the world who is the world well the world he's talking about are those that don't believe in him because their evil deeds have disinclined them to face the truth and when the truth is coming the light has come to them they recede into the shadows to avoid it they don't love the truth they don't love the light but these are people who are making some kind of morally responsible decisions these people are already people whose deeds are evil enough to realize that they better stay away from the light because it'll expose the nature of their deeds we're not talking about babies here paul jesus is not describing a birth condition here he's talking about a response that people have made once light has come to them notice people are condemned not because they didn't have any light but because they had light and responded improperly to the light that would raise questions about how we think about a baby who dies because a baby can't be said to have an awful lot of light i mean physical light with in their eyes maybe as far as you know moral spiritual insight into things babies don't have any of that clearly condemnation is based upon responsible behavior that is negative toward truth and so paul says in romans 118 the wrath of god is revealed against those who suppress the truth and there are people who suppress the truth the particular ones he has in mind i believe are the jews but you could say the same thing about virtually everybody after a certain point in time now there might be people that it doesn't apply to this doesn't mean they don't need jesus or they're not sinners everyone's a sinner we're all sinning before we even know we're sinning babies really do sin without knowing it in israel there were sacrifices for sins of ignorance interestingly you could sin not knowing you're sitting and there was a sacrifice for that babies sin without knowing they're sitting every time a baby you know you know inconveniences someone is selfish and and throws a tantrum or whatever the baby's sinning it doesn't know it though and it's not responsible for that guilt comes when there's the ability to make a choice between doing the right thing or the wrong thing and knowing that it's so that's when condemnation comes that's when god gets angry why would god be angry at a baby why would the wrath of god burn against a baby who had done nothing wrong except get itself conceived in somebody who's descended from adam and you know that's just something intolerable to god how dare you you wicked child get yourself born into this world a slave of sin you know you can see why many people turn from god based on reformation theology that they've heard because it depicts a god who doesn't act like any decent human being would act who judges on a basis that's totally foreign to our concepts of justice but they say well god's ways are not our ways right his ways are better than our ways not worse he's not more unjust than we are he's more just he's not less merciful he's more merciful this this depiction of god is someone who is angry at people just because they had the audacity to be born and if they happen to be unfortunate enough to die before they hear the gospel he's going to burn them forever and torture him forever because you know how could he tolerate such insolence i mean i am obviously being a little extreme here but it's an extremity that is called for in the system now i would point this out to you in chapter one of romans it says in verse 21 well in verse 20 it says you know the things that are made declare his eternal power and godhead and the end of verse 20 says so they're without excuse i'll tell you what if they were born without any ability to respond to god and therefore they don't they are certainly with excuse if you would put a gun to my head and say listen if you don't flap your arms and fly across the room i'm going to blow your brains out well i'm not going to be able to do that and i'll probably get my brains blown out if you if you require that but i do have an excuse that's something i'm not able to do that's my excuse and it's a good one you may unjustly punish me for that if you want to but i have a very good excuse for not doing it and if people are born in a condition where they absolutely cannot repent because that's how they were born they can't repent they can't believe no matter what and then god's going to destroy them with the most utterly horrendous punishments for eternity because they couldn't do it how in the world if that's paul's doctrine could say they are without excuse i'd say they have a very good excuse it may not be it may not fly with god because god might just be so grumpy and and and unreasonable that even though they have a great excuse he's not going to let him off but it still would not be the case that they have no excuse that's a very excellent excuse i couldn't it's not in the nature of me as a human being to do what you're asking to do they can't humans can't do that okay well then you go to hell and burn forever you don't have any excuse come on if this god thinks what are we to make of justice at all i mean isn't god throughout scripture the paragon of justice that we are to imitate he's the he's the model of justice how could his justice be so much the opposite of what the best human even the godliest minds would do i think we've got to have some questions about some of the popular theology about this fortunately calvinism is not the dominant theology but it is certainly an aggressive theology in the evangelical church and certainly there are calvinists who are saying we all need to become calvinists like i have known some who think it's seen i don't i don't think they'd say this but they act as if it's more important that non-calvinist should become calvinist than that non-christian should become christians because they spend more time trying to persuade people of the specifics of calvinism than of christ and christianity itself but notice in verse 21 romans 1 21 because although they knew god they did not glorify him as god nor were thankful that seems like they were supposed