REASON TO REJOICE

Love, Grace, and Forgiveness in Paul's Letter to the Romans

by Ray C. Stedman

Reason to Rejoice

(c)2004 by Elaine Stedman

All rights reserved.

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RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49501.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from

The New International Version, (NIV) (c)1973, 1978, 1984 by

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Interior Design by Sherri L. Hoffman

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stedman, Ray C.

(From guilt to glory)

Reason to rejoice: love, grace, and forgiveness in Paul’s letter to the Romans / by Ray C. Stedman

p. cm

Originally published: From guilt to glory Waco, Tex: Word Books, (c)1978.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-57293-091-8

1. Bible. N.T. Romans-Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

BS2665.52.S74 2003

227. 107-.-dc22

2003015684

Printed in the United States of America

04 05 06 07 08 09/EBI/10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editors’ Preface

Chapter 1. From Guilt to Glory (Romans 1:1-17)

      Chart: The Structure of Romans

Chapter 2. The Divine Diagnosis (Romans 1:18-32)

Chapter 3. Sinful Morality (Romans 2)

Chapter 4. The Heart of the Gospel (Romans 3)

Chapter 5. The Father of Faith (Romans 4)

Chapter 6. Rejoicing in God (Romans 5)

Chapter 7. Whose Slave Are You? (Romans 6)

Chapter 8. The Never-Ending Struggle (Romans 7)

Chapter 9. No Condemnation (Romans 8:1-17)

Chapter 10. If God Be for Us (Romans 8:18-39)

Chapter 11. Let God Be God (Romans 9)

Chapter 12. How to Be Saved (Romans 10)

Chapter 13. The Church and the Chosen People (Romans 11)

Chapter 14. Who Am I, Lord? (Romans 12)

Chapter 15. God’s Strange Servants (Romans 13:1-7)

Chapter 16. Love, for the Night Is Ending (Romans 13:8-14)

Chapter 17. The Weak and the Strong (Romans 14:1-15:13)

Chapter 18. Paul’s Postscript (Romans 15:14-16:24)

Notes

EDITORS’ PREFACE

Ray Stedman (1917-1992) served as pastor of the Peninsula Bible Church from 1950 to 1990. He was known and loved as a man of outstanding Bible knowledge and wisdom coupled with a depth of Christian integrity, love, and humility. Born in Temvik, North Dakota, Ray grew up on the rugged landscape of Montana. When he was a small child, his mother became ill and his father, a railroad man, abandoned the family, so Ray grew up on his aunt’s Montana farm from the time he was six. He came to know the Lord at a Methodist revival meeting at age ten.

As a young man he tried different jobs, working in Chicago, Denver, Hawaii, and elsewhere. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II, where he often led Bible studies for civilians and Navy personnel, and even preached on local radio in Hawaii. At the close of the war, Ray was married in Honolulu, though he and his wife Elaine had first met in Great Falls, Montana. They returned to the mainland in 1946, and Ray graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1950. After two seminary summers interning under the 'widely regarded Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Ray traveled for several months with another renowned Bible teacher, Dr. H. A. Ironside, pastor of Moody Church in Chicago.

In 1950, Ray was called by the two-year-old Peninsula Bible Fellowship in Palo Alto, California, to serve as its first pastor. Peninsula Bible Fellowship later became Peninsula Bible Church, and Ray eventually served a forty-year tenure there, retiring on April 30, 1990. During those years, Ray Stedman authored a number of life-changing Christian books, including the classic work on the meaning and mission of the church, Body Life. He entered into the presence of his Lord on October 7, 1992.

This book, Reason to Rejoice, is derived from two sermon series Ray Stedman preached on the book of Romans.’ In Romans 12:1, Paul challenges Christians to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.” Though the book of Romans is rich in wisdom and practical instruction on many themes, from justification by faith to our struggle against sin to authentic Christian love, the theme of presenting ourselves to God as "living sacrifices’ is a good summation of what Romans is all about.

In these pages, you’ll be inspired and instructed as Ray shares powerful insights into the apostle Paul’s most famous New Testament letter. Like all of Ray Stedman’s writings, Reason to Rejoice is lively, conversational, and avoids technical jargon. Ray’s personal warmth and humor shine through, making this an enjoyable book to read--and reread. Most important of all, you’ll be challenged and encouraged to apply these life-changing truths in your every day life. The journey through Paul’s letter to the Romans is the journey of a lifetime. So turn the page and enrich your adventure of faith in Christ!

-The Editors

CHAPTER 1

FROM GUILT TO GLORY

Romans 1:1-17

Saint Augustine of Hippo was a great church leader of the fourth century. But as a young man before his conversion to Christianity, Augustine struggled with God and with the temptation to sin. He tried to live a morally upright life in his own strength, but he would inevitably fail.

In his autobiography, The Confessions, he wrote that on one occasion he felt such so much guilt, shame, and condemnation for his sins that he flung himself down under a fig tree and wept a flood of tears. "God, why can’t I live a righteous life?” he prayed. "I want to stop sinning, but I can’t!”

Just then, he heard a child, chanting in a sing-song voice, "Take up and read, take up and read!” He interpreted those words as a message from God.

But what did the message mean--take up and read”? Read what? Then Augustine remembered the scroll he had left with his close friend, Alypius--a scroll of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Rome. Augustine jumped up, went to his friend, and found the scroll. He decided to read the first passage his eyes fell upon:

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Romans 13:13-14)

Instantly, a sense of peace came over him. His struggle with God was over. Though he could not resist temptation in his own power, he could "clothe [himself] with the Lord Jesus Christ” and allow the Lord live through him. At that moment, Augustine was a changed man. His transformation had begun with two sentences from the book of Romans.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is his greatest. In fact, I believe it is the most powerful document ever written. Of all the New Testament letters, Romans is the broadest in scope and deepest in insight. No other document has affected and transformed more human lives. Here are just a few stories of lives it has changed:

Eleven centuries after St. Augustine, a German theologian named Martin Luther was meditating on this great phrase from Romans 1:17: "The righteous will live by faith.” As he contemplated those words, Luther realized that he had completely missed the point of the Christian gospel! True Christianity is not a matter of rites and rituals and ceremonies. The essence of Christianity is faith, not works! Those words from the book of Romans lit a fire in Luther’s soul, a fire that would become the great Protestant Reformation.

The seventeenth-century Puritan preacher John Bunyan spent twelve years in jail in Bedford, England. His crime? He left the Church of England and sought to worship God according to his own conscience. While studying Romans in his jail cell, Bunyan was inspired by the themes of Romans to write an allegorical novel, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Today, that novel--which illustrates how Christians should relate to God and the world around them--is still a widely read classic.

Another whose life was transformed by the message of Romans was a young Anglican minister, John Wesley. In 1735, Wesley went to America, where he had served a brief stint as a pastor to British colonists in Savannah, Georgia. There he was spurned by the woman he loved and rejected by his congregation. He returned to England in February 1738, embittered and dejected, feeling like a complete failure.

For the next few weeks, Wesley tried to live a righteous life, but he continually battled temptation. "I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering,” he later recalled. "I fell and rose, an fell again.” During this time, he often doubted God and his own faith.

On May 14 of that year, Wesley went to a meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. There, a man was reading to the congregation from Martin Luther’s preface to the book of Romans. Wesley wrote in his journal that as he listened, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation.”

As a result of his encounter with the book of Romans, John Wesley’s life was transformed. He became one of the leaders of the Great Evangelical Awakening that brought thousands of people to faith in Jesus Christ.

