Viewpoints on ROMANS 2

By Michael Griego on February 16, 2024 • ( 0 )

While guilt before God abounds, we rationalize how God should treat us based on our good behavior. Particularly when compared to other people around us who we think don’t measure up. ◊

Why do Christians always have so much guilt? We hear of “Catholic guilt” but I believe many Evangelical Christians have the same issues and carry around some burden of religious guilt.

It’s like we think God is angry with us.

And then it gets more complicated because we actually have done wrong. Today, yesterday, last week, last month. Yes, even last year. There are lots of things we’ve done where we can say that we are guilty as charged.

Got current and past sins? How about 10 years ago? How about long ago in our wild youth?

We seem to have this idea, in spite of our understanding of God’s love and forgiveness, that God doesn’t forget. He’s got to be keeping tabs on us.

Romans Chapter 2 seems to call this out for all of us. Certainly us Gentiles have a guilty problem. But then, so do the Jews, though we and they may think they get some special kind of break given that they are God’s Chosen People.

But they don’t get a break. No, and that’s not anti-semitic. That’s just Biblical truth-telling. We are all in the same predicament. We’re guilty as sin before a Holy God,

And therefore, we’ve all got a problem.

“But, I’m Not That Bad…Am I?”
Again, in Romans Chapter 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul is building an airtight legal case again all of mankind as sinners before a just and holy God. Recall in Chapter 1 he first lays out the deity of Jesus Christ,

who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 1:4)

Then he declares his objective to preach to Jews and non-Jews, be they wise or foolish, about the gospel; that is, the power of God to save everyone who believes. Indeed, God deems people righteous in His eyes simply through faith:

“The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

Then Paul points out that the world, particularly the Gentiles, are worthy of God’s judgment and wrath. That there are no excuses for not falling in line and believing in God and desiring to live aligned with God’s behavioral standards:

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 people are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

Then Paul points out sexual perversion that is rampant among those that have rejected God’s natural precepts.¹ Though they are wrong and foolish, God lets them do their thing:

…they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to Him…their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools… (Romans 1:21-22)

…Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another….They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. (Romans 1:24, 29)

“Actually, Yes, We All Are That Bad”
In Chapter 2, Paul connects the sins of the Gentiles with the behavior of the Jews, who supposedly, being in possession of God’s Biblical Law (spiritual, practical, and moral precepts handed down from Moses), should have some advantage in God’s eyes.

But they don’t, in fact, they are in no position to judge others or even be saved by adherence to the Law:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth….do you think you will escape God’s judgment? (Romans 2:1-3)

As God does not show favoritism (2:11), Paul brings up the fact that Gentiles don’t have or know God’s standards laid out in the Mosaic law and are destined to die for their sins apart from the law (2:12). And Jews, who do know and have the law, still sin under the law [and] will be judged by the law. Their doomed fate as sinners is sealed as well before a holy God.

Paul points out that even those (Gentiles) that do good out of conscience (2:15), are still destined for death, as are those (Jews) who can be saved by adherence to the law, but are not because NO ONE can adhere to the law perfectly.

As we’ll find out, NO ONE can except Christ Himself, God incarnate, who proved to be the ultimate Sacrificial Lamb (per the Law) to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

So, What Do I Do With This?
First of all, we have to recognize that God is Holy and we are in violation of His Holy standards. We’re destined to die for our sins whether we are religious and try to be good or we flagrantly deny and defy God.

Either way, we’ve got a problem and are no better than anyone else in the heavens or on this beautiful earth created by our Holy God.

Indeed we are guilty and deserve God’s righteous judgment.

As we’ll see in subsequent chapters of ROMANS, the solution to our predicament has 2 distinct parts:

We need to receive God’s offer of grace and forgiveness of our sins through acknowledgment of Christ’s death and resurrection for our sake, and
We need to proceed with a new life, alive and free, filled with God’s presence (Holy Spirit) in this earthly kingdom, under His Lordship, power, and direction.

The first part is easy, merely an intellectual assent called belief.

The second part is richer, and deeper, and more difficult. So much so that many who pass the first mark, though eternally saved, never reach the fullness of a vibrant Christian life.

It’s a shame to be guilty of that.

Is something keeping you from a vibrant Christian life?
_______________________________
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” – John 1:29-31

¹Note: It’s interesting how people will disregard the Bible and Jesus Christ, but they’ll hold philosophers like Plato in high regard. Here’s a quote from Plato I’m sure many have never seen:

Whether one makes the observation light-hearted or in all seriousness, one must observe that, when the male body unites for procreation with the female, the pleasure that goes along with this is understood to be in accordance with nature, but that when male join with male, or female with female, it is outside the bounds of nature. This outrage was first done by people whose desire for pleasure was without self-control. – Plato on Homosexuality, from Plato, Laws, 636c, in The Archaeological Study Bible, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 2005, p. 1837.