Principles of God’s Judgment: Deeds (Part 4)

Romans 2:8-10

⁸ but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, ⁹ tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; ¹⁰ but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

(Verse 8-10) – Here Paul contrasts those who prove by their good deeds that they belong to God with those who similarly prove by their bad deeds that they do not belong to Him. Those who do not belong to God manifest many evil characteristics, three of the general underlying ones Paul mentions in here in verse 8.

The first characteristic of the unredeemed is that they are selfishly ambitious, a phrase that translates the single Greek word the root meaning of which may have been that of a hireling. This expression usually denotes those who are of a quarrelsome or litigious disposition; and generally has reference to controversies among people. But here it evidently denotes a disposition toward God, and is of the same signification as rebellious, or as opposing God. They who contend with the Almighty; who resist his claims, who rebel against his laws, and refuse to submit to his requirements, however made known. The Septuagint uses the verb to translate the Hebrew word in Deut. 21:20.

One striking characteristic of the sinner is that he contends with God, that is, that he opposes and resists his claims. This is the case with all sinners; and it was particularly so with the Jews, and hence, the apostle used the expression here to characterize them particularly. His argument he intended to apply to the Jews, and hence he used such an expression as would exactly describe them. One thought that we wish to consider for a moment is that there are many believer who live life in this very state of being.  They would not dare (or care) to oppose God openly on major issues, but their life is one long chaffing under the rulership of God and the authority of His hand.  They don’t consult Him in the smaller matters of life, and they don’t wish to hear from Him in the matters that they want to make their own minds up on.  They piously put forth that they want to hear from God, but ignore His voice when He speaks until some circumstance can be interpreted as leading them the way they want to go all along!  This is, in reality, no different from the Jews addressed in this passage.  We ought to take care that we do not fall into this category, one that it is very, very easy to fall into!

This character of being a rebellious people was one which was often charged on the Jewish nation, (Deut. 9:7, 24; 31:27; Isa. 1:2; 30:9; 65:2; Jer. 5:23; Ezek. 2:8, 5).  The idea is of a mercenary, who does his work simply for money without regard for the issues or any harm he may be doing. Everything he does is for the purpose of serving and pleasing self. Certainly this fits the Bible’s emphasis that the basic problem of unregenerate man is his being totally wrapped up in himself and having no place in his life for God. Carefully think of what this character reference is: it means that the one in view only does what he does because of the gain he receives for doing it!  There is clearly a problem with this motivation.  We ought to obey God because we have a heart of love and submission to God and not because we can squeeze a blessing out of Him.   We do not relate to God on a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back” basis.  This was what Jacob tried to do often in his life, and serves one poorly in the long run!

The second and consequent characteristic of the unredeemed is that they do not obey the truth. The person who seeks his own way above all else naturally resists any other way, including God’s, which is the way of truth. Disobedience of the truth is synonymous with rebellion, and spiritual rebellion is what the Fall was all about and what fallen human nature is all about. The unredeemed are rebels by nature, the enemies of God (Rom. 8:7: cf. 5:10; Col. 1:21, Compare Rom. 1:18).

The truth here denotes the divine will, which is alone the light of truth. It means true doctrine in opposition to false opinions; and to refuse to obey it is to regard it as false, and to resist its influence. The truth here means all the correct representations which had been made of God, and his perfections, and law, and claims, whether by the light of nature or by revelation. The description thus included Gentiles and Jews, but particularly the latter, as they had been more signally favored with the light of truth. It had been an eminent characteristic of the Jews that they had refused to obey the commands of the true God, (Josh. 5:6; Judg. 2:2; 6:10; 2 Kings 18:12; Jer. 3:13, 25; 42:21; 43:4, 7; 9:13).

