Principles of God’s Judgment: Impartiality (Part 2)

Romans 2:11-13

¹¹ For there is no partiality with God. ¹² For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law ¹³ (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;

Have sinned in the law - Have sinned having possessed and know the content of  the revealed will of God, or being endowed with greater light and privileges than the pagan world, than those who have not the Law. The apostle here has undoubted reference to the Jews, who, at this time were the only ones who had the Law of God, and who prided themselves much on its possession.

Shall be judged by the law - This is an equitable and just rule; and to this the Jews could make no objection. Yet the admission of this would have led directly to the point to which Paul was conducting his argument, to show that they also were under condemnation, and needed a Savior. It will be observed here, that the apostle uses a different expression in regard to the Jews from what he does of the Gentiles. He says of the former, that they “shall be judged;” of the latter, that they “shall perish.” It is not certainly known why he varied this expression. But if conjecture may be allowed, it may have been for the following reasons.

(1) if he had affirmed of the Jews that they should perish, it would at once have excited their prejudice, and have armed them against the conclusion to which he was about to come. Yet they could bear the word to be applied to the pagan, for it was in accordance with their own views and their own mode of speaking, and was strictly true.

(2) the word “judged” is apparently more mild, and yet really more severe. It would arouse no prejudice to say that they would be judged by their Law. It was indeed paying a sort of tribute or regard to that on which they prided themselves so much, the possession of the Law of God. Still, it was a word. implying all that he wished to say, and involving the idea that they would be punished and destroyed. If it was admitted that the pagan would perish; and if God was to judge the Jews by an unerring rule, that is, according to their privileges and light; then it would follow that they would also be condemned, and their own minds would come at once to the conclusion. The change of words here may indicate, therefore, a nice tact, or delicate address in argument, urging home to the conscience an offensive truth rather by the deduction of the mind of the opponent himself than by a harsh and severe charge of the writer. In instances of this, the Scriptures abound; and it was this especially that so eminently characterized the arguments of our Savior.

And so it is the Jews, those to whom the Lord had entrusted much, whom the apostle addresses next, declaring that all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law. The person who has not had the benefit of knowing God’s Law will be judged according to his limited knowledge of God. But the person who has access to God’s Law will be judged according to his greater knowledge about the Lord.

Those who have knowledge not only of the Old Testament law but also of the New Testament gospel are also included in this second category of those who are judged. And because they have even greater knowledge of God than the ancient Jews, they will be held still more accountable. They will be like the Jewish cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, which had heard Jesus’ teaching and witnessed His miracles but had rejected Him as their Messiah and King. They not only had God’s law but had been privileged to meet God’s only Son. The Lord scathingly told them it would therefore be better on the Day of Judgment for the pagan cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom than for them (Matt. 11:20-23).

Though all unbelievers will be there, the hottest part of hell will be reserved for those who have wasted the greatest spiritual opportunity. That is why it is such a fearful thing to be an apostate, one who has known and even acknowledged God’s truth but ultimately turned his back on it. Of such people the writer of Hebrews says, “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God, and put Him to open shame” (Heb. 6:4-6). Hebrews 10:26-31 adds:

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he has been sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Although those who have the opportunity to hear God’s Word have a great advantage above those who do not have such opportunity, if they fail to heed His Word they are much worse off than those others.

For not the hearers of the Law are just before God, Paul says, but the doers of the Law will be justified. Just as James does in his warning about those who hear God’s Word but do not do it (James 1:22-23), Paul here does not use the usual Greek term for hearing but another word which was used of those whose business it is to listen.

For not the hearers … - The same sentiment is implied in James 1:22; Matt. 7:21, 24; Luke 6:47. The apostle here doubtless designed to meet an objection of the Jews; to wit, that they had the Law, that they manifested great deference for it, that they heard it read with attention, and professed a willingness to yield themselves to it. To meet this, he states a very plain and obvious principle, that this was insufficient to justify them before God, unless they rendered actual obedience.

Are just - Are justified before God, or are personally holy. Or, in other words, simply hearing the Law is not meeting all its requirements, and making people holy. If they expected to be saved by the Law, it required something more than merely to hear it. It demanded perfect obedience.

