Man and God's Judgment
In Romans 2:1-11, Paul continues the discussion from the last chapter about God's judgment. He starts by warning us against judging others. He says that every time we judge others, we are in reality condemning ourselves, because everyone who judges has also either done those same things in the list he provided, or others that were just as bad in God's eyes.
Christians have to realize that standing up for what is right and condemning what is wrong is a difficult thing to do well. Christ could do it easily, because there was no bad at all in Him. For all the rest of us, it's a struggle. On the one hand, we are all sinners saved by the grace of God and the blood of Jesus. We aren't any better or worse than anyone else in the world in God's eyes. It's just the acceptance of the blood of Jesus to save and cover our sins that gives us hope through faith of an eternity with God and not an eternity in hell.
On the other hand, we are called to be witnesses with our lives in what is right and to try to turn others from evil. Some days I do better than others in not failing God in some way. Other days I fail and have to ask for forgiveness again. Whether sin, or just not doing the right thing that God has said I should do, I fail all too often. Perhaps there are those Christians who have reached a moral high ground they can safely stand on, but I haven't reached it yet. So when I write against evil in either these pages or on the other websites I run, I recognize that I always have to do better and be better than I have been in the past, and I acknowledge that I also have to work hard at what I am saying to others that I don't fall into the same traps of sin.
But the thing is, just because we are imperfect, we are still called to try to lead people to truth. It is this last that gives the world fits. They like to point out our imperfections, and there are many. Yet we are still called to try to be different than the world and different than we were before we accepted God's plan of salvation. Repentance is something God expects of us. If the world wants to look at an example of a perfect Christian, all they have to do is read the gospels and look at the life of Jesus Christ. He's the example to lift up and preach. Let God convict and change people's hearts through the Holy Spirit. After you've declared the truth of the gospel, let the Holy Spirit do its work. Protesting on sidewalks is unlikely to change any hearts and will probably harden many. Speak truth, and let the Holy Spirit work.
Paul goes on to say that Christians will see judgment just as the world will see judgment for sinning. It is possible to backslide and lose the salvation that you once had. Some denominations say that once you are saved, you are always saved, and that if you backslide, well you just must not have been saved in the first place. This is incorrect, and you can read Dake's 210 Plain Laws and Warnings for more information on the subject. Paul repeats God's promise that eventually, all of our deeds will be known and God will render His judgment. Those who have lived a life of well doing according to the Holy Spirit, and who have accepted Christ can look forward to an eternity with God. Those who don't obey the truth of the Gospel and live an unrepentant life can except the same judgment as the unbelievers, which is mentioned here as including wrath and God's indignation.
Paul rounds out this section by declaring that God is not a respecter of people. He doesn't care whether you were Jewish by birth or Gentile. Evil works and lives will be punished and Good works and lives will be blessed. In God's eyes, whether your were one of His chosen people (the Jews) or came to Him from a non Jewish background, you are now one and the same in His sight. You don't have to become Jewish to be saved.
For Those Who Haven't Heard
Romans 2:12-16 answers the question I alluded to in the discussion on Romans 1 that many people ask today. How often have you heard someone ask "What about all the people who haven't heard about Christ? It isn't fair for them to be judged when they didn't know." First, as in the discussion of Romans 1, Paul has answered that, in that the glory of God should be obvious to all, whether they've read the Bible or not. Second, God was with Adam and Eve in the garden and He gave them free will. Satan did everything he could to cause their fall, because of his enmity with God. From the garden of Eden on, it has been the responsibility of parents to teach their children about God. Satan has done his best to corrupt the church and to introduce many other false religions to lead people astray. In Rome, to whom this letter was addressed, there were a whole pantheon of gods that Satan had borrowed from the Greeks before them, which had corrupted the people and led them astray.
