Why people think they will escape God’s wrath – Romans 2:1-5
This chapter begins a new
division in the argument of the apostle.
In 1:18-32, it is clear that the apostle is addressing Gentile society
in general. Now the apostle switches to
what we might call “self-righteous moralizers.”[1] There is some debate as to whether Paul is
addressing himself to the Jews here.
Although they are certainly in view, I don’t think they are the only
ones, for there were plenty of philosophers in Paul’s day who were Gentiles and
to whom these words were perfectly applicable.
So I agree with those interpreters who see the apostle addressing
himself to all self-righteous moralizers, both Jew and Gentile, in verses 1-16
(note the inclusion of both Jew and Gentile in the argument of verses 9-16).
Paul’s argument from 1:18 is to
show that everyone needs to be saved. He
wants us to see that all have sinned and have fallen under the judgment of
God. Now there is always a segment of
the population who looks at others and does not doubt they are under the
judgment of God, but for some reason think they are exempt. A lot of time, these folks think they are
better than others. I think of the Lord’s
interlocutors in Luke 13 and of the Pharisee in Luke 18. We can always find someone else who is worse
than ourselves and use that to justify both our contemptuous attitude towards
them as well as our own lackadaisical approach to the sin in our own life. My wife had a roommate once who told her that
one of the reasons she watched a particular reality TV show was because she was
comforted from the fact that shows like that made her feel good about herself
since on that show there were people who were much worse than herself!
Before you cast your thoughts in
the direction of someone else, think about how much this might describe you.
The apostle wants such people to
realize that they too need to “flee from the wrath to come” (Mt. 3:7). Just because they can agree with God that
some people need to be punished for their sins, they think they need not fear. The
apostle now addresses himself to this sort of person. The key phrase here is
found in verse 3: “Do you suppose . . . that you will escape the judgment of
God?”
If you do not think you need
Jesus Christ and yet think that you need not fear any judgment to come, then
you are probably the sort of person the apostle had in mind when he wrote these
verses. You think that you will escape
the righteous wrath of God, but he is saying that this is a dreadful mistake to
make. In these verses, he outlines for
us three wrong attitudes that make people who are in danger of God’s wrath
think they are not in danger of God’s wrath.
Before we proceed, however, I
want to point out another advance in the apostle’s argument. We have noted in 1:18-32 that God’s wrath is
presently revealed in the very sins we commit.
However, in these verses Paul shifts focus from the present outpouring
of God’s wrath to the final day of judgment.
You see this in verse 5, where God’s wrath is not something we
experience now, but something that is being stored up for; it is clearly
something in the future. Also, it is not
something ongoing as in chapter 1, but something which is climatic and
once-for-all: “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be
revealed.” This is not something which
is revealed now but which will be revealed in the future. Paul will refer to this repeatedly in the
coming verses, culminating in verse 16, where he calls our attention to “that
day, when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ
Jesus.”
We need to remember this. We do not live our lives ultimately before
the judgment seat of people. We will
give account to God for the things we have done in our lives. This is what makes life awesome and
meaningful. It doesn’t matter how lowly
you are in the sight of men. The fact
that you will give an account of your life before God some day means that every
act in this life, no matter how despised by men, is filled with infinite
significance. Your life is not something
therefore to be frittered away on insignificant and fleeting things. Don’t waste your life – not by experiencing
all the things in some bucket list – but by living your life before the God to
whom you will one day give an account.
And that means we need to avoid those attitudes which will kill any
serious pursuit of God. Again, the
apostle mentions three in these verses.
They focus on the sins of others (1-3)
Paul begins by saying, “Therefore
you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you
condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls
on those who practice such things. Do
you suppose, O man – you who judge those who practice such things and yet do
them yourself – that you will escape the judgment of God?” (1-3)
He begins by drawing an inference
from the previous verses – “therefore.”
But what is the apostle referring to?
I think the key is in the phrase “you are inexcusable” (1). He said the same thing in 1:20. One of his goals has been to show that people
know something about God and his law.
People sin, not because they don’t know better, but in spite of the fact
that they know better. That’s what makes
them inexcusable. So here, the moralist
is also inexcusable. That’s the point of
the word “therefore” in verse 1. They
too, know some things, and they prove it by the fact that they judge those who
do such things. Note that Paul says that
twice: “you, the judge, practice the very same things” (1) and “you who judge
those who practice such things and yet do them yourself” (2). They condemn sin in others, so that’s pretty
good proof that they know something about God’s righteous requirements and law. The problem is that they don’t follow up in
their own life.
