Romans 2

Notes

Ver. 1. Since then God has given to all men knowledge sufficient to render them inexcusable if they abandon themselves to wickedness, ye Jews, and all who are disposed to censure others, must be still more inexcusable and incapable of being justified by your own works; for your censuring and condemning their faults is a practical condemnation of yourselves, who, notwithstanding your greater light, knowledge, and conviction, do the same things, or worse.

2. But from what we know of God's infinite holiness, equity, wisdom, and goodness, we are certain that all his threatenings, condemnations, or punishments which he will execute upon such, be of what nation, character, or rank they will, are exactly right and just, and according to the declarations which he has made, and answerable to the true state of things and eternal rule of righteousness.

3. Dare then any one of you who are endued with common sense and reason, and altogether dependent on and accountable to God for all your thoughts, words, and deeds, absurdly and injuriously imagine that you shall escape his just condemnation and wrath, when ye are so forward and dogmatical in arraigning and condemning others for crimes in which ye indulge yourselves?

4 Or, are ye so sordidly ungrateful as to slight, abuse, or pervert, not only the common bounties of his providence, but even his distinguished favours, marvellous patience, and long-suffering, as encouragements to wickedness; never seriously considering that the obligation, tendency, and design of his multiplied favours, is to overcome your obstinacy, and to make you, with grief and hatred of your sins, turn from them to God in Christ?

5. But according to the natural and wilfully contracted stubbornness and insensibility of your perverse hearts, are, by your persistence in unbelief and other wickedness, secretly preparing for yourselves the most fearful condemnation and punishment, to be inflicted in that great and terrible day of the last judgment.

6. For then God will impartially assign and distribute rewards and punishments to all mankind, Jews or Gentiles, small or great, not according to their fallible, mistaken, censorious, or self-flattering judgment, but according and in proportion to the good or evil nature or degree of every one's works.

7, 10. Bestowing immortal glory and honour, sweet harmony and delight, and perfection of blessedness in every form upon such, whether Jews or Gentiles, as, from a principle of faith in and love to Christ, have patiently persevered in good works, and earnestly sought after be adjudged according to their knowledge; but they heaping the most dreadful and tormenting, but just, punishments upon such as contentiously quarrel with his doctrines, laws, and providential dispensations; and instead of believing and practising what he has revealed to them, give up themselves willingly to a course of unbelief, hatred of him, and other like conduct.

11. For in passing the final decision, and distributing rewards and punishments in the last judgment, he will exactly and impartially proceed according to his own unerring knowledge and righteous rule of judgment, regarding none for their outward circumstances, privileges, professions, or pretences, and disregarding none for that ignorance or wickedness of which they have sincerely repented.

12. The Gentiles, who have sinned merely against the light of nature, without having the benefit of revelation to instruct and reform them, shall these great blessings of his kingdom.

