Chapter 2
2:1-4- Having spoken primarily about the Gentile world up to this point, Paul now turns the attention to his Jewish audience. This becomes evident throughout the chapter and as we see towards the end of the chapter and in chapter 3, Paul’s very point is that all the world is guilty before God, not just the pagans who internally and externally reject God, but also the Jews who may “claim” God, but presume upon God’s grace, transgress God’s law, are unrepentant in their hearts and ultimately participate in many of the same vices the Gentiles do (save for maybe the overt idolatry and homosexuality which was generally abhorred in Jewish culture). After the diatribe against pagan Gentiles in chapter 1, the Jewish listeners or readers might be forgiven for thinking that they aren’t in the same boat, but instead are obviously righteous by comparison. Chapter 2 also pulls no punches and is intended to cut to the heart of Jewish national pride and superiority as bearers of The Law. Grant Osborne writes: “Their sins, if anything, are greater than the Gentiles because they sin even while under the law (2:12) and so sin with knowledge. They have all the advantages of being the recipients of God’s revelation and law and therefore stand all the more guilty before Him.”
Paul makes a few things clear in these opening verses:
1) The Jews have no room to pass judgment.
2) The judgement of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
3) Condemning others only serves to condemn themselves (2 Sam 12:1-14).
4) God’s grace and longsuffering should lead us to repentance, not to presume upon His grace. The latter ultimately tramples under foot the sacrifice of Jesus (Heb. 10:26-31).
Osborne notes: “Repentance means not just a turning away from sin but also a turning to God. It is a key component in experiencing God’s salvation. Without a remorse for sin as well as a commitment to God, salvation is not possible.”
2:5-6- As a result of their stubbornness and unrepentant heart (a rejection of the kindness of God), they are storing up wrath for themselves to be inflicted upon them “in the day” of wrath and the righteous judgment of God. The phrase “storing up wrath” pictures a progressive accumulation over one’s lifetime; like filling up a reservoir. Paul is now referring to the “Day of Judgment” in the eschatological sense. A picture of this can be seen in Rev. 6:15-17 and Rev. 19:15. As J.I. Packer says of the wrath of God, it is “a right and necessary response to objective moral evil.” Paul references Psalm 62:12 and Prov. 24:12 in verse 6. We can even find the same teaching from Jesus in Matt. 16:27 and again from Paul in 2 Thess. 1:5-10. This wrath will ultimately be a result of the fact that they refuse to repent! The truth is we’ve all sinned against a thrice holy God and that the wages of that sin is death, BUT there is hope if we repent and return to God! This was the cry of the prophets in the OT and the cry of John the Baptist, Jesus and the apostles! There will be a day of judgment for all men and as A. M. Hunter says: “A man’s destiny on Judgement Day will depend not on whether he has known God’s will, but whether he has done it.”
Paul clarifies that this won’t just be a day of wrath, but also a day of revelation at the righteous judgment of God. God’s righteousness includes His wrath and the perfect justice of God is the grounding for it. Unlike human wrath that doesn’t produce God’s righteousness (James 1:20), The Psalmist writes, “God is a righteous judge, a God who displays his wrath every day.” -Psalm 7:11 and “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.” -Psalm 5:4 and again in Psalm 9:8, “And He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity.”
2:7-11- These four verses define and put two groups of people against each other as it relates to eschatological judgment. Verses 7 & 10 speak of those who will inherit eternal life according to their good or righteous deeds and verses 8 & 9 speak of those who will not receive eternal life, but wrath and indignation for ultimately “not obeying the truth.” Upon a casual reading, it would almost sound like Paul is claiming that purely good deeds or bad deeds are what determine our eternal future. Of course, throughout Paul’s letters (including Romans), he takes great pain to emphasize how we are justified before God (grace through faith). Considering the broader narrative of Scripture, it is best to presuppose that those in verses 7 & 10 are “in Christ.” The results of faith in Christ are “good works” (Eph. 2:10, Titus 2:14, Titus 3:8, 1 John 2:17, James 1:22, James 2:19-26). Paul claims (by citing the Old Testament) in Rom. 3:11-18, that no one can do good or seeks to be righteous. The most logical assumption is to presuppose that verses 7 & 10 are referring to those who have placed their faith in Christ and are thus bearing fruits in keeping with repentance (Matt. 3:8). Therefore, they are the ones justified by God and by the Spirit of God living in them, they carry out the desires of the Spirit vs. the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5, Rom. 8:4-5).
