Romans 2:2

“ Now we know that the sentence of God is according to truth upon them which commit such things. ”

We might give the δέ an adversative sense: “ But God does not let Himself be deceived by this judgment which thou passest on others.” It is more natural, however, to translate this δέ by now, and to take this verse as the major of a syllogism. The minor, Romans 2:1: thy judgment on others condemns thee; the major, Romans 2:2: now the judgment of God is always true; the conclusion understood (between Romans 2:2-3): therefore thy hypocritical judgment cannot shelter thee from that of God. The connecting particle γάρ, for, in two Alex. is inadmissible. This for, to be logical, must bear on the proposition: thou condemnest thyself, which is unnatural, as a new idea has intervened since then.

What is the subject in we know? According to some: we, Christians. But what would the knowledge of Christians prove against the Jewish point of view which Paul is here combating? Others: we, Jews. But it was precisely the Jewish conscience which Paul was anxious to bring back to truth on this point. The matter in question is a truth inscribed, according to the apostle, on the human conscience as such, and which plain common sense, free from prejudices, compels us to own: “But every one knows.”

The term κρῖμα does not denote, like κρίσις, the act of judging, but its contents, the sentence. The sentence which God pronounces on every man is agreeable to truth. There would be no more truth in the universe if there were none in the judgment of God; and there would be none in the judgment of God, if to be absolved ourselves, it were enough to condemn others.

The words κατὰ ἀλήθειαν have sometimes been explained in the sense of really: “that there is really a judgment of God against those who”...But what the Jews disputed was not the fact of judgment; it was its impartiality that is to say, its truth. They could not get rid of the idea that in that day they would enjoy certain immunities due to their purer creed, and the greatly higher position which they held than that of other nations.

Such things, that is to say, those referred to by the same word, Romans 1:32.

But the apostle is not unaware that in the Jewish conscience there is an obstacle to the full application of this principle; it is this obstacle which he now labors to remove. Romans 2:3-5 develop the words: they who do such things (whoever they are, should they even be Jews); Romans 2:6-16 will explain what is meant by a judgment according to truth.