From Guilt To Glory: Hope for the Helpless
Expository Studies in Romans
Volume One
By Ray C. Stedman
Cover design by Phil Maylon and Judy Quinn Photograph by Russ Keller
FROM GUILT TO GLORY
Volume One
© 1978 by Ray C. Stedman
Reprinted by Discovery Publishing,
Palo Alto, California
Originally published: Multnomah Press
Portland, Oregon 97266
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Discovery Publishing.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stedman, Ray C.
From guilt to glory.
Contents: v. I. Hope for the helpless.
I. Bible N.T.-Romans-Sermons.
American I Title ISBN 0-88070-123-4 (v. I)
2. Sermons
CONTENTS
1. Introduction to Life (1: 1-17)
2. The Tragic Sense of Life (1: 18-23)
3. The Deepening Darkness (1:24-32)
5. According to Light (2: 12-29)
8. The Father of Faith (4:1-12)
9. The Faith of Our Father (4: 13-25)
11. Rejoicing in Suffering (5:3-10)
12. Rejoicing in God (5:11-21)
13. Can We Go On Sinning? (6:1-2)
14. The True Baptism of the Spirit (6:1-14)
15. Whose Slave Are You? (6:15-23)
16. Free to Win or Lose (7:1-6)
17. The Continuing Struggle (7:7-25)
20. The Sons of God Among Men (8:14-17)
21. The Agony and the Ecstasy (8:17-28)
22. If God Be For Us (8:28-39)
Paul's letter to the Romans is a description of the power of God let loose amid the ruin of man. It declares the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. God has found a way, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, to justify the ungodly. That includes us all, because we are all ungodly. Romans teaches us that God sees and understands all that is in out hearts. No one can therefore count upon his own righteousness in the presence of God. As Paul tells us, "There is none righteous, no, not one." There is no sweet little old lady, no strong virile man, no boy or girl who has lived a clean moral life, who is able to stand in the presence of the demands of the law and the love of God. We are ungodly to start with.
If we understand that, then we can be justified. To be justified means to be given the gift of righteousness, the gift of God's loving acceptance. That is where true life begins. As long as we remain self-righteous, we don't have a chance. If we recognize our ungodliness, we qualify.
In this book we will look at only the first eight chapters of Romans. In bite-sized sections we will follow Paul's masterful logic as he explains the process God takes us through to reach an extraordinary goal; to make us like God's Son, while somehow also making us more uniquely ourselves, This process involves our entire being. Paul explains to us what we have in Christ so that we will be able actively to participate in God's plan for us, We are not being acted upon by some blind force. Rather, our Lord is prodding us awake to make us realize the almost incredible potential of our lives, both now and in eternity.
(Romans 1:1-17)
The letter to the Romans is unquestionably the greatest and widest in scope of all of Paul's letters. It is intense and penetrating, and is one New Testament book with which every Christian ought to be thoroughly familiar. If you cannot think through the book of Romans without a Bible before you, then I urge you to make that your goal. Master the book-- be so well acquainted with it that you can outline it and think of its great themes without referring to your Bible. This will require careful reading, study, and working it through in detail.
Romans is probably the most powerful human document ever written. During this country's bicentennial celebration the Freedom Train traveled around the nation displaying great documents from American history, such as an original copy of the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Declaration of Independence. We rightly value these great documents of human liberty. In many ways, our freedom rests upon them and we Americans honor and respect them. But even they cannot hold a candle to the impact the epistle to the Romans has had upon human history.
To this letter we owe the conversion of some of the greatest church leaders of all time. St. Augustine, whose shadow has loomed large over the church since the fifth century, was converted by reading but a few verses of the thirteenth chapter. The sixteenth verse of the first chapter spoke volumes to Luther's heart as he thought and meditated on the great phrase. "The righteous will live by faith." The effect on Luther ushered in the Protestant Reformation, the greatest awakening our world had seen since the days of the apostles.
John Bunyan, studying Romans in the Bedford jail, was so caught up by the themes of this great letter that he wrote Pilgrim's Progress, which since the l600s has taught countless people how a Christian relates to the world. John Wesley, listening one day as Luther's preface to his commentary on Romans was being read, found his own heart "strangely warmed"; and out of that came the great evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century, In our own day, Karl Barth's studies in Romans have shaken the theological world. We may not always agree with everything Barth has written, but one thing is clear: His arguments on the book of Romans were devastating to liberal theology.
Romans was written about A.D. 56-58, when Paul was in the Greek city of Corinth on his third missionary journey. As you read this letter, you can catch glimpses of conditions in Corinth. Located at a crossroads of trade, it was one of the most wicked cities in the Roman Empire. Much of that atmosphere is reflected in Paul's words.
Romans was written only about thirty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The memory of these events was still sharply etched in the minds of Christians all over the empire. This letter was sent to teach and instruct them, to remind them of the meaning of these events that so startled and amazed men in that first century.
Bull's-Eye
The first seventeen verses of Romans are introductory. Here are the great themes of this epistle, which Paul returns to again and again as he boldly details concepts that have dramatically altered men's lives. Besides their literary order, these themes also have a logical order--a progression that forms a kind of target, as shown on page 13. The bull's-eye, the heart of the target, is the major theme: Jesus is Lord. We see this theme in the first seven verses of the introduction.
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God--the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his nameâs sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1-7).
At the heart of Paul's argument is the central figure, Jesus Christ our Lord. The lordship of Christ is the theme of Romans, as it is the theme of all Paul's writings and all the New Testament. Our union with Christ as Lord is the central truth God wants us to see, as Paul himself wrote in the letter to the Colossians: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). That is the great salvation theme from which all others flow. Some commentators and the Bible teachers identify certain central elements that come from this truth. Some may emphasize justification by faith, or sanctification--that is, solving the problems of sin. But these themes all stem from the great, central theme: union with Christ. That is why the person of the Lord Jesus is always central in the apostle's thinking, just as he is central in God's program for mankind everywhere. We are not simply followers of a philosophy, or even of a philosopher, but a savior, a redeemer, a person--and he must be first in all things.
From this central point Paul builds a logical progression of concentric circles, like a target. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the next theme flowing out from the person of Jesus himself. Next, since the gospel is brought to us through the apostle, Paul speaks of himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, through whom the gospel is spread. Next comes those who receive that gospel--the Roman Christians to whom this letter was written, as well as ourselves, the twentieth-century recipients of the letter.
Then, as the final outthrust of this movement, the gospel reaches out to all nations--to Jew and Gentile alike. We will see this logical order as we go through the introductory paragraph of the letter.
The Promised One
Paul first points out that the gospel was predicted long before Jesus came; God foretold it all in the Old Testament. The gospel was "promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures." One of the most important things we can learn about our faith is that it comes to us through the anticipation and prediction of centuries of teaching and preaching. Recall Jesus walking with the two men on the road to Emmaus, and how "beginning with Moses and all the prophets" he taught them the things concerning himself. Jesus saw himself clearly in the Old Testament. We too can see him there, in great messianic passages that point unerringly to Jesus.
To read the Old Testament is to be gripped by the feeling that Someone is coming! All the prophets speak of him, all the sacrifices point to him, all the longings and dreams of men are of someone to come who will solve all their problems. But when you close the Old Testament, he has not yet arrived.
Then the New Testament tells us that angels appeared to shepherds near Bethlehem and sang a great song of hope to them: "I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:10-11). The Promised One at last appears on the scene.