But the doers of the law - They who comply entirely with its demands; or who yield to it perfect and perpetual obedience. This was the plain and obvious demand, not only of common sense, but of the Jewish Law itself; (Deut. 4:1; Lev. 18:5; compare Rom. 10:9).

Shall be justified - This expression is evidently synonymous with that in Lev. 18:5, where it is said that “he shall live in them.” The meaning is, that it is a maxim or principle of the Law of God, that if a creature will keep it, and obey it entirely, he shall not be condemned, but shall be approved and live forever. This does not affirm that anyone ever has thus lived in this world, but it is an affirmation of a great general principle of law, that if a creature is justified by the Law, the obedience must be entire and perpetual. If such were the case, as there would be no ground of condemnation, man would be saved by the Law. If the Jews, therefore, expected to be saved by their Law, it must be, not by hearing the Law, nor by being called a Jew, but by perfect and unqualified obedience to all its requirements. This passage is designed, doubtless, to meet a very common and pernicious sentiment of the Jewish teachers, that all who became hearers and listeners to the Law would be saved. The inference from the passage is that no man can be saved by his external privileges, or by an outward respectful deference to the truths and ordinances of religion.

The idea is much like that of a college student. His primary purpose in class is to listen to the teacher’s instruction. Normally, he also has the responsibility of being accountable for what he hears and is tested on it. If he is simply auditing, however, he is required only to attend the class sessions. He takes no tests and receives no grade. In other words, he listens without being held accountable for what he hears.

In many synagogues during Paul’s time, teaching did not focus on Scripture but on the system of man-made traditions that the rabbis had developed over the centuries since the Exile. Frequently, God’s Word in the Old Testament was merely read and listened to, without explanation or application. Most Jews, therefore, were simply “auditing the course,” hearers of the Law and nothing more. The same is true in many churches today – many are simply filling the seats with no thought of any accountability or responsibility to God for their hearing of God’s Word.

But God recognizes no mere “auditors” of His Word. The more a person hears His truth, the more he is responsible for believing and obeying it. Unless there is obedience, the greater the hearing, the greater the judgment.

People who think they are Christians merely because they do such things as attend church, listen to sermon tapes, participate in a neighborhood Bible study, and listen to Christian music “delude themselves,” James warns. “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was” (James 1:23-24). In other words, the person who is satisfied with superficially knowing God’s Word is living a spiritual illusion, thinking he is saved when he is not. By looking in a mirror, he judges himself by himself rather than by the Word of God that he knows much about but does not take to heart. His failure to obey what he hears proves he does not believe it or accept it. His disobedience proves he does not trust in the God whose Word he hears. And the more he hears without obeying, the more he piles up guilt against himself for the Day of Judgment. Our Lord certainly had this on His mind when he preached the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Matt. 7:24-27 records His words:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall.

The doers of the Law, on the other hand, are those who come to God in repentance and faith, realizing that His Law is impossible for them to keep apart from Him and that knowledge of it places them under greater obligation to obey it. The true doers of God’s law are those who come to Jesus Christ in faith, because the purpose of the law is to lead men to Him (Gal. 3:24). And after they have come to Him in faith, their obedient lives give evidence of their saving relationship to Him and of the fact that they will be justified. The idea here is not that obeying the law will produce justification, because Scripture makes clear that justification comes only through faith (Rom. 3:24, 28). But they will be demonstrated to be the just by the evidence of their doing of God’s holy law.

Again Paul is pointing to the same truth as James in regard to the relationship between faith and works, and, also like James, is using justification in the sense of completed or perfected salvation. The person who genuinely obeys God’s Word proves by his divinely-empowered obedience that he is saved and thereby will be recognized as justified on the Day of Judgment (cf. James 2:20-26).

Does that mean, then, that Gentiles are excused from eternal judgment and punishment because they have not had the advantage of the Law and therefore had no basis for obedient living? No, because as Paul has already established, the Gentiles, that is, those who do not have the Law, have God’s general, or natural, revelation of Himself in creation and know instinctively that they are guilty and worthy of death (1:18-32). But does not Paul say later in this epistle that “where there is no law neither is there violation” (4:15), that “until the Law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law” (5:13), and “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law” (7:7)?

This is a critical difference for people to come to grips with.  I must preach it clearly and definitely, and with the realization that it must be the Spirit of God Who reveals it, else, it remains mistaken and unclear.