Now it’s very important that we
don’t draw the wrong conclusion from these verses. The apostle is not saying that the problem
here is that people judge others for their sin.
That would be to turn Paul’s argument on its head. After all, isn’t that what Paul himself is
doing here? Isn’t he condemning
something in these verses, namely, hypocrisy?
And in chapter 1, he has been condemning those who suppress God’s truth
in order to exchange the worship of the true God in order to worship and serve
the creature.
And our Lord himself, in the same
sermon in which he said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Mt 7:1), also
said a few verses later, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s
clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will recognize them by their fruits” (7:15-16). You simply can’t do that without making some
sort of judgment about the false prophet.
We need to remember that judging someone simply means that we are exercising
discernment with respect to what they claim about themselves. And the fact of the matter is that we all do
that. What our Lord was condemning in
the phrase “judge not, that you be not judged” and what Paul is condemning in
our text, is the practice of condemning a sin in someone else that you yourself
commit while at the same time you have not repented of that sin (cf. Mt.
7:2-5). The problem is that we judge and
yet “practice the very same things” (1).
So it’s not judging per se that
is condemned here. What is wrong is
hypocrisy, pretending to be something that you are not, play-acting. We expect that, when someone condemns an
action in someone else, that they are dealing with or have dealt with that sin
already in their own life. So if they
haven’t, they are pretending to be something they are not; they are a
hypocrite. That’s the problem.
And what makes hypocrisy so
dangerous is that it blinds you to your own sins. It allows you to feel righteous because you
are focusing entirely on the sins of others.
And let’s be honest: how many of us can claim never to have fallen into
this trap? The easiest thing in the
world is to condemn a fault in someone else while you secretly nourish the very
same thing in your own heart. It is a
dangerous place to be.
The only way to avoid this is to judge ourselves before we judge another. In fact, when we see sin in another person we need to let that be an opportunity to do some self-examination. This is what Jonathan Edwards was getting at in his resolution: "Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God."
We also need to be aware that
this sort of attitude is not something which is peculiar to unbelievers. Unfortunately, it can attach itself to the
faithful as well. I think of King David,
who was told a story of injustice by Nathan the prophet, which, unbeknownst to
David, was a story which was about the king himself. Nevertheless, as it was being told, David
became enraged – until Nathan pointed the finger at the king and said the
ominous words, “Thou art the man!” (2 Sam. 12:7, KJV).
So when was the last time you
engaged in some healthy self-examination?
Now the point is not that we become obsessed with ourselves. But we do need to be aware of our sins, or we
will never see the need to repent and to flee to the mercy of Christ, by whom
alone we can be saved. Don’t become
blind to your own sins by focusing exclusively on the sins of others, but look
to yourself so that you will look to the Lord for grace and forgiveness and
freedom.
They presume on God’s mercy (4)
In verse 4 the apostle writes, “Or
do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not
knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Here we encounter another wrong attitude that
people can have towards God: presumption.
Now actually Paul used a word
which can mean “to despise” for the word which is translated in the ESV by
“presume.” In some ways, I think that
“despise” articulates the apostle’s meaning more clearly. When we presume on God’s mercy, we are despising
it. Why is that?
It is because God’s mercy – his
kindness toward us, his forbearance and patience – are all meant to do one
thing, and that is to lead us to repentance.
This is what the apostle Peter meant in his second epistle, when he
wrote, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but
is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should
reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). So when
we take God’s kindness and his patience toward us, and use that as an excuse to
go on sinning and to remain careless in our sins, we are despising this
incredible gift of God’s grace.
I remember hearing a story years
ago about a man who knew he was not right with God, and was actually expecting
every moment for God to do some terrible thing to him. But it never came. Then he realized that while he was waiting
for God to clamp down on him, what was really happening was that God was
calling to him in the myriad of mercies he had enjoyed in his life. And he repented. That is the way to respond to God’s blessing
in your life. This is the gist of the
message of the apostles to the pagans in Lystra: “We bring you good news, that
you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made heaven and the
earth and the sea and all that is in them.