That is the power of this amazing book. Embedded in the pages of Paul’s letter to the Romans is the power to change individual lives and entire societies. It is a power that we all long to experience as followers of Jesus Christ.

Every Christian should study and master the book of Romans. I hope that, by the time you have completed this study, you will be able to outline the great themes of Romans from memory. I pray that you will develop such a love for this life-changing New Testament letter that you will return to it again and again, and that you will live daily in its truths. If you do, I guarantee that it will change your life, just as it has changed thousands of lives through the centuries.

The Central Truth of Romans: Jesus Is Lord

The theme of Romans could be expressed as "From Guilt to Glory” In other words, this letter deals with how God, through Jesus Christ, has enabled human beings to move from a place of condemnation and sin to a place of reconciliation and righteousness The sixteen chapters of Romans divide into three main sections with a number of subsections:

Paul’s letter to the Romans was written around AD 56 to 58 while he was in the Greek city of Corinth on his third missionary journey. As you read this letter, you can catch glimpses of the social and spiritual condition of Corinth at that time. Corinth was located at the crossroads of trade in the Roman Empire, much like New York or San Francisco in our own time. And like those modern cities, Corinth was notorious for its godlessness and its atmosphere of bold, blatant immorality. Paul characterizes that godlessness in his letter to the Romans.

Paul wrote less than thirty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The impact of the life of Jesus was sharply etched in the minds of Christians throughout the Roman Empire. Paul wrote Romans to instruct them and remind them of these profound events that had shaken the first-century world.

The first seventeen verses of Romans are an introduction to the great themes of the letter. In those opening verses, Paul lays out the order to them that leads us to a central theme: Jesus is Lord. We see it in the first seven verses:

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 name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles o 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)

The heart of Paul’s argument is Jesus Himself. As he wrote in Colossians 1:27, "Christ in you, the hope of glory” is the one great truth from which all others flow other profound truths, such as justification by faith and sanctification (solving the sin problem) are certainly important, but the great central theme of the New Testament is the astonishing fact of our union with Jesus Christ, God’s Son. That’s why the person of the Lord Jesus is central to Paul’s thinking, just as it is central to God’s program for humanity. We do not simply believe in a creed or follow a philosopher. Our lives are joined to the life of the Savior, the Redeemer, the Lord.

Another major theme of Paul’s introduction is that Jesus is the promised Messiah whose coming was predicted throughout the Old Testament. The good news of salvation was promised through the "prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son.” The Christian faith was not invented in the first century AD; rather, it was the culmination of centuries of Jewish teachings, Jewish prophecies, and Jewish anticipation throughout Old Testament times.

In John 5:39, Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees, "You diligently study the [Old Testament] Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” Later, after His death and resurrection, Jesus met two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize Him, nor did they understand that His death and resurrection had been predicted many times in the Old Testament Scriptures. So Luke 24:27 tells us, "beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he [Jesus] expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (KJV).

The great messianic passages of the Old Testament point unerringly to Jesus. When reading the Old Testament, we are gripped by the feeling that Someone is coming! All the prophets speak of Him, all the sacrifices point to Him, all the longings of humanity are focused on the coming Person who will one day arrive and solve the great crises of history. When the Old Testament closes, it is clear that He has not yet arrived--but He is expected.

And when the New Testament opens, the first story we read is of angels appearing to shepherds near Bethlehem. They sing a song of hope: "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11 KJV). The Promised One has come!

These resounding truths are echoed in Paul’s introduction to Romans as he points to Jesus as the One who was promised beforehand. Paul presents Jesus to us in two unique ways:

First, Paul speaks of His human nature. In Romans 1:3, Paul tells us that Jesus "was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.”

Second, Paul tells us that there was more to Jesus than mere humanity linked with His humanness is the profound deity of the Creator God. In verse 4, Paul writes that Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (KJV). That phrase, "the Son of God,” unmistakably, declares the deity of our Lord. He was God. Paul emphasizes this fact many times throughout his letter to the Romans.

Yet, as we see in Romans and other letters of Paul, Jesus set aside His deity when He came in human form. He didn’t come to act as God; rather, He came to act as a man filled by God. Jesus set an example for us, because Christians must live the same way, seeking to do God’s will by being filled with God’s Spirit. You and I can’t he God, but we can be possessed by God, so that He can fill us and use us to accomplish His good and perfect will.

In verse 4, Paul notes three signs of the deity of Jesus, saying that He was declared to be the Son of God (1) with power, (2) according to the spirit of holiness, (3) by the resurrection from the dead.

First, the phrase "with power” speaks of the miracles Jesus did--the healings, the deliverance of people from demons, the miraculous feedings, and many more signs of His authority as the Son of God.

Second, Jesus came by "the spirit of holiness.” Understand, this word holiness does not refer to putting on religious or sanctimonious airs. The word holiness actually comes from the same root as the word wholeness, and that is a good clue as to what holiness means. Paul is telling us that Jesus came as a whole person. He demonstrated a complete and fully integrated human personality He showed us what it means to be a whole person living in a world of brokenness. When we look at Jesus, we see what He is calling us to become as whole and holy human beings. That is good news for us all.

Third, the deity of Jesus is authenticated in His resurrection from the dead. That is where our faith ultimately rests. We can have confidence that God has told us the truth because of the historical fact that God raised Jesus from the dead. The Resurrection cannot be explained away. We will explore this truth as we move deeper into Romans.

Loved by God

In the next section of his introduction to Romans, Paul makes a profound statement about the Christians in Rome--a statement that also applies to you and me as Christians today:

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 1:6-7)

First, Paul says that Christians have a calling. We are not self-made or man-made saints; we are called by God to be His saints. The word saint comes from sanctify, which means to set something or someone apart for a specific purpose. So when Paul tells us we are "loved by God and called to be saints,” he wants us to know that God cares deeply about us. He has called us and has set us apart for His eternal purpose.

God calls each of us in a unique way. But one common thread runs through every story of conversion to Christ: God sought us out. We may have thought we were seeking God, but the truth is that He sought us.

That 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). God sought us, God called us, God placed us in the care and keeping of His Son, Jesus.

Look again at Paul’s remarkable statement that we are "loved by God.” Later in Romans, Paul will have to scold these saints and correct them, so he begins by reminding them they are loved by God. He wants them to know that any correction that must take place will take place in a context of God’s perfect love for them.

This is the basis of our relationship with God: He loves us. "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul writes. Grace and peace should characterize our lives. The grace and peace God gives us are proof of His love for us. We cannot earn grace; it is a gift of God’s love.

Faith that Startles the World

Next, Paul highlights the faith of the Christians in Rome:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. (Romans 1:8)

The whole world was talking about the faith of the Roman Christians! As Christians today, we tend to think the world will be impressed by the splendor of our church buildings, our growing congregations, or our glitzy, Broadway-class music programs. But these things do not impact the world for Jesus Christ. When God impacts the world through His saints, He does so through their faith.

The vibrant, vital faith of the Christians in Rome startled the entire world. Where did this vitality come from? Paul gives us this clue:

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. (Romans 1:9-10)

The faith of the Christians in Rome startled the world because Paul and other Christians were praying for them. At this point in his ministry Paul had never been to Rome. Even so, he prayed continually for the believers in Rome: "How constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times.” That is why the church in Rome was flourishing.

We need to recover this urgent sense of concern and prayer for one another. lam convinced that it would make all the difference in the world if we would continually uphold each other in prayer.

