So Paul has been explaining how human beings have been running from God for a
long time now and he's described the kind of wrong thinking and wrong
behaviour this leads to. Now he challenges the self-righteous way we
judge each other and describes the righteous way God will judge all of
us. None of us are immune from the sin sickness the human race suffers from... but God is. None of us is in a position to rightly judge human beings... but God is.
Stop and read Romans 2:1-16
So because everyone has been running away from God and our sin has
twisted the way we think and act, Paul says we are without excuse when
we stop to consider God again. And looking down on others to make
ourselves feel like we're good is no help at all and is complete
hypocrisy because in the scheme of things, we're as far from God as
anyone else. We might feel like we're good when we compare ourselves to
Hitler but next to the infinite perfection and holiness of God, we're
in the same boat as him!! We have no right to judge anyone else because
we're rebels too. Only God can do that. The fact that God allows us to
keep on living in this world is not because we're good enough to
deserve it but because he is patient and wants to give us time and
repeated opportunities to be sorry for our sin and come to him asking
for mercy and forgiveness because we're wrong and guilty.
Paul says those who continue to reject the opportunity to stop running
from God and ask for his forgiveness are actually making God angrier and
angrier because he hates sin and wants us to know him. This is
justice. The more they sin against God and think, speak and act
selfishly, the more proportional punishment they rack up. No more and no less than what they deserve. No-one gets
away with anything in the end. God sees it all and will judge everyone
perfectly according to the truth.
Paul then describes two kinds of people and it's easy to misunderstand
what he means but we must be careful to understand him in the light of
what else he says about this in other places in Romans and in other
letters he writes in the New Testament...
What he doesn't mean... is that there are good people and bad
people and the good people go to heaven and the bad ones go to hell.
This is a myth! God never says this, Jesus never says this and it's
nowhere in the Bible! It's easy enough to make the Bible say this but
only if you pluck verses out in isolation and ignore the context of the
rest of what the Bible says.
What he does mean... is that there are people who increasingly do
good because they have faith and are trusting and following Jesus and
know God personally, and then there are those who generally don't because they
don't have faith and aren't trusting and following Jesus and don't know
God personally. Compared with God and his standards, there are no good
people, only bad people in need of mercy and forgiveness from God. It's clear from what Paul has said already
that no-one is in a position to earn their way into heaven by their good
actions so it can't be about this.
People have two choices though:
Either they continue to be 'self-seeking and reject the truth'...
Or they
repent (stop running from God and start running towards him instead) and
trust and follow Jesus and receive the forgiveness from God they need.
This is our ONLY hope!!
Paul then explains that all this applies equally to Jews (Israelites) as
well as non-Jews (Gentiles). Just because God gave the law to the
Israelites (the unique 10 commandments etc through Moses), does not make them any less sinful and in need of forgiveness
and rescue than anyone else. There are no excuses for Gentiles
either. God has given everyone a conscience and feelings of guilt when
they do what is wrong. There is no-one who can say to God, "But I
didn't know I did anything wrong!"
In the previous chapter, Paul told
us that God has given everyone enough knowledge to know there's a
creator because of creation. Now he tells us God has also made sure we
know all too well that we need forgiveness because we know we fail to
live life innocently. No excuses for anyone! And there will be a day
when God judges everyone justly. He will be proved right and we will be
in the wrong. Forgiveness through Jesus is our only hope.
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