Paul now addresses the Jews. The Jews are judging others by God’s standards and Paul explains that they should know that because they do these things that they will be judged by that same standard they are judging others. Dr. Sproul covers the relationship of the Jew to the Law of God noting that God’s law is written on their hearts.

The final verse of the hymn “Come, Let Us Sing unto the Lord” goes as follows:

For lo, He comes; at His command
All nations shall in judgment stand;
In justice robed and throned in light,
The Lord shall judge, dispensing right.

The words of that hymn are an excellent prefiguring of the subject matter we will find this evening in the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. I will read from Romans 2:1–16, and I will ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

The Word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Our Father, as we turn our attention to Your Word, as this segment of it falls hard upon our ears and heavy upon our hearts, as we squirm beneath the warnings that we hear in it, we pray that You will pierce our hardened hearts that we may understand and embrace the truth of these words. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Brought Before God’s Standard

I once had a professor who spoke of a brilliant Christian apologist who, when he engaged in debate with his opponents, argued so compellingly that he reduced his adversary to ashes. When he was finished with the argument, he dusted off the spot where his adversary had stood. I could not help but think of that description in preparing this evening’s sermon on the second chapter of Romans.

Remember that the letter in its original form did not have chapter divisions or verse divisions, so there is no actual break between chapter 1 and chapter 2. But at the end of chapter 1, if you are tracking with the text, you are probably hoping that Paul will finish the indictment he gives to all people under the revealed law of God and move to the good news. You might be thinking, “How long can he torment us with the oppressive character of the law and our sin before he gives us some relief?” I was thinking that by the end of chapter 1, as ghastly as it was.

You might think that tonight you will get that break you are wishing for, like the members of Jonathan Edwards’ congregation once did. After Edwards preached one of his stirring sermons regarding the judgment of God and the threat of eternal damnation in hell, one of the parishioners cried out, “But Mr. Edwards, is there no mercy with God?” Edwards had to remind them that they had to wait to the following Sabbath before they got that part of the message.

If you are hoping to get that good news tonight, your hopes are in vain, because the Apostle is not finished with us yet by any means. Before we get to the gospel, the good news of justification by faith alone, we have to be brought before the holy standard of God’s law so that we might be duly persuaded of our need for the gospel.

The Sin of Hypocrisy

Paul continues his relentless indictment of our sinfulness in chapter 2, where he now directs his comments specifically to the Jewish community of his day. He starts by saying, “Therefore.” It always bothers me when I see a chapter beginning with the word therefore, because that word signifies a transition from an argument to a conclusion. Why would you divide a chapter right in the middle when you have just now come to the conclusion? But whatever the circuit rider did while he was riding horseback and made these chapter divisions, maybe he was asleep that night in the saddle. In any case, Paul says, “Therefore you are inexcusable.”

In light of what Paul set out regarding the universal rejection and suppression of God’s manifest self-revelation that penetrates everyone’s mind, everyone clearly knows of God’s eternal power, deity, and holiness. Yet in the universal rebellion of humanity, even though people know the sins they practice are worthy of death, they not only continue to practice them but encourage others to do them as well. That was Paul’s argument, and now comes his conclusion.

“Therefore,” Paul says, “you are inexcusable, O man.” When we read this, we might think that the “O man” is a generic address to any human being. In reality, the descriptive term, “O man,” was a common form of address used in antiquity between Jews. So, when Paul addresses his comments to the one he describes as “O man,” he is speaking to Jewish people. He says to them, “You are inexcusable.”

Paul is saying, “O Jew, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” Here, the Apostle has sin of hypocrisy in view. He is chastising his kinsman according to the flesh. He is chastising Israel for their judgmental attitude toward the gentiles.

Basically, Paul is saying to the Jews: “Who do you think you are? You who condemn the gentiles for their behavioral practices, but you are doing the very same thing.” This is the essence of hypocrisy. It is the particular threat of doom to anyone who dares to stand in a pulpit and correct sinners in the congregation, for every preacher is himself a sinner and runs that very liability of condemning others for doing the same things that he does.

Even though these words are addressed specifically to Jews, there is a more universal application of the text. What was true for Israel is true for us—if we condemn other people for doing the very things that we do, then by our condemning them, we are showing our awareness of the wrongness of these activities, and we are in effect condemning ourselves. If we are exposing people to condemnation for the sins they practice that we also practice, then we are announcing our own condemnation.

Judgment According to Truth

Paul says, “But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.” Let me say it again: “We know that the judgment of God is according to truth.”

We often see judgments made and verdicts rendered in courtrooms where we scratch our head and wonder, “Was justice really done, or was this simply a show of a titanic struggle between able attorneys, and to the victor belongs the spoils?” In the midst of the combat between the prosecution and defense, somewhere along the line, the pursuit of justice itself was lost. People are persuaded by clever arguments. As a result, justice is not always served in the courtroom or in the decisions we make within our community, the church, or even the family. But one thing of which we can be confident is that the just judgment of God is always according to the truth.

