Principles of God’s Judgment: Guilt (Pt. 2)

Romans 2:5

⁴ Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? ⁵ But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

But after thy hardness - The word “after” here means in respect to, or you act according to the direct tendency of a hard heart in treasuring up wrath. The word “hardness” is used to denote insensibility of mind. It properly means what is insensible to the touch, or on which no impression is made by contact, as a stone, etc. Hence, it is applied to the mind, to denote a state where no motives make an impression; which is insensible to all the appeals made to it; (see Matt. 25:24; 19:8; Acts 19:9). And here it expresses a state of mind where the goodness and forbearance of God have no effect. It is the word from which we get the medical term sclerosis. Arteriosclerosis refers to hardening of the arteries. Such physical hardening is an ideal picture of the spiritual condition of hearts that have become unresponsive and insensitive to God. But the spiritual condition is immeasurably worse than the physical. Hardening of the arteries may take a person to the grave, but hardening of his spiritual heart will take him to hell. The man still remains obdurate, to use a word which has precisely the meaning of the Greek in this place. It is implied in this expression that the direct tendency, or the inevitable result, of that state of mind was to treasure up wrath, etc.

Impenitent heart - A heart which is not affected with sorrow for sin, in view of the mercy and goodness of God. This is an explanation of what he meant by hardness.

Treasurest up - To treasure up, or to lay up treasure, commonly denotes a laying by in a place of security of property that may be of use to us at some future period. In this place it is used, however, in a more general sense, to accumulate, to increase. It still has the idea of hoarding up, carries the thought beautifully and impressively onward to future times. Wrath, like wealth treasured up, is not exhausted at present, and hence, the sinner becomes bolder in sin. But it exists, for future use; it is kept in store (compare 2 Pet. 3:7) against future times; and the man who commits sin is only increasing this by every act of transgression. The same sentiment is taught in a most solemn manner in Deut. 32:34-35. It may be remarked here, that most people have an immense treasure of this kind in store, which eternal ages of pain will not exhaust or diminish! Stores of wrath are thus reserved for a guilty world, and in due time it “will come upon man to the uttermost,” (1 Thess. 2:16).

Unto thyself - For thyself, and not for another; to be exhausted on thee, and not on your fellow-man. This is the case with every sinner, as really and as certainly as though he were the only solitary mortal in existence.  it is important for us to see that this is a personal issue between the sinner and God.  This is not a generic complaint, but a real and personal one that God brings forth against each and every individual person.  Either that complaint is satisfied by the work of Christ – or it will be called to account on the part of the person themselves at the day of judgment.

Scripture is replete with warnings about spiritual hardness, an affliction which ancient Israel suffered almost continually. Through Ezekiel, God promised His people that one day “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:26). Jesus reminded His Jewish hearers that “because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives” (Matt. 19:8). When the self-righteous, legalistic Jewish leaders were waiting for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath and thereby give them an excuse to accuse Him of breaking the law, He looked “around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5; cf. 6:52; 8:17; John 12:40). In each instance quoting the Old Testament, the writer of Hebrews three times warns against hardening one’s heart to God (Heb. 3:8, 15; 4:7).

To stubbornly and unrepentantly refuse God’s gracious pardon of sin through Jesus Christ is the worst sin of all. To do so is to greatly magnify one’s guilt by rejecting God’s goodness, presuming on His kindness, abusing His mercy, ignoring His grace, and spurning His love. The person who does that increases the severity of God’s wrath upon him in the day of God’s judgment. When God’s goodness is persistently taken lightly the result is certain and proportionate judgment.

The day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God doubtless refers to the great white throne judgment, at which the wicked of all times and from all places will be cast into the lake of fire, where they will join Satan and all his other evil followers (Rev. 20:10-15).

And revelation - On the day when the righteous judgment of God will be revealed, or made known. Here we learn:

(1) That the punishment of the wicked will be just. It will not he a judgment of caprice or tyranny, but a righteous judgment, that is, such a judgment as it will be right to render, or as ought to be rendered, and therefore such as God will render, for he will do right; (2 Thess. 1:6).

(2) the punishment of the wicked is future. It is not exhausted in this life, no matter what man may think as the current “hell on earth”. The truest and most complete expression of it is treasured up for a future day, and that day is a day of wrath. How contrary to this text are the pretences of those who maintain that all punishment is executed in this life.

(3) how foolish as well as wicked is it to lay up such a treasure for the future; to have the only inheritance in the eternal world, an inheritance of wrath and woe!

The German philosopher Heine presumptuously declared, “God will forgive; after all it’s His trade.” Many people share that presumption, although they might not state it so bluntly. They take everything good from God that they can and continue sinning, thinking He is obliged to overlook their sin.

Modern man looks askance at the Old Testament, finding it impossible from his purely human perspective to explain the seemingly brutal and capricious acts on the part of God that are recorded there. Commenting on the release of the New English Bible some years ago, Lord Platt wrote to the London Times (March 3, 1970): “Perhaps, now that it is written in a language all can understand, the Old Testament will be seen for what it is, an obscene chronicle of man’s cruelty to man, or worse perhaps, his cruelty to woman, and of man’s selfishness and cupidity, backed up by his appeal to his god; a horror story if ever there was one. It is to be hoped that it will at last be proscribed as totally inappropriate to the ethical instruction of school-children.”