Similarly, those in verse 8 & 9 aren’t being condemned for purely being unrighteous, but because they “do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness.” This ultimately comes down to rejection of the gospel and the rotten fruit that results. Perhaps further insight into what Paul means can be found in 2 Thess. 1:6-9 (ESV) “since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,”
Later on in 2 Thessalonians, Paul clarifies that those who will be deceived by the Man of Lawlessness are those who did not believe and receive the love of the truth as to be saved. 2 Thess. 2:9-12 (ESV) “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Beyond all this, Paul’s main point (as he is working hard to make clear) is that regardless of whether one is a Jew or Gentile, God will judge equally and impartially. One’s status as a Jew or one’s status as a Gentile is irrelevant. As the Apostle Peter points out in Acts 10:34-35 (ESV), “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
2:12-15- Paul continues to compare two groups of people and the criterion of judgment based on “the light” God gives to an individual. If Rom. 1:18-20 contains what apologists call “The Natural Argument” for the existence of God (that is, all of creation demands that there is a Creator and to deny this is to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness”), we can find in these verses “The Moral Argument.” That is, people have an instinctive sense of right and wrong and that there are moral absolutes. To say, for example, that the holocaust of WWII was “absolutely” wrong, means an appeal to a transcendent authority. Certainly, this cannot be a societal consensus. After all, the societal consensus in Germany in the 1930’s was that their world would be a better place by exterminating an entire race of people. If Germany had been victorious in the war and no one was left to stop them, would their societal consensus be objectively morally good? Of course not! It was morally wrong whether another society stepped in to say otherwise or not. This is absolute moral transcendence and like all of creation, there has to be a transcendent moral law giver. This is certainly an inference we can glean from these verses. However, it isn’t the main exegetical intent of Paul. As we see in Amos 1-2, despite not having the Law of God, the Gentile nations are still held accountable to God because they have been given a conscience by God. We all instinctively know right from wrong on a fundamental level, but Gentiles aren’t the only ones who will be condemned. Having the intimate knowledge of God’s Law made Israel all the more accountable.
F.F. Bruce writes: “Jews, he says, will be judged on the basis of the written law, for they had access to that source of divine knowledge. Gentiles will be judged by another criterion, for among them too God did not leave Himself without witness. If the knowledge of God’s character was available to them through the starry heavens above (cf. 1:20), it was also available to them through the moral law within. They did not have the law of Moses, as the Jews had, but they had the law of conscience, the distinction between right and wrong, engraved upon their hearts.” And Craig Keener states: “Woe to those who thought themselves righteous by comparing themselves with others! Judaism was right that most pagans did evil; but Jewish people knew God’s standard better than the pagans and still did evil. This point underlines Paul’s argument of the common predicament of the Jews and Gentiles under sin.”
2:16- Paul again refers to “The Day” of judgment as an event at the end of the age. As Jer. 17:10 and Heb. 4:13 speak of, God knows the inner thoughts of man and will judge completely righteously and render to everyone what they rightly deserve. The means by which God will judge is Christ Jesus, for He has been handed the authority by The Father (Matt. 25:31-33, Acts 10:32, 1 Cor. 4:5, 2 Tim. 4:1, Rev. 22:12).
2:17-20- National pride as “God’s Chosen People” ran deep. God, after all, chose Israel to be entrusted with the oracles of God as we see in 3:2. To quote Robert H. Mounce, “God had revealed himself to Israel through the great law-giver Moses and laid out his expectations for the nation. Their national identity was inextricably bound up with Mosaic legislation. They boasted of their unique relationship to God.” Israel knew God’s will as He had given it to them through special revelation, but as mentioned before, there’s a difference between knowing God’s will and doing it! They could “boast” about their superiority in having God’s law and even think themselves superior to the Gentiles who lacked God’s special revelation and divine calling. However, they had fallen into self-righteousness and as Jesus in the gospels and Paul points out here, they were hypocrites!
