Romans 2:1-4

CRITICAL NOTES

Romans 2:1. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man.—διό, because the above description of the wickedness of mankind is true (in its main features) universally. O man.—A general designation. Jews classed with Gentiles. Josephus says that there was not a nation under heaven more wicked than the Jewish nation. Jews judged the Gentiles. Heathen philosophers often guilty of what they condemned in others. κρίμα, the result of judgment—the sentence.

Romans 2:2.—It is not to be understood that every individual is chargeable with each and every vice named.

Romans 2:3.—The Jews thought to escape judgment, for in their rabbinical creed it is written, “All Israel have a portion in the world to come, except heretics and deriders of the wise men.”

Romans 2:4. Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness?—χρηστότης, goodness in general. ἀνοχή, its exercise in postponing punishment. μακροθυμία, again signifies continued ἀνοχή. καταφρονέω, to treat with contempt by word or deed. Leading to repentance.—Moral improvement of soul, turning from unbelief to faith. πλοῦτος sets forth the fact that God abounds in mercy and grace.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 2:1

The judgments of man and of God.—The inhabitant of a shell has no idea of the vastness of the external world; the rustic who has never passed beyond the bounds of his own village green is not likely to possess the most liberal views; the man who never comes into true contact with his fellows is apt to have exaggerated views of his own importance. To know yourself you must go out of yourself, as well as look into yourself. The selfishness of the Pharisee produces a narrowness of vision which results in an intolerable dogmatism and self-conceit; but the soul of the publican commands a wider range—he gazes upon the solemn heights of the infinite purity and the divine requirements, and is penetrated with a sense of his own shortcomings. The man who looks at himself in every aspect, who measures himself, not by himself, but by all that is grand and noble in the natural world, in divine revelation, and in the divine nature, will be forced to the conclusion that he is left without excuse, that he is a sinner, and must fly for refuge to the sinner’s Friend and Saviour. “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man.” Let thy harsh temperament and thy severe judgments be tempered with a sense of thy own failings.

I. The judgments of men are fallible.—We cannot suppose the apostle to mean that the critical faculty is to be stifled. We must compare ideas. We pass judgment on scenery, on pictures, on works of art, on books, and on persons. How are we to prosecute the journey of life with anything like satisfaction, if we are not to judge? In the complexities of modern life we are compelled to judge. If we entertain without reserve our modern strangers, we should not find many of them turn out to be angels. If they are, they will be angels unawares. But our judgments must be as rules of guidance, and not as sentences of condemnation, upon our fellows. However, in all judgments, were it not well to bear in mind that we are erring creatures? Perhaps some of our judges would have escaped mistakes had they kept before them the fact that all human judgment is fallible. The critics, both literary and moral, would not have exposed themselves to shame had they been mindful of the erring nature of all human judgments.

II. The judgments of men are often self-condemning.—Self-preservation is one of the great instinctive laws of nature; and guided by this low motive of instinctive prompting, we ought to restrain ourselves from all harsh judgments. No pleasant task to be a judge if every sentence which is being pronounced prompts the inquiry, What is there in my past or present conduct which brings me into close relationship with the man upon whom I am now sitting in judgment? What tenderness should pervade the mind of the preacher as he finds in himself the sins, either in germ or in fuller development, which he denounces in others! Alas! our neighbours’ sins we place before our eyes, while our own sins we place behind where we can scarcely see them.

III. The judgments of men are often self-apologetic.—In literary circles we are sometimes told that the critics are the failures, and the severest critics are those who have failed most miserably. In the moral sphere the critics are the failures; the greatest sinners too often pass the harshest judgments. And why is this? Because in excusing others they vainly think that they are excusing themselves. Vain man! thy apologia suœ vitæ is a miserable failure. The book thou hast written tells thy weakness, and pronounces thy condemnation. Self-apologetics are hideous failures. The Pharisee’s self-apologetics in the parable have made him the opprobrium of all time. The publican’s “God be merciful to me a sinner” has lifted him high in the scale of being.