to do that seems like they were expected to do that they knew god couldn't they have been thankful couldn't they have glorified god there's no suggestion here that this was an impossibility for them it seems to be that they are at fault for not doing this but they became futile in their thoughts and they uh and their foolish hearts were darkened now notice this total depravity would say that's how they were born they were born futile in the thoughts with their hearts darkened paul says no that was an acquired condition they became that way they weren't that way at first they had opportunity but they did not choose to glorify god they did not choose to thank god when they should have and then something happened to their hearts you have certain choices that you can make up to a point but you cannot make the wrong choices and avoid necessarily consequences that you would not prefer you might prefer to be able to remain totally objective all your life but still reject certain truth no you start rejecting truth your heart begins to harden your your spiritual vision begins to blur you ignore god when you should be giving him glory and things go your your mind gets confused you see what they did by not glorifying or thanking him in in verse 21 is they neglected something they should have done an active choice they were to make then something happened to them passively that they did not choose i mean they chose it inadvertently but this is this is not them saying i think i'll get stupid now no that's just what happened to them their minds got darkened their their hearts got dark the state of depravity that they attained was not their birth condition it was the result of choices they made in the course of their lives look over at ephesians chapter 4 because this passage here is also sometimes used to prove total depravity by those who want to prove such a thing he says in in ephesians 4 17 this i say therefore and testify in the lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk okay we got christian gentiles and we got the rest of them the unbelievers in the futility of their minds okay futility of their minds in romans 1 21 we read that their minds became they became futile in their thoughts so they have futile thoughts futile minds the gentiles that paul's referring to in ephesus are walking in the futility of their minds it says having their understanding darkened well romans 1 21 says their hearts were darkened okay there's this futility there's this darkness being alienated from the life of god because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardening of their heart who verse 19 being past feeling have given themselves over to licentiousness to work all uncleanness ingredients now notice this they have futile minds they have darkened thoughts they are ignorant but is this the way they're born no they have gotten past a certain point they've gotten past feeling well you don't get past feeling without having been prior to that point there was a time that you had feeling there were times they did have spiritual sensitivity they weren't always this hard-hearted they have gotten to a point where their past feeling and they've given themselves over to things now paul and certainly is describing in ephesians 4 17 through 19 a depraved group of gentiles and no doubt a fair description of the gentiles in ephesus that were not converted but he doesn't say they were born that way he said this is what they have chosen for themselves they once had spiritual sensitivity they don't anymore they're past that point they weren't always licentious they've given themselves over to that and in romans chapter 1 he says that this happened to them because they previously knew god did not glorify him and did not be thankful and therefore these things happened to them so the point i'm wanting to make here is that paul is not teaching that all people are born enemies of god although a great deal of animosity toward god is acquired in the mind of a person who's purposefully suppressing the truth so that they can justify their own unrighteousness okay chapter 2 therefore you are inexcusable oh man whoever you are who judge another for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself for you who judge practice the same things but we know that the judgment of god is according to truth against those who practice such things and do you think this oh man you who judge those who practice such things and doing the same that you will escape the judgment of god or do you despise the riches of his goodness forbearance and long suffering 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 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 the greek but glory honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the jew first and also to the greek 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 law or 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 contained 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 accusing them in the day when god will judge the secrets of men by jesus christ according to my gospel now there's a good stopping point so we've said a great deal about verse one of chapter two that paul has snapped his trap he has described the jews without telling them that he's describing them like david who described or nathan who described david without mentioning david the man who stole another sheep when he had plenty of sheep of his own david snapped and said that man deserves to die and nathan says you're the man paul in romans 2 1 says you're the man you agree with the last verse of chapter one that these people deserve to die you're not arguing with me about that because you think you're talking about somebody else but you are the one i'm talking about you do those things yourself now this judging people who do things that you yourself are doing is the kind of judgment that jesus condemns in the most famous verse in the bible not the most famous verse in the bible but the most famous verse among non-christians everyone knows what the favorite verse of non-christians is don't you matthew 7 1 judge