Daily Thoughts from Romans: You Who Judges (2:1-11)

Daily Thoughts from Romans: You Who Judges

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.  (Romans 2:1-11 ESV)

There are those who will say to Paul’s description of repressing the truth and deteriorating into sin, “I haven’t done that!”  “I believe in the true God and do righteousness, unlike those pagans.”  Paul’s response is that in judging others as unrighteous you are judging yourself because no one is completely righteous.  Though you may not do the things he listed outwardly, you do them inwardly.

God’s judgment is coming on those who judge others, and the kindness He has shown us is not a sign that we are sinless but that He is offering us a chance to repent.  If we refuse there is only wrath in our future.  God will fairly judge those whose hearts genuinely seek to have God’s glory and honor pronounced over them and who seek eternal life, and as we’ll see, it is only those who know they are sinners and seek God through faith in Messiah who follow this course.  For those who are self-seeking, still repressing the truth about God and what He demands, there will be tribulation and distress.

God’s impartiality means He offers salvation to everyone, however, without favoritism.  Though the Jew is His first concern as those whose nation He chose to bring the truth to everyone else, His heart is also for the Gentiles.  As we look at those around us, everyone is a candidate for rescue and we should not show partiality either.  Even that person who reviles you and your faith might be the next apostle Paul.

Thomas Bilney, whom some regarded as the father of the Reformation in England, after being converted by reading the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, knew that Hugh Latimer, a man of great learning and an opponent of the “new learning” (Reformation theology), requested Latimer, a priest, to hear his confession. But instead of confessing his sins he confessed the gospel! Latimer later said, “Bilney heard me at that time and perceived that I was zealous without knowledge.  By his confession I learned more than before in many years. So from that time forward I began to smell the Word of God, and forsake the school-doctors and such fooleries.  (Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers 12,13). [for more read https://www.evangelical-times.org/21301/thomas-bilney-the-forgotten-reformer/]