So Paul reminds us in his introduction that Jesus is the one who was promised beforehand. And Paul presents him in two unique ways: first, concerning Jesus' human nature, the apostle says he was a descendant of David. Now the actual Greek here is much more earthy; it says he came of the very sperm of David, emphasizing Christ's intense humanity. We all come that way. We come by the union of sperm and ovum in the miracle of conception. Jesus came in the same way, through the sperm of David. Thus his humanity is emphasized and underscored. But second, linked with that, is his deity; Christ "through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God." That phrase, "the Son of God," unmistakably describes the deity of our Lord. He was God. Paul emphasizes this several times throughout his letter. But he also stresses that in the uniqueness of his personality Jesus combined all that was human and all that was divine.
And yet, as we will learn later, Christ voluntarily laid aside the exercise of his deity. He did not come to act as God, but as a man filled with God. This is hopeful and helpful to us. If we are called on to act like God we might as well give up right now. We won't make it. But we are called on to be men and women possessed by God. This is the level on which Christ lived, and on which we too can live. This is the heart of the gospel. God has made it possible for us to live as Jesus lived and to follow his example.
Paul will develop these thoughts much more thoroughly in this epistle.
There were three things, Paul says, that marked the deity of Jesus. First, "power." This refers to the miracles, the displays of remarkable power Christ exhibited among men. These were a sign that he was a man of God, a man fully indwelt and possessed by God.
Second, "the Spirit of holiness. " I have always been concerned about how we so often misunderstand holiness. We don't like the word holy. It is something bad-good, but bad. We don't like to be called holy ourselves, and when we call someone a "holy Joe" it isn't a compliment. And yet it is a great word! Perhaps its meaning can be recaptured if we use a similar term that comes from the same root, the word whole. Paul is saying that when Jesus came, he was a whole person. He demonstrated whole humanity--humanity as it was intended to be.
We too are called to be whole persons. The glory of the good news is that God's goal is to make us whole, so that we are capable, able to cope, ready to walk through the pressures and turmoils and tragedies of this world and handle them as whole persons--holy persons. This wholeness is what Jesus fully demonstrated.
The third great authenticating mark of Jesus' deity is "his resurrection from the dead." On this our faith ultimately rests, We can have confidence that God has told us the truth by the unshakable fact that he raised Jesus from the dead, No one can remove that fact from the annals of history. It happened, and our faith rests on it, Whenever anyone persists in trying to shake your faith, ask him about the resurrection. It cannot be explained away. It is the undeniable fact through which God has broken into history, and Paul rests his whole story upon it. This too will be explored further in his letter.
The way these opening verses are worded also tells us much about the Roman Christians. And what Paul says about them also applies to us, In verses 6 and 7 he says:
And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
First, Paul says the Roman Christians (the "saints") are "called." We are not self-made saints, we are not manmade saints; we are "called" saints. God called us. Every one of us can tell a different story of how it happened--how God's voice was heard, how we felt the drawing and pulling of God's Spirit in our life. This is true of every Christian, and it reveals a remarkable thing: God sought us! We really did not seek him. We thought we did, but he sought us. This is why Jesus said to his disciples, "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away" (John 6:37, italics mine).
And thus we came--called by God, sought by God.
The remarkable thing about this calling is underscored by Paul: "We are loved by God." Paul always starts his letters on the basis of God's love for us. He may have to scold the saints he is writing to, he may have to correct them, he may have to speak sharply to some of them; but he always starts by reminding them they are loved by God. Paul understands that this is the fundamental relationship we have with God. He loves us. We don't deserve his love, but nevertheless we have it because of Jesus. We ought to remind ourselves of that every day, as I am sure these Roman Christians did.
The grace and peace God gives his saints are proof of his love. The word grace stands for all the empowerment and enrichment God can give--all that he daily pours into our lives. We do not earn grace, but it is given us in view of our daily needs, All those moments when strength and courage flow into our lives, when God's Word comforts and heals us--this is God's grace. And the result is peace, rest! Grace and peace are our inheritance. They ought to characterize Christians everywhere, all the time, so that the world sees the difference in our lives.
Startling Faith
Paul points out a second characteristic of the Roman Christians in verse 8.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
Notice that the faith of the Roman Christians is being talked about, not the number of buses they operate, or the size or cost of the pipe organ, or the size or cost of the building in which they meet. It was their faith that startled the Roman world. These were vital believers, and Paul gives a clue as to why this was true in the next verses:
God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you (1:9-10).
Their faith was reported all over the world because the apostle and other Christians were praying for them. Paul had never been to Rome, and while he had met some of these people elsewhere, he had never known many of them. But he prayed for them "constantly . . . at all times"! That is why this church flourished. If there is one thing we need more than anything else today, it is to recover again this sense of concern and prayer for one another. It would make all the difference in the world if we began to uphold each other regularly in prayer.
The third characteristic mentioned about the Roman saints is this: They were strengthened by gifts.
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong--that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith (1:11-12).
The exercise of spiritual gifts is what makes a congregation strong. When Paul says, "I want to impart to you some spiritual gift," he does not mean he has all the gifts in a bag which he carries around like an ecclesiastical Santa Claus, doling them out to people. "Impart" really means "share with you." Only the Holy Spirit can give spiritual gifts, and Paul wants to share with the Roman believers the gifts God has given him. He wants to minister to them, as they are expected to minister to him with the spiritual gifts they have. Thus they will all be mutually strengthened by one another's faith. This is how God wants a church to function--the saints ministering to each other, building up one another by their faith, and exercising the gifts God has given them.
Set Apart
Going back to the logical outline of this epistle, remember that Jesus as Lord is at the center, with the gospel next to that. Then comes Paul himself as the apostle through whom the Gentiles were being reached. What does Paul say about himself? In verse 1, he says he was "called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God." Paul is a called apostle. God did the calling, and he did this---as we learn in Galatians--before Paul was born.
This is the wonder of the God we serve. He does not have to wait until we appear in human history to call us, but does so long before we are conceived, long before our family tree ever begins to take shape. Then he sets us apart. This is the process of eternal history, and this is what happened to Paul. All the events of his younger life--his training under Gamaliel, his ascendancy among the Pharisees, even his antipathy toward the gospel--all these were part of God's process of setting him apart to be an apostle. And when the time came, God pulled the trapdoor and Paul fell through. He was caught. This is what happens to us all; this is the way God works in our lives.
What is an apostle? Paul tells us in verse 5. Through Christ "and for his name's sake," he says, "we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." An apostle is a man sent to call people out. As Paul himself tells us in verse 14, "I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish." Paul sensed a deep imperative to tell all people the gospel because he knew they desperately needed it. If you alone had a remedy for cancer, would you be quiet about it, or would you feel compelled to share the secret with others? This is what Paul says urged him on--this constant consciousness that he had the secret of release which all people desperately needed.
As an apostle, he ventured our to take them this secret. He begins to tell how in verse 9: He says he served God "with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son." Here is a wholehearted, single-minded man with his spirit fully engaged in his work. He tells us more in verse 15, where he speaks of being "so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome" after mentioning his obligation to all the world's people. If Paul is going to reach the nations, why does he preach the gospel to the Christians at Rome? It is because through Christians the nations will hear the gospel. The changes God brings in the lives of his people will cause others to rake note. This is how true evangelism occurs, and Paul says this is why he wants to preach the gospel to those at Rome. And by "the gospel," Paul does not mean simply explaining how to become a Christian. These Romans were already Christians. Rather, the gospel includes all the great facts about humanity and about God that! God wants to impart to us--facts that will enable us to be whole persons.