not that you'd be not judged every non-christian knows that verse and quotes it all the time they don't understand it however because judging is not something that is flat out forbidden by christ in fact it we are commanded elsewhere by jesus in fact to judge in john 7 24 jesus said do not judge according to appearance but judge with righteous judgment so here we have a don't judge and a judge command different ways don't judge by appearance but do judge righteous judgment judging is both forbidden and commanded that's because not all judging is the same righteous judgment means you make assessments of things according to righteous standards god's standards and therefore if god says something's wrong you say that's wrong if god says it's all right then it is right that's how you make righteous judgments you make judgments agreeable with god's righteous judgments jesus said judge with righteous judgment but he said don't judge according to appearance that's in john 7 24 now in matthew 7 1 he says judge not and he doesn't say in that very verse what kind of judging he's forbidding but he does as you read further the problem is people very seldom read a verse that they like in its context to find out if saying what they want it to be saying jesus said in matthew 7 judge not that you be not judged for with what judgment you judge you will be judged and with the same measure that you use it will be measured back to you now suppose i'm obeying god and you're not and i judge you for your action let's say let's say you're getting drunk on weekends and i'm not and i say listen that's not right that's a sin and you say judge not well you're not going to say that because you're christian but some people some types of people would say that judge not who are you to judge me well let's read further the same measure i'm using to judge you i'll be judged by so if i'm saying it's wrong for you to get drunk on weekends let's see how i stand up to that measure hey i'm not getting drunk on weekends so we're good now if i'm not getting drunk or loaded on weekends i say you're sinning to get drunk that measure that i'm using judge you doesn't it condemns me too because i'm doing the same thing i'm judging you for that's what jesus said don't judge by a double standard because god doesn't he's going to use the same standard to judge you that he judges others and jesus said in verse four or three and four he said why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but you do not consider the plank in your own eye or how can you say to your brother let me remove the speck out of your eye and look there's a plank in your own eye now here i this is the idea your brother has a fault a speck in his eye is the metaphor you've got a bigger fault of the same sort you've got a beam in your eye a plank in your eye so you'd better not be judging the guy on the basis of hey it's wrong to have wood in your eye you've got a speck right there when you've got a lot more wood in your eye you're more guilty you're doing the same thing the same measure you're using to judge him is going to condemn you if it's turned back around on you and jesus said it will be you do not judge by a measure that you would not be able to stand judged by now there is there is righteous judgment but that's not righteous judgment when you're using one measure to judge someone else but you use a more lenient measure to judge yourself that's what human nature tends toward and that's what jesus is forbidding but he does say in verse five hypocrite which makes it clear that he's talking about hypocritical judgment judgment is not wrong if it's not hypocritical but hypocritical judgment is i'm pretending i'm better than you when i'm not but he says hypocrite first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye listen removing a speck out of someone's eye is doing them a favor it's just you're not gonna be able to do them that kind of favor if you're caught up in the same kind of behavior worse than they are or the same as they are get the beam out of your own eye and then you can help them that is if you stop doing what you're saying they should stop doing then you can address that with them you're not going to get anywhere with them if they can see very plainly that you're doing the same thing you're condemning them in their in their life their behavior but if you get the beam out of your own eye that changes if you're not guilty you can address the sin in someone else's life and the bible certainly says in many places we should in galatians 6 1 he says brethren if any of you are overtaken in a fault you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering yourselves lest you also be tempted galatians 6 1 you see when you see someone who's got a fault they've got a speck in their you who are spiritual that is you who don't have beams in your own eye you go and help that person out but if you got a beam in your eye you're a hypocrite to try to help them out you get that fixed and you you address your own faults first before you address someone else's but that's exactly the thing that paul said the jews are doing wrong they are judging somebody they think they're making a judgment call about the gentiles here and he says but you do the same things you're condemning yourself precisely what jesus said not to do in chapter 7 of matthew and now back to romans 2 2 he says we know that the judgment of god is according to truth against those who practice such things now whether jew or gentile those who practice such things legitimately deserve to be condemned for those things that's what it says in the last verse of chapter 1 those who do such things are worthy of death and we know that because we know the righteous judgment of god god's judgment is righteous it is according to truth he's not judging according some false standard and that means therefore that those who do such things and you can put in any race you want in that those that judge god will righteously and justly truthfully judge all who behave that way and that should make the jew be concerned because he's been