Superficial study of the Old Testament seems to confirm that sentiment. Why, many people ask, did God destroy the whole world through the Flood, except for eight people? Why did God turn Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt simply because she turned back to look at Sodom? Why did He command Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac? Why did He harden Pharaoh’s heart and then punish him for his hardness by slaying all the male children in Egypt? Why did God in the Mosaic law prescribe the death penalty for some thirty-five different offenses? Why did He command His chosen people to completely eradicate the inhabitants of Canaan? Why did God send a bear to kill forty children for mocking the prophet Elisha? Why did He instantly slay Uzzah for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling to the ground, while at the same time allowing many grossly immoral and idolatrous Israelites to live? Why did God send fire to devour Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, for making an improper sacrifice, while allowing many other ungodly priests to live to old age? Why did He not take David’s life for committing murder and adultery, both of which were capital offenses under the law?

We wonder about such things only if we compare His justice with His mercy rather than with His law. The Old Testament must be understood from the perspective of the creation. God declared to Adam, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17). From the beginning, therefore, all sin was a capital offense.

God sovereignly created man in His own image. He made man to glorify Himself and to radiate His image and manifest His character. When man rebelled by trusting Satan’s word above God’s, and by indulging his own desire over and above the revealed command of God, God had every right to take life back from man. Man is God’s creature. He did not create himself and he cannot preserve himself. Everything he has is by God’s gracious provision. That is the plain and simple of the matter.

Although by justice they deserved to die for eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve instead experienced God’s mercy. And at that moment the plan of salvation was activated, because it became necessary for someone to bear the death penalty that Adam and Eve deserved and every subsequent sinner has deserved. In light of that provision it becomes clear that demanding the death penalty for only about thirty-five transgressions, as in the Mosaic Law was not cruel and unusual punishment but an amazing reduction in the severity of God’s judgment.

Compared to the original created standard, the Old Testament is full of God’s patience and mercy with Gentiles as well as with His chosen people, Israel. Even in the case of the specified capital offenses, God frequently did not demand their enforcement. When adultery became commonplace in Israel, instead of demanding that every adulterer be put to death, God permitted divorce as a gracious alternative (Deut. 24:1-4). And even a cursory reading of the Old Testament clearly reveals that God graciously spared many more sinners than He executed (people like David). Periodically. God did dramatically take someone’s life to remind men of what all sinners deserve. Such incidents seem capricious because they were not clearly related to certain sins or degrees of sinning, but showed, by example, what all sins and degrees of sinning deserve.

Even under the Old Covenant, God’s people became so accustomed to God’s grace that they came to take it for granted. They became so accustomed to not being punished in the way they deserved that they came to think they were above being punished at all. In much the same way, Christians sometimes become offended when God is not as beneficent as they think He should be and are scandalized at the idea of His actually punishing them for their sin.

If God did not occasionally exercise deserved judgment instead of undeserved mercy, it is hard to imagine how much more we would trade on His goodness and abuse His grace. If He did not give periodic reminders of the consequences of sin, we would go on blissfully presuming on His grace. Paul soberly reminded the Corinthian believers,

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved. And do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction. (1 Cor. 10:1-11)

Every day we live we should thank the Lord for being so patient and merciful with us, overlooking the many sins for which, even as His children, we deserve His just punishment. The crucial question is not “Why do certain people suffer or die?,” but “Why does anyone live?”

When some Jews asked Jesus “about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices,” He replied, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:1-5).

Obviously those who questioned Jesus thought that the worshipers who were slaughtered by Pilate and the men who were killed in the tower accident were exceptionally wicked sinners and were being punished by God. Jesus plainly contradicted their presupposition, however, telling them that those unfortunate victims were no more sinful than other Jews. More than that, He warned His questioners that all of them were guilty of death and would indeed ultimately suffer that punishment if they did not repent and turn to God.

And from this passage, we cannot but remark,

(1)  That the most effectual preaching is what sets before people the most of the goodness of God.  this is important to understand.  People cannot be “whipped” into the Kingdom, they must be won, and that can only occur when they are confronted with their sin and then presented with the solution to that sinfulness and its penalty.  Ultimately, any positive response to the Gospel must be traced to God’s own power and enablement!

(2)  every man is under obligation to forsake his sins, and turn to God. There is no man who has not seen repeated proofs of his mercy and love.

(3)  sin is a stubborn and an amazing evil where it can resist all the appeals of God’s mercy; where the sinner can make his way down to hell through all the proofs of God’s goodness; where he can refuse to hear God speaking to him each day, and each hour, it shows an amazing extent of depravity to resist all this, and still remain a sinner. Yet there are thousands and millions who do it; and who can be won by no exhibition of love or mercy to forsake their sins, and turn to God. Happy is the man who is melted into contrition by the goodness of God, and who sees and mourns over the evil of sinning against so good a Being as is the Creator and Parent of all.

I need first to rejoice in the manifold and manifest mercy of God to me and to mine; and then I need to be sure that I am proclaiming the Gospel of God to all who can hear that He might show mercy to them as well!