That brings us to the message itself. This is what Paul says of the gospel in verses 16 and 17.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
This quotation from Habakkuk ("The righteous will live by faith") is the Scripture that gripped Martin Luther's heart. Paul says this is the great fact he is expounding in the gospel. He says he is not ashamed of it--which is a way of saying he is proud of it. He canât wait to get to Rome that he might fully declare it.
Powerless Romans
Especially to the Romans is Paul unashamed of the gospel; for the gospel is "the power of God," and the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do. The Romans prided themselves on their power. Their military might could conquer any nation standing in their path. They could build tremendous roads and cities, and they had some of the greatest lawmakers in history. They had the power to create great literature and art. But Paul knew the Romans were powerless when it came to changing hearts. They were powerless to eliminate slavery--half of the empire's population were slaves. They couldn't eliminate violence and corruption--the Roman world was full of it, and the suicide rate was extremely high. They were powerless to change the stubborn, hostile, hateful hearts of men and women. The Romans could do nothing about any of that. That is why Paul was so proud of the gospel: it is the power of God to do the very things that men cannot do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is absolutely without rival.
Some years ago I received a letter from Dr. Richard Halverson, chaplain of the United States Senate. He wrote to tell me of the book Born Again by Charles Colson, one of the men who went to prison in the Watergate scandal. This book tells how Colson became a Christian. Halverson said the Story was so remarkable it could be compared only with the conversion of the apostle Paul. Colson's experience was so drastic and different that people still have trouble accepting it. But there is no question he is a changed man. Anyone who has heard him speak or followed his life since those dark days after Watergate knows his conversion was genuine.
Now what got hold of Colson's heart and changed him like that? The gospel of the blessed God--the good news about Jesus Christ. It is the power of God for salvation!
Second, Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because in it "a righteousness from God is revealed." Righteousness is an old word that we don't understand very well. I would like to substitute for it a modern term, "worth." Full acceptance, or worth, before God is given to us in the gospel. We cannot earn it and we certainly do not deserve it, but it is given to us. God really accepts us because of the gospel, because of the good news of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. It is something that you or I or anyone can have. It is complete, perfect, needing nothing from us to supplement it.
The last thing Paul says is that this righteousness is received by faith. We can never earn it, but we can have it by faith anytime we need it--and that is good news! Our worth before God is not something we receive once at the beginning of our Christian lives. It is something we have continually and are to remind ourselves of every time we feel despairing or defeated. God has loved and restored us, and we have perfect value in his sight. He already accepts us and loves us as much as he possibly can; nothing more can be added to it. This is the righteousness revealed in the gospel; by faith it is available to all who believe, no matter what their background or training.
So these are the great themes of Romans. Centering upon the Lord, the gospel Paul preaches is the power of God to release men from their vicious cycle of sin and to establish them as whole people, filled by God and able to appropriate by faith their true worth before God. I hope these themes will have their effect upon our hearts as they did upon many in the first century church.
(Romans 1:18-23)
Paul's introduction to Romans concludes with the tremendous declaration, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last" (1: 16-17). By that statement Paul sets in focus the great theme of this letter--the power of God to heal our hurts and free us from the bondage of evil.
Beginning with verse 18, however, a more somber note is sounded. This section introduces the most extensive, careful, and logical analysis of the human dilemma ever penned. Extending through chapter 3, verse 20, it is introduced thus:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, became God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (1:18-20).
In the preceding verses Paul spoke of the Son of God--the key and the heart of the gospel. He declared that the power of God is released among men as they believe the gospel; he declared that the righteousness of God is granted to us by faith--a gift which we cannot earn or deserve, but which is ours nevertheless. Yet now Paul speaks of the wrath of God. It is the first negative note in this letter, but it is necessary because it introduces a passage that tells us why we need the gospel. We need it precisely because men everywhere suffer the wrath of God.
Judgment and Lightning
What do you think of when you see the words the wrath of God? Most think of it as something yet to come, something that follows death--the judgment of God. It is true that hell and all that may follow are an expression of the wrath of God. But that is not what it means at this point. Others think of the wrath of God as thunder, lightning, and judgment, fire and brimstone, and the sudden destruction and catastrophes that may come upon obviously guilty sinners. Indeed these are examples of God's wrath.
But the wrath of God isn't only something yet to come; it is present now. As the text says, it is "being revealed from heaven." It does not pour down from the skies upon us. The phrase means it is everywhere present. It comes from invisible forces at work in our lives; therefore it is inescapable. Everyone is confronted with and suffers from the wrath of God , without exception. His wrath is everywhere present, and it shows itself in the invisible resistance of God to the evil of men.
In 1962 I visited Mexico City with a group of businessmen. We were invited to hold witnessing sessions in the homes of businessmen and wealthy leaders of Mexico. To properly orient us to the country's unique culture, we had a session in a downtown hotel in Mexico City. In a beautiful and elegant address, Dr. Baenz-Camargo, a local Christian and a very wise university professor, captured for us the heart of Mexican life. He said we should understand five traits of the Mexican people. The first is that they have a sense of the dramatic; they love eloquence and oratory. With that comes a love of beauty and pageantry. Third, and stemming from these first two characteristics, is a deeply embedded sense of inferiority--the Mexicans feel they are a small nation and an inferior people, desperately trying to catch up with the rest of the world. That sense of inferiority produces the fourth mark of Mexican society, a resistance to authority. Rebelliousness and revolution are close to the surface in Mexico. All these traits find their ultimate expression in a kind of fatalism, which is the fifth characteristic, a strong belief in the role of chance and a lack of a sense of personal responsibility.
As Dr. Baenz-Camatgo discussed the first characteristic, the awareness of the dramatic, he used the phrase "the tragic sense of life." I have not forgotten that phrase because I find that it applies not only to the Mexican people, but to people everywhere. We are continually confronted with this tragic sense of life. It describes the wrath of God which Paul is talking about.
Why is it that tragedy is so close to life's surface? Even in our moments of joy and gladness we experience it. We have all felt this bittersweet side to life when, in the midst of the warmth and joy of the home circle, there comes an underlying sense of fear, of the probability of the whole thing suddenly turning into tragedy and sorrow. Why at Christmas time, for instance, when men are traditionally more glad and joyful and mellow (perhaps) than at any other time of year, does someone commit suicide? Anyone who has borne loneliness throughout the year knows that it can be deeply etched in bitter symbols upon our hearts at Christmas. Sorrow and grief seem to be more foreboding then than at any other time. Why? It is because of the wrath of God. God's resistance against human evil is creating a sense of tragedy and darkness that we must all live with.
Moses expresses this perfectly in Psalm 90,
For all our days pass away under thy wrath,
our years to come to an end like a sigh.
The years of our life are threescore and ten,
or even by reason of strength fourscore;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away (9-10 RSV).
The shortness of life, the brevity of it, the sorrow of it, the tragedy of it--all this is part of what Paul captures in his words, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven." No one escapes God's wrath; it is revealed, and we have to face it. It tinges with sorrow all our brightest days.
The test of verse 18 reveals that God's wrath is drawn forth by "the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness," Life's tragic aspect is caused by the attitudes and subsequent actions of men; first godlessness, then wickedness. The order is never reversed. It is the godless attitude that produces the wicked actions, and this is why the wrath of God is being revealed constantly from heaven against man.
The Secular Attitude
What is godlessness? It is not necessarily atheism, the belief that God does not exist. Godlessness is acting as though he doesn't exist. It is disregarding God, never taking any account of him, not expecting him to be active. This attitude is still widespread today, and it is what the apostle speaks of here.