counting on the fact that he's circumcised to hope for a more lenient treatment from god because he's one of the circumcised ones no god's going to justly and truthfully judge everybody anyone who behaves this way that would include you guys who've cut your foreskins off when you're eight days old you're you're still going to be judged by these things if you're doing these things and he says and do you think this old man you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same that you will escape the judgment of god you think that god's going to judge the gentiles by a certain standard then when you're doing the same things he's going to say um you get a pass you got circumcised that's the question and of course he's asking rhetorically because they had a tendency to actually think that way he's not addressing something that they couldn't relate to this was in fact what many of them were thinking because you think this verse 4 or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering not knowing that the goodness of god leads you to repentance again this is saying that as long as god seems to be showing patience with you and not judging you and he hasn't he has not lowered the boom on you you think he's happy with you no not necessarily if you're behaving in the way i've been describing and god hasn't lowered the boom on you if he hasn't crushed you yet it doesn't mean it's okay he's just giving you space to repent as it says in second peter chapter three where it says not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and that's in the context of saying this is why god waits to judge he wants more people to repent he's not being lenient he's being gracious lenience would mean that he doesn't really he's not really offended by your behavior he's lenient he doesn't really have many rules he cares about but he does care but he's gracious he can forgive and he can extend mercy for a while but that mercy is intended to be an opportunity for repentance when jesus was writing to the church of phytyra i guess it was uh where jezebel was he said i gave her space to repent but she did not repent and he says now i'm going to throw her and those who commit adultery with her into a bed of affliction and tribulation but you see he gave her space to repent god doesn't immediately judge usually there's very rarely what john lennon called instant karma usually the consequences come later on once in a while there is sort of an instant karma kind of effect and those people get into the darwin awards you know because they do something really stupid and bad and they instantly die because it was just such a stupid thing to do they get taken out of the gene pool and get the darwin award for helping the human race by killing themselves off but that's not always the case some people are doing the kinds of things that should kill them off and they don't die they they continue to i'm getting away with it this is cool no problem but it says in ecclesiastes 8 11 because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil because god doesn't immediately punish sin people assume they're getting away with it so they become established in their sinful behavior hey why not i'm getting away with it and yet solomon goes i'm saying but i know that though an evil man does evil a hundred times and and and nothing happens to him i know it's not going to go well for him in the end judgment is being stalled it may be but it's not being canceled okay and the jews were sinning and you know the ultimate judgment had not fallen on them yet and they thought well we're good but paul says no don't you know you're despising this opportunity that god's giving you to repent five but in accordance with the hardness and the impenitence of your heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of god now paul says there will be a day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of god a day of wrath now paul has already said that the righteous judgment of god or the wrath of god is revealed from heaven over in chapter 1 verse 18 there's already a revelation of the wrath of god in the fact that he has given people over and is not interfering in their head long course of two personal destruction he could be interfering as you would with any child that you cared about but he's given up on him he's given them over he's letting them do their own thing that's the wrath of god against them revealed that he's not interfering as they race toward hell that's the wrath of god revealed but there's another day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment god there's an ultimate day where every thought will be revealed and accounted for paul speaks about this here he doesn't mention the second coming of christ but that's what he's thinking of elsewhere in timothy paul says that jesus will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom so when paul talks about the day of wrath he's not with the day when jesus comes back and judges everybody there will be such a day and you who are sinning thinking you're getting away with it are simply treasuring up or storing up against that day if you look over at john chapter 3 verse 36 the last verse in the chapter says he who believes in the sun has everlasting life but he who does not believe the sun shall not see life but the wrath of god abides on him or remains upon him this person who's not believing he may not have a sensation of god's wrath of god being upon him but like a sort of damocles hanging over his head there's this ton of wrath ready to drop on him it's abiding on him it just hasn't been revealed yet hey and and that's what paul said you're treasuring up wrath remember that proverb in proverbs 25 that says if your enemy hungers feed him if he thirsts give him drink for so doing you'll heap coals of fire upon his head just talk about the same thing your enemy is a bad person hurting you you're not being bad back you're feeding them when they're hungry you're helping them when they're thirsty you're being nice to them they're being mean to you by your kindness to them it only