Romans 2:7-8

“ To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, [to such] eternal life: but for them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [for such] wrath and indignation! ”

The Jews divided men into circumcised, and consequently saved, and uncircumcised, and consequently damned. Here is a new classification, which Paul substitutes, founded solely on the moral aim.

There are two principal ways of construing Romans 2:7. Sometimes the three words: glory, honor, immortality, are made the objects of the verb: will render (Romans 2:6), understood. The phrase: patient continuance in well-doing, is thus taken to qualify the pronoun τοῖς μέν, to them, and the last words: ζητοῦσιν κ. τ. λ., become merely an explanatory appendix: “to wit, to them who seek eternal life.” The meaning of the verse thus taken is: “to them who live in patient continuance in well-doing [He will render] glory and honor and immortality, [to wit, to those] who seek eternal life.” But this construction is very forced. 1. The subordinate clause: “in continuance,” is rather the qualification of a verb than of a pronoun like τοῖς μέν. 2. The participle ζητοῦσι would require the article τοῖς, and would make a clumsy and superfluous appendix. The construction, as given in our translation, is much more simple and significant. The regimen καθ᾿ ὑπομονήν, literally, according to the standard of patient continuance in well-doing, corresponds with the seek, on which it depends; seeking must be in a certain line. And the weighty word eternal life, at the close of this long sentence, depicts, as it were, the final and glorious issue of this long and laborious practice of goodness. This accusative is the object of the verb: will render, understood (Romans 2:6).

The notion of patient continuance is emphasized here, not only in opposition to the idea of intermittent moral efforts, but to indicate that there are great moral obstacles to be met on this path, and that a persistent love of goodness is needed to surmount them. The apostle says literally: perseverance in good work. In Romans 2:6 he had used the plural works. He now comprehends this multiplicity of works in the profound principle which constitutes their unity, the permanent determination to realize goodness. What supports a man in this course is the goal which he has constantly before him: glory, an existence without defilement or weakness, resplendent throughout with the divine brightness of holiness and power; honor, the approbation of God, which forms the eternal honor of its object; immortality (incorruptibility), the absolute impossibility of any wound or interruption or end to this state of being. The ands, καί, before the last two substantives, show a certain degree of emotion; the accumulation of terms arises from the same cause. In all human conditions there are souls which contemplate the ideal here described, and which, ravished with its beauty, are elevated by it above every earthly ambition and the pursuit of sensual gratifications. These are the men who are represented under the figure of the merchant seeking goodly pearls. For such is the pearl of great price, life eternal! This last word, laden as it were with all divine riches, denotes the realization of the ideal just described; it worthily closes this magnificent proposition.

But is it asked again, where, in this description of a normal human life, are faith and salvation by the gospel to be found? Does Paul then preach salvation by the work of man? The apostle has not to do here with the means whereby we can really attain to well-doing; he merely affirms that no one will be saved apart from the doing of good, and he assumes that the man who is animated with this persistent desire will not fail, some time or other, in the journey of life, to meet with the means of attaining an end so holy and glorious. This means is faith in the gospel a truth which Paul reserves for proof at a later stage. “ He that doeth truth,” said Jesus to the same effect, “ cometh to the light,” as soon as it is presented to him (John 3:21; comp. Romans 7:17). The love of goodness, which is the spring of his life, will then lead him to embrace Christ, the ideal of goodness; and, having embraced Him, he will find in Him the triumphant power for well-doing of which he was in quest. The desire of goodness is the acceptance of the gospel by anticipation. The natural corollary of these premisses is the thought expressed by Peter: the preaching of the gospel before the judgment to every human soul, either in this life or in the next (1 Peter 3:19-20; 1Pe 4:6). Comp. Matthew 12:31-32. And if the apostle has spoken of patient continuance in this pursuit, it is because he is well aware of that power of self-mastery which is needed, especially in a Jew, to break with his nation, and family, and all his past, and to remain faithful to the end to the supreme love of goodness.

The other class of men is described Romans 2:8. The regimen ἐξ ἐριθείας can without difficulty serve to qualify the pronoun τοῖς δέ; comp. the construction ὁ or οἱ ἐκ πίστεως, Romans 3:26; Galatians 3:7. The meaning is: “but for those who are under the dominion of the spirit of contention.”

The word ἐριθεία, contention, does not come, as has been often thought, from ἔρις, disputation, but, as Fritzsche has proved, from ἔριθος, mercenary; whence the verb ἐριθεύειν, “to work for wages,” then, “to put oneself at the service of a party.” The substantive ἐριθεία therefore denotes the spirit which seeks the victory of the party which one has espoused from self-interest, in contrast to the spirit which seeks the possession of the truth. Paul knew well from experience the tendency of Rabbinical discussions, and he characterizes it by a single word. The term truth is here used abstractly; but Paul has, nevertheless, in view the concrete realization of this notion in the gospel revelation. Unrighteousness, which he contrasts with truth (exactly as Jesus does, John 7:18), denotes the selfish passions, vain ambitions, and unrighteous prejudices, which lead a man to close his eyes to the light when it presents itself, and thus produce unbelief. Unrighteousness leads to this result as certainly as moral integrity leads to faith. Jesus develops precisely the same thought, John 3:19-20. The words wrath and indignation, which express the wages earned by such conduct, are in the nominative in Greek, not in the accusative, like the word eternal life (Romans 2:7). They are not, therefore, the object of the verb will render, which is too remote. We must make them either the subject of a verb understood (ἔσται, will be, there will be), or, better still, an exclamation: “for them, wrath!” The three Byz. Mjj. follow the psychological order, “ indignation and wrath! ” First the internal emotion (indignation), then the external manifestation (wrath); but the other two families present the inverse order, and rightly so. For what is first perceived is the manifestation; then we pass upward to the feeling which inspires it, and which gives it all its gravity. Θυμός is the emotion of the soul; ὀργή comprehends look, sentence, chastisement.

Why does the apostle once again repeat this contrast of Romans 2:7-8 in Romans 2:9-10 ? Obviously with the view of now adding to each term of the contrast the words: to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, which expressly efface the false line of demarkation drawn by Jewish theology.