Godlessness makes men unrighteous, wicked, selfish, and spiteful. Why do we hurt each other? Because we disregard God. This is Paul's analysis--and he says these hurtful and selfish acts suppress the truth. That is just the problem! In a world where truth from God is breaking out all around, men are busy covering it up, hiding it, suppressing it, keeping it from being prominent in their thinking. Against this, the wrath of God burns. The reason so many lives have turned tragic is that the world is deprived of the truth necessary for life and freedom and godliness. The truth is being hidden and suppressed by men.
Verses 19 and 20 tell the kind of truth that is suppressed:
. . . since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
The truth men labor to suppress is the greatness of God, that he is the God of eternal power and majesty. Job 9 eloquently expounds this truth that the world hides:
His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.
Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?
He moves mountains without their knowing it
and overturns them in his anger.
He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.
He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
he seals off the light of the stars.
He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.
He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
He performs wonders that cannot be numbered ( 4-10).
How great God is! And yet men seem loath to mention him in public, or to act as though he had anything to do with their affairs. Isn't that strange? An unknown poet put it this way in "The Humanist":
He exists because he was created.
He's here because he was placed here.
He's well and comfortable
because divine power keeps him so.
He dines at God's table.
He's sheltered by the roof God gave him.
He's clothed by God's bounty.
He lives by breathing God's air
which keeps him strong and vocal
to go about persuading people that whether
God is or not,
only man matters.
There are times when men cannot evade the fact of God. But when those times come, when they simply must speak of God, they often resort to euphemism. They call God something else. They may call him "nature," for example. Nature, they'll say, is responsible for the way we are.
This, of course, is because "nature" is what we are. Nature is the sum total of all the phenomena of the natural world. Bur to say that the sum total of the phenomena of the natural world produces the phenomena of the natural world is nonsense, though everywhere this is the way men talk. Or they may call God "fate" or "karma" or "destiny." Those are simply other ways to avoid recognizing God at work in human affairs.
Yet one of the ironies of life is that God, who sits in the heavens, has arranged it so that men can't even rip off a round oath without mentioning his name. You never hear people swear, "By nature, I'm going to do this." You never hear them say, "Fate damn you!" Though they will not acknowledge him in any other way, God sees to it that men recognize his presence when they must be most emphatic.
Revelation in the Stars
How has God made plain the truth about himself? Scripture says God has revealed it. Truth isn't a vague, invisible, difficult thing to comprehend; it is clearly seen. God himself has ensured that. How? Paul says in Romans 1:20 that it is "understood from what has been made"--that is, from everything around us--and that it has been evident "since the creation of the world." It is present everywhere, and always has been, for everyone to see. No one is left out--all can read God's revelation if they want to.
One night my daughter Laurie and I were out walking at Forest Home in the mountains of Southern California. It was one of those beautiful evenings when the stars were out in all their glory--we were above the smog. We walked through the darkness and looked up at the stars and felt the sense of awe chat comes upon the human spirit on occasions like that. I pointed out the Milky Way and explained to Laurie that it was part of the galaxy to which our world belongs, and that millions of galaxies like this were whirling on in their determined courses-never lace, always on time, strange and mostly unexplorable by man. I pointed out the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Pleiades. We talked about the universe.
Then I jokingly said, "But remember, dear, all this happened just by chance; all these things came together by accident." And she began to laugh. How ridiculous that anyone should say this imposing display of beauty and light and order all happened by chance! Laurie sensed the total nonsense of that claim. For how can we say that watches are built by intelligence and wisdom and skill--but that stars shine and hearts beat and babies grow and roses smell simply by chance. It's ridiculous!
This argument from design and order has never been refuted. Those who disregard God cannot avoid or explain away the evidence because the truth about God breaks our everywhere around us. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,
Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush aflame with God.
But only those who see take off their shoes;
the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Thus, as Paul says, "men are without excuse." No one who really wants to find God need miss him. But what about someone who has never heard the gospel? One of the great verses confronting this problem is Hebrews 11:6--"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Just two things are necessary for such a person.
First, he must believe that God is there. Everything in his life is telling him that. Everything about himself is shouting at him, shrieking at him, that God has planned all these things. The easiest thing in the universe to believe is that God is there. You must work hard at convincing yourself that he's not there, and it seems only the highly educated are able to do it. The rest, who simply see facts and believe them, readily accept that God is there.
Second, he must diligently seek God. The Scriptures promise that if we seek after God he will give further light on himself, and this light will eventually lead to the knowledge of Jesus Christ--for without the Son, no man can come to the Father. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And knowledge about Jesus starts with where you are and with the revelation in nature and in yourself about the majesty and power and greatness of God.
To Suppress the Truth
In verses 21 through 23, the apostle details how men suppress the truth about God.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Three steps are traced here, all having distinct effects upon the race. First, men neither glorify God nor give thanks to him. They ignore him. There is an obvious conspiracy of silence about God. That is why children are not allowed to sing Christmas carols in many of our public schools. That is why there is great resistance to having the Bible read on almost any public occasion. No one wants to admit there's a God.
The effects are immediate. Paul says two things appear when this attitude prevails: the people's thinking becomes futile; and their hearts become darkened. Futile thinking means that clever ideas and procedures and programs will fall apart and come to nothing. In my own lifetime I have lived through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Society, Peace with Honor, and the Great Recovery. All of them have failed dismally! They all scatted with brilliant promises, with glowing words of hope and expectation. And each one came to the same futile end.
When hearts are darkened, human needs which ought to evoke pity and response are ignored. People lose compassion and awareness of the struggles of others. Perhaps you've seen newspaper accounts of people in desperate need, calling out for help, while passersby ignore them because they don't want to get involved. This is a sign of a darkened heart, and it is the result of ignoring God.
The second device men use to suppress the truth is the claim to be wise. They imitate God. They claim the ability to know everything and to handle anything. Paul describes the result in one brief, blunt, pungent phrase: "they became fools". Just read the intellectual magazines of our day and see how clever the secular writers are. They are masters at taking some simple discovery and making it sound impressive and profound, as though it were on par with the creation of the universe as recorded by Moses. They claim to be wise, but they become fools, and their inventions cause greater problems than the ones they solve.
Of Men and Snakes
The third device men use to suppress the truth is to exchange God's immortal glory "for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." Notice the descending order. When idolatry begins, it begins first with men making images of men. Then it degenerates to likenesses of birds, animals, and finally reptiles. Man is at one end and a snake at the other!
I believe it's no accident how we tend to name our cars. We once named them after men: Lincoln, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto, Edsel, Since then, birds and animals have become more popular as names: Thunderbird, Firebird, Impala, Cougar, Mustang, Pinto, Jaguar, Rabbit, Panther, and even a Greyhound bus! Reptiles may be in fashion next: We already have a car called the Cobra, and we may soon have the Python, the Viper, and (a larger, slower model) the Crocodile!
Just like the statues in ancient times, today's world is filled with images that are either worshiped themselves or are symbols of ideas that men worship. But these images invalidate God; they debase him by substituting something for God that makes him seem less than what he is. This is what idolatry always does, making it a destructive force in human affairs.
But do people today really worship images and bow down before idols? Why else do we have rock stars and athletic heroes? What are movies and television shows, but images attracting our devotion? We worship forces like sex, ambition, and greed. We worship beauty, youth, adventure, leisure, life. We worship military power--planes, guns, bombs, tanks. All these are our gods, aren't they? We have exchanged the glory of the undying God--in all his majesty and greatness--for mere images.
Comparing our own society and the first-century world Paul is analyzing, we find them exactly the same: idolatrous. We are right where they were. And the effect upon us is profound and terrible.