Set Apart from birth

Next, Paul points out that the Christians in Rome have been strengthened by gifts of the Holy Spirit:

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 mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. (Romans 1:11-12)

Here we see what makes a church strong: the exercise of spiritual gifts. When Paul says he wants to impart a spiritual gift to the Christians in Rome, he doesn’t mean that he has all the gifts in a bag and he doles them out wherever he goes. The word impart means "to share.” Paul can’t give anyone a spiritual gift; only the Holy Spirit can do that. Paul wants to share with the Roman Christians the gifts God has given. He wants to use his gifts among them, and he wants to experience their gifts in his own life. Spiritual gifts are given so that Christians can be mutually strengthened in the faith. That is how a church should function. The saints minister to each other, building up one another by their faith and by sharing and exercising their spiritual gifts.

Next, Paul defines himself as the great apostle to the Gentiles. As he writes, the good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus the Messiah is going out beyond Israel and into the world. Paul himself is helping build the bridge between Israel and the Gentiles. In Romans 1:1, Paul identifies himself with these words: "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” He is a called apostle, and it was God who called him. When did God call him? You might think Paul’s calling took place when he had his blinding encounter with the Lord Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-16). But no, Paul tells us in Galatians 1:15 that God "set me apart from birth and called me by his grace” (italics added).

God, who sees the end from the beginning, knows us and calls from a time before we even exist. That is the wonder of the God we serve. He sets us apart even before our lives and our awareness are formed. God used all the events of Paul’s early life--his training under Gamaliel, his zeal as a young Pharisee, and even his early hatred of the gospel. This was all part of setting Paul apart as an apostle. When the time came for Paul to be converted, God opened the trap door on the Damascus Road and Paul fell through. That trap had been set for Paul long before he was born, and every experience of his pre-Christian life was designed to make him a more effective minister of the gospel.

So don’t ever think that your life before you met Jesus was wasted. God can take all the sin, rebellion, sorrow, pain, and regret of your old life, and He can use it to make you a more effective minister of His grace in your new life in Christ. God doesn’t merely redeem our souls. He redeems all the experiences of our lives, and He refashions them for His good, for our good, and for the good of the people around us.

What does Paul mean when he calls himself an apostle? What is an apostle? The word Paul uses that we translate apostle is kletos in the original Greek, which comes from klesis, "a divine calling or an invitation from God.” Paul tells us in verse 5, "Through [Jesus] and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.” So an apostle is someone called by God and set apart so that he might call others to faith and obedience. Paul continues:

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles, I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome. (Romans 1:13-15)

Note that phrase: "I am obligated...” Here Paul tells us his mission in life. He is driven by a sense of purpose so dear and overwhelming that he considers it an obligation upon his life. He is obligated to preach the gospel to the Jews, to the Greeks, and to everyone else. He senses an urgent imperative to preach the gospel wherever he goes, to whoever he meets. Why? Because the gospel is the cure for sin!

If you were the sole possessor of a cure for cancer, would you be quiet about it? Or would you share the secret with everyone around you? Paul was intensely aware that he possessed the secret that everyone needs. He had the cure for the sin disease, and he was determined to share that cure with everyone he met.

Proud of the Gospel

What is this cure for sin that Paul feels driven to preach to the nations? He describes his message in the next two verses:

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.” (Romans 1:16-17)

Paul closes with a quotation from the Old Testament:  "The righteous will live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4). This is the phrase that gripped the heart of Martin Luther. This great truth, Paul says, is the life-transforming message of the Christian gospel: If you want to live a righteous life, then you must stop trying to achieve it by your own efforts. The righteous life can only be achieved by faith--that is, by a trust-relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

This is a transforming truth, and Paul says he is not ashamed of it. In fact, he is proud of it. He proclaims it boldly everywhere he goes. He can’t wait to get to Rome so he can preach this message there.

Paul is especially eager to proclaim this gospel in Rome because the Romans appreciated power, just as Americans do today. Roman military power had conquered the entire known world. Roman knowledge was power--their road-building technology, their war-making technology, their legal knowledge, their literary and artistic skill. Roman economic power had brought the wealth of the world to Rome through both trade and conquest.

But Paul knew the Romans were powerless when it came to changing hearts. Even with all its wealth and military might, the Roman Empire was riddled with violence, corruption, despair, and suicide. The "noble Romans” lived meaningless lives; their wealth and power gave them no inner peace.

That is why Paul is proud of the gospel. That is why he is eager to preach the gospel in the capital city of the Roman Empire. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God--power to do the very things that Roman power could not do. We never need to apologize for the gospel. It is power without rival, power to transform human lives, power to live a righteous life. The righteousness of God, Paul says, is received by faith. We cannot earn Gods righteousness but we can receive it anytime we need it-and that is good news Whenever we feel depressed, discouraged, or defeated, we can recall that God loves us, restores us, and gives us His righteousness to cover our own sin and inadequacy.

In the first seventeen verses of Romans 1, Paul has introduced the great themes of this letter. As we continue through this book together, I trust that these themes will transform our hearts as they have transformed the hearts of the first-century church, and of believers down through the ages. May you and I add our names to that list--Augustine, Luther, Bunyan, and Wesley--and may our hearts be strangely, wonderfully warmed by the life-changing truths of Romans.

CHAPTER 2

THE DIVINE DIAGNOSIS

Romans 1:18-32

The most famous mutiny in history was the rebellion aboard the HMS Bounty in April 1789. That incident inspired five motion pictures and numerous books. Three weeks after the Bounty left Tahiti with a cargo of breadfruit trees (a cheap food source for Caribbean slaves), the crew mutinied. First Mate Fletcher Christian, the leader of the mutineers, forced Captain William Bligh and eighteen loyal sailors into a small open boat and set them adrift.

The mutineers took the Bounty back to Tahiti. Sixteen crewmen chose to stay there. But Fletcher Christian and eight other men took some Tahitian islanders with them and set out for a safe hiding place. They chose a lonely, uninhabited island called Pitcairn. One of the sailors made whiskey from the native plants, and the resulting drunken orgies quickly turned to violent brawls. Though the island looked like a paradise, the mutineers began to view it as a prison. One by one, the mutinous crewmen were either killed in fights or murdered in their sleep. Even Fletcher Christian died violently.

Finally, only one of the mutineers was left alive, a sailor named Alexander Smith. As the last man living, he felt responsible to look after the women and fatherless children who remained. Smith regretted the sinfulness of his past, and he knew he lacked wisdom to care for the women and children. He needed guidance from beyond himself.

Looking through a sea-chest, Smith found a Bible. Over the next few weeks, he read it from cover to cover. Then he asked God to take control of his life. He also taught the women and children to read the Bible. Fathered by various mutineers, those children grew up, married, and had children of their own.

In 1808, the American whaling ship Topaz stopped at Pitcairn. The Americans were the first visitors to the island since the mutiny on the Bounty, eighteen years earlier. The sailors from the Topaz were astounded to find an orderly Christian society in which there was no crime, no disease, no alcoholism, and no illiteracy.

Pitcairn had been hell on earth under the reign of Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers. The people had suffered under something called "the wrath of God--the inevitable result of human hearts filled with murder, envy, lust, rage, rebellion, and drunkenness.

But when the last man on Pitcairn turned his heart over to God, the wrath of God was replaced by the love of God, and Pitcairn became a paradise on earth. The transformation of that tiny island is just a glimpse of what could happen in our own society if we would choose to receive the love and mercy of God, we would escape the wrath of God now being revealed against the godlessness and wickedness of our age.

