Romans 2.1-11
Messenger Dox
Call to worship:
OT:
pastor bobby owens
Exodus 20.1-17
NT:
pastor zachary mcguire
Matthew 22.34-40
song:
Come behold the wondrous mystery
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
Apostles’ Creed
song:
Jesus paid it all
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
Before the throne of God above
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Romans 2.1-11
Introduction
Who’s been to Disneyland in California? Did you ride Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride? It is indeed a wild ride. Toads is an opening day attraction at Disneyland and was the 1st ever ride the imagineers assembled at the studio in Burbank in preparation for Disneyland’s July 1955 opening. The dark ride is based on the 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. We watched it last Halloween with our kids, and they were like, “what the heck are we watching?”
Anyway, like I said, it’s a dark ride wherein you assume the role of J. Thadeus Toad, esq., aka Mr. Toad, and it is wild. You’re basically simulating driving through his mansion, and then the streets of London, avoiding the police until you enter a courtroom where a judge declares you guilty, you drive through the court to a jail, escape jail and then collide head on with a train, and then are sent to hell and then the ride just ends. This was designed as an attraction for kids in 1955! It’s interesting that the ideas of guilt, judgment, and even hell were more culturally palatable in 1955 – even to the point of being used by Disney for a family attraction in Fantasyland.
The themes of guilt, judgment, and hell are heavy in this section of Romans we currently inhabit. From Romans 1.18-3.23 Paul is building his case that we’re all guilty. All of humanity, from Adam forward, are guilty of breaking God’s Law and deserving of God’s judgment, wrath, and eternal conscious punishment in hell. Let’s just go ahead and get it out of the way and address the elephant in the room right off the bat – I would assume based on the Word of the Lord that we read, and the statement I just made, we’re all uncomfortable to one degree or another.
Maybe you’re angry because you reject the notion of guilt, judgment, and hell altogether. Maybe you’re self-righteous, pitying me, or anyone else who could believe such archaic and foolish theology like a God who would pronounce guilt, judgment, and hell. Maybe you’re feeling guilt and shame about your own sin. Regardless of your reaction, I would encourage you to humble yourself and submit yourself to the preaching of God’s Word because (1) God’s Word is true – Romans 3.4 says, Let God be true though every man were a lair; (2) we need to feel the weight of our guilt, God’s judgment, and the hell we rightly deserve; and (3) remember this pericope follows Romans 1.16-17. The gospel is our flashlight, our torch, our pillar of fire that guides us through the dark wilderness of our depravity. Let’s walk together through this darkness with the light of the gospel as our guide.
God’s Righteous Judgment
In Romans 2.1 we pick up where we left off last week from Romans 1.26-32 where St. Paul was continuing his argument that the gentiles are guilty and deserve God’s wrath revealed in idolatry, homosexuality, and list of other sins summarized in breaking God’s Law (10 Commandments). Chapter 2 verse 1 lets us know Paul is continuing the same argument with the conjunction therefore (Διὸ). “Conjunction junction what’s your function? Hookin’ up words, phrase, and clauses.” So, St. Paul is hookin’ up the ideas from last week with this pericope.
He now shifts his argument away from the gentiles to his own people, the Jews, arguing they also are without excuse because they practice the same sins that the gentiles do. Even though the Jewish people rejected idolatry and homosexuality (though there were certainly individuals who practiced these sins), they as a people still practiced idolatry through that list of sins Paul ended chapter 1, by breaking the 10 Commandments, God’s Law. It’s important to note Paul is not rejecting the idea of judging. Many people, even Christians, wrongly interpret passages like this to say we are not to judge or discern anyone’s actions or intentions, but that’s clearly not what Scripture teaches here. Verse 3 says, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. St. Paul and the Jews rightly judged the sins of the gentiles in chapter 1; that judgment was not the issue; the issue is they are equally guilty because they practice the same sins.
The Jews presume on God’s kindness and patience assuming that they are safe from judgment, even though they practice same sin, simply because they have received the covenant. The Jewish people had in effect become antinomian, lawless, believing simply because they had been given the Law, because they were the old covenant people of God, that they were exempt from God’s judgment regardless of whether they kept the Law or not. They were functioning as if they had a “get out of jail free card” because they were Israelites. But they misunderstood God’s kindness and patience.
St. Paul says God’s kindness is meant to lead to repentance (μετάνοια), but they are impenitent, unrepentant (ἀμετανόητος) and storing up wrath for themselves. The word repentance (μετάνοια) means, “to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.” God’s grace in the Law had not led Israel to a change of life as a result of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness; they did not practice μετάνοια; instead they practiced ἀμετανόητος, unrepentance, impenitence. They were trusting in their ethnicity and heritage to stand before God.
But Scripture says that God renders judgment to each person according to their works; if someone were to keep the Law, God grants eternal life. To those who are self-seeking – wrath. Self-seeking (ἐριθεία) means rivalry; it implies:
‘wanting to be better than someone else’ or ‘wanting to make people think they are better.’ The meaning of ‘selfish ambition’ may be rendered as ‘what they do is just to make themselves look bigger’ or ‘what they do is just for themselves.’