The amazing thing in Romans is that this accounting of God's wrath in chapter one is shown to be wholly and fully met by the righteousness of God. God's righteousness cancels his wrath. Wouldn't you think, therefore, that men everywhere would be eager to discover this marvelous gift? All our pain and heartache and darkness, the death, the depression, the despair--all come from God's wrath, and are the products of ignoring God, trying to replace God, and invalidating God in our lives. Wouldn't you think men everywhere would rush to accept the good news of how to escape God's wrath, and enjoy the righteousness that heals our hurts, corrects our errors, and gives a sense of peace and joy and forgiveness to the heart?
Yet the wonder of our times, and the hallmark of our twisted, demoralized, distorted world, is that we cling to our hurts and refuse the healing of God.
(Romans 1:24-32)
Just how much progress have we made in the last twenty centuries? Anyone reading Romans 1 recognizes that today's moral climate is no different from that in the first century when Paul lived. The apostle mentions two characteristics of the civilization he lived in, and they also describe our society today. The first characteristic is godlessness; the second, wickedness.
Godlessness is disrespect of God, and it results in wickedness--injury and hurt to others. The epistle to the Romans is built on the thesis that in every generation there is godlessness, resulting in wickedness.
The apostle has traced the source of godlessness. He begins with God's self-disclosure in nature; God has spoken to this world and has shown himself in the natural scene. Nature includes mankind, for we are all part of nature. God has made himself knowable in every age and place. The truth about God pours out from every direction, if only we have eyes to see. But men respond to this truth, the apostle says, with an unspoken agreement to suppress it. You may have seen the rather remarkable television presentation called The Ascent of Man. Here was a clear example of man's attempt to trace all that has happened to mankind without a single reference to God.
When Men Lose God
In verses 24 through 32 of Romans I, the apostle reveals the effect of this godlessness--wickedness inevitably follows. When men lose God, they lose themselves. They do not understand what is happening and are not able to diagnose the sicknesses and problems that break out in society.
In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis said hell is made up of people who live an infinite distance from each other. That alienation is the result of the loss of God in their lives.
Wickedness at Work
Paul says wickedness follows a three-step process. The process is identified in this passage by the thrice repeated phrase "God gave them over ," a phrase that explains what is going on in our culture.
The first reference is in verse 24:
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
The first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual immorality--the degrading, or dishonoring, of the body. Note that the sentence begins with the word "Therefore." This immorality is a result of the idolatry into which men fall. Idolatry is common in our day, although we do not worship idols and images so much as concepts and ideas. But such idolatry leads to widespread sexual immorality.
Many read "God gave them over" as though it said God "gives up" on people because of the evil they do. They believe God washes his hands of such people because they are so filthy. But this certainly is not what the account says. When men run after other gods and refuse the testimony of their own hearts and of nature around them, when they do not glorify or thank the true God, God removes his restraints--"giving them over"--so that what was done in secret is allowed to break out into the open and be widely accepted. This is the sign of the wrath of God. The first mark of wickedness in a civilization is that sexual immorality (which has always been present) becomes widely accepted.
This means God allows men and women to experience the full effects of their attempts to satisfy their hungers, cravings, and desires apart from him. He allows people to discover they do not have the answer. God removes the societal restraints so that immorality comes to the surface. He thereby forces us to suffer the full effect of what we do. God makes us harvest the crop we insisted on sowing, however much we now want to abandon our field. God says we cannot keep on sowing wild oats without reaping the evil results. We must live with them. This is what Paul calls, "the wrath of God at work among us."
The Supreme Vice?
You may ask, "Why is it that sex always seems to be singled out in God's judgment? Why is sexual immorality the first sign of a disintegrating civilization?"
There is a good reason. Many Christians have wrongly concluded that sexual sins are the worst kinds of sin. But that is not true. Sexual sins are not the worst kind. C. S. Lewis saw this clearly, and in Mere Christianity he says,
If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of pulling other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it's better to be neither. (from "Sexual Morality" in Book III, Christian Behavior)
This passage in Romans confirms Lewis' words. Wickedness begins with sexual impurity and then proceeds to sexual perversion. But the final outcome, in the climax of the chapter, is not sexual sin but the sins of the spirit. Widespread animosity and heartlessness--these are the worst sins.
But God allows perverted sexual practices to become publicly acceptable to show us what is going on in our spiritual lives. It may sound curious, but sex is linked with worship. A serious reading of the Scriptures will make this clear. Sex is mans longing after worship. It is a desire to possess another body and to be possessed by another. It is a deep-seated craving inherent in every human being. We have all heard the statement, "Women give sex in order to get love; men give love in order to get sex." Superficially this is true. But what both are really after is not sex at all; they are after worship. They really want to worship and to be worshiped. They want a sense of total fulfillment, a oneness, an identity. And this is what they think they are getting when they indulge in illicit sex.
The Scriptures tell us that only God can give this fulfillment. Only God can satisfy our deep sense of longing for complete identity and unity with another person. This is what we call worship. When we worship, we long to be possessed of God, and to possess him fully. Thus the highest possible description of the relationship between a believer and God is found in the words of Jesus in John 15, "You in me, and I in you." When men think they will find this fulfillment in sex, in effect God says to them, "Look, it won't work. But you wont believe me until you try it out." So he removes the restraints and allows immoral sexual practices to become widely accepted, knowing that men indulging in these things will finally find themselves just as dissatisfied, empty, and hopeless as they were when they started. Only thus will they learn that sex is not the way to find fulfillment. This is true even in marriage. We find complete fulfillment only in a relationship with God.
Shameful Lusts
This brings us to the second mark of a godless and wicked society, found in verses 25-27:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised, Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Homosexuality is the second sign of a godless and wicked society. Paul says shameful lusts arise from inside, desires that are part of the soul of man. The apostle thus describes the rise of widespread psychological confusion. Notice the irony. This is God's silent way of forcing men to demonstrate their sin so they can see what is going on in their lives. Paul says that because they have exchanged truth for a lie and exchanged the Creator for created things, God allows them to exchange natural functions for unnatural functions--to use a man for a woman, and a woman for a man.
When restraints are removed, homosexuality becomes widely accepted. It was a common practice in Paul's world of the first century. The great philosophers, for the most part, extolled and practiced it. Socrates and other great thinkers of ancient Greece had been homosexuals, as were fourteen of the first fifteen Roman emperors, some of them openly and blatantly.
Once again the restraints are being removed, and these things are thrusting themselves into public acceptance. The truly awful thing about the rise of homosexuality today is that homosexuals widely believe the lie that their condition is biological and cannot be helped. They are encouraged to adjust to it. Even churches are falling into this trap and consenting to this deceit. One newspaper article reports the inclusion of a homosexual church into the local council of churches. It is hard to believe that pastors stood up and said they could not judge whether homosexuality was good or evil.
Yet I was also encouraged by a paper sent to me by a Christian who is an ex-homosexual. It was written by other Christians like him who had been delivered from homosexuality by the power and grace of the gospel of the Lord Jesus. To help those still enmeshed in this vice, they published a forthright plea to those trapped in homosexuality not to believe the lie that it is a biological condition and that they cannot help themselves. This widely believed lie holds its victims in a fatal grip. As long as homosexuals believe it, there is no help for them. But if they understand that homosexuality is a sin like other sins, that it can be forgiven, and that they can be delivered and freed from its power by the might and grace of Jesus Christ, then there is tremendous hope in the midst of their darkness.