The Wrath of God

Following his introduction to Romans, Paul sounds a new and somber note. Beginning with verse 18, he introduces the troubling phrase "the wrath of God.” Here, Paul begins a careful, logical analysis of the human dilemma:

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 maybe 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. (Romans 1:18-20)

The wrath of God is a frightening subject, but it is necessary that Paul address this subject early in his letter. In these verses Paul tells us why we need the gospel. Human beings everywhere suffer tinder the wrath of God, and only the gospel can free us from that wrath.

What do you think of when you hear that phrase, "the wrath of God”? Most people think of something that follows death--the final judgment of God. It is true that hell is an expression of the wrath of God. But that is not what Paul means at this point. He refers to something present and active right now. As the text says, it is "being revealed from heaven” in the here and now. The wrath of God is inescapable, it is all around us. God’s wrath is His invisible resistance to human evil.

This conception of the wrath of God did not originate with Paul. It is consistent with what the Old Testament tells us:

All our days pass away under your wrath;

we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years--

or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger?

For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

 (Psalm 90:9-11)

The brevity of life, the sorrow and tragedy of the human condition--this is all part of what Paul captures in the phrase "the wrath of God.” What provokes the wrath of God? Paul says it is caused by "the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

Notice the progression Paul describes: first godlessness, then wickedness. The order is never reversed. It is a godless attitude that produces wicked actions.

What is godlessness? It isn’t necessarily atheism, the belief that God doesn’t exist. Godlessness is thinking and acting as if God doesn’t exist. A godless person doesn’t have to deny the existence of God; he or she can merely disregard Him.

The inevitable result of godlessness is wickedness--those selfish and hurtful acts that people commit against each other. Why do we act selfishly? Why do we hurt each other? Because we disregard God.

And what follows as a natural consequence of our wicked actions? The truth of God is suppressed. In the next two verses, Paul sets before us the truth that human beings have wickedly denied:

...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. (Romans 1:19-20)

The truth that people try to ignore and suppress is the existence of a God of eternal power and majesty. They try to suppress the greatness of God. Puny human beings strut about as if there were no God--indeed, as if they are gods! But there are times when human beings cannot avoid the reality of God. When those times come, they don’t like to speak of God. They resort to saying that "nature” created us or that "fate” or "karma” controls their destinies.

But the reality of God can be avoided for only so long. The truth of God surrounds us and must eventually be faced--either willingly or unwillingly. God has revealed Himself, says Paul. He has made the truth about Himself plain. The reality of God is not a vague, incomprehensible enigma. The truth about God is obvious to all, even those who deny and avoid it. God has made the truth plain by displaying His eternal power and divine nature. So there is no excuse--the reality of God is on display throughout the universe. All human beings can read this revelation of God if they choose to do so.

One night my daughter, Laurie, and I were walking in the mountains of Southern California. We were away from the city

smog, and the sky was filled with millions of stars. I pointed out the Milky Way and explained to her that it was part of the galaxy that our sun belongs to. I told her there are millions of galaxies just like it in distant parts of the universe that have never been explored by human beings. I pointed out the Big Dipper, the North Star, the Pleiades cluster, and we talked about the vastness and beauty of the universe.

"But remember,” I added, joking, "that all of this happened purely by chance.”

Laurie immediately began to laugh! How ridiculous that this vast array of beauty and complexity could have arisen by sheer chance! How can we say that a wristwatch can come about only as the result of intelligence and skill, yet a universe can arise, a baby can be born, a rose can bloom by sheer random chance? The idea is ridiculous on the face of it.

Yet many people make that godless claim. They willfully suppress the truth that stares them in the face. So the apostle Paul tells us that human beings are without excuse. If we want to find God, we do not have to search hard. In fact, we can’t miss Him. Even God’s invisible qualities--His eternal power and divine nature--are evident all around us.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us, "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.” First, we must believe that God exists, that He is there--and Paul says that everyone knows, deep down, that God is there. The evidence is beyond question. You must work hard to convince yourself otherwise, and only the very intelligent are able to accomplish this feat. The rest of us, who simply see the truth of the universe and believe it, accept the fact that God is there. And all of us are without excuse.

Next, as Hebrews 11:6 tells us, we must diligently seek this God whose existence is revealed in the universe around us. If we fail to find God, it is because we don’t seek Him. If we seek Him, we will find Him.

In the next three verses, Paul tells us how human beings 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 clamed to he 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. (Romans 1:21-23)

Here, Paul traces a three-step process:

Step 1: People fail to glorify God and give thanks to Him. We see evidence of this throughout American society, where prayer has been banned from public schools, where Christmas is now called "winter break” and Easter is "spring break,” where the words "under God” are edited out of our Pledge of Allegiance, where the Ten Commandments can no longer he displayed in our courthouses and other public buildings. God is no longer welcome in the public square. The powers that rule our society no longer wish to admit that God exists. They do not glorify Him as God, nor do they give Him thanks.

Paul says that, as a result, their thinking has become futile. What is futile thinking? This refers to human ideas, schemes, plans, institutions, and programs that seem so brilliant, but ultimately come to nothing. I have lived through the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society, Peace with Honor, the Great Recovery, and the New World Order--and all of them have failed dismally! These human programs begin with good intentions, brilliant planning, and shining promises, but always end in dismal failure.

Paul also says that "their foolish hearts were darkened.” Human hearts are darkened by cynicism and selfishness. When a darkened heart sees human need, it does not feel compassion; it just shrugs and turns away. "It’s too bad,” the darkened heart says, "but it’s really not my problem.” That is the inevitable result of ignoring God.

Step 2: People claim to be wise. In other words, they place their own wisdom above the wisdom of God. They claim to know everything that can be known--and in so doing, they become fools! You may recall the tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice--the student magician who takes up the wand of his master and unleashes frightening powers he cannot control. Our "wise men” claim to have a godlike understanding of biology, chemistry, and physics, yet their "wisdom” has brought us to the brink of runaway biological, ecological, and nuclear catastrophes. These apprentice sorcerers have unleashed destructive forces upon our world--forces that are not only beyond our control but beyond our imagining. Claiming to be wise, they have become dangerous, destructive fools.

Step 3: People exchange the glory of the immortal God for images made like mortal man. They exchange the glory of the undying God for images made like dying creatures: men, birds, animals, and reptiles. Notice the descending order. Idolatry begins with statues of men. The world is filled with statues reflecting the images of heroes of the ancient Greek and Roman world. These images symbolize the ideas the people worship, and we still have such images today. But these images debase and dethrone God, replacing Him with something lesser, something human.

Idolatry begins first with men; then idolatry extends to birds, which are seen as heavenly creatures. Then idolatry descends to animals, the shaggy beasts of the earth. Finally, men even begin to idolize reptiles. When human beings cease to worship God, they begin to worship their own humanity--but they inevitably end up worshiping snakes.

You may think, "But people don’t worship idols anymore!” If that is so, then why are movie stars, pop stars, and sports heroes called "icons” and "idols”? Famous people, with their glittering images (and their feet of clay) are worshiped today; they are given the honor and glory that should be given to God.

There are other things we worship today: Some of us worship power, such as military power or corporate power or economic power. Some of us worship money. Some of us worship sex. Some of us bow before idols of success, beauty, youth, and extreme adventure. We’ve exchanged the glory of the undying God for the worship of lesser things.

The consequences of idolatry are terrible to contemplate, and they descend upon both individual idolaters and upon an idolatrous society. These consequences are what Paul refers to when he speaks of "the wrath of God.”

God Gave Them Over

In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis says that hell is made up of people who live at an infinite distance from each other. That is what happens when we lose the presence of God in our lives. Our relationships break down. We feel a toss of fellowship with the people around us. Even in a crowd, we experience loneliness and alienation.

