DEFENSIVENESS, A PART OF MANKIND'S NATURE

Bob Bonner
Romans 2:1-16
October 9, 1994

Jane landed in La Guardia Airport and immediately called her old college roommate, to see if she could drive to New York City for a quick visit to catch up on one another's lives. Mary hadn't seen Jane in 10 years and couldn't wait to see her, even if it was an hour drive to the city, each way. She called her husband at work to tell him what she was up to and to invite him to come along, but he said "No, I'm tired. I'll just fix myself a quick bite to eat and go to bed early."

Mary and Jane spent the whole day and part of the evening together talking about old times, their husbands and their careers. Saying good bye was going to be hard. Mary picked up her purse from the hotel dresser and Jane walked her to the elevator to say good-by. Suddenly, Mary, rifling through her purse realized that she didn't have her car keys. "Oh NO!", she thought. She had done it again! She had locked herself out of the car again and the hide-a-key probably hadn't been replaced after the last time she had locked herself out.

Not wanting her to go to the parking garage alone, Jane accompanied her to the car to see if by any chance she left a door unlocked or the hide-a-key was there. Sure enough, the car was tightly secured and there was no hide-a-key. 

Mary dreaded what she had to do. Her husband was probably asleep by now and would be in no mood to drive into the city at this late hour to pick her up. Furthermore, a light snow had begun to fall. 

After putting down the phone, Jane could see by Mary's facial expression that Mary's husband probably was not pleased with the opportunity for a late evening drive. But that wasn't the half of it. The horrified look on Mary's face was compounded a few minutes later by the discovery of a set of car keys on the floor, just next to the dresser where her purse had been sitting. Quickly, she dialed home to see if she could catch her husband before he left to tell him she had found her keys, but he was already gone. Boy, was he going to be mad now! What a way for her best friend to meet her husband. She was so embarrassed by the whole thing. Jane tried to console her, but for 40 minutes, Mary couldn't quit crying. And then all of a sudden, she stopped crying and a big grin came across her face. She looked at Jane and said, "Come on!" Without a word of explanation, they both took off for the parking garage. Mary took her keys, unlocked the car door, put the keys in the ignition, then locked the doors. Looking at Jane, Mary said, "Now he'll only know the half of it!"

We are so afraid of what people are going to think of us, that we hate to admit our mistakes. We will do anything to divert people's attention away from our own flaws. Sometimes, the more successful we are, the greater the fear of letting people see our humanness.

Recently, I read of a news columnist's wife and her run in with a well known political figure. She entered a room in the old Willard Hotel in Washington D.C. and recognized this politician pacing up and down. She asked him what he was doing there. And he responded, "I'm going to deliver a speech shortly."

"Do you always get so nervous before addressing a large audience?"

"Nervous?" He replied, "No, I never get nervous."

"Well then, in that case, what are you doing in the ladies room?"

The apostle Paul was an excellent student of human nature and our tendency to either be blind to our own weaknesses or to run from them. That's why he begins our study of Romans 2 the way he does.

As we saw last time, Paul has just described in Romans 1:18-23, what happens to one kind of person who suppresses the truth about God. In general, all mankind comes to odds with God when we turn our backs on Him. But in Romans 1:24-32, Paul specifically points to one class of people who deserve God's wrath because they refused to recognize or honor God for who He is. Paul described in those verses, one who is an immoral godless hedonist. And it is such an awful picture of humanity that the natural response of most moral people after reading such a description is to agree with Paul. "Yes, sir Paul. Those people are really bad and I'm glad I'm not one of them. They deserve God's wrath, those sexual perverts! Those incorrigible rebels. Man, I'm with you, God. If we could only get rid of those kinds of people, we could get on with living for You and society would be a lot safer to live in."

The Spirit of God directs Paul's thinking in these next verses. He knows our tendency is one of defensiveness and to point the finger at others rather than to take a good look at ourselves. So in the next set of verses, in Romans 2:1-11, notice how Paul changes the personal pronoun from "they" to "you". Because now, he wants to talk to those self-righteous moralists and humanists who have deceived themselves into thinking that they are better off than those immoral hedonists that Paul just wrote about. In these next verses, Paul is saying to the reader, "You had better take a closer look at yourselves before you judge others and proclaim yourselves innocent of deserving God's wrath. You may not have been guilty of everything that Paul wrote about in those previous verses, but you may soon discover that you, the self-righteous moralist are far from being innocent of God's wrath.” 