Paul speaks also of a "due penalty" for this perversion. Anyone who has spent time with homosexuals knows what this penalty is. It is a loss of one's sense of identity, an uncertainty as to one's role and place. We see this to a considerable degree in the women's liberation movement, as well as in androgynous dress styles and in the unisex emphasis in education. Its ultimate expression is a sex change operation that mutilates the sex organs. The sexual confusion that results from all this is an attempt to mar and defeat God's precise plan in making us male and female.
Desire to Exploit
The third and final mark of a godless and wicked culture is given in verses 28-32.
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
This is a terrible list of sins, and they are marks of a civilization nearing collapse. They reflect a contemptuous and arrogant disregard for others--in a word, a desire to exploit other people. The term "depraved mind" literally means an unacceptable mind, a mind that cannot be lived with, a mind that refuses to fit into any kind of civilization or culture or society. A depraved mind destroys, rends, and fragments everything it touches. And its public hostility is marked by increasing cruelty and violence.
Probably the most vivid picture of this in our day is given in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, in which an entire culture is characterized by this terrible, senseless cruelty. But we in the Western world are not escaping. Every day our newspapers report senseless vandalism, along with vicious and unprovoked attacks upon innocent and often helpless people. The rise in child abuse is a symptom of this. It culminates, as Paul makes very clear in verse 32, in an attitude of callous disregard:
Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do there very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Sneering at the fact that harm comes from their wickedness, they try to spread it more widely. They invade the field of education; they dominate the media; they seek legal status for their evil ways and defy all attempts at control. This is what is going on today. The deepening darkness that Paul traces in his own day is spreading in our day as well.
But it is also clear that God does not turn his back on man. This passage is not a record of people whom God despises and therefore turns aside from with contempt. The Bible never views man as an object of contempt, or as a worm. Rather, God's concern for humanity underscores these words. He is at work to bring men to their senses, to awaken a drugged and dying civilization and show how desperately it needs deliverance--which can come only as a gift of righteousness from God's hands.
You may ask, "Why does God give a civilization over to this kind of thing?" He does it because it is only when darkness prevails, and despair and violence are widespread, that men welcome the light. Remember Isaiah's prediction:
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned (Isaiah 9:2).
In the first century, mankind was sunken in the darkness of despair. Idolatry had spread through the whole world; men had turned from the true God, whom they could have known, Hopelessness and misery lay like a heavy blanket upon the earth.
In that hour, in the darkness of the night, over the skies of Bethlehem the angels broke through and a great light of hope shone forth. From that hope all light streams. The angels told of the coming of the Lord Jesus, of the availability of God's gift of righteousness.
Against the growing darkness of our own time we need to make this message as clear as possible--by our testimony, by our lives, by the joy and peace of our hearts. God has found a way to break through human weakness, arrogance, despair, and sinfulness to give us peace, joy, and gladness once again. Just as Jesus was born in Bethlehem so long ago, so he can be born in your heart now. This is the good news of the gospel. In this decaying world we can see again the glory of this truth as it delivers people from their sins. "Thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21 KJV).
(Romans 2:1-11)
Many people think they do not belong in the picture of degraded society Paul has been describing. I am sure there were thousands in Paul's day--and millions today--who do not see themselves in Romans 1. "That isn't talking about us," they say. "We're not like that. It may describe others, but it does not describe us."
Whenever you read this first chapter of Romans, that division immediately becomes evident: "others" and "us." The "others" are obviously gross, wicked people; "we" are not. Many would say, "We're law-abiding, home-loving, clean-living, decent people." Many have been church members most of their lives.
Others perhaps do not go to church at all, but nevertheless pride themselves on their moral standards, their ethical values, and their clean, law-abiding lives. They believe the world is in its present condition because of the wickedness of gangsters, radicals, revolutionaries, prostitutes, pimps, and the perverts of our day; but they see themselves as the salt of the earth.
It is on these people that the apostle turns his spotlight in chapter 2. We will see his argument developed in three separate steps. The first is given in verse I.
You, therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
Here the subject is those who pass judgment on others. If anyone reading this book does not belong in that category, you can go on to the next section. But to those who have, at one time or another, passed judgment on someone else, I want you to notice that the apostle makes two points about such people.
First, he indicates that they know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise they would not presume to judge. They have a clear standard. They know that one thing is wrong and another right. They are clearly aware, therefore, that wrong actions merit the judgment and wrath of God.
Guilty Judges
Paul's second point is devastating. He says these people are guilty because they do the same things themselves. The judges are as guilty as the ones they have in the dock.
As a practiced, self-righteous hypocrite, I am always surprised at this statement. "What do you mean?" I want to say, "How could this be?"
Such a response brings to mind our Lord's account of his return, when he will separate all people into two bands, the sheep and the goats. He will make judgment according to how they have treated one another. He will say to the sheep, "When I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked you clothed me, when I was in prison you visited me." To the goats he will say, "When I was thirsty you did not give me drink, when I was hungry you did not feed me, when I was naked you did not clothe me, and when I was sick or in prison you did not visit me." Both groups are taken by surprise and say, "When did this happen? When did we see you thirsty or hungry or naked? We don't remember that!" This feeling of surprise shows how little men understand themselves, and why we all need a passage such as this. We are all guilty, even though we are not consciously aware of it.
Blind Spots
If my own attitudes are typical, then I see three ways in which we try to deny our guilt for doing the same things we condemn in others.
First, we are congenitally blind toward many of our own faults. We are just not aware of them. We do not see that we do the same wrong things others do. I don't see it, and neither do you see it in yourself; and yet others see it in us. We all have these blind spots.
One of the greatest lies of our age is the idea that we understand ourselves. We often argue, "Don't you think I know myself?" The answer is no. We are blind to much of our lives. There may be very hurtful and sinful areas of which we are unaware. "A man's deeds are right in his own eyes," the Old Testament says.
I once stayed with a pastor and his delightful family. The oldest son was about sixteen, and--not unusual for someone his age--very concerned about the faults of his twelve-year-old brother. One day he came in all upset and said, "Who does he think he is? Why, he acts as though he's as good as the rest of us!" What a typical example of the attitude we all have-only this boy was honest enough to admit it.
I often tell someone, "Relax! Take it easy!" Only afterward do I hear my own voice and realize that I myself am neither relaxed nor taking it easy. Have you ever lectured your children on the sin of procrastination and then completed your income tax return barely on time, if at all? How blind we are! We just do not see many of our own faults, and thus we can indeed be guilty, as the verse says, of doing the very things we accuse others of doing,
A second way we deny guilt is to conveniently forget our own wrong, We may have been aware of our sin at the time, but somehow we assume God will forget it, so we need not acknowledge it in any way. As the sin fades from our memory, we think it fades from his as well.
Let's consider our thought life, for example. Much of this passage in Romans must be understood in light of our Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says that God, who looks at the heart, sees what is going on inside and judges on that basis; he doesn't judge as men judge, according to appearances. In the Sermon on the Mount we learn that if we hold a feeling of hatred against someone, if we are bitter and resentful and filled with malice, then before God we are as guilty of murder as if we had taken a knife and plunged it into that person's breast. If we find ourselves lusting for the body of another, if we play with this idea over and over in our mind, and treat ourselves to a fantasy of sex, we have committed fornication or adultery. If we are filled with pride, yet put on the appearance of being humble and considerate, we are guilty of the worst of sins, for pride of heart destroys humanity.
We think these things will go unnoticed, but God sees them in our hearts. He sees everything we have conveniently forgotten. When we demean people, or speak with spite and sharpness and deliberately try to hurt them, he sees it. He sees it when we are unfair in our business, and when we are arrogant toward someone we think is on a lower social level. When we are stubborn and uncooperative in trying to work out a tense situation, he sees that too. All these things God notices. We, who condemn these things in others, are guilty of the same things. Isn't it remarkable that when others mistreat us we think it is horrible, demanding immediate correction? But when we mistreat others we say, "You're making so much out of a little thing! Why, it's so trivial and insignificant!"
