Romans 2:6-24

Paul leaves us in verse 5 with knowledge of our hard hearts and an awareness that apart from God we are lost. As we come to verse 6 we should come under conviction with tears in our eyes because of our failure to comply with the righteous demands of a Holy God.

Romans 2:6-8
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.

Remember the context here. Paul is developing a world view and later in the epistle will deal with when and how we display patient well-doing as well as what motivates it. At this point Paul is has established that those who reject God have no excuse for rejecting him and that the evil men display is a result of rejecting the knowledge of God. So Paul is gradually building the case that will show that God’s righteous requirements place the world, apart from Christ, under judgment.

Romans 2:9-11
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.

So Paul is promising judgment and punishment for sin and indicates that both Jews and Greeks or Gentiles will all be subject to the same judgment and punishment.

Romans 2:12-13
For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

This was an important distinction for a fellowship that was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. The Jews who heard the law but failed to live up to it are still condemned along with all the Gentiles who never heard it.

Romans 2:14-16
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

So even those who have never heard the Gospel still bear the guilt of violating God’s law because we have the law written on our hearts. Here Paul begins to get at the heart of our problem. God judges the secrets of men. God looks at the heart and heart obedience is what makes doing good problematic. To do a good work I need to do a work God directs, the way He directs, at the time He directs, and with no other thought but for His glory and my obedience. So as a Christian I have a hard time doing that. Some would say I mess it up every time and I’d say sometimes I might get it right as long as I don’t think about it too long and start to think what a lucky guy God is to have me. But consider the case of a non-Christian … Paul has established that they have the law in their heart and as they suppress the knowledge of God they can’t intentionally obey and have no concern for anyone’s glory but their own. They have no chance. Every once in a while you get the question of the salvation of the innocent savage in the jungle. Well of course an innocent savage would go straight to heaven but Scripture teaches that the law in the heart and the heart convicts or drives us to seek excuses for our behavior.

Romans 2:17-20
But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—

After Paul explains the situation of those who live without the law Paul begins to deal with the Jews who have the Law as a guide and take pride in being guides, lights, instructors, teachers, and holding the embodiment of truth and knowledge in the law.

Romans 2:21-24
you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

The problem with having the law and serving God according to the flesh is that you fail miserably and fail others in the process. We fail to live what we teach. Jesus taught the high standard required for our thought life in these challenges. Covetousness is identified stealing, lust is identified as adultery, and money is shown as an idol that is served. Rather than being a light to the world the Jews failed to accurately representing God to the nations.

Paul is not saying that mankind (either Jew or Gentile) is as wicked as they can be. Paul shows that since we have the law of God on our hearts even the gentiles will set standards of behavior. This is a topic that we’ll address again but remember that Scripture doesn’t teach that we are as wicked as we could be. It may seem to be a small thing to stress but those who oppose sound doctrine will sometimes oppose the teaching that our hearts are dead or that we are dead in our trespasses and sins by pretending that those who quote that Scripture are inferring that mankind is as wicked as they could be. That is not the case and we’ll seem more of this in the Scriptures that follow these.