The third characteristic of the unredeemed is that they obey unrighteousness. The expression means that they yielded themselves to iniquity, and thus became the servants of sin, (Rom. 6:13, 16-17, 19). Iniquity thus may be said to reign over people, as they follow the dictates of evil, make no resistance to it, and implicitly obey all its hard requirements.  No person lives in a moral and spiritual vacuum. He is either godly or ungodly, righteous or unrighteous. Jesus declared categorically that “no one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other” (Matt. 6:24). And it can be deduced that no man serves no master. It is either God or another. And when man does not serve God, all other masters lead him to sin. Serving God means obeying God’s will! Serving another master means obeying sin.

The road to hell is here very simply defined as the spirit of antagonism against the lordship of Jesus Christ. The unsaved person is by nature selfishly ambitious, and his enmity against God leads him to disobey God’s truth and instead to obey unrighteousness. The $64,000 question is how any person who is in such condition ever comes to know the Lord at all!  That question is addressed at length in the coming chapters.

To such people God will render (see v. 6) wrath and indignation. That is, these shall be rendered to those who are contentious, etc. The difference between indignation and wrath is that the former is of short duration, but the latter is a long continued remembrance of evil. The one is temporary, the other denotes continued expressions of hatred of evil. One writer said that the word “indignation” denotes the internal emotion, but wrath the external manifestation of indignation. Both words refer to the opposition which God will cherish and express against sin in the world of punishment. 

At any rate, Wrath signifies the strongest kind of anger, that which reaches fever pitch, when God’s mercy and grace are fully exhausted. It will mark the end of God’s patience and tolerance with unregenerate, unrepentant mankind in the swelling of His final, furious anger which He will vent on those whose works evidence their persistent and unswerving rebellion against Him. Indignation represents an agitated, vehement anger that rushes along relentlessly. The root meaning has to do with moving rapidly and was used of a man’s breathing violently while pursuing an enemy in great rage. It is used by the writer of Hebrews to describe Pharaoh’s murderous fury at Moses (Heb. 11:27; cf. Ex. 10:28). It is used by Luke to describe the fury of the Jews in the synagogue at Nazareth who wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff (Luke 4:28-29). It is used of the pagan Ephesians who resented Paul’s preaching the gospel and especially his claim that their idols “made with hands [were] no gods at all” (Acts 19:26-28). On the final day of judgment God’s indignation will explode like a consuming fire upon all rebellious mankind.

Consequently, there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil.  This word commonly denotes affliction, or the situation of being pressed down by a burden, as of trials, calamities, etc.; and hence, to be pressed down by punishment or pain inflicted for sins. As applied to future punishment, it denotes the pressure of the calamities that will come upon the soul as the just reward of sin. Tribulation has the root meaning of exerting extreme pressure, and is sometimes translated as affliction, anguish, or persecution. It is used of the persecution of the early church by the Jews in Palestine (Acts 11:19) and of the tribulation of the saints in general (John 16:33; Acts 14:22; Rom. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:4). Paul used it to describe his persecution in the province of Asia (2 Cor. 1:8), and it is used of the crushing of the grapes of wrath during the great battle of Armageddon (Rev. 14:18-20).

The word “distress” literally means “a narrow place” and came metaphorically to refer to severe confinement or constriction, and hence the idea of anguish or severe distress. Besides capital punishment, solitary confinement has long been considered the worst form of punishment, being the absolute, lonely confinement of a prisoner who is already strictly confined. Part of hell’s torment will be its absolute, isolated, lonely, and eternal confinement, with no possible hope of release or escape. This noun is used in but three other places in the New Testament; (Rom. 8:35; 2 Cor. 6:4; 12:10). The verb is used in 2 Cor. 4:8; 6:12. It means literally narrowness of place, lack of room, and then the anxiety and distress of mind which a man experiences who is pressed on every side by afflictions, and trials, and want, or by punishment, and who does not know where he may turn himself to find relief. It is thus expressive of the punishment of the wicked. It means that they shall be compressed with the manifestations of God’s displeasure, so as to be in deep distress, and so as not to know where to find relief. These words affliction and anguish are often connected; Rom. 8:35.

Upon every soul of man - Upon all people. In Hebrew the word “soul” often denotes the man himself. But still, the apostles, by the use of this word here, meant perhaps to signify that the punishment should not be corporeal, but afflicting the soul. It should be a spiritual punishment, a punishment of mind.