In opposition let us bear in mind that:—

I. The judgments of God are infallible.—God is all-wise, and therefore cannot err. They are according to truth. The judgments of God are not according to men’s views of truth, but according to truth. The judgments of God are not shaped by human shibboleths. “Our little systems have their day,” but truth abides eternally. Truth is from everlasting. It existed in the mind and heart of the Infinite before the world was; the light of divine mornings shone out of the primal darkness of a newly made planet long before our modern wise ones preached to the world the truth which they pretend to have fashioned. Men may err; God cannot.

II. The judgments of God are tempered by mercy, and in their execution delayed.—While we read of God’s wrath, we must not forget God’s mercy,—

“The attribute of God Himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.”

We do pray for mercy. We all instinctively feel that there is mercy with God, and that we need mercy; but how seldom doth that same prayer teach us to render the deeds of mercy, and to exercise that judgment which is tempered by mercy. We seek to get our own debts forgiven, and then we straightway go away with the speech upon our lips, “Pay me that thou owest.” There is forgiving mercy in Jesus Christ. The execution of judgment is delayed. Opportunity for repentance is afforded. But—solemn thought! dread-inspiring reflection!—

III. The judgments of God, though tempered by mercy, and delayed in their execution, are not therefore a nullity.—The mills of God may grind slowly, but they grind surely and exactly. Men may harden themselves in their crimes by saying, All things continue as they were from the creation—yea, all things continue as they have been through the past æons of geologic records. Know, O vain man, that hardened sinners cannot escape the judgments of God. What a call to reflection in the apostle’s earnest remonstrance, “And thinkest thou this, O man?” Let thy thought move upward in the line of the divine thought; and, oh! seek to escape the judgment, the condemnation, of God by hearty repentance, and by sincere faith in God’s blessed Son, and by a life of holiness.

Human judgments rebuked; divine judgments exalted.

I. Human judgment is pronounced by inconsistent men.—The men who judge, often those who judge most sternly, are themselves guilty. David and Nathan. The accusers and the woman taken in adultery. In the light of the Sermon on the Mount we are all inconsistent.

II. Divine judgment is pronounced by a perfectly righteous being.—We notice:

1. The standard by which God judges—truth;

2. The spirit in which God judges—His judgment is
(1) longsuffering;

(2) impartial;

(3) thorough. The character of the divine Judge is (a) an inspiration to those who seek well-doing; (b) a terror to those who obey unrighteousness.—Homilist.

Romans 2:4. God’s government of us; its ground and its end.—Goodness, when it is seen in the deeds of Him who went about doing good, loses none of its awfulness; it stands out in more direct contrast to all wickedness; but we know that it is not abstract, that it is individualising, yet that it is without limitation. When we hear of God’s forbearance, we ask the ancient, ever-recurring question, whether He can care enough for our doings to feel anything like that “provocation” which the Bible speaks of—whether such words must not be merely figurative, or must not detract from His holiness and majesty. When we seek to know the Father through the Son clothed in our nature, we see how purity and sympathy must be provoked every day by impurity and hardness of heart; the perfection must be diminished, if it were incapable of pain and sorrow for evil. The longsuffering becomes intelligible, like the forbearance, when we view it through this mirror. Till we so see it, we may ask ourselves whether there is not some boundary to it which we are obliged to conceive, though we cannot fix it. The cross of Calvary drives our reason from this vain and ambitious attempt. Now if this goodness, forbearance, longsuffering, belong to the very name and character of Him in whom we are living and moving and having our being, they constitute a wealth upon which we may always draw. The more we call them to mind, the more we believe in them, the more truly and actively they become ours. We may become moulded into their likeness; we may show them forth. This is that kingly inheritance which the Scriptures and the sacrament make known to us. But here comes in the great excuse for shame and for gloom. We have not taken the events that have befallen us as if they bore this signification; the wealth has been ours, and it has been squandered. We have despised the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering. But this thought has been left out of our calculation. We have “not known that the goodness of God is leading us to repentance.” Events are not leading us to it, sad or joyful, sudden or successive. Our own hearts, left to themselves, will not lead us to it. The experience of our own powerlessness to change our minds, to turn them round to the Light, may be an entirely true experience. But that goodness of God, which is with us, is not merely something which we may recollect, by which we may profit: it is an active, vital power. It is the one power which can act upon spirit. It is He who convinces us of sin, because we have believed in Him in whom is not sin, and who is always with us to deliver us from sin; of righteousness, because He has gone to the Father, as the righteous Head of our race, to justify us; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged, and because each year is hastening on the time when he shall finally be cast out.—Maurice.

SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 2:1

God’s attributes enhance His goodness.—The apostle speaks of “the riches of His goodness.” These riches appear in numberless displays. But he adds, “and forbearance and longsuffering,” to induce us to consider the latter as the proof of the former. To see then the riches of His goodness, let us contemplate His forbearance and longsuffering. Everything in God enhances His patience.

I. His greatness enhances it.—We are more affected with an affront from an equal than from a superior, and more from an inferior than from an equal. How does the master resent an offence from his slave? or a king from a subject? All comparison fails between God and us. He is the maker of all things; and all nations before Him are as nothing. This is the Being insulted. And who is the offender? A grovelling worm upon a dunghill. And yet He bears with us.

II. His wisdom enhances it.—We cannot be affected with affronts of which we are ignorant. How would some be enraged if they knew only what is said of them by some of their “friends”! None of our offences are secret from God. He bears all, sees all, and knows perfectly every imagination of the thoughts of our heart. And yet He bears with us.

III. His holiness enhances it.—If we do not think and feel a thing to be an affront, there is no virtue, for there is no difficulty in enduring it. The trial is when it touches us to the quick in some valued interest. Sin is exceedingly sinful. By nothing does God deem Himself so dishonoured. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. It is the abominable thing which His soul hates. And yet He bears with us.

IV. His power enhances it.—Why do we put up with a thousand wrongs? We know and feel them, but we reluctantly submit because we have no way to punish them. Why are not sinners destroyed? Moses, when he had provoked the Egyptians, saved himself by flight. But whither can we go from God’s presence or flee from His Spirit? Some, when they have provoked resentment, have defied it, and successfully too. But who ever hardened himself against God and prospered? His look is death. And yet He bears with us.

V. His bounty enhances it.—We complain peculiarly of an injury or an insult from one who is much indebted to us. From another, we say, we could have borne it; but he is viler than the brute, for “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” We are under infinite obligations to the God we provoke. In Him we have lived, and moved, and had our being. His table has fed us; His wardrobe has clothed us; His sun has warmed us. And this is not all: His kindness continues, notwithstanding all our ingratitude. And He not only spares us, but in every way indulges us. He waits to be gracious, and is exalted to have mercy upon us. Yet are these riches of His goodness “despised.”

1. Despised by inconsideration. We treat them as unworthy of our notice. They do not occupy our thoughts or our words.

2. Despised by disobedience. We resist their design, which is to lead us to repentance. God calls, but we will not answer; He knocks, but we refuse to open—who is the Lord that we should obey His voice?

3. Despised by perversion. We turn them into instruments of rebellion, and make them the very means of increasing our impenitency. If we thought God would destroy us the next sin we committed, it would not be committed; but since He is too kind to do this, we are induced to offend Him. We are evil, because He is good. How unreasonable is this contempt! If an individual were to behave towards a fellow-creature as men are continually acting towards the blessed God, no one could notice him but with astonishment and contempt. Yet we talk of the dignity of human nature, or contend that it is but slightly injured by the Fall!—W. Jay.