But with all the work of Satan, and all the failures of mankind, there is one important thing to remember. The Holy Spirit has always been at work in every person's heart. The "conscience" that world refers to is the Holy Spirit trying to get people to choose God and turn away from sin. So in these verses, Paul talks more directly about this. He grew up knowing the Jewish law to the letter and was well versed in it. Being able to recite it backwards and forwards probably wouldn't have been far off for Saul/Paul. So Paul knew what God called right and wrong, even without the Holy Spirit's direction. It is clear from his Damascus road experience that the Holy Spirit had been trying to divert his path from the evil he was doing as well. Jesus Himself said I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Those pricks were probably the promptings of Holy Spirit that Paul was on the wrong path.
But Paul goes on to say that for the Gentiles who don't know the law, the Holy Spirit is still working in their hearts, leading them to do right and to eschew evil. Paul declares that for them, when they stand before God at judgment day, they will be judged on how well they obeyed the Holy Spirit's promptings in their life. I don't know what that judgment will entail, but for those who say something isn't fair, all I can respond is by quoting these verses and declaring that God has always used the Holy Spirit to convict of sin and lead to truth.
We had a missionary who told of going to an island that had never been visited by Christians before and which didn't have any contact with the outside world and talking to an elder of a tribe there. Once the elder heard the gospel message, he said that he had had a dream of a man dying on a tree for mankind, and was glad to have that dream explained to him. So never doubt God's ability to communicate truth to people, even if they are isolated and have no direct interaction where they could learn about Christ. The Holy Spirit is always at work.
God's judgment will always be just and fair. You can count on that. At the same time, in this day and age there are few who haven't heard about the Christian God and Jesus Christ. Even those who haven't read the Bible use God's name in vain or Jesus' name in vain, sometimes on a minute by minute basis when things are going wrong. For those who have heard, I believe the Bible is also clear. Once you have heard, you are required to make a choice. You can accept Christ or not, but you have made your choice. The possible very narrow escape hatch is now closed for you.
I don't think that many will make it through this escape hatch. I'm pretty sure that the Holy Spirit would be telling each and every participant in one of Satan's false religions that what they were doing was wrong. If they continue, then they are doomed, just to use and example of something that might not stand out like murder or stealing would. In the end, the list of sins Paul put at the end of Romans 1 will be a good enough basis to ensnare most everyone to judgment that will be final, and God will make clear every attempt the Holy Spirit made to correct their path that they ignored. Nobody will go to hell without knowing that they did it to themselves.
But that isn't God's desire for anyone, and thus, there is this escape hatch for those who may not have heard of Christ or God, but who listened to what the Holy Spirit was telling them their whole lives. God's grace is huge. I'm not a judge. All I can judge is myself. But I also know that God's holiness is huge and perfect as well. Sin won't have a place in heaven - that is certain. So while I do think there are those like, perhaps, the tribe the missionary came across. I think that they are few and far between, and becoming fewer and fewer as time goes on.
This section of scripture is also part of what is used by the Christian church to say that the very young who haven't gotten to an age where they understand right and wrong are saved. Other passages include Christ telling his disciples to not forbid the kids to come to Him because of such is the kingdom of heaven. I think that the scripture makes clear that everyone's name starts out in the lamb's book of life - every child. But eventually, in spite of the Holy Spirit's promptings to not do evil, our basic sin nature causes us to sin and our name that was automatically registered there is blotted out until we accept Jesus' blood as the sacrifice to cleanse our sin from us. What that age of accountability is is generally pretty young. But I suspect that there are some who due to mental insufficiency never reach that age, although their physical age may be great. That is another question that God will sort out in a just and fair manner in the final judgment.
Against Hypocrisy
In Romans 2:17-24, Paul speaks out against the Jews who were proud of themselves because of their heritage and previous relationship with God. While speaking to the Jews who he was writing to who had accepted Christ, everything that he said can be relevant to Christians today as well.
We have no right to be proud of our heritage and to stand on our heritage as a sure means of salvation. Each person must make the same choice, and turn their lives to God and from sin. We must be careful that when we teach others, we don't fail to listen to our own teaching. The hypocrisy in the church today is something that actively turns the world against Christianity. That Satan has quite possibly led some into the church and to seek positions of power in order to destroy the church by their sinful and shameful lives is immaterial.