Paul uses the phrase the Jew first and also the Greek twice in this passage, and it is significant that the first instance relates to those who are condemned by God. Jews were used to thinking of themselves as being first in God’s sight. The typical Jew in fact, believed that, with perhaps a very few exceptions such as Rahab and Ruth, Gentiles were by nature completely beyond the reach of God’s care and redemption.

God had indeed chosen Israel above other peoples to be His elect nation. “You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth,” He declared to Israel (Amos 3:2a). But He immediately went on to say “Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities” (v. 2b). Israel will receive severer punishment because she was given greater light and greater blessing. As Paul here makes clear, the Jew first means that being first in salvation opportunity also means being first in judgment responsibility. Having stated the general principle of the divine administration, he comes now to make the application. To the principle there could be no objection. And the apostle now shows that it was applicable to the Jew as well as the Greek, and to the Jew pre-eminently. It was applicable first, or in an eminent degree, to the Jew, because,

(1)  He had been especially favored with light and knowledge (in the form of the Scriptures, the revealed mind of God) on all these subjects.

(2)  These principles were fully stated (not only revealed, but developed and explained) in his own Law, and were in strict accordance with all the teaching of the prophets; (see the note at Rom. 2:6; also see Ps. 7:11; 9:17; 139:19; Prov. 14:32).

Of the Gentile - That is, of all who were not Jews. On what principles God will inflict punishment on them, he states in Rom. 2:12-16. It is clear that this refers to the future punishment of the wicked because:

(1) It stands in contrast with the eternal life of those who seek for glory (Rom. 2:7). If this description of the effect of sin refers to this life, then the effects spoken of in relation to the righteous refer to this life also. But in no place in the Scriptures is it said that people experience all the blessings of eternal life in this world; and the very supposition is absurd.

(2) It is not true that there is a just and complete retribution to every man, according to his deeds, in this life. Many of the wicked are prospered in life, and “there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm;” (Ps. 73:4). Many of the righteous pine in poverty and want and affliction, and die in the flames of persecution. Nothing is more clear than there is not in this life a full and equitable distribution of rewards and punishments; and as the proposition, of the apostle here is, that God WILL render to every man ACCORDING to his deeds (Rom. 2:6), it follows that this must be accomplished in another world.

(3) The Scriptures uniformly affirm, that for the very things specified here, God will consign people to eternal death; 2 Thes 1:8, “In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that OBEY NOT the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction,” etc.; 1 Pet. 4:17. We may remark also, that there could be no more alarming description of future suffering than is specified in this passage. It is indignation; it is wrath; it is tribulation; it is anguish which the sinner is to endure forever. Truly people exposed to this awful doom should be alarmed, and should give diligence to escape from the woe which is to come.

The righteous deeds that God requires and for which men will be judged are, of course, impossible even for a believer to produce in his own power, that is, without the gracious and profound assistance of God. He is no more able to keep his salvation by good works than he was able to attain it by goods works. Like salvation itself, the good works it produces are made possible by God’s sovereign grace alone and empowered by His Holy Spirit working within the life. The only way to produce righteous deeds is to possess the righteousness of Christ, which comes by trusting in Him as Lord and Savior, to possess the Holy Spirit who empowers those works, and to consciously seek to obey the Word of God!

In His infinite justice as well as His infinite grace, God will be certain that the glory and honor that is sought by every man who does good will indeed be his reward. This peace that God divinely imparts is perhaps used by Paul as a synonym for the immortality the true believer seeks along with glory and honor (see v. 7). Everything divine that the saint of God seeks he will receive.

Again the apostle points out that the order of judgment will be that of the Jew first and then the Greek. The unbelieving Jew will be the first to be condemned (v. 9). Only after God has dealt with His chosen people will He deal with the Greek, that is, the Gentile.

It is imperative that these things be preached and taught to all believers so that they can be fully instructed in the things of the Word of God!