In Romans 1:24-32, we will see that as human beings divorce themselves from God, they also divorce themselves from one another. We will also see that God, who has given all human beings the gift of free will, always allows us to make our choices freely. If we choose to reject God, He will step out of our way and let us reap the consequences of our choices.

We see this principle in this passage, where Paul repeats one somber phrase three times: "God gave them over.” That phrase occurs in verses 24, 26, and 28, and it perfectly describes what is taking place in our culture today Paul writes:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (Romans 1:24)

The first mark of wickedness in a godless society is widespread sexual immorality--practices that degrade and dishonor the body. This sentence begins with the word therefore, which suggests a cause-and-effect relationship. The rise of sexual immorality is a direct result of the idolatry that Paul talks about in verses 21 through 23. Idolatry--the worship of people, objects, and ideas--leads inevitably to the spread and toleration of sexual immorality immediately after the word therefore, we come upon Paul’s first use of the phrase "God gave them over.” Many people think Paul is saying that God gives up on people who do these things--that He turns His back on them forever. But that is not what Paul means.

The apostle is saying that when people reject the evidence of God in nature, when they commit idolatry and do not glorify God or obey His moral rules for a satisfying life, God removes His restraints from society. He allows what is done in secret to be uncovered. He lets sinful people operate as they wish, so that they reap the consequences of their choices.

We see this principle in our own society sexual immorality has always been present in human life, though immorality has largely been considered shameful and scandalous and was kept secret. Today, however, we see the most vile and ugly perversions breaking out into the open, flooding our news and entertainment media, clamoring for acceptance, demanding to be tolerated as "normal.” Even pedophiles-those who sexually abuse children--are operating openly under a shield of "free speech,” lobbying for a legal right to sexually exploit our children.

When sexual perversion is allowed to break out into the open and demand acceptance, it is a sign that Gods wrath is at work.

God allows us to experience the full effects of our own riotous self-will. He removes the lid and allows the bubbling pot of sin and evil to boil over.

When God removes His restraints from society, people tend to respond in one of two ways. Some witness the social destruction that sin causes, and they come to their senses. Like Alexander Smith, the last mutineer on Pitcairn island, such people see the error of their ways, and they repent and turn to God for salvation. But others refuse to learn the lessons of God’s wrath. Instead they blame Him for the consequences of their own sin. They of turning to God in repentance, they rage and rebel against Him. They plunge even deeper into immorality--and God gives them over to their own choices and the consequences they have heaped upon themselves.

The Worst Sins

You may ask, "Why is sexual immorality singled out as the sign of God’s wrath? Why does sexual immorality signal the disintegration of a society?” There is a good reason for this--but not what you might think. It is not because sexual sins are the worst of sins. In his book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis observed:

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 putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and hack-biting, 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 worst 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.’

The book of Romans confirms the words of C. S. Lewis. Human godlessness and wickedness begin with sexual impurity and proceed to sexual perversion. However, the ultimate degradation is not sexual sin but the sins of the spirit. Pride, hatred, bullying and bossing, wielding power over others, destroying lives and reputations with gossip--these are truly the worst sins.

The reason God uses sexual sins as a visible sign of spiritual disintegration is found elsewhere. Now, brace yourself, because you may find this shocking: the reason is that sex is linked with worship. Our sexual longings are intimately connected with our longing for genuine worship, for an intimate connection to God.

Our sex drive is nothing more or less than the desire to possess another person, body and soul, and to be possessed in the same way. That is why the sex drive has rightly been described as "the urge to merge.” God intended that the human sexual urge should find its culmination in sexual relations in marriage, just as He intended that the soul find its delight in the "urge to merge” with God in worship. Whether we realize it or not, the deepest desire of the human soul is to possess and be possessed by God.

Jesus talked about this perfect union of souls when He prayed for His disciples, "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us...I in them and you in me” (John 17:21, 23). Clearly, this is a spiritual prayer about a spiritual union, yet (as the Song of Solomon and other Scripture texts dearly show) the sexual union of marriage symbolizes the spiritual union in the worship relationship between God and His people.

The reason this idea seems shocking to us today is twofold. First, Victorian prudishness regards sex as something dirty, not to be mentioned in polite company This is not a biblical or godly view of sex. Second, the Sexual Revolution that began in the 1960s has produced an anything-goes approach to sex that puts sexual behavior and even sexual deviancy on public display as if God’s gift of sex was just so much meat in a butcher’s window.

Both extremes demean God’s beautiful gift of sex, turning it into something ugly and shameful. As God created it, there is nothing shameful about sex. It is a symbolic picture of the rapturous relationship we were made to experience with our loving Creator.

Many people mistakenly think that the sex urge is merely an animal drive for pleasure and procreation. But the sex urge is actually intertwined with our spiritual drive for communion and worship, an urge for oneness and fulfillment. That is why illicit sex leaves people empty and unfulfilled. Only union with God can satisfy that deep longing for complete unity-an experience of unity that is central to what we call worship. When we worship, we experience that sense of possessing and being possessed by God.

So when human beings seek a God-substitute in the form of illicit sex, God says, in effect, "You won’t find fulfillment there. You can only find fulfillment in Me. If you deny Me and ignore Me, seeking to gratify your senses instead of satisfying your soul, you will remain empty. Still, if that is what you choose, I will not stop you.”

So God removes the restraints and allows immoral sexual practices to become widely accepted. He knows that people who engage in such practices will end up as empty as when they started. But He also knows that many people will never turn to God until they reach the depths of hopelessness and despair. So He allows people to make their own choices in the hope that the consequences of those choices may ultimately drive them to Him.

God’s View of Homosexuality

In the next few verses, Paul shows us another sign of a godless and wicked society:

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. (Romans 1:25-27)

Here, Paul speaks frankly about an issue that remains controversial in our society today: homosexuality. In fact, he tells us that open homosexual practice is another sign of a godless and wicked society. Because godless people have exchanged the truth for a lie, God has allowed them to exchange natural sexual functions for unnatural functions. He has removed the normal restraints so that homosexuality has become widely accepted in a godless society.

In the first-century world in which Paul lived, homosexuality was commonplace and accepted, much as it is in our society today. Many of the great philosophers practiced it. Socrates was a homosexual, as were fourteen of the first fifteen Roman emperors.

Tragically, many homosexual people have accepted the myth that homosexual tendencies are genetically predetermined, and that some people are "born homosexual.” For example, in the early '90s, a study by Dean Hamer, published in the respected research journal Science, claimed that scientists were "on the verge of proving that homosexuality is innate, genetic and therefore unchangeable-a normal variant of human nature.” The main-stream news media latched onto the story; proclaiming that scientists had discovered a "gay gene” that causes homosexuality.

Repeated attempts to confirm Hamer’s findings have been unsuccessful. Though the public has largely bought the myth of the "gay gene,” the best evidence shows that people are not "born gay” and that homosexual tendencies are probably the result of influences in childhood and adolescence. The fact that several organizations (such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) report success in treating homosexuality would suggest that homosexual tendencies are treatable--not genetic.

Having met and talked to people who have been delivered from homosexuality I know that there is help for homosexual people. It is not a sin to have homosexual tendencies; it is only a sin to indulge those tendencies--just as it is a sin to indulge heterosexual tendencies outside of marriage. No matter what sexual sin a person commits, he or she can be delivered and forgiven by the grace and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul speaks of a "due penalty” for homosexual sin. That penalty involves a loss of one’s sense of identity and place in life. Engaging in homosexual sin creates an almost unbearable tension in any human being. Sexual confusion is an attack upon the delineation God made at creation when he made us male and female.

