What's Wrong with A Moralist (Romans 2.1-11)

Preached on 13/7/2014

It is not entirely clear whom Paul is addressing in this section of his letter. In the previous section he has described the Gentiles of his day and in subsequent passages he definitely addresses Jews. Some scholars argue that in this passage he also speaks to Jews whereas others suggest he is describing a Gentile who lived a different type of life from those described in 1:18-32. There were such Gentiles, including some famous philosophers, who lamented the lifestyle that Paul had described and who criticised it in their own ways. 

It is obvious, however, from Paul’s description of the individual in 2:1-11 that he does not live up to his own standards, whether he is a Jew or a Gentile. It is possible that Paul has literal judges in mind, those who passed sentence on people for wrong actions while being guilty of practising the same things. We are all familiar with individuals who say one thing and do another. It is the case that we know that there are individuals who condemn theft and yet accept bribes; we know that there are people who condemn immorality and yet watch pornography on the internet. So whether they are government officials, opinionated Gentiles or legalistic Jews, they did not practice what they knew was right. What does God’s messenger have to say to such a person? 

The first point that Paul makes is an obvious one (vv. 1-3). It is not acceptable merely to know what is right or even to say what is right. The appropriate word for such people is hypocrisy. And God despises hypocrites and he will ensure that they experience the same divine response as those Paul had described in 1:18-32. They will be punished by God in this life for as long as they persist with their hypocrisy and also in the next if they do not repent of their sins. 

The goodness of God 

The second detail on which Paul focuses is the goodness of God. Paul mentions three features of God’s goodness – his kindness, his forbearance and his patience. The kindness of God here refers to the benefits he gives to people as their Creator. He provides them with existence, with natural talents, with food and clothing. Paul describes the goodness of God in Acts 14:15-17 when interacting with the residents of Lystra. Day after day he arranges for such things to be given to his rebellious creatures. We know sadly that there are famines in several places, but does anyone count the number of places where famines do not happen, where abundance is the norm? 

The second feature of God’s goodness is his forbearance, which refers to his response to their wrongdoing. It does not mean that he does nothing in response because, as we have seen, he does act in judgement even now by giving people up to their desires. But he does not deal with people in this life with the degree of punishment that their sins deserve. Instead of dealing with their sins fully he deals with them in the present with less than their sins deserve. 

The third feature of his goodness is his patience or his longsuffering. How long does God show forbearance with some people? There are individuals who live in the manner depicted here by Paul for eighty or ninety years and for as long as they are alive God does not deal with them the way their sins deserve.  

Have you ever thought of the Egyptians whom God arranged for Joseph to help? We usually think of the story from the point of view of Jacob and his brothers, and of God’s wonderful undeserved provision for them. But think of the Egyptians and how good God was to them! He provided food for them when their country and the rest of the area experienced a severe famine. He arranged for them to have in Joseph a wise and competent politician, a man who would never be corrupted. Yet there is no record of them having a service of thanksgiving to God for anything.  

What is repentance? 

Paul then reminds his readers of the appropriate response to God’s goodness. The required response is repentance. Of course, there are other reasons for repentance in addition to God’s goodness. For example, we should repent because of his righteous standards expressed in his moral law when we realise how far short we come of his required standards. We also should repent when we think about Jesus on the cross because he was there as the one who bore the punishment of sin. And we should repent when we think about the Day of Judgement in the future, a day that each of us will see. 

Yet I want us to think about God’s goodness leading to repentance. What good things has God done for us today? Did we have a good night’s rest, did we have our daily food, did we stay in comfortable house, did we have electric light and other facilities, and did we have peace in our homes and a whole range of other things? What did we think of these divine provisions? There are two required responses which God demands from us and they are thankfulness and repentance. It is important to note the connection between them because an ungrateful person is an impenitent person.  

The word ‘repentance’ in itself basically means a change of mind. So we can in a sense say that a person who intended to go to Glasgow but changed his mind and went to Edinburgh is a repentant person because he is a person who changed his mind about the direction in which he was travelling. What indicates the type of repentance is the object of it. I know some people who have the kind of repentance that occurs when they change their lifestyles because of the reasoning of their parents. In some ways, that is a good repentance but it is not a saving repentance. The repentance that Paul is describing here is focussed on God. 

What does a person see when he repents toward God? Often people look with one eye, as it were, and see only his condemnation. Of course, his condemnation is very real and we should not ignore it. Yet at the same time we should have our eyes on the goodness of God in providence and on the heart of God who wants to show mercy. When an individual sees them together, he will be encouraged to repent; indeed he will find himself being drawn towards God. 