When I began my teaching career, I was teaching philosophy at the university, and we came in the course of our studies to an analysis of the great Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant. In his classic work, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant criticized the traditional arguments for the existence of God. Kant came to the conclusion of agnosticism, arguing that we cannot come to a knowledge of God through natural reason. Yet he followed up that work of agnosticism with the Critique of Practical Reason, and there he argued practically for theism. He said that even though we cannot know for sure theoretically that God exists, we must affirm the existence of God for ethics to be possible.

As Kant pursued his investigation of human conscience, he said that everywhere we go, no matter how remote the people are, we discover every person has some sense of oughtness, what he called the “categorical imperative.” There is some sense of moral duty that seems to be ineradicable in the human conscience. Behaviors may degenerate into all kinds of corruption, but there will always remain some vestige of the light of conscience, even in the most corrupt person.

Kant then asked how we account for this universal sense of oughtness and what would be necessary for that sense of oughtness that pressures every one of us to be meaningful. He said that from a practical basis, if ethics are to be meaningful, then somehow, somewhere, justice must prevail. If, in the final analysis, the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, why should anyone endeavor to be righteous? Justice is absolutely essential, Kant said, for a meaningful ethic.

He went on to speculate that since we know justice does not occur perfectly in this world, for justice to occur ultimately, there must be certain things that will follow. We must have life after death and we must go someplace where the ultimate verdict can be rendered over our behavior. Once there, we have to be exposed to a perfect judgment.

For that judgment to happen, we must have a judge who himself is perfect. He would have to be omniscient, because he could not overlook some detail that might be exculpatory. He would have to know every imperfection and every aspect of all the extenuating circumstances for why people behave the way they do. So, the perfect judge would have to have a perfect knowledge of all the factors of the case. Not only would the judge have to have perfect knowledge, but he would have to be righteous himself, not given to bribes or corruption, rendering a decision that would be motivated by his own self-interests or partiality. The judge would have to be perfectly righteous.

But even then, if you have life after death and a judge who is omniscient and perfectly righteous, those things together do not guarantee that justice will prevail. What else is necessary? Kant said that the perfect judge, to ensure justice, must also be omnipotent. He must have the ability and power to make certain that his decision is carried out. So, for practical purposes, Kant argued if our ethics are going to be meaningful and society is going to be possible, then we must affirm the existence of God.

That is the idea Paul is getting at when he says that the judgment of God is according to truth. No one can stand before the judgment seat of God, and when God declares His verdict, complain by saying: “That’s not fair. There’s something You don’t understand God. There’s something You’ve overlooked. If You really knew the motivations of my heart, You wouldn’t be so severe in Your judgment.”

Our consciences tell us that every last person will be held accountable before their Creator, believer and nonbeliever alike. Even though the believer passes out of condemnation, we still have to stand before God and be judged. That judgment will harbor no secrets. It will be perfect and it will be accurate, for it will be according to truth.

Paul will get to this later, but every time we read descriptions in Scripture of the judgment before the presence of God, the human response to that judgment is always silence. Every mouth will be stopped. We will see the futility of debate. The discussion is over when God renders verdict, for we know that His judgment will be according to truth.

No Escape from Judgment

“The judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?” Dear friends, this is the deepest hope of every unrepentant person in the world. The deepest hope harbored in the hearts of corrupt humanity is that, somehow, we will escape.

You might remember the story of W.C. Fields in his hospital room on his death bed, and a friend came to see him and was shocked to find W.C. Fields lying in bed reading the Bible. W.C. Fields was not known for his religious devotion. The visitor said, “W.C., what are you doing?” In characteristic W.C. Fields fashion, he said, “Looking for loopholes.”

That is what everyone does. We think there will be a loophole, a way of escape from an omniscient, holy, righteous God. There is no way to escape that judgment save through the way that the holy God has given to the world, which is the way of the cross. But we do not want that way. We want to find another way to escape. But there is no escape.

“Do you think . . . that you will escape the judgment of God?” It gets worse: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering?” It is a rhetorical question. Paul is saying to his readers, “Is it possible that you actually hate and despise the goodness of God, the patience of God, and the longsuffering of God?” What does Paul mean when he asks, “Do you despise the goodness of God?”

Paul is getting at this: “Do you take the goodness of God lightly? Do you take it for granted? Do you assume that because God is good, there is no room for judgment in Him?” Is that not the greatest religious myth pervasive in our culture today? God is often seen as a cosmic bellhop who is at our beck and call. He is a celestial Santa Claus. All we have to do is ask Him what we want, and He will provide it for us. He is so loving, kind, merciful, and good that He would never punish anybody. Is that not the myth?