In these next 11 verses, Paul is going to give us three principles by which God judges all mankind. When he is finished, the self-righteous moralist will be forced to admit, that they cannot escape God's judgment anymore than the immoral hedonist. 

Paul is now going to point out that even the highly moral individual is the rightful recipient of God's wrath because this self-righteous moralist has knowingly violated God's absolute standard. Let's begin our study with Romans 2:1. Paul writes, "Therefore you are without excuse, every man {OF YOU} who passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things."

The first thing to recognize from this verse is that when one person condemns another for wrong moral behavior, that person is admitting that there is an absolute moral standard. No matter how much our society wants to deny the reality of an absolute moral standard, our actions reveal that we believe otherwise. We cannot judge others without admitting that there are moral absolutes. 

C. S. Lewis, the late Cambridge professor spoke to this concept of a general moral law possessed by all people more effectively than anyone I know. In his book, MERE CHRISTIANITY, he begins with the observation that when people argue with one another, an angry person almost always appeals to some basic standard of behavior that the other person is assumed too recognize. "They say things like this: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?"---"That's my seat, I was there first"---"Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm"---"Why should you shove in first"---"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"---"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups."

Lewis' point is that people, naturally are able to identify behaviors that we expect the other person should know is wrong.

Another author who agrees with Lewis adds this: "I know that many people object to this belief in a universal moral law or absolutes and they point to the fact that some (the insane for example) do not seem to be aware of it or to the fact that moral standards vary among different races or cultures. But those objections, when thought about, really are not valid. It is true that there are people who do not seem to be aware of moral standards, and the insane are among them. But the very fact that we call such persons "insane" shows that we nevertheless recognize and want to adhere to the standards, regardless of what the problem may be in that individual's case. If an insane man commits a crime, we usually excuse him; but we do not excuse others. The problem is the person, not the standard. Although there are obvious differences in the way various races and cultures look at morals, there is nevertheless far more agreement than we might think at first. Regardless of the culture, there is (with few exceptions) a general regard for life, honor, bravery, selflessness, and such things." [Boice, Romans, p. 238]

Just as every person begins with a conscience, every person is given an internal moral code.

Back in verse 1, note the term here for "judge". In the original language of the New Testament, this is a word that describes a selection by choice on the basis of an unfavorable evaluation. We get our word for negative "criticism" from this same root word for "judge". The end result of this kind of judgment is condemnation or to declare someone unworthy or in this case unworthy of being saved by God. 

Over in Matthew 7:1, Jesus tells us that we are not to put ourselves in the seat of God to say who is going to be condemned and who isn't. We are not to judge one another in that sense. 

However, as Christians this does not mean that we are not to judge each other as Christians or be discerning as to whether or not someone is a real believer, or to hold each other accountable. Elsewhere in scripture, we are commanded to be discerning as to whether or not someone is a believer. If in fact we do discern that they are not a believer, we are not to condemn them as such. 

When it comes to Christians, we are commanded to hold each other accountable to our godly lifestyles. And when it comes to a person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, should they deliberately and knowingly disobey God as a practice or lifestyle, we are to condemn that practice, but not them. If the Christian refuses to change his or her sinful practice, then we are commanded to remove them from the fellowship.

But none of this kind of discerning or holding accountable is what Paul has in mind in this verse. Here, Paul is talking about having a self-righteous attitude whereby you look at yourself and judge yourself to be more worthy of God's acceptance than others due to your morality. Furthermore, this kind of judging reveals itself in an attitude that welcomes the damnation of others. 

The reason Paul says that it is foolish for the self-righteous moral person to condemn another is due to the fact that they are guilty of "practicing the same things". For instance: One may not commit actual adultery with another person's spouse, but in the heart of a moralist, he probably has committed adultery. And as Jesus teaches in Matthew 5, God holds us accountable for the sins of the heart as well as those that are lived out. Hence, the self-righteous moralist is just as guilty of practicing adultery when he has practiced the lust of adultery in his heart, as the immoral hedonist of chapter one who has acted out adulterous affairs. He knows the moral code and has violated it in his heart.

Recently, I read about a neighborhood in a city in Connecticut that was having some real problems with reckless drivers racing through their streets. These adults were concerned for their children's safety, so 53 of them signed a petition to stop reckless driving on their streets. This petition was given to the local police department and the police set up a watch. A few nights later, five violators were caught. And as you could guess, all five had signed the petition. [Gladys M. Hunt, "That's No Generation Gap!", Eternity Magazine, October 1969, p. 15].