When we think of repentance we must remind ourselves that one of the reasons why Jesus came was connected to repentance: ‘I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Luke 5:19). Here by the righteous, Jesus means those who imagined that they were righteous, but who were not. But if a person thinks he is righteous when he is not, he will see no need for repenting even of his self-righteousness. The verse also stresses that Jesus wanted sinners to repent of their sins, and if they did they would be forgiven. 

Moreover, one of the consequences of the ascension of Jesus is that he is able to give repentance to sinners. If we know that a person has something he is willing to give away we will go and ask him for it. In a far higher sense we should ask Jesus to give us this true repentance. If we do so, what kind of repentance will we be given? 

Clearly, such repentance will take personal sin seriously and will not try to minimize it or excuse it. Yet it will also be sensitive to the fact that sin has been against a kind God, even a saving God. Such repentance, therefore, is marked by sorrow. It involves the penitent’s feelings. While tears can be false, genuine ones will accompany real repentance. 

The Day of Wrath 

In the previous section (1:18-32), Paul had highlighted the present nature of divine wrath. Here he mentions the wrath that will be revealed on the Day of Judgement. What will that day be like? Paul refers to the two types of people who will be there. The emphasis that he uses is that behaviour in this life indicates what will happen on the final day.  

On the one hand are those whom God will accept on that day. Paul is not suggesting that such will be saved by their works without having faith in Christ. Instead he is stating a common biblical emphasis that those who have faith in Christ will live godly lives. Godly living is here described as ‘well-doing’. The apostle points out the changed attitudes true believers have. They are patient or we might say they are persistent and just keep on going in the Christian life. In addition, they have aspirations; they seek for glory, honour and immortality. Frequently in the New Testament we are told about the rewards of grace that will be given to faithful Christians. It is not sinful to aspire to have them, to be told ‘well done’ on that day. But in order to be told it they will have had to have performed them. Paul is not speaking about perfection here; instead he has in mind dedication to discipleship or realistic sanctification. This is a reminder that we have to take the Christian life seriously. 

Paul here describes what eternal life is. True believers seek for something which only God can give. They seek for glory, honour and immortality; God gives them eternal life. He will not give them something unconnected to what they sought. Rather he gives them what they sought. Perhaps we could say glory is the environment of eternal life, honour is the position of eternal life, and immortality is the energy of eternal life. The apostle adjusts the list slightly a couple of verses later when instead of immortality he mentions peace, which is another element of eternal life. The challenge that comes to us is whether we have those aspirations. 

In contrast, there will be those who will experience eternal death on that day. Those who lived unrighteous lives, who did not pursue obedience to the truth about God (perhaps a reference back to what Paul says in 1:18ff about Gentiles suppressing the truth), will endure an awful experience – here called wrath and fury, tribulation and distress. The first pair – wrath and fury – reminds us that God will be active in continuing forever his judgement and the second pair – tribulation and distress - reminds us that eternal death will be a conscious experience. This is an awful prospect and it enables us to see why John the Baptist urged people to flee from the wrath to come. 

Applications 

As we close, we can remind ourselves of four details and in order to help us remember them I will begin each of them with the letter G. The first is grief or godly sorrow for sin. This is how we begin the Christian life, how we continue the Christian life, and how we should end the Christian life. Perhaps we have heard of the saying of the famous early church father Tertullian, the man who seems to have coined the term ‘Trinity’ to describe God, that he ‘was born for nothing but repentance’. He was a man who knew how to live. I also recall reading about the last words of John Murray, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ Godly sorrow is a beautiful Christian grace. 

The second word is ‘genuineness’ as far as our lives are concerned. Do we have genuine marks of grace that prove we have passed from death to life? I don’t engage in nostalgia, but I would say this. The Christians I knew when I was young walked away from sin whereas today I think most of them walk beside it. 

The third word is ‘glory’, a word that should describe the future for which we aspire and to which we aim. Many people aspire for earthly glory and show it by their dedication to it. There is no other way to show our aspiration. If someone said to me that they were aspiring for glory at the Olympic Games and did not engage in preparation for it I would say that he or she was deluded.

The fourth word is grim, but it is far too small a word to describe the awfulness of a lost eternity. But we have to face up to its reality. It is not a fable told in order to make us behave in a certain way. The Son of God went to Calvary because hell is real. 

And there is a fifth word – gospel, the powerful message of God’s grace in and through Jesus. A powerful gospel is needed to save the persons described in 1:18-32 and a powerful gospel is needed to save the persons described in 2:1-11.