A Depraved Mind

Paul gives us another sign of a godless and wicked society indo such things deserve death, they not only continue to do the concluding verses of Romans 1:

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. (Romans 1:28-31)

These sins mark a society that is approaching total collapse. These wicked acts are so rampant and hateful that they constitute a sociopathic contempt for all other human beings. They distill down to a simple willingness to use and exploit other people as if they are not human, as if they have no feelings. Godlessness eventually reduces all human beings to things.

When society reaches this point, Paul says, God gives those rebellious people over to "a depraved mind.” Literally Paul calls it an "unacceptable mind,” a mind that cannot be lived with, a mind that is simply at odds with any rational concept of civilization. A depraved mind hates everything it sees and destroys everything it touches. A depraved mind is cruel and violent.

If we think that our own society has not yet reached the depths that Paul describes in Romans 1, we have only to look at the epidemic rates of child abuse, pornography, gang violence, and other senseless crimes in our land. A depraved mind culminates in an attitude of callous disregard for God and an eagerness to drag everyone else into a pit of depravity. Paul writes:

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)

Fully aware that their actions are evil, they seek nevertheless to spread their wickedness, to seduce others into the same way of thinking and acting, to infect everyone around them with their godlessness and sin. They invade the fields of education, law and government; they dominate the news and entertainment media; they attempt to control the institutions of society so that they can impose their will on society.

Clearly, the words of the apostle Paul are as relevant to our times as anything you will see in USA Today or on CNN or Fox News. Paul has given us God’s diagnosis of the world we live in. Yet, even as this moral and spiritual darkness spreads over the world, God does not turn His back on the human race. He has not merely given us His divine diagnosis, then left us to die in our disease. Instead, God has lovingly and graciously provided the cure. He is continually at work in our lives, trying to bring us to our senses, offering the gift of deliverance and forgiveness.

As the prophet Isaiah wrote, "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). When the world was shrouded in gloom and despair, when idolatry, wickedness, immorality, and oppression covered the land, a great light suddenly shone over the skies of Bethlehem. The night air reverberated with the music of angel voices, announcing the birth of a Savior.

Ever since humanity fell in the Garden of Eden, there has been only one hope for a world mired in sin: Jesus Christ. The wrath of God has been completely and fully met by the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness cancels out His wrath--but only in the lives of those who receive His righteousness through faith in His Son Jesus.

Logically, you would think that people would be eager to receive the marvelous gift of God’s righteousness--the gift that heals our hurts, corrects our errors, covers our sin, and brings peace, joy, and forgiveness to the heart. Incredibly, people stubbornly choose pain, darkness, death, and despair over eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Why? Why would anyone choose death over life, wrath over righteousness? In Romans 1, Paul correctly diagnoses the spiritual cancer that has infected the entire human race: Human beings have refused to glorify God and give thanks to Him. As a result, their hearts have become darkened. Claiming to be wise, they have become fools. They have depraved minds, and are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and more. That is the divine diagnosis of the human race. That is why the human race has incurred the wrath of a holy and righteous God.

But you and I do not need to fear the wrath of God. We can escape the wrath if we heed the message of Romans and receive the cure God offers us. As we shall see in the rest of this study, the message of Romans is the good news of Jesus Christ.

CHAPTER  3

SINFUL MORALITY

Romans 2

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, told of a man in his congregation who seemed to be greedy and stingy. The man had a good job and a nice home, yet he contributed only a paltry sum every year to the charities of the church. From the pulpit, Wesley once criticized the man for his stinginess.

Afterward, the man went to Wesley in private. "I know you think I’ve been holding back from the church,” the man said, 'but the truth is that I’ve been living on nothing but parsnips and water for weeks. You see, before I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I lived irresponsibly and I ran up a great number of debts.

"Now however, I’m trying to live within my means. I’m skimping on expenses for myself, and I’m paying off my debts, one by one. Within a year, I hope to be debt-free. In the meantime, with all of these bills to pay I can only give a little more than a tithe to the church. But once I’ve settled up with the people I owe, I intend to give much more to the Lord’s work.” With a heavy heart, Wesley apologized for misjudging the man. That day Wesley learned a lesson that we all need to understand--the same lesson Paul wants to teach us in the second chapter of Romans: we often misjudge others because we cannot know another person’s heart. Only God, who knows all things, has the wisdom and the authority to judge people righteously

Stuck in denial

It is important to grasp the flow of Paul’s argument as we come to Romans 2. In Romans 1, Paul has given us his penetrating analysis of the human condition. He has talked about humanity’s rejection of the one true God who reveals Himself in nature and the human conscience. He has talked about how men and women have turned to false gods, sexual immorality, violence, and cruelty.

Romans 1 creates an instant division between "them” and "us,” between people who are grossly wicked and those who are not. Most of us in the church would read Romans 1 and say, "I’m thankful I’m not like that! I’m a law-abiding, home-loving, clean-living, decent person. If only the world were filled with people like me instead of all of those criminals, rebels, prostitutes, and perverts!”

I call this attitude "sinful morality--adopting a morally superior attitude toward others while denying our own sinfulness. It is a smug and false morality, rooted in a desire to build ourselves up by putting others down.

Here, in chapter 2, Paul turns and confronts all of us who are stuck in self-righteous denial. He attacks our "sinful morality” and cuts off our escape, forcing us to confront the truth about ourselves: We are not as decent and innocent as we suppose! We, too, are subject to God’s judgment.

In Romans 2, Paul turns the white-hot glare of his spotlight upon us with a devastating three-step argument. Let’s examine his argument, step by step.

Step 1: You Are Guilty Because Your Own Judgment Condemns You

The first step of Paul’s argument is found in the first verse of Romans 2:

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. (Romans 2:1)

If you have never passed judgment on another human being, then feel free to skip this chapter and move on to the next. In my own case, however, I must honestly confess that I am guilty. I have passed judgment on others. To all of those, myself included, who come under the condemnation of this passage, Paul has two important points to make.

First, he points out that people who judge others clearly know the difference between right and wrong; otherwise they would not presume to judge. They understand moral standards. So they know which actions merit the judgment and wrath of God. This wrath, as Paul explained in Romans 1, primarily involves God’s removal of all restraints upon human wickedness. As God allows evil to reign in society, that society degenerates and human misery compounds.

Second, Paul points out that people who judge others are guilty because they do the same evil things themselves. They are hypocrites.

This point reminds me of our Lord’s account of His promised return, when all of the nations will come before Him to be judged (see Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus said He would separate the people of the world into two groups, the sheep and the goats. What determines whether you are a sheep or a goat? Jesus says the test is simple: You will be judged based on how you have treated others.

When He renders judgment, Jesus will say to the sheep, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” And to the goats, He will point out that they did none of these things. Both the sheep and the goats will be surprised. The sheep will say. "We don’t remember doing those things for you!” And the goats will say, "We never saw you in such need!” But Jesus replies that whatever we have done--or have failed to do--for other people will be counted as our treatment of Jesus Himself.

I have to confess that I remember times when I have been more goat-like than sheep-like. I confess that I have often been blind toward my own faults. Oh, I can pick out these same faults in the people around me, but I just can’t find them in myself. There are things that I have casually, thoughtlessly done to others, thinking nothing of it--yet if those same acts were done to me, I would be outraged and offended.

How blind I am to my own faults! I simply do not see them-such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, yet I am so quick to judge others for the same offenses. In so doing, I come under the condemnation of Romans 2.

