Romans 2:5

The δέ, but, contrasts the result of so many favors received with the divinely desired effect. The contrast indicated arises from the fact that the Jews in their conduct are guided by a wholly different rule from that to which the mercy of God sought to draw them. This idea of rule is indeed what explains the preposition κατά, according to, which is usually made into a by. The word denotes a line of conduct long followed, the old Jewish habit of meeting the calls of God with a hard and impenitent heart; what Stephen so forcibly upbraided them with, Acts 7:51: “Ye stiffnecked (σκληροτράχηλοι) and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye.”

Hardness relates to insensibility of heart to divine favors; impenitence, to the absence of that change of views which the feeling of such goodness should have produced.

But it must not be thought that these favors are purely and simply lost. Instead of the good which they should have produced, evil results from them. Every favor trampled under foot adds to the treasure of wrath which is already suspended over the heads of the impenitent people. There is an evident correlation between the phrase riches of goodness, Romans 2:4, and the Greek word θησαυρίζειν, to treasure up. The latter word, as well as the dative (of favor!) σεαυτῷ, for thyself, have certainly a tinge of irony. What an enriching is that! Wrath is here denounced on the Jews, as it had been, Romans 1:18, on the Gentiles. The two passages are parallel; there is only this difference between them, that among the Gentiles the thunderbolt has already fallen, while the storm is still gathering for the Jews. The time when it will burst on them is called the day of wrath. In this phrase two ideas are combined: that of the great national catastrophe which had been predicted by John the Baptist and by Jesus (Matthew 3:10; Luke 11:50-51), and that of the final judgment of the guilty taken individually at the last day. The preposition ἐν (“ in the day”) may be made dependent on the substantive wrath: “the wrath which will have its full course in the day when”...But it is more natural to connect this clause with the verb: “thou art heaping up a treasure which shall be paid to thee in the day when”...The writer transports himself in thought to the day itself; he is present then: hence the ἐν instead of εἰς.

The three Byz. Mjj. and the correctors of the Sinaït. and of the Cantab. read a καί, and, between the two words revelation and just judgment, and thus give the word “day” three complements: day of wrath, of revelation, and of just judgment. These three names would correspond well with the three of Romans 2:4: goodness, patience, long-suffering; and the term revelation, without complement, would have in it something mysterious and threatening quite in keeping with the context. This reading is, however, improbable. The καί (and) is omitted not only in the Mjj. of the two other families, but also in the ancient versions (Syriac and Latin); besides the word revelation can hardly be destitute of all qualification. The apostle therefore says: the revelation of the righteous judgment; thus indicating that wrath (righteous judgment) is still veiled so far as the Jews are concerned (in contrast to the ἀποκαλύπτεται, is revealed, Romans 1:18), but that then it will be fully unveiled in relation to them also.

Only two passages are quoted where the word δικαιοκρισία, just judgment, is used: in a Greek translation of Hosea 4:5, and in the Testaments of the twelve patriarchs. The word recalls the phrase of Romans 2:2: “The judgment of God according to truth. ” It dissipates beforehand the illusions cherished by the Jews as to the immunity which they hoped to enjoy in that day in virtue of their theocratic privileges. It contains the theme of the development which immediately follows. The just judgment of God (the judgment according to truth, Romans 2:2) will bear solely on the moral life of each individual, Romans 2:6-12, not on the external fact of being the hearer of a law, Romans 2:13-16. These are the positive and negative characteristics of a judgment according to righteousness.

It would be unaccountable how Ritschl could have mistaken the obvious relation between Romans 2:5; Romans 2:4 so far as to connect Romans 2:5 with the notion of wrath, Romans 1:18, had not a preconceived idea imposed on him this exegetical violence.