2:21-23- In these verses Paul points out their hypocritical nature by a series of rhetorical questions. This diatribe by Paul meant to “turn the complacent Jew back on himself to search his own soul” as Everett Harrison states, should cause us to pause and reflect in our own lives as well. Do we, who claim the name of Jesus, who are proud to be children of God, saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus, do the same as the Jews in Paul’s day? Do we preach or advocate for a life of holiness unto God while we live our lives in the opposite way? I’m afraid much of my own life has been a lot like those of whom Paul is addressing. May we be “doers” of the word and not “hearers” only, or in the context of these verses, “someone who hears and proclaims to others, but does not do.” These rhetorical questions demand a certain answer, an answer that is meant to condemn.
2:24- Paul quotes Isa. 52:5, the context of which more closely aligns with the sentiment expressed in Ezek. 36:22-23, but his point is made clear. Like the self-reflection in the previous verses, I can’t help to ponder if ever I live in a manner that would cause unbelievers to blaspheme the name of God. Not because they might hate the offense of the truth of the gospel (there are those to whom speaking the truth in love will always offend), but because of the potential hypocritical nature of my “walk.” It’s one thing for people to reject God because of the truth of His word, it’s another thing entirely for them to do so because my life, as a representative of Christ, contradicts the truth of His word. How many pastors or teachers have been outed for adultery or other sexual sin? It seems as if it happens too often. The fallout is terrible not only for those to whom they are shepherds, but also to the unbelieving world who looks on and marks just “another reason” to have nothing to do with Jesus or His Church. As for the immediate context, Osborne writes, “Both Jew and Gentile disobeyed the laws God had given each and so were guilty. In fact, the Jews were worse off because they caused the Gentiles to slander the name of God by their transgressions.”
2:25-29- A Gentile that is uncircumcised, but obeys God's law is considered righteous compared to someone who is circumcised (thus a child of the covenant), but transgresses God’s law. What is the evidence of true love and devotion to God? We, as Gentiles 2,000 years removed from Paul’s day, oftentimes don’t understand how incredibly important circumcision was for the Jew. It was the sign of the covenant. Gen. 17:9-14 highlights the importance of this and in verse 14 God declares: “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” (ESV). Paul’s point is that being circumcised is no better than being uncircumcised if one has rejected following God and His ways. 1 Cor. 7:19 (ESV) “For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.” In Luke 11:32, Jesus expresses a similar sentiment when He declares, “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (ESV). Like in these verses in Romans, it’s the conduct of obedient Gentiles that will serve as evidence against disobedient Jews. Paul ends with pointing out a concept that was well established in Jewish thought and backed by Scripture. Real circumcision was that of the heart (Deut. 30:6, Deut. 10:16, Jer. 4:4, Ezek. 44:9).
Thomas Schreiner says of verse 29, “The reference to the work of the Spirit demonstrates that the obedience described in Rom. 2:26-27 and in vv. 7, 10 is the result of the Spirit’s work. Therefore, it is not the obedience of the unregenerate that is in view here but rather the obedience of those who, by the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, have repented of their hard hearts (v.5), who have received the Holy Spirit, and who are being enabled by the Spirit to live a new life characterized by obedience to God.”
Bibliography (Works Cited):
-Grant R. Osborne: Romans, IVPNTC, 2004
-J.I. Packer: Knowing God, p.186
-A.M. Hunter: The Epistle to the Romans, TBC
-F.F. Bruce: The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, TNTC, 1983
-Craig Keener: The IVP Bible Background Commentary, New Testament (Romans)
-Robert H. Mounce: Romans, NAC, 1995
-Everett F. Harrison: The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, Romans, 1976
-Thomas Schreiner: ESV Study Bible, Romans