If you have thought seriously about that, you will see through it. If you elected a judge to the Supreme Court, you would want that person to be a good judge, would you not? But a judge who refuses to punish evil is not a good judge. A judge who leaves wickedness unpunished is an unjust judge. A corrupt judge is not good at all.

But God, the One who judges all the earth, who does what is right, is a God who promises judgment against evil. Do we so despise His goodness that we assume there is no room in His goodness for justice? If God is good, then He will judge, and He will judge according to truth. We ought not to despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering.

Do we understand why God has not lowered the boom yet? In His patience, God is forbearing. He puts up with our rebellion. He puts up with our sin. He knows every sin you have ever committed, but He has not exposed them all. He has not visited His wrath on you for all of your sins. So, you wipe your forehead and say: “Isn’t God good? He is so good that He’s never going to deal with these things.”

Do you not realize why God is forbearing? Paul is saying that the whole point of God’s patience and forbearing is to lead you to repentance. But in reality, where does it lead us? Not to repentance but to recalcitrance, to the hardened heart, to the stiff neck. We think, “He hasn’t punished me so far, so that must mean I’m okay. He’s not going to visit His judgment upon me.”

Treasuring Up Wrath

I keep saying that it gets worse, and here the news indeed gets worse and worse. After Paul tells them that the goodness of God is supposed to lead them to repentance, we get one of the most frightening verses in all the Bible: “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds.’”

I once had a friend who said: “If I’m lusting after that woman, I might as well go ahead and get on with the act because I’m already guilty of the sin according to Jesus. If I’ve looked at a woman with lust, I’ve violated the prohibition against adultery, so I can’t get myself in any more trouble than I’m already in.” I told him, “Be very, very careful here.”

We have a tendency to think that at the judgment day, you are either in or out, guilty or innocent. But even in our earthly courts, if someone commits nine murders, they are on trial for nine counts of murder. God considers every single sin we commit in thought, word, and deed. Each one is exposed to His perfect judgment according to the truth.

Paul uses a banking metaphor in this text. If you begin to save your money, maybe with each paycheck, you take a small portion of it and put it in the bank. You deposit it. You are building up a treasure slowly but surely over a long period of time, saving up for the rainy day. That is the metaphor Paul uses here. Every time we sin, we are adding an indictment against ourselves, treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.

Do you really believe that? I do not think the world believes that every single day we continue without repenting, we are depositing future wrath into the account of God’s judgment. People think that if you go to hell, you go to hell. What is the difference?

I had a professor who said, “The sinner in hell would give everything he owned and do anything he could to make the number of his sins during his lifetime one less.” We will be judged according to our deeds, and there are various degrees of punishment in hell. Why? Hell is the place where God manifests His perfect justice, and the punishment always fits the crime. If there are thirty sins, you will be punished thirty ways. While we remain with hardened hearts, with hearts of stone, we just add to the indictment, moment by moment. That is a terrifying idea. You are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

According to Our Deeds

First, the judgment of God is called according to truth. Now it is called according to righteousness. Paul says that God “will render to each one according to his deeds.”

We might think: “Now, wait a minute. Is the Apostle not getting us ready for the grand doctrine of justification by faith alone? Why is he talking about our being judged according to our works?” Let me put it this way: our justification is by faith alone, but our rewards in heaven will be distributed according to our works. That is why our Lord told His followers, those who were justified by faith and faith alone, to treasure up things in heaven. He told us that on the day of judgment, even though our works carry no merit, they earn nothing. Nevertheless, as Augustine said, in distributing rewards according to our levels of obedience, God is crowning His own works in us.

We, too, on the day of judgment will be judged according to our works. God will subject our lives to the closest scrutiny. Listen to the distinction Paul makes here: God will give “eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality.”

Now, we do need to be careful. Paul is not saying that the way to heaven is through good works. He will spend half the epistle denying that misunderstanding. But the redeemed are those who now set their hearts on heaven and will gain eternal life, and they will be the people who are seeking the glory of God, the honor of God, and immortality.

“But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath.” Is that not an interesting distinction? The Bible says God is not just angry at our sin, He is indignant about it.

It is an affront to God for us to go along in our lives living in constant defiance and rebellion against His law. When we rebel against Him, we destroy the dignity of God, and God is indignant. Who do we think we are as His creatures to do what we want to do rather than what God commands us to do? Paul is saying that those who seek their own will, who are self-seeking, do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness.

Paul continues, saying that to those who obey unrighteousness, God will render “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”

Do not come before God and say, “I was a church member.” Do not come before God and say, “I’m a descendent of Abraham.” That counts for nothing. He will render to every person according to their deeds, for there is no partiality with God.