The justice of God.—Slow goes the hand of justice, like the shadow on the sun-dial—ever moving, yet creeping slowly on, with a motion all but imperceptible. Still stand in awe. The hand of justice has not stopped. Although imperceptible, it steadily advances; by-and-by it reaches the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth hour. And now the bell strikes. Then, unless you have fled to Christ, the blow, which was so slow to fall, shall descend over the head of impenitence with accumulated force. Human standards of judgment.—We measure from ourselves; and as things are for our use and purpose, so we approve them. Bring a pear to the table that is rotten, we cry it down—’tis naught; but bring a medlar that is rotten, and ’tis a fine thing; and yet I’ll warrant you the pear thinks as well of itself as the medlar does.—Trapp.

By judging we condemn ourselves.—“Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest others.” The first argument in support of his proposition is deduced from the foregone conclusion, by which the apostle has concluded that the Gentiles in general, knowing the judgment of God, yet did things contrary thereto; and therefore that proposition is enunciated illatively, and as a sort of secondary conclusion—“Wherefore thou art inexcusable,” etc.; “for in the act of judging another thou condemnest thyself.” The argument runs thus: Whosoever condemns himself in the act of judging another is inexcusable: “[But] thou, O man,” says the apostle, addressing the Gentile philosophers individually, “in the act of judging another condemnest thyself”; “therefore thou art inexcusable.” The proposition is a-wanting; but the other two parts of the syllogism are given in the verse, only that the assumption, by hysterosis, is placed after the conclusion, “Thou that judgest another doest the same things.” He proves the assumption by an argument drawn from the effects of him who thus judged another, which effects are set forth under a comparison of equality—he who does the same things for which he judges another, in the act of judging another condemns himself. “But thou,” says the apostle to each of the Gentile philosophers, “that judgest another doest the same things for which thou judgest another; therefore in the act of judging another thou condemnest thyself.” The assumption is expressed in the words just quoted, which form the last clause of this verse; but, by hysterosis, the proposition, with its proof, is given in the two following verses—the proof in the second, and the proposition itself therefrom deduced in the third.—Ferme.

Privilege will not save.—Having shown that the Gentiles could not entertain the least hope of salvation according to the tenor of the law of nature, it was next to be considered whether the law of Moses gave the Jews any better hope. This inquiry the apostle managed with great address. Well knowing that, on reading his description of the manners of the Greeks, the Jews would pronounce them worthy of damnation, he suddenly turned his discourse to the Jews, telling them that they who passed such a judgment on the Gentiles were inexcusable in hoping to be saved through the law of Moses, because by condemning he Gentiles they virtually condemned themselves, who, being guilty of the very same crimes, were thereby under the curse of Moses’ law (Romans 2:1). And to enforce this argument the apostle observed that God’s sentence of condemnation passed in the curse of the law upon them who commit such things is known by all to be according to truth (Romans 2:2). But although every Jew was condemned by the curse of the law of Moses, they all expected salvation on account of their being Abraham’s children and of their enjoying the benefit of revelation. Wherefore, to show them the vanity of that hope, the apostle proposed the following question: Dost thou, who condemnest the Gentiles for their crimes, and yet committest the same thyself, think that thou shalt escape the righteous sentence of God declared in the curse of the law of Moses, merely because thou art a son of Abraham and a member of God’s visible Church? (Romans 2:3.) By entertaining such a notion thou judgest amiss of thy privileges, which are bestowed on thee, not to make sinning more safe to thee than to others, but to lead to repentance (Romans 2:4). These privileges therefore, instead of making thy salvation sure, if abused by thy obdurate and impenitent heart, will make thy punishment greater in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.—Macknight.