The third way we try to evade our guilt is by cleverly renaming things. Other people lie and cheat; we simply stretch the truth. Others betray; we are simply protecting our rights. Others steal; we borrow. Others have prejudices; we have convictions. We cry, "Those people ought to be stoned!" Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone." We are all guilty of the same things we accuse others of doing.
Only One Standard
In verses 2-4 Paul develops the second step of his argument by asking two questions. Here is the first:
Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth, So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things. do you think you will escape God's judgment?
What a ridiculous ground of hope! How tenuous to hope that God--who sees all men openly and intimately, who sees not only what is on the outside but also what is on the inside--will pronounce judgment on others but not on us. People will say, "How can a just and loving God permit the injustice and vileness that takes place in this world? How can he allow a tyrant like Hitler or Stalin to arise and murder millions of innocent people? How can he allow these godless regimes to come into power and crush people, usurp their rights, put thousands in prison, and spread destruction and sorrow across the land? Why does he allow these things to go on year after year? Why doesn't God judge these men?"
The question we ought to ask is, "Why didn't he judge me yesterday, when I said that sharp, caustic word that plunged like an arrow into a loved one's heart and hurt her badly? Why didn't he shrivel my hand when I took a pencil and cheated on my income tax? Why didn't he strike me dumb when I gossiped on the phone this morning, sharing a tidbit that made someone look bad in someone else's eyes? Why didn't God judge that?" The God of truth and justice sees all of this; so how, Paul asks, do we think we can escape the judgment of God?
Then Paul asks the second question, the other horn of the dilemma.
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? (2:4)
First Paul asked, "Why are you acting this way-constantly judging others so critically, yet never seeming to judge yourself? Surely you don't think you're going to escape! If you know God judges according to truth, you must be included in that judgment as well." But now he says in verse 4, "If you know you can't escape his judgment, then you must be treating with disdain the opportunities God gives you to repent."
Why are you alive? Why are you being allowed to experience life today, with all its opportunities to correct wrong attitudes and behavior? It is because God's goodness, tolerance, and patience are giving you a chance to change, a chance to acknowledge your sins and be forgiven. A faithful God, judging the innermost part of our lives, gives us these opportunities. He knows we are blind. He knows we often struggle to recognize what is wrong in our lives. So he gives us these opportunities to repent and change, moments of truth that are extremely important.
In Romans 2:5-11, the apostle presents the last step of his argument and describes what lies ahead for those who refuse to face the true condition of their lives.
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.
I am amazed to see in my own heart how often I expect God to show favoritism. Even as a Christian, I expect him to overlook areas of my life without my having to acknowledge them. I hope he'll forget them without revealing to me what they are really like. Yet the Scriptures tell us that God constantly allows us moments when we can see ourselves clearly--and what valuable times these are!
Treasures of Wrath
Here in Romans 2, Paul says that when we refuse to judge the sinful areas of our lives that God allows us to see, we are: storing up wrath for ourselves. In the King James version the word is "treasures." We are laying up treasures--but the treasure is wrath! This is the same word Jesus employed when he said, "Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven." We are constantly making deposits in a bank account which we must one day collect. In his wrath, God allows us to deteriorate. We become less than what we wanted to be, and it is because we are receiving back the deposit of wrath we have laid up for ourselves.
C. S. Lewis has described this eloquently in Mere Christianity.
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, "If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing." I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or info a hellish creature: either info a creature that is in harmony with God, and one with other creatures, and with itself; or else into one that is in a slate of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other. (from "Morality and Psychoanalysis" in Book III, Christian Behavior)
God is a righteous God. He judges men and assesses wrath against those who do wrong. No matter how the outward life may appear, he sees the inward heart and judges on that basis. Righteous judgment is waiting; and yet it comes (in part) throughout all of life, because we experience the wrath of God even now. But a day is coming when it will be fully manifested. The question Paul brings out here is this: What do you really want out of life? What are you seeking? Do you "by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality"? That is, do you want God's life, do you want to be his kind of a person, do you want to honor him and be of value to him? If that is what you really want above everything else, then you will find it. God will give you eternal life. In the context of the whole Scripture, this means you will find your way to Jesus Christ, for he is life eternal. You will find him as your Redeemer and Lord and Savior. You will grow increasingly like him as you judge these evil areas of life, and honestly confess them rather than assuming God will pass over them. What do you really want? Is it pleasure, fame, wealth, power, and prominence? Do you want to be the center of things and have everyone thinking of you and looking at you and serving you? If so, then according to this passage, for you and "for every human being who does evil" the reward "will be trouble and distress."
Consistent with Love
Now if all this sounds harsh and unloving, you have not read the passage in its context. For the picture given is of a God who loves us so much that he tells us the truth--and that is true love. He loves humanity and wants to restore it. Having fallen into the trap of self-deceit, we hear him tell us the only way out.
God's love helps us see that there is only one way to deal with sin; Admit it is there, and recognize that God has already dealt with it in Christ. On this basis, God offers us full and free forgiveness. There is no other way.
Other voices lead us to rationalize our faults and accept them as something other than ugly sins before God. But anyone who listens to these voices will discover ultimately that he has stored up a treasure house of wrath. That is why God tells us the truth now.
In great love and at tremendous cost, God has provided a way out. It is that we surrender self. We must give up self-seeking and living for ourselves and begin to live for the God who made us. By the power of the Lord who forgives us and restores us and makes us his own, we will have heaven instead of hell.
This principle of giving up self must run all through life, from top to bottom, as C. S. Lewis urges (again, in Mere Christianity):
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself; and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. (from "The New Men" in Book IV, Beyond Personality)
This is the gospel at which Romans 2:1-11 is aiming. There is no hope, none whatsoever, except in a day-by-day yielding to the plan and the program of God as we find it in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Perhaps you are now seeing yourself in a new light. You see your need to stop justifying and excusing yourself, and you know you need God's forgiveness just as much as if you were a cold-blooded murderer. We all do.
Or perhaps as a Christian you are realizing how often you condemn and criticize other people, thereby blocking the flow of God's life within you, and keeping back the joy and peace he wants you to enjoy.
If so, then above all else take seriously God's way of escape. Admit your sins freely. Receive the forgiveness of God on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ in his death on the cross, and take hold of his resurrection life now available to us.
That is our only hope.
(Romans 2: 12-29)
Men and women everywhere desperately need the gospel. In the gospel, God found a way to condemn our sin and to destroy it without destroying us. No man can do that. When we want to correct evildoers, we have to punish them by imprisoning them. Sometimes, to protect society, we have to take their lives. But God does not do that. Jesus, the center and heart of the gospel, changes people. He can change our most fundamental urges from self-centeredness and selfishness to loving concern for others, so that our behavior is altered. In the gospel God makes divine power available to us. God has promised to us and provided for us an ultimate destiny that is beyond our wildest dreams. And yet, amazingly, many people resist it and stubbornly hold out against it.
So far in Romans Paul has described the obviously wicked man (who defies God) and the self-righteously moral man (who deludes himself). Now we come to the last two types of people who resist the truth. The first is the unenlightened pagan. Here we will deal with the question of what to do about people who have not heard the gospel. What about those who live where the Bible is unknown, or those who belong to a different religion ignorant of the facts surrounding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul will show their problem is that they defile their consciences. The last type is the religious devotee who seeks deliverance from the judgment of God by religious practices, rituals, performances, and knowledge of the truth. His problem is that though he knows the truth, in his actions he denies that truth.