This is exactly what Paul is driving at here. All humankind intuitively knows the moral standard. We don't like it when people violate the standard. We may even participate in raising the moral standard up for a public reminder. But we are all guilty of violating it. 

But just violating the standard is not what Paul is pointing to here. He is pointing to the hypocrisy of the guilty self-righteous moralist who thinks he will escape God's judgment. In addition, he is pointing to mankind's failure to judge ourselves correctly.

How is it that we moral people can judge others so easily and fail to judge ourselves? I see several reasons:

1. We are intrinsically blind to our own faults. We don't see our own mistakes. It's not that we are trying to forget them, we just don't see them.

2. When we do see our wrongs, we conveniently forget them.

3. We have the habit of renaming our sins, which enables us to overlook our wrongs. Fetus vs. baby, prejudice vs. conviction, lie or cheat vs. stretch the truth or being cunning or shrewd, affair vs. adultery.

4. We imagine that because we have not actually committed one of the principal sins, one of "the biggees", then we are beyond God's judgment.

But God, on the other hand, has no problem delineating what is true or what is false. He has no problem uncovering false motives or personal rationalizations, and getting down to the truth. That's what Paul means when he says, in verse 2, "And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things." 

I'm reminded of the two taxidermists who stopped before a window in which an owl was on display. They immediately began to criticize the way it had been mounted. Its eyes were not natural; its wings were not in proportion with its head; its feathers were not neatly arranged; and its feet could certainly be improved. When the two had finished with their criticism, the old owl turned his head...and winked at them! Our observations of ourselves and others and of what is real and true are not always right. But, everything God does is, by nature right and according to the truth. As Paul says over in Romans 3:4, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar." There is always distortion in human perception, but never any in God's. And that leads us to the first principle concerning God's judgment. God judges according to the truth. It is always correct or right. It is without error. It is fair. Our judgment is not.

In verse 3, Paul continues by asking a very pertinent question that demands a negative response. He says, "And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment upon those who practice such things and do the same {yourself,} that you will escape the judgment of God?" Obviously, if God is fair, and we practice the very same heart sins as someone else, then we shouldn't expect to escape God's judgment, should we?

In verse 4, Paul shows us another reason why the self-righteous moralist thinks he or she will escape God's judgment. They think that the "kindness, tolerance and patience" of God in his or her life is a kind of divine OK on the course he has chosen rather than seeing it as a chance for repentance. Let's look at that verse. Paul says, "Or do you think lightly of [or literally, "think down on" or underestimate or even despise] the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" 

The "kindness" of God refers to the general benefits that God gives to all people, whether they know Him or not. "Forbearance" speaks of God's withholding His judgment against sinners. He doesn't go out and immediately execute his vengeance against us for mocking Him or deliberately rebelling against Him or for flat out ignoring Him. He forbears with us. His "patience" addresses the time of duration between his expressing His goodness and that time of His expressing His judgment.

But we mistakenly believe that since God has not zapped us immediately for our ignoring of Him, that we have escaped His judgment. We are very much like the high school student I heard about last year at Grants Pass High School, who had misjudged the roll and authority of the librarian.

In high school, if you take out a book from the Library and you fail to return it for any reason; you will be charged for either a late fine or a lost book charge. For awhile, the student will receive charge notices or fine notices and then they will cease coming in the mail, even if the student fails to pay the fine. Many students, as one did last year, make the foolish deduction that the Librarian has forgotten about the fine or simply is being a nice person, not wanting to cause a big deal about a late return or lost book. But when it comes to the student's senior year, the student is shocked when he gets this library bill that says, "Pay up or no diploma!"

Similarly, somehow, we mistakenly figure that if we don't say anything for awhile about our wrong doing, and we just let it lie for awhile, everybody will forget about it including God. Therefore, we don't feel the necessity to seek forgiveness. We just figure that somehow time takes care of everything and heals all wounds, and there is no need for repentance.

But Paul is saying in verse 4, "You don't understand something folks, and that is why God has been so patient in waiting to judge you. He has been tolerant because He wants to give you all the time you need to recognize, feel sorry for and to admit your wrong doing and to repent.