Paul’s saying those who don’t keep the Law, but rather seek themselves, position themselves as righteous by some standard other than God’s Law, these people receive God’s wrath. The Jews understood that the gentiles did this, but what they were missing, what they were blind to, is that they did this as well.
The truth is we all do this. No one keeps God’s Law. We’re all sinners; we’re all guilty, not some general kind of guilt or missing the mark, but specifically we’re all guilty of breaking the 10 Commandments. I deserve to go to hell because I break the 10 Commandments.
We all seek to establish our own standard of righteousness and to prop ourselves up on it. This is the argument Paul is building from Romans 1.18-3.23, which climaxes in Romans 3.23 – for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So, what St. Paul offers in vss. 6-7 of Romans 2 is hypothetical (Calvin, Reformed tradition, etc.). Hypothetically if someone was patient in well doing – the Greek literally says persevering in good works (ὑπομονὴν ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ) – if someone did perfectly keep God’s Law, they would receive eternal life, but no one does, and no one can.
This week I did read a Baptist theologian (who I really love and respect) who argued that Paul is talking about good works after salvation that necessarily contribute to salvation. I don’t know why, but I always feel like Baptists can’t help but make it about works some way, somehow, even Reformed Baptist feel like they get pulled in that direction, but they’re teaching right theology from the wrong passage. It’s true that we’re saved not by good works, but unto good works, but that’s not what this passage is saying. This interpretation completely contradicts Paul’s entire argument. Romans 1.18-3.23 is making the clear case that we’re all guilty and condemned.
The reality of human depravity is universal and was true even before formal giving of Law. This has been true since the very beginning, since yhwh gave Adam the covenant of works – if Adam obeyed during period of testing, he and all of his posterity would have received eternal life, but if Adam ate of the fruit of the tree, he and all of his posterity would surely die. And Adam did eat of the tree and Adam did fall in sin, and humanity with him. And the result is we are all imputed Adam’s guilt; we all inherit Adam’s original sin; St. Paul is saying if someone did keep the Law perfectly in thought, word, and deed, that person would receive eternal life, but no one does.
God’s Righteous Good News
Except one. There is an Israelite, the true and final Israel, the last Adam, who did keep God’s Law perfectly in thought, word, and deed. His name is Jesus of Nazareth and He is the incarnate 2nd person of the Holy Trinity – conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus knew no sin but He became sin for us on the cross. At Calvary Jesus voluntarily took our guilt, our shame, our judgment, our wrath, and our hell on himself. The day you eat of the fruit of the tree you will surely die; the wages of sin is death – Jesus died on the tree; He received our wages in our place.
But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. St. Paul says that to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Jesus is the only person ever who was patient in well doing; the only human ever who persevered in good works and so by His resurrection God gave Him glory, honor, immortality and eternal life. Jesus resurrected from the dead with eternal life and as the source of eternal life.
And the good news is for our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is the gospel Paul is arguing from Romans 1.16-17:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Through faith in the person and work of Christ, we receive the righteousness of Jesus. We’re born with Adam’s guilt imputed to us, but through faith, the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to us. Since we’re united to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to us, we’re no longer guilty before God, we no longer receive the judgment of wrath, we no longer inherit eternal conscious punishment in hell. This is why 1 John 1.9 says that if we confess our sins Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Jesus is just in His forgiveness and cleansing because He kept God’s Law and He endured God’s wrath against the elect who did not keep God’s Law, so in terms of justice, there is no more wrath left against the elect, because Christ drained the cup of wrath on the cross.
And Paul told us in verse 17 that this union with Christ, this imputation of Jesus’ righteousness happens through faith alone. The Reformed tradition teaches that faith begins with knowledge (notitia) – the knowledge that God is holy, you are a sinned, and Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again for the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life. Faith also moves past knowledge to assent (assensus) – conviction that the content of this knowledge is true, confessing and not denying the gospel. And faith is complete with trust (fiducia) – resting in the work of Jesus alone and relying on His mercy and righteousness as yours before God. Faith means that if you were to stand before God and He we to ask you why He should forgive your sins and grant you eternal life, your answer would not be in the 1st person (because I did this, or because I think that), but your answer must be in the 3rd person (because He, because Jesus lived righteous in my place, because Jesus died for my sin, because Jesus rose for my justification).
And if God has given you the gift of faith, your response will be repentance. You will humble yourself. You will confess your sin. You will turn from your sin to Jesus. You will rest in Jesus alone. You must rest is Jesus alone because there is no other way. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Him.
Conclusion
The truth is, left to ourselves, we’re all on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. We’re all guilty and driving toward hell. But there is salvation from hell through faith in Jesus. If you have faith in Jesus, He took your guilt. If you have faith in Jesus, He took your judgment. If you have faith in Jesus, He took your hell. And if you confess your sins, [Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Repent and believe the gospel.