At other times, I may be aware of my own sins and faults, yet I simply assume that God will let it slide, that He is easygoing and indulgent, lain so quick to forgive myself and forget my faults. As my own sin fades from my memory I assume it will fade from God’s memory as well.

One area in which most of us are prone to do this is in our thought-life. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, told us that God looks at the heart and judges our attitudes and intentions. He doesn’t judge as people judge, by merely looking at the outward reality. God knows that if we are full of hate and resentment toward another person, then we have committed murder in our hearts. He knows that if we have lustful thoughts, then we have committed fornication or adultery in our hearts. If our thoughts are full of self-righteous arrogance and pride, He sees that we are guilty of the worst of sins.

We think these hidden sins will go unnoticed, forgetting that nothing is hidden from God. He sees all that we ignore. He remembers all that we forget. He knows when we speak spitefully toward others, when we cheat others, when we destroy reputations with malicious gossip, when we behave stubbornly or arrogantly or vindictively toward others. He sees when we are quick to judge others but slow to judge ourselves.

Another way we come under the judgment of Romans 2 is the way we label our behavior and the behavior of others. We accuse other people of lying--but we ourselves merely "stretch the truth.” Others steal; we merely borrow. Others are biased and stubborn; we have convictions. Our euphemistic labels may keep us in denial, but they do not fool God. He sees the reality of our hearts.

Step 2: You Are Guilty Because God Judges Truthfully

Paul goes on to develop Step 2 of his argument by asking two powerful confrontational questions. Here is the first:

Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? (Romans 2:2-3)

We foolishly think that God will harshly judge other people, but He will not judge us! We know that He sees the innermost thoughts and intentions of all people, yet we expect Him to overlook our sins while punishing the sins of others.

People often ask, "How can a good and loving God permit so much evil and suffering in the world? Why doesn’t God immediately judge the sins of evil people who kill, steal, rape, and oppress the innocent?” But if we were honest with ourselves, the question we truly ought to ask is, "Why didn’t God judge me yesterday when I said that harsh, hurtful word to my spouse? Why didn’t God shrivel my hand when I cheated on my income tax? Why didn’t God strike me silent when I gossiped on the phone this morning?”

We blame God for not judging the evil of others, yet think it perfectly natural that He indulge our sins and hurtful behavior. So Paul asks us, in effect, "Don’t you know that God judges truthfully? And if so, then how can you pass judgment on others when you are guilty as well? How will you escape God’s judgment, which is based on absolute truth?”

Paul then poses his second question:

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? (Romans 2:4)

Paul’s second question is, "Why do you act the way you do? You judge others, but you don’t judge yourself! If God judges on the basis of truth, then you must he included in that judgment as well! God’s kindness toward you is not intended to give you more opportunities to sin, but to lead you toward repentance and righteousness.”

Our tendency is to take God’s kindness for granted. But God wants us to respond to His kindness in gratitude. He knows that we are blind and filled with denial. He urges us to open our eyes and take His grace and kindness toward us as an opportunity for repentance and change.

Step 3: You Are Guilty Because God Does Not Show Favoritism

In the third and final step of his argument, Paul describes what lies ahead for those who refuse to face the actual 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. (Romans 2:5-11)

I am amazed at how many times I have expected God to show favoritism toward me. Even as a Christian, I expect God to ignore my sins and flaws, and 1 feel ill-treated when God points them out to me! Yet the Scriptures tell us that God is constantly bringing these issues to our attention for our own benefit. When God holds a mirror up to us, forcing us to face our sinful and flawed condition, we should thank Him for His love, learn from the experience, repent and grow--not retreat into denial.

Paul says that when we refuse to judge these areas of our lives, we store up wrath for ourselves. The original Greek word translated "storing up” literally means "to heap up a great treasure.” Here, Paul draws an ironic parallel between "the riches of [God’s] kindness” (verse 4) and heaping up a great "treasure” of God’s wrath. If we do not judge our own hearts, then we are laying up a horrible "treasure” of judgment and condemnation.

We are constantly making deposits in a bank account. That bank account is continually accruing a terrible interest as God allows us to deteriorate as human beings. We are steadily becoming less and less of what God intended us to be. C. S. Lewis put it this way 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’s 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 that chooses, into something a little different than 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 into a hellish creature; either into a creature that is in harmony with God and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heavenly, i.e., 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.

Lewis is telling us the same thing that Paul brings out in Romans 2: God is a righteous God. He judges human beings and assesses wrath against those who do wrong. The wrath of God operates as a principle throughout human life--but a day of judgment is also coming when God’s righteousness and wrath will be revealed.

So Paul’s question to us is this: What are you seeking in life? If you persistently do good, seeking glory and honor and immortality, then you will find it. God will give you eternal life. You will find Jesus as your Redeemer and Lord and Savior. You will grow increasingly like Jesus as you judge those evil areas of life and honestly repent of them before God.

But if what you really want is not God, truth, life, glory, and immortality--if you merely seek pleasure, fame, wealth, and power--then you are storing up a treasury of wrath for yourself. As Paul puts it, "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” God plays no favorites. Your skin color, your ethnicity, your national origin, your church membership will make no difference before God.

If you think that this description of God and His judgment makes Him seem harsh and unloving, then you have not understood the passage in its context. The judgment of God and the wrath of God are in no way inconsistent with the love of God. The Bible clearly shows us that God loves human beings and wants to restore humanity, not destroy it. God loves us so much that He tells us the truth about ourselves and about Himself; that is true love. He is not willing to leave us in a muddle of self-deception and helplessness. We do not like to confess that we need help. We cling to our illusion of self-sufficiency because admitting helplessness is humiliating. We want to believe that salvation is denial. Only the truth can set us free.

God lovingly seeks to move us toward a recognition of our sinfulness. Once we recognize our hopeless condition, we can accept the fact that God has dealt with our sinfulness in Christ. On that basis, God offers us full and free forgiveness. There is no other way.

Anyone who thinks there is any other way of escape from sin needs a soul-shaking blast of truth! Such a person needs to know that he or she is storing up a treasure-house of wrath. That realization should drive any rational person to God. If we surrender ourselves to God, if we give up seeking our own will and our own way, then we can begin to live for the God who made us and who loves us. We can get off the road to hell and set our feet toward heaven. If you lose your life--surrender it completely to God--then you will save it. If you submit your desires and ambitions to Him, you will gain eternal life. But if you look out for yourself, defend yourself, excuse yourself, and rationalize your sins, your life will become a ruin, and your soul will end up in darkness.

That is the gospel. We are all without excuse. We all need God’s forgiveness. You and I are as much in need of His forgiveness as any cold-blooded murderer. We have no right to see ourselves as superior to anyone else. Our condemnation of others only blocks the flow of God’s life and power in our lives. If we want to enjoy the peace and power of God on a daily basis, then we must stop judging others and we must begin judging ourselves.

Four Kinds of People

God has promised us an ultimate destiny that is beyond all our wildest dreams--and infinitely beyond our deserving. Yet I am continually amazed that people so often resist and refuse the good news of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

One reason people struggle against the gospel is that it cannot be received until we admit our need. Many people resist to the death--to an eternal death!--having to admit their hopelessness and helplessness. We do not like to confess that we need help. We cling to our illusion of self-sufficiency because admitting helplessness is humiliating. We want to believe that salvation is something we can earn for ourselves.

In Romans, Paul describes four types of people who refuse the gospel. At the conclusion of Romans 1 he describes Type 1: The Flagrantly Wicked. Such people are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, envy, murder, deceit, and malice. Flagrantly wicked people flout morality and defy God. They are not content to destroy their own souls, but encourage others to destroy themselves as well.