Some, on the other hand, do not misunderstand God's patience for apathy or forgetfulness. For them, as Paul mentions in verse 5, their lack of repentance is just a result of their stubbornness. He says, "But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,..." That term "stubbornness" is an interesting word. It refers to hardness. We get our word for "sclerosis" or "arterialsclerosis" from it, which you all know refers to the hardening of ones arteries. Unbelievers, through their stubbornness become spiritually hardened to the things of God the more they continue to ignore Him.

Notice the expression "storing up wrath". In some translations it is the word, "treasurest." It is the same term that Jesus used in Matthew 6:21, when he spoke about "Laying up treasure for yourselves in heaven." All of us are laying up certain kinds of treasures in eternity. For the believer, it will be eternal rewards. For the person who is separated from God, who has not received God's gift of righteousness, their "treasure" will only be the wrath of God, upon which God promises that they specifically will collect.

Secondly, the "day of wrath" as he calls it here, is key to the rest of this section ending in verse 16, where Paul says that "...on that day when according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." This business of God's being patient and not allowing his judgment to fall yet is all going to be rectified in the final courtroom drama in heaven, when all the secrets of people's hearts will be made plain and God will evaluate what really is. This idea brackets Paul's entire thinking in this section.

That's why Paul goes on to verses 6-11, to give us the second principle that governs God's judgment. That being, God judges according to our deeds. Paul states the principle clearly in verse 6, and then goes on to explain it further in verses 7-10. Verse 6, "who will render to every man according to his deeds”. In other words, Paul is about to show us, that your works reveal whether or not you will become a person of faith or not.

Paul explains this principle further beginning with verse 7, "...to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;". Don't misunderstand what Paul is saying here. First, he is not saying that God's evaluation of your life is made upon one or two actions, good or bad in your life. The term "perseverance" connotes that the test period is one's entire life and one's approach to that life. Over a period of time, it's not what you know that gets you saved, but who you are that gets you saved.

Second, Paul is not saying that good works can earn you eternal life. He is saying that if you really want to be God's kind of person, to honor Him, then you will find your way to Jesus Christ and have eternal life.

Isn't that just what Hebrews 11:6 teaches us? Let's look closely at that verse together. Hebrews 11:6 it says, "And without faith it is impossible to please {Him}, for he who comes to God must [FIRST] believe that He is, [notice that is just the opposite of what 1:18 talks about in the suppressing of the truth] and [SECOND] {that} He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." If a person submits to the truth about God that they already know, God will reveal more to them and eventually lead them to Christ. 

Take, for example Cornelius, in Acts 10. This past week the elders were looking at this man's life. He was a Roman political/military figure who was seeking to know God. When exposed to the teachings of the Jewish law, he responded to it. When he was obedient to that which he was exposed, God helped him get more truth and light, and eventually led him to the place of knowing Jesus Christ. Cornelius first believed that God existed. Second, he continued to seek to know God personally and God revealed Himself to Cornelius just as He had promised. When Cornelius was exposed to Jesus, he was tired of all the emptiness and sensuality that was connected with Roman paganism. He wanted to know God personally, and he did.This helps us to better understand how God deals with the native, out in the jungles who has never heard the gospel. God promises that if anyone, no matter where they live or cultural background, if they seek Him and obey what they already know in their hearts, God will, one way or another, reveal Jesus to them.

In verse 8, Paul gives us the other side of this principle of God judging according to a person's deeds. This time he refers to those who do not seek after God. "...but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness---wrath and indignation." Then Paul tells us the results of either choice, to seek God or not to seek after God. "{There will be} tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." And then, in verse 11, Paul clearly states the third principle that governs God's judgment. He says, "For there is no partiality with God." God’s judgment is always impartial. God never plays favorites. It doesn't matter to Him if you are an American or an African. It doesn't matter to Him if you were raised in a Muslim home or a Christian home. God deals with every individual on an equal opportunity basis.

When I look at the immoral hedonistic godless man, and I compare him to the moral self-righteous person, I can't help but think from a human perspective that the immoral hedonistic godless man has more hope of coming to his senses so as to escape the wrath of God than the moral self-righteous person. For the immoral man, he experiences the pain of God's wrath as he lives and through the pain can be awakened to his foolishness and return to God. But the morally self-righteous person sits in his complacency, thinking that he has escaped God's judgment, that he is good enough and does nothing. His indictment is that he looks down on God's forbearance and takes His holiness and demand for holiness for granted. Because He cannot live up to God's righteous standard, he is just as doomed as the immoral hedonist.