By Their Own Standards
These two types of people are introduced by a statement of the universal lostness of mankind:
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous (2:12-13).
This is probably the strongest statement Paul makes, and it answers the question non-Christians ask Christians more often than any other--"What about the people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?" Usually they are thinking of naked savages in jungles. They seldom think of the savages in the concrete jungles of our cities, but both are in the same condition. Paul's answer is that they will be judged by their own standards. God judges men, not according to what they do not know, but according to what they do know.
So far in Romans, Paul has made three great statements about the basis of judgment. In Romans 2:2 he says that God's judgment is according to truth--it is realistic. He deals only with what is actually there. God does not falsely accuse anyone, but he judges according to the truth. Then in Romans 2:6 he says God judges according to works. Now that is interesting, because it shows God is patient. God--who does see what is going on in our inner lives and who could judge immediately on that basis--nevertheless waits patiently until our inner attitude begins to work itself out in some deed, speech, or attitude. Therefore, God allows men to be their own judge, to see for themselves that what is coming out reveals what is inside.
In Romans 2:12-13 Paul says the judgment of God is according to light. God is not going to summon all mankind and declare that they are going to be judged on the basis of the Ten Commandments. Rather, he will say to each one, "What did you think was right and wrong?" And then, "Did you do the right, and not the wrong?" By that standard, of course, everyone fails. Paul makes that clear. He says, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law." The fact that such people never heard the Ten Commandments (or anything else in the Bible) does not mean God will accept them. They will perish, not because they did not hear, but because they did not do what they knew was right.
Now Paul goes on to take up the case of the unenlightened pagan:
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares (2:14-16).
Verses 14 and 15 are in parentheses so as not to distract too much from the main flow of Paul's argument, which is that a day is coming when God will judge the secrets of men everywhere and all that is hidden will be revealed. Jesus himself spoke of that day: "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops" (Luke 12:3). There were some in Paul's day who said that because the Jews had the law and knew God's truth, they would not be condemned in that final judgment. But Paul is saying, "Look, if your knowledge of truth is what saves you, then everyone will be saved, even the savages and the pagans, for they show they have a law, too. They know a great deal about the law; it is written on their hearts, and their consciences act as judges within them, just as they do within those of us in the more civilized world." On that basis, you see, everyone would be saved. But God does not judge that way.
Written on Hearts
Now here we get a glimpse of what goes on in the primitive world. Men and women who have never heard anything about the Bible or Jesus Christ or Moses or the Ten Commandments are nevertheless judged because they have truth written in their hearts. They know what is right and wrong--they show it in their lives.
An amazing book called Peace Child tells the remarkable story of missionaries who went to New Guinea to live among an isolated people so degraded, so sunken in immorality, that they actually admired treachery They highly regarded any man who could win someone's love and trust, and then betray and murder him. Such a man was held up as an admirable person to follow. When the missionaries first came to these people they despaired of ever reaching them, for there seemed to be no ground of appeal to a people who had so reversed the moral standards of life.
As they lived among them and became better acquainted with their culture, however, the missionaries discovered that this moral reversal was not quite universal. In one particular practice---the exchange of a "peace child"--the people observed a high moral standard. If a tribe handed over one of its children to another tribe, the tribe receiving the child was then bound to honor its agreements and treaties with the first tribe. If they did not, they would lose face and be regarded as despicable. At this point the missionaries were able to introduce the gospel: They pointed out that God has given us a peace child in Jesus Christ, and therefore all tribes are bound to honor God. It is a remarkable story, showing clearly how God prepared the way for the gospel's entrance into this culture.
The Romans of Paul's day were living according to conscience; and yet the conscience, as Paul points out here, never brings a settled peace. People say, "Let your conscience be your guide," but that is a recipe for unhappiness. If your conscience is all you have, you are certain to alternate between fleeting peace and fear.
An interesting article in Christianity Today by Rachel Saint, sister of one of the five men cruelly murdered by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956, describes the way the Aucas lived before the gospel came:
The Aucas have been thoroughly acquainted with demons and devil worship for many generations. The result of this is a religion of terror. The witch doctor is the central authority, and he controls the tribe. Any death is supposed to be caused by the witch doctor. Then that death has to be avenged and the feuding starts. They are afraid that they might be speared at night in their own houses. Everyone is a potential enemy. If a father loses a son, he feels he must kill his daughter. If the group loses a marriageable girl, a grandmother is killed. Why should a worthless old woman live if a marriageable girl has died? This kind of thinking permeates their culture.
Thoughts like this appear not only in the jungles of South America, but wherever people are governed only by the law of conscience. Yet even under their own law they will perish, just as certainly as do those who are judged by God's law; for they do not obey their own consciences.
Religious Braggarts
Paul goes on to take up the case of the religious devotee of his day, the Jew. Today we need only substitute the title "church member" to apply it to ourselves. We American church members are in the same condition as the Jew of Paul's day. We have a great body of truth in which we delight, and we feel proud of our knowledge and our understanding of it. But unfortunately we often think our knowledge in itself will deliver us in the sight of God.
This is how Paul handles such thinking:
Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (2:17-24).
Paul lists here the five great advantages which the Jews of his day had and on which they relied for their position before God. First, they rejoiced in having the law. Many people in our churches today rely greatly on the fact that the Bible is available to them. Many take pride in owning a specific version: "I'm a King James Christian," or "We're liberated! We have the NIV." Such bragging is exactly what the Jews were doing in Paul's day. They gloried in having the Torah.
Second, they boasted about their relationship to God. The Jew made it clear he had an inside track with the Almighty. You hear people talking the same way today: "God and I were talking the other day..." We make it clear we have a special standing with the "Good Lord," and brag about it.
Third, the Jews knew the will of God. They had the Scriptures, they had the Ten Commandments and the knowledge of what God wanted. Many today boast about their knowledge of the Word of God, and they rest upon that fact.
Fourth, these Jews approved of what was superior--they rejected certain attitudes and actions and chose only what was regarded as morally preferable. Many, many church members do this. They take pride in saying they do not do certain things. I am amazed at how many people think God is going to be impressed by the things they do not do. "We don't dance, we don't drink, we don't go to the movies, we don't play cards, we don't drink coffee," and on and on.
Finally, the Jews were instructed in the law. Many could quote great passages of Scripture, and they took pride in that.
Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these advantages except that the Jews--and many of us today--depend on them for righteousness. We think we have a special standing with God because of them; and so did the Jews. In fact, Paul goes on to list four privileges which the Jews considered theirs because of these advantages.
First, they felt they were guides to the blind. Today we have people who are always ready to correct those around them, to set straight those unfortunates who have not yet learned anything.
Second, the Jews thought they were a light to those in the dark. Every now and then we run into people who are quite ready to dazzle us with their knowledge of the Scriptures. They know all about the antichrist, they know when Christ is coming again, they know all the elective decrees of God, they are thoroughly acquainted with the supralapsarian position of Adam before the fall, and so on. They take great pride in this knowledge.
Third, the Jews felt they were instructors of the foolish. A lady once came up to me after a service and told me a long, painful story of how she had injured her wrist in an auto accident. The doctor who took care of her in the emergency room happened to let a couple of curse words slip while working on her. She lectured him at great length about how she was a Christian, how she wouldn't listen to this kind of language, and how terrible it was that he took the name of God in vain. This attitude is typical of many who feel they are instructors of the foolish because they know the Scriptures.
The fourth privilege of the Jews was that they were teachers of children. I am amazed at how many