In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own
ways. Yet he did not leave himself
without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful
seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:15-17).
Unfortunately, most people don’t
respond that way. Instead they
misinterpret God’s blessing upon them as a reason to remain spiritually
unconcerned and apathetic. But that does
not give them an excuse. And again, when
we fail to act in repentance as recipients of God’s mercies, we are despising
that, and we are heaping up for ourselves wrath for the day of God’s final,
climatic meting out of judgment.
Now you may ask, if God wants us
to repent, why does he not respond immediately with clear signs of his anger
against our sins instead of giving us kindness?
And the answer is that if God were to immediately respond with justice
upon our every act of sin, no one would ever be saved. We would have all perished long ago. That’s the point the apostle Peter was making
in the text quoted above. And even when
he takes things away and brings trial into our lives, that itself is a form of
kindness and patience and forbearance on God’s part. Anything short of hell is mercy. So if you are experiencing a tremendous trial
in your life, it could be God’s mercy in your life calling you to
repentance. But if you are experiencing
success and blessing, if you are not yet right with God, do not interpret this
as God’s forgiveness but as God’s call to embrace his forgiveness through
repentance and faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.
They harden their heart in sin (5)
The apostle finishes his
description of the moralist in verse 5: “But because of your hard and
impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
Ultimately, this is the reason people don’t repent. It is because of the hardness of their heart.
Now we normally only use this
word “hardened” for people like the worst sort of person, like “hardened
criminals.” However, Paul is using this
to describe moralists, people who appear to have a very real awareness of right
and wrong. Nevertheless, the apostle
uses this word “hardened” to describe them.
It is appropriate because we are
all cosmic criminals. That is, every one
of us have sinned against God. And
unless we stop sinning, we remain impenitent.
Which means we have to keep justifying to ourselves the sins that we
commit. And the more we do this, the
more hardened we become and the easier it is to justify sinning the next
time. The fact of the matter is that we
are all by nature hardened sinners.
Remember the list of Romans
1:29-31? “They were filled with all
manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil,
disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” You may be able to scratch a few of those
things of the list of things you have done, but there is not a single human
being that has lived on the earth that can scratch all of those things of his
or her list. Every time we commit one of
these acts, we despise God. We are
faithless to God. We have broken his
law, and flaunted his rightful authority over our lives. Why in the world should he extend mercy to
us? Yet he does, in every breath that we
breathe. To go on sinning is to harden
our hearts and to store up wrath for ourselves.
How should we respond to God’s wrath?
First of all, we need to realize that
we cannot escape God’s wrath. For the
moment, we may escape it, but this is not because we are no longer in danger
but because God is showing mercy to us. But
while we remain impenitent, we are simply storing up wrath for the day of
wrath.
There is no way you can escape
God’s righteous judgment. All will be
summoned before his throne of judgment.
You cannot outrun God because he is omnipresent. “The eyes of the LORD are in every place,
beholding the evil and the good.” You
cannot deceive God, because he is omniscient.
When Christ comes the second time without sin unto salvation he will
come to judge the secrets of men. He
knows what you are going to say even before you say it. You cannot hide from God in any sense of the
word. Jonah tried to run from God and
ended up in the mouth of a whale. In
Revelation 6, we read of people who are so terrified at the Second Coming of
Christ that they will ask the hills to open up and swallow them – and yet there
is no place to hide. When our Lord came
to earth, the demons would respond to him by asking him, “Have you come to
torment us before the time?” They know
that their days are numbered and that there is no way to escape the judgment of
the Lord.
Nor will you be able to resist
God. As Edwards put it in his sermon,
“Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” “…if your strength were ten thousand
times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of
the strongest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or
endure it [the wrath of God].”
There is therefore only one thing
we should do. And that is to
repent. Instead of running from God, we
need to run to God. The only way to flee
from the wrath to come is to flee to Christ.
Did you know repentance is a mercy?
Why does God have to offer mercy to traitors? He doesn’t, of course. He could justly assign every human being to
hell. But instead, he offers mercy to
those who will turn from their sins and turn to his Son in faith and receive
him as their Lord and Savior. Right now
there is great mercy and kindness and patience and forbearance now. Today is the day of salvation. Let us not despise God’s mercy but receive it
extended to us in the person and work of Christ.
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