With that, Paul turns now to a third group that makes up the human race. First, Paul, the prosecuting attorney has helped us, the jury, to indict the immoral man, in Romans 1:24-32. That person is worth of God's judgment. Second, in 2:1-11 he has helped us to indict the morally self-righteous man of failing to live up to God's standard, thus also being worthy of God's judgment. Now, Paul turns to a third group of people, the unenlightened pagans who may have never heard of Jesus Christ, or the Old Testament or New Testament and answers the question, "Will God send to hell those people who have never heard of Jesus Christ or the Jewish law or this letter to the Romans?" And most often, when people ask that question, they have in mind the naked savages that live out in the jungles of third world countries. They seldom think of the savages who live in the concrete jungles of our major cities, but both are in the same condition.

By way of reminder, allow me to restate something we have already said, and saw demonstrated in the life of Cornelius, the roman political and military official in Acts 10. God does not condemn people for failing to do what they did not even know they should do, but rather He condemns them for failing to search out the revelation they do have. The native is condemned, not for failing to believe on Jesus, about whom he has never heard, but for failing to seek God out on the basis of the revelation of God he has seen in nature. In Cornelius' case, he was not condemned by God for not knowing everything about Jesus, but instead, because Cornelius responded to what he did understand about God from nature and from what he was continuing to learn about God and most importantly because he kept seeking to know God. God will never turn away or condemn someone who is genuinely seeking to know Him. Instead, He promises, as we saw in Hebrews 11:6 to reveal Himself to that person.

In these next verses, Paul further explains the grounds of God's judgment of the unenlightened Pagan. First, allow me to state the next principle of God's judgment, then let's look at the verses that contain it. Paul will be saying in these next verses that God will judge each person according to that person’s own standard. In other words, God will never judge someone for a moral standard or set of Laws that they are not aware of, but for what standard they do hold to and whether or not they live up to their own standard. Paul says in verse 12, "For all who have sinned without the Law [written OT Law or standard] will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for not the hearers of the Law are just [declared to be in a right standing] before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” It's not the church goers who hear the Word taught or who can even teach the word who will be declared righteous, but those who prove they are righteous because they are doing what the word says.

As verse 14 goes on to say, "For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them." Notice the words, "written in their hearts". The implication of these words is that there is a moral code that is possessed by all people. They may not have the written Old Testament Laws of God, but they have something like it, placed in their hearts by God. They have as Paul says in this verse "a law to themselves," and it is that law that condemns them, not God's written laws. Paul's point is that those who have never heard one word from the Bible or a missionary, the kid in the ghetto, they will be judged by their own standard. They are a "law unto themselves." They will stand accused or defended by their own standards and whether or not they lived up to them.

Furthermore, Paul tacks on in verse 16 "...on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." Paul is saying that a day is coming, when all who are not in Christ, will be judged for even those secrets, those private hidden violations of their own standards that they thought nobody would ever know about. Jesus said in Luke 12:3 "Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops." The Christian will escape that judgment because we are in Christ. We have been saved from that. But the non-Christian will be judged by his secret violations of his own standard.

Basically, what has Paul said thus far? He has said that there are three groups of people, the godless immoral hedonist who blatantly turns his back on God; there is the self-righteous moralist who has mistakenly believed that he is above judgment; and there is the unenlightened, ignorant-of-the-law-or-Jesus pagan. All of them will be judged by the truth and moral standard they know. If they fail to keep their own moral standard at all, they will remain condemned.

Paul has hinted already that they can't do anything but fail. He will state that more clearly later in chapter 3. Things are looking pretty dark for the non-religious person. But there still remains one group of people left. One loop hole through which some might be able to escape God's judgment. And that is the highly religious person, the Jew or the church goer or the devote Muslim. Maybe there is hope for at least one group.

We will see next time. Up to this point, Paul's message has been obvious. Eternal life with God is hopeless, apart from Jesus Christ taking care of our rebellion and sin against God. Apart from Christ, mankind has no hope of earning or maintaining God's approval or acceptance. Apart from Christ, mankind has no hope of breaking life long habits or addictions, to be set free to live as God would have us to live now, enjoying the deep personal relationship today that God intends for us to experience without Christ.

But with Jesus, comes forgiveness, life, power and a deep personal sense of God's involvement in one's life. 

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