“Thinkest thou.”—This is preaching to the conscience, to the quick. Our exhortations should be as forked arrows to stick in men’s hearts, and not wound only, as other arrows. A poor hermit came to our Richard I., A.D. 1195, and, preaching to him the words of eternal life, bade him be mindful of the subversion of Sodom and to abstain from things unlawful; otherwise, said he, the deserved vengeance of God will come upon thee. The hermit being gone, the king neglected his words. But afterwards falling sick, he more seriously bethought himself, and waxing sound in soul as well as in body, he grew more devout and charitable to the poor.—Trapp.

Repentance you must have.—The consciousness and confession of one’s self as a sinner is the inevitable first step in all true repentance. When one says, Oh yes, I know that we are all sinners, he merely inculpates others to lighten his own guilt, he makes no true confession of sin. When one charges himself with wrong expecting others to palliate his misdeed, it may be thinking that even God will not regard it as severely as he has stated it, he but adds insincerity to his other sins. Sometimes men boastfully declare that they have done some evil deed; this is “to make a mock at sin.” It is when one, like Job, cries to God, “I have sinned,” not excusing himself, not vainly hoping that God will look leniently upon his guilt, but rather himself trying to see more clearly the enormity of his iniquity, that he truly makes confession of sin. But there is no merit even in this. He confesses not for reward, but for pardon, So when he asks, “What shall I do unto Thee, O Thou Preserver of men?” it is not with the thought of propitiating God or of winning His favour; it is with the desire to show his repentance and gratitude in present and continued obedience. So repentance stops not at sorrowing for sin; it turns away from sin and unto God.—Robert Wesley Peach.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2

Romans 2:1. The poet Nash.—of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves. Nash, a poet, poor enough (as poets used to be), seeing an alderman with his gold chain upon his great horse, by way of scorn said to one of his companions, “Do you see yon fellow, how big he looks? Why, that fellow cannot make a blank verse!” Nay, we measure the goodness of God from ourselves: we measure His goodness, His justice, His wisdom, by something we call just, good, or wise in ourselves; and in so doing we judge proportionably to the country-fellow in the play, who said, if he were a king, he would live like a lord, and have peas and bacon every day, and a whip that cried “slash.”

Romans 2:1. Prejudice in judgment.—Nero thought no person chaste, because he was so unchaste himself—such as one troubled with the jaundice sees all things yellow. Those who are most religious are least censorious. Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? Those who are fellow-creatures with men should not be fellow-judges with God.

Romans 2:1. Judge gently.—If we thoroughly looked into and understood ourselves, we should surely be more charitable in our judgments of others. And yet it is strange that the more the sinner, the more severe the critic. Perhaps our condemnation of others is supposed to be a condoning of our own misdoings. But we have to take home the exhortation, “For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; especially if thou doest the same thing thyself.”

“Then gently scan your brother man,

Still gentler sister woman;

Though they may gang a-kennin’ wrang

To step aside is human.”

Burns.

Romans 2:1. Fault-finding.—It is the painful necessity of people in certain positions in life that they have to find fault; but to do this with any useful result requires much tact and sympathy. When we are rebuked in this spirit, we do not resent it, but are rather obliged for the interest that is taken in us. Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, author of the Morning and Evening Hymns and of the Doxology, had acquired this art of profitable fault-finding. He was chaplain to Charles II., and spoke plainly to the king, who, however, was never angry at his faithfulness. “I must go,” he used to say, “and hear little Ken tell me of my faults.”

Romans 2:2. Clearchus on oaths.—Clearchus says to Tissaphernes, “The oaths which we have sworn by the gods forbid us to be enemies to each other, and I should never consider him to be envied who is conscious of having disregarded such obligations; for from the vengeance of the gods I know not to what speed any one could flee so as to escape, or into what darkness he could steal away, or how he could retreat into any stronghold, since all things in all places are subject to the gods, and they have power over all everywhere alike.” We have here one heathen appealing to another, to a stranger in race and religion, on the ground of a moral truth admitted by all. “According to truth.” God’s sentence corresponds with the reality of the case, on man’s actual conduct. All judges aim at this; God attains it.