8, 9. And who have contemned and rebelled against the clear light of revelation, and have refused Christ and his salvation, shall, in proportion to the heinous nature of their crimes, come to deeper despair because having more light. 16. In that great and awful day, in which God will exactly search out not only the open acts, professions, and pretences, 'but even the most secret thoughts, dispositions, principles, motives, and ends of all mankind; and pass decisive, irreversible, and eternally-effective sentences upon them, by Jesus Christ his Son, and our Mediator, as is plainly declared and testified in that gospel which I preach by his revelation and appointment. 13. Since then it is not men's having or hearing the revealed law, or their perfect fulfilment of all its demands, that can justify any on that occasion, the Jews, however they boast of their own righteousness, will need an infinitely better. 14, 15. And the Gentiles, though not privileged with the revealed oracles of God, manifest, by the small remains or semblances of morality in their practice, that the law of nature, with respect to some general notions of good and evil, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, remains written in their natural rationality, and their consciences accuse, check, and reproach them when they act contrary thereto, and acquit or excuse them when they do well in any respect—a sure token that they also must have a better righteousness than their own to justify them before God.—17-20. Ye Jews pride yourselves in being the descendants of Abraham, and the professed people of God, and in having his oracles and ordinances, as if these could justify you before him. Ye boast of your profession of the true God, and his peculiar covenant relation to your people, as if these could secure you from his wrath, and entitle you to all the blessings of time and eternity. Ye pretend to understand the revelations which God has given you, and to be expert in distinguishing truth from error, and right from wrong, and to be fully acquainted with and firmly attached to the most excellent points of religion taught you by the law of Moses. In your attempts to convert the Gentiles to your religion, ye assume high-sounding titles, and presumptuously looking on them as poor, foolish, stupid, and ignorant wretches, ye pretend to be distinguished leaders, enlighteners, and masterly instructors, while ye have nothing but a merely apparent or notional knowledge of God and his laws, without any answerable practice. 21-24. Think therefore, for your conviction of the insufficiency of your own righteousness, how shamefully and inexcusably your practice contradicts your pretensions to knowledge and your instruction of others. While, according to the law, ye declaim against fraud and dishonesty in the Gentiles, ye indulge yourselves therein; while ye loudly inveigh against adultery in them, ye commit it yourselves; while ye profess a high detestation of heathenish idolatry, which ye have especially done since your return from Babylon, ye indulge yourselves in sacrilegiously robbing God of his offerings, obedience, and worship, and pretend to fulfil his law by hypocritical and imperfect performances; while ye boast of your knowledge of God's law, as your distinguished privilege, high honour, and infallible security for eternal life, ye dishonour his authority and holiness by your manifest and voluntary violations of his law.—For your notorious wickedness, committed in plain contradiction to your laws, professions, and privileges, brings a reproach on his perfections and government, word and ways, and tempts the very heathens to think or speak of him as if he allowed, encouraged, or connived at it, or could not hinder it among his own favourite people. 25-27. And with respect to circumcision, in which ye chiefly glory, and on which ye depend as your security for eternal happiness, it will indeed effectually seal and confirm God's covenant with you, if your natures be truly renewed, and ye sincerely study holiness of life, proceeding from union to and fellowship with Christ; but if ye live in your sins, your circumcision will render you no more acceptable to God than if ye were heathens. And if Gentiles, being renewed in their hearts, sincerely observe the law, they will be as highly valued by God as if they had been Jews, and will rise up in judgment against and condemn you, who, depending on your having the letter of the divine law, and being outwardly circumcised, presume to violate the obligations of the moral law. 28, 29. For it is not natural descent from Abraham, nor external covenant relation to God, nor profession of his truths, that will make a true child of Abraham; nor, in God's reckoning, is that external circumcision available to any saving purpose, which is only a mark of distinction imprinted on the body. But he is a true Israelite, one of Abraham's spiritual and believing seed, and an heir according to the promise, who, whether he be Jew or Gentile, is regenerated and sanctified in his inward nature, tempers, and disposition, and turned to God through Christ; and that is true circumcision, highly acceptable, not to carnal men, but to an all-seeing God, which consists not in any external cutting of the flesh, but in the renewing of the mind by the Holy Ghost, and purifying of the heart by faith in Christ.

Ver. 4. Goodness. The mercies so freely extended to the Jews, in their calling, deliverance, preservation, institutions, and settlement, De. 7. 7. C.

Ver. 7. This verse describes the principle of divine judgment; but to the character described no one has ever attained, save 'Jesus Christ the righteous.' Even he who, at least in his own opinion, came up to the full requirement of the law, received this for answer—'one thing thou lackest,' Mar. 10. 21. But who will dare to say, 'I lack nothing?' C.

Ver. 12. Without law—that is, without an audible or visible law.—Shall perish. Shall be condemned, not by a law which speaks from God, but by nature, ver. 14, or an appeal to themselves. As they have felt, desired, and judged in their own case, condemning those who injured them, so shall they be judged and condemned of God, where they have offended him. C.

Ver. 17-20. In these verses the apostle enumerates the advantages of the Jews. (1) They are called Jews, which, though now a name of contempt, yet contains within it the most glorious recollections and anticipations, both spiritual and temporal. (2) Having received the law in all its ordinances. (3) Having Jehovah for their God. (4) Knowing his will. (5) Discerning the superiority of right over wrong. (6) And that by means of a scriptural education, ver. 18, 'being instructed (catechised) out of the law.' (7) In being guides, lights, instructors, teachers. (8) In possessing the form or model of knowledge and truth into which they might mould themselves and their pupils. C.

Reflections.—It is base and criminal to condemn sin in others while we indulge it in ourselves; or to continue workers of iniquity under high professions of godliness. And desperate is their condition who harden themselves in sin from the mercies of God apprehended or experienced. Certain and awfully exact is the future judgment of men by Jesus Christ. And correspondent to their qualities and works shall be the eternal punishments or gracious rewards of men. All the means of illumination and grace which they have received will come into the account. And very unavailing is it, nay, dangerous, to have external privileges, extensive knowledge, and an orthodox profession, without real holiness in heart and life. None give a deeper stab to the cause and honour of God than they who sin against the light, and prove false to their profession.—What a rare, a hard, an inward work is real Christianity! Highly is it esteemed by God, who alone knows its worth, or can immediately discern its existence. And it is infinitely dangerous to rest in anything short of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice, as the only ground of our salvation.