Then, in Romans 2, Paul introduces the second group of people who refuse the gospel--Type 2: The Self-Righteous Moralists. These people are outwardly concerned with a form of morality, but are inwardly filled with resentment, jealousy, murder, hatred, and envy. These people are as sinful as the flagrantly wicked people of Romans 1. Because they maintain a facade of morality and respectability, they think God will overlook their hidden sin. They think they will he excused from God’s judgment because of their self-righteousness and their harsh judgment and condemnation of flagrantly wicked sinners.

Next, Paul will introduce two more types of people who refuse the gospel, beginning with Type 3: The Unenlightened Pagans. Here Paul deals with a troubling question: What will God do with those who have not heard the gospel? What about those who live where the Bible is unknown and who have never had a chance to hear about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? In this passage Paul says that their problem is that they defile their consciences.

In the same passage, Paul also introduces us to Type 4: The Religious Devotees. These people believe that God is pleased by religious rites and rituals. They ignore the fact that God’s Word repeatedly states that God judges on the basis of the reality of a person’s thoughts and behavior. Religion and rituals cannot save us from God’s judgment. Only a sincere and authentic faith relationship with Jesus Christ can save.

The last two types of people are introduced by this statement of the universal lostness of humanity:

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. (Romans 2:12-13)

This is probably the strongest statement from the hand of Paul. It answers the most common question that non-Christians ask Christians: "What about the people who have never heard of Jesus Christ?” Usually, the people who ask this question are thinking of people in remote parts of the world, such as the Amazon jungle. What these people fail to realize when they ask this question is that people in the Amazon jungles are in exactly the same spiritual condition as people in the concrete jungles of any American city. Paul’s answer to this question is that all people will be judged by their own standards. God judges people according to what they know, not according to what they don’t know.

So far in Romans, Paul has made three great statements about the basis of the judgment.

First, in Romans 2:2, Paul says that God’s judgment is according to the truth; it is based in reality. God judges only according to what is actually in our hearts and our behavior. God cannot falsely convict anyone but He judges according to truth.

Second, in Romans 2:6, Paul says that God judges according to our works. This gives us some insight into the patience of God. Though He sees what is going on in our hearts and minds, He waits patiently for our inner attitude to work itself out in words or actions that we manifest openly. So God allows us to be our own judge, to see for ourselves that our words and deeds manifest what is inside us.

Third, in Romans 2:9-10, Paul says that the judgment of God is according to light. In other words, God will not judge humanity on the basis of the Ten Commandments. We will be judged on the basis of our own inner standards of morality. He will say to each individual, "What did you think was right and wrong?” When the individual answers, God will then ask, "According to your own standard, did you do the right--or the wrong?”

By that standard, of course, everyone fails. I fail, and so do you. Paul tells us, "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law” The fact that a person has never heard the Ten Commandments is no excuse. That person will perish in the judgment not because he or she didn’t know what God expected, but for failing to do right according to his or her own moral expectations.

Next, Paul goes on to take up the ease of the group of people we identified as Type 3: The Unenlightened Pagans.

(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. (Romans 2:14-16)

The New International Version places verses 14 and 15 in parentheses because this comes within the context of Paul’s argument regarding the coming day of judgment when God will judge the secrets of human beings everywhere, and all that is hidden will be revealed. Jesus spoke of this same day of judgment in Luke 12:3: "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 he proclaimed from the roofs” (Luke 12:3).”

There were some in Paul’s day who said that, because the Jews possessed the Law of Moses and knew God’s truth, they would not be condemned in that judgment. But Paul is saying, "If your knowledge of God’s Law saves you, then everyone will be saved, even the pagans, because they have a law, too. It is written on their hearts. Their consciences act as judges within them.”

Of course, God does not judge according to what we know. He judges according to what we do with what we know. All people have an inner standard of right and wrong. They show it by the way they talk and the way they live their lives.

Some years ago, missionary Don Richardson wrote a book called Peace Child, the story of his encounter with the Sawis, a society of cannibals in New Guinea. When Richardson and other missionaries arrived there in 1962, they discovered a tribe that had become so degraded and immoral that they actually idolized treachery. They admired the man who could win someone’s trust, then betray and murder that person. Richardson was shocked to find that when he told the gospel story to the Sawi people, they thought that the hero of the story was Judas, not Jesus!

Because of this lack of a common understanding of morality, the Christian missionaries despaired of ever reaching the Sawi tribes for Christ. It seemed impossible to appeal to a society whose moral standards were completely inverted. But as the missionaries lived among the Sawi people, they discovered one area of life in which these tribal people were bound to a recognizable moral standard: the peace child. If one Sawi tribe gave a gift of a baby to another Sawi tribe, then that other tribe was bound to keep its agreements and honor its treaties. If the tribe did not honor the gift of the peace child and keep its agreements, that tribe would lose face and be utterly disgraced.

This gave Richardson and the other missionaries an idea for a way to introduce the Christian gospel. They told the Sawi people that God had given them a peace child, the baby Jesus. As a result, the Sawis were bound to honor God. The key God gave us to the heart of the Sawi people,” Richardson said, "was the principle of redemptive analogy--the application to local customs of spiritual truth God had already provided for the evangelization of these people by means of redemptive analogies in their own culture.”' By using the analogy of the peace child as a stepping stone to biblical truth, the missionaries were able to bring the gospel to the Sawis. Many of the Sawi people became Christians, and Sawi society was transformed.

It seems that God always prepares humanity for the gospel by building into every culture a concept that is ready and waiting when the gospel comes. All people have an inner sense of right and wrong, though that moral standard may be hard to find. The Sawi people were living according to the rule of conscience--a conscience that was so twisted that right seemed wrong and good seemed bad to these people.

The human conscience cannot produce inner peace, nor can it produce peace with God. But the innate moral sense of the human conscience can sometimes provide a pathway for the gospel to enter the human heart.

The Religious Devotee

Next, Paul deals with the religious devotee of his day: the committed, religious Jew. At first glance, you might think, This passage does not speak to me--I’m not a religious Jew. But we need only to substitute "church member” for "Jew,” and this passage becomes a pointed indictment of many Christians in the twenty-first century. There are many parallels between first-century Jews  and twenty-first-century Christians. As evangelical Christians, we are proud of our knowledge, understanding, and defense of Christian truth. Some of us go so far as to smugly assume that our biblical knowledge and doctrinal purity will deliver us from God’s judgment. Paul wants us to know that this is a tragically mistaken assumption. He writes:

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 youth 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.” (Romans 2:17-24)

Paul lists five great advantages that the Jews of his day prided themselves in.

First, they prided themselves on possessing the Law of Moses. Many evangelicals today take similar pride in possessing the Bible. We have the Bible in a hundred different versions, and we claim to have correct, orthodox, evangelical doctrine. In the church today, we often hear people bragging about their understanding of God’s truth, while putting down anyone who takes a different view of this or that doctrinal fine point. That is precisely the attitude of the deeply religious Jew of Paul’s day.

Second, the Jews of Paul’s day prided themselves on having a special, unique relationship with God. They were God’s chosen people. Today we often hear evangelicals talk about their special relationship with God that people of other traditions or denominations don’t have.

Third, the Jews of Paul’s day claimed to know the will of God. They had the Scriptures, the Law of Moses, and the Prophets. Many Christians today claim to have a similar knowledge of God’s will. They claim to know the only God-approved mode of baptism, the only God-approved view of worship, the only God-approved view of Bible prophecy. They boast of their knowledge of God’s Word and God’s will, and they are smugly secure in that knowledge.