increases their guilt for being unkind to you and it is treasuring up wrath upon them unless they repent these coals of fire are being amassed over their heads that's what john 3 36 is saying the wrath of god abides on these people and paul says to the jews who are rejecting christ and who are not living according to god's standards at all you are treasuring up judgment against the day of wrath that's when it's going to come down that's when it's going to be revealed now there's this kind of wordy section uh after this where it says in verse 6 of chapter 2 who will render to each one according to his deeds by the way that's a citation from psalm 62 12 that god will render to each one according to his deeds psalm 62 12 but we don't need to turn there and then he specifies he will render eternal life to a certain group of people those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory honor and immortality those people he will give eternal life to but to those who are self-seeking notice the options here you can seek for god's will and god's glory or you can do the other thing which is to serve yourself this is really the two options these are the two religions in the world today there is the religion of serving yahweh and there's the religion of serving yourself and under the second category there's all kinds of sub options every religion in the world is to serve oneself even christian religion sometimes simply that some people who don't follow christ adhere to christian religion in order to get fire insurance and therefore you know it's serving self there's two things you can be seeking and by the way that what distinguishes christians is not how perfect they are how well they perform necessarily but what is it they are seeking what what you're seeking is the inclination of your heart where have you directed your pursuit are you pursuing god are you pursuing the glory of god if you're pursuing the right thing you are a christian and he'll reward with eternal life in the day of judgment but if you're not seeking god you're seeking some form of self-gratification and paul lists a bunch of that those who are self-seeking do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness they'll what they'll get instead of eternal life is indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil now notice he's talking about people who go to the lake of fire how does he describe it he calls it indignation that has got to be indignant and wrath god will be angry at them and they'll experience tribulation and anguish okay this why doesn't he talk about eternal torment here he could say that but and in fact he's waxing eloquent about how bad it'll be for them but he just doesn't mention that he just mentions it's going to go badly for them they'll have anguish they'll have torment he doesn't say much more about it the apostle paul never actually mentions hell in his writings isn't that interesting you will not find the word hell or any of its greek forms in paul's epistles you will find reference to judgment you'll find reference to tribulation and anguish you'll find reference even to eternal destruction from the presence of the lord but you won't find any particular reference to hell in paul's writing i don't want to make too much of that i'm just think it's interesting because he's talking about the day of judgment here and one group's going to get eternal life the other is going to get what this would be the great place to talk about hell probably he does mean hell when he talks about tribulation and anguish probably but he doesn't say so it's interesting that you know the teaching about hell is not more explicit in the new testament than it is and he says this is true whether you're a jew or gentile verse 9 but you'll the glory and the honor and the peace are going to be to everyone who works what is good the jew and the gentile also so the point here is it's not just the jews who are going to be the reward it's not just the gentiles to be punished the punishment and the rewards are about the same depending on your behavior not whether you're jew or gentile jews may come first gentiles later but it's still all people will have to answer for their deeds interesting that he says to in verse 10 everyone who works good isn't paul trying to jealously guard justification by faith alone why doesn't he say everyone who believes in jesus after all he does talk about the importance of believing in jesus throughout the book of romans but paul apparently did not think that arguing for belief in jesus was an argument against good works and this is where reformation theology has sometimes gone off balance because they want to make sure they distinguish themselves from roman catholics i mean there's nothing more important to a protestant than to make sure you know they're not a roman catholic and roman catholics believe that faith plus works is what saves you and so luther especially and calvin this often uh they'll make it very clear it's not works it's not works it's not works it's not works and they're just jealously guarding the distinction between them and the roman catholics by saying it's all by faith well we are justified by faith but paul was never of the mind that you can't stress the importance of works too after all faith without works is dead james said and paul said what matters to god is a faith that works through love in galatians 5 6 and so paul doesn't show the skittishness that a modern protestant would show we saw about everyone who's who's going to be judged at the day of judgment those who don't do good works but those who do good they will receive glory and immortality and all this stuff i mean it's it's interesting how paul doesn't see this this heavy dichotomy between believing in jesus and doing good as a matter of fact he believes that believing in jesus will always result in doing good but we will have something to say about works of course coming up here and what paul usually means when he uses that term but we've run out of time for this session so we'll return to the middle of chapter two when we come back