Judgment According to Light

Paul continues: “For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”

This is a vastly misunderstood text. Most people who read this text think that Paul is rebuking the Jews and saying: “You Jewish people have the law, the Ten Commandments, and the Old Testament, and in spite of the fact that you have the law, you don’t do the law. Just knowing the law isn’t going to give you a way of escape. You have to obey the law. You have the law, but you don’t do the law. The pagans and the gentiles don’t know anything about the Decalogue. They’ve never heard of Moses. They don’t know the Old Testament, but they’re doing the things of the law.” The suggestion here is that the Jews who have the law are sinning against God, while the gentile pagans who do not have the law are obeying the law. But that is not what Paul is saying.

Paul is saying that those who have the law perish with the law, and those who do not have the law perish without the law. Why? Because they demonstrate by their actions, by what the philosophers call the ius gentium, the law of the nations, that even if they have never seen the Ten Commandments, God has written His law on their hearts, and their behavior reveals that they know in their hearts the difference between right and wrong. They do not have the law written down, but they do the things that have to do with the law, and they have a sense of right and wrong.

Those who have the law perish with the law. Those who do not have it perish without it because both of them, Jew and Greek together, have consistently defied God, and they will be judged according to the light that they have been given. The Jews will have a greater judgment because they have greater light. But the gentiles are not without light.

Our Consciences Bear Witness

Let me tie chapter 1 and 2 together. In chapter 1, Paul develops the concept of mediate general revelation. Let me get a little theological for a moment. Mediate general revelation is revelation that God gives of Himself through a medium, and the medium that communicates His eternal power and deity is the created order. The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows forth His handiwork. Paul said that the invisible things of God are clearly perceived through the things that are made. The medium of nature reveals God to all people, and that is what we call mediate general revelation because it is revelation communicated through some medium.

But in addition to mediate general revelation, we also speak of immediate general revelation. Here, the term immediate is not with respect to time; it is not something that happens quickly. Rather, immediate general revelation is revelation God gives without some intervening medium. To make it simple, it is the knowledge of Himself that God plants in your soul. Without ever reading the Bible, without ever opening your eyes and looking at nature, before you take a breath, God already has planted in your soul an immediate knowledge and awareness of Him, and it is found in your conscience.

So, we know God both mediately through nature, and we know Him immediately through the sense of His deity that we have in our souls. Paul talks about the nature of the human heart, recognizing that God has revealed Himself in the human heart in such a way that everybody knows what is right and what is not right. We can practice our sins over and over again and get everyone in our community to agree with us that it is okay to do those things, but we know better.

When did an adulterer not know that he was violating his wife, or she her husband in that act? When did a murderer not realize that the wanton destruction of another human being was a sin against humanity and sin against God? We know that. We know that it is evil to cheat, to lie, to slander, and to covet, because God has given us a conscience.

The conscience can be seared, and we can become so hardened in our hearts that, as Jeremiah said about Israel, we gain the forehead of a harlot. As the people of Israel had lost their ability to blush, the same thing can happen to us as we are delivered over to our sins. But even in that terrible corrupt state, we do not vanquish totally the light of God’s revelation in our conscience. We show the work of the law written in our hearts because our consciences bear witness against us.

Secrets Revealed and Covered

Paul continues, speaking of “the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.” Essential to the gospel is the announcement that Christ has been appointed the perfect judge of all of the earth. We will be judged by Christ on the day of judgment. The Father has delegated that role to His Son, and He will reveal the secrets of our hearts.

Jesus Himself warned His own generation that what you do in secret will be made manifest, open, and public. All the skeletons in all the closets will be open. That is why we need to be covered. That is what redemption is all about. It is a divine cover-up. The last thing I want to do is appear before God like Adam and Eve after they sinned—naked and uncovered.

That is why Paul tells us it is absolutely essential that we gain the cloak of the righteousness of Christ. When every secret is made manifest in that judgment, we will be covered by the perfection of Christ’s righteousness. Mine will not do it. That is why I am distraught when I hear people say to me: “I don’t need Christ. My life is going along fine. I’m happy. I’m successful. My conscience isn’t bothering me. What do I need with Jesus?” There is nothing you need more desperately than someone to cover you when every secret is made manifest.

We are not yet to the good news. Next time, Paul will bring the whole world—every last one of us—before the tribunal of God and show that each of us is guilty until we stop giving excuses, quiet our mouths, and go to the gospel. But in the meantime, we must tremble before the law of a just and holy God. Let us pray.

O, Father, is there not mercy in Thee? We thank You for the riches of that mercy, the riches of that grace, which we tend to take lightly, and even to despise at times. But in our sober moments, we are glad, O God, that You are good, because as miserable as this world is in its fallenness, we cannot imagine what things would be like if You were not good. But we pray, O Father, that Your goodness would bring us to its desired end, that we may confess our sins and fall upon Christ as our only hope in this world and the next. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.