I don't know how many Ananias and Sapphira moments are still happening in the church today, but I do know that there are those who have turned away from Christianity who ask, "Why aren't there more? Why doesn't God just strike down the leaders who have done evil, especially against children?" My only answer is that God sees sin the same way. It cuts people off from Him. My question becomes where does He draw the line? The moment in Acts where God killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit would probably be viewed by most as extreme today. That could well be because we aren't as careful with our tithes and offerings so we don't feel those two were judged fairly by God. But His judgment is what it is.
Does a drug dealer or producer or distributor who goes into a church deserve to be killed by God for what he has done? Or should God give him a chance to repent and turn to Him? Such a person has certainly destroyed as many lives as some priests have. Or at the very least have provides the means for their destruction. If that is too black, what about a thief? Should someone who has destroyed lives by stealing everything precious from their homes or work or reputations be struck dead? Or should they have a chance to repent and turn to God.
The question of how or when God should judge is difficult. All I know is that God is just. He won't judge one group and let another slide. So that's my position. I don't really like it because I believe our children should be protected as well. But I also know that God is just and He will judge when His timing is right. In the Old Testament, He left Israel in Egypt, and eventually in a slavery position in Egypt, because the evil in the land they were meant to occupy hadn't grown enough. He gave that land around 430 years or 215 years depending on your interpretation, to repent and turn from evil before judging it.
For all that we see in the world that we judge to be wrong in our eyes, know that God sees it as well. He isn't blind. He gets routine reports of what is going on in the world (See Job 1 for an example, along with Genesis 18:20-22 for a radical bit of scripture that seems to indicate He wanted to go see if the reports He had heard were true). At some point, like with the tribes which occupied the Promised Land, God will have had enough, He will rapture the church, and the world will get judged through seven years of tribulation. Some punishments will fall on the Antichrist's kingdom alone (darkness being an example), but most will be poured out equally on the entire world. Those who go in the rapture will be saved. Those who had ignored Christ or turned away from Christ will be judged.
Whatever we think, we need to do our part to make sure that people don't look down on or ignore God because or our actions. That is just as true today as it was in Paul's time. It may be even more important today because it is much easier for Satan to spread instances where God's people have failed in order to tear down the church than it is for the church to spread word about all the good things God is doing. We don't control most of the world's media, and those Christian stations that do exist are largely ignored by the world who really needs to hear.
Inward Versus Outward
The last few verses in Romans 2:25-29 point out that for the Jewish people who believed the ritual circumcision of males set them apart from the rest of the world in God's eyes, they were mistaken. It wasn't the outward signs that God looked at. He looked at the heart. If you were circumcised, but your heart was not for God, your outward sign of your race didn't matter. For those who kept the law of God, their state of circumcision also didn't matter. God looked on their heart to see that they were obedient, even if their outward body didn't show those signs.
This is still true today. Going to church every week or more often doesn't save you. It may help you with your walk with God by training you up in the way you should go and giving you support to not fall along the way. But it won't save you. Neither will water baptism. Neither will taking communion. All are good things. But God looks on your heart and not your outer works. If you have a great voice and sing in a choir or worship team, you may lift people up. But if your heart isn't right with God, it won't matter for you. The same goes for teachers, writers, pastors, priests, and any other Christian worker. What you let the world see outwardly doesn't matter for eternity. What God sees inside your heart is all that matters.
People who are Christian and who do what the Holy Spirit tells them to do will be blessed and praised by God, even if humanity ignores their work completely. I think of the various authors who wrote their own accounts of Jesus walk, but which were deemed too repetitive or inaccurate to include in the Bible we have now. If they wrote what they wrote at God's direction and it blessed only a few who read it, they will still get praised by God for eternity for their work.
Get your heart right with God and stand with Him!