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Romans 2:1-6 (Inductive Bible Study) · Arrow Heights Students

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Okay. All right, so we're back in Romans doing our, what, Bible study. Inductive. What does that mean? Wait, did someone say an answer? You did. Did you say. What did you say? Studying the Bible with the Bible. Thank you. That was a great answer. Studying the Bible with the Bible. So we're, you know, sticking mostly in Romans. We're moving from the immediate context outward so that we are taking all of what the Bible says into account when we read these passages. And I think that's important. You know, I've been saying every week how I think it's important, but sometimes we focus on the 66 book books of the Bible, which is true. There are 66 books in the Bible. And yet sometimes we kind of under recognize the unity of the Bible. You know, if you read, there's a good chance you won't, but maybe you should at some point in your life. If you read some of the earliest Christians from the first, second, third, fourth centuries, the way they are reading the Bible and quoting other parts of the Bible to make their arguments, it's as if they're reading just one book. Sometimes people question, are they pulling those verses out of context or not? And whether or not they were probably. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't. The reason they were doing it is because they understood this is one book. And all of it helps us understand each part. And so that's kind of the spirit of what we're wanting to do. Doesn't mean any phrase. You can just rip and make it say what you want to say if you can find another verse with some vague phrasing. But it does mean this is one unified book. So how can we understand it in light of the whole thing? Do you guys know where we left off? Where we leave off. What's the next part?
• 1:59
  Speaker B: Romans 2.
• 2:00
  Speaker A: Romans 2. That's right. So we finished Romans 1. What are some of the things you remember from our Discussions of Romans 1? Yes. God gave people over to their sin, so they continued to sin more and more. That's right. So it was a judgment to them. God restrains some sin, and yet he has given people over to continually do what ought not to be done. What else. Talked about like the righteous and the unrighteous, like there's like a list of things that Unrighteous people. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. The. So, yes. Or let me. Yeah, the righteous and the unrighteous, they're kind of Paul, and we've been seeing this in John a little too, but we see a lot of kind of dichotomizing you know, putting everyone into two categories. There's righteous and unrighteous. And the unrighteous do all of these things. Unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, slanders of haters, of God, insolent, haughty, all of those things. And he was just trying to show us the magnitude of unrighteousness. But this is all kind of flowing out of that big verse. The righteous shall live by faith, or those who by faith are righteous shall live is another legitimate translation. And so we're seeing, what does it mean to live by faith. Living by faith is how one becomes righteous is not by our own works. It is by living by faith that we become righteous. But then we must actually live righteously and obey God, or else we're not actually living by faith. So that's a really big point of Romans from Romans 1:17. What were you going to say?
• 4:12
  Speaker B: I was going to say something in Romans is that the gospel is for everybody.
• 4:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, the gospel is for everybody. That's absolutely true. What else? So another thing we've talked about is just the point of this book. He's hoping to summarize the gospel for this church that he's not been able to visit yet. At that time, though he had tried. He wants to just go ahead and write kind of a summary of what he was hoping to teach them or really to remind them of, as they already believed in this gospel, they had been saved. That's why they are a church. But he wants to kind of clarify some things, especially regarding the nature of the church. Israel, Jews, non Jews in the church, what is that supposed to look like? And he does that more and more as we go on. But this first part, he is showing kind of in Romans 1, 1832, so that second half of Romans 1, he's showing us kind of the natural law of God from above. So God, if we're looking at what is right and wrong naturally in the world, looking at it from heaven, we see God is letting people dive into their sin. And yet they know he's there. They're suppressing the truth. They're rejecting Him. They're intentionally replacing him with idols. And as we get into chapter two, we'll see more and more that now we're talking about that same thing, but from below, if we look around, how are people here wantonly sinning? How can we see the sinfulness and unrighteousness of man from here? From our vantage point, he's going to talk about how do we understand the sins of Israel? The Jews who had the law. How do we understand the sins of Gentiles who did not have the law? And that'll kind of take up the next two chapters. But he'll go into lots of little things here and there. So let's see how much we can get in chapter two. I wanted to get 11 verses. We'll see if we can do that. So. So let's start in verse one. He says, therefore you have no excuse. O man, every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things. Okay, so he starts there and he says, therefore you have no excuse. So let's just ask, what is the therefore? Therefore, let's do the thing.
• 7:07
  Speaker B: It's linking these two ideas.
• 7:09
  Speaker A: Linking these two ideas? What two ideas?
• 7:14
  Speaker B: Yes, is what you said last week. I think it's indicating the purpose of what he said before.
• 7:21
  Speaker A: That's true, yes. Can anyone summarize? Like, how is it working in this context? That's true. He's linking, indicating purpose. What did he say before? What's a summary of that last section? Like a sentence summary? I'll help us remember. Someone said something similar to this a minute ago. God revealed his wrath against the ungodly. So we could say, because God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness, therefore you have no excuse. And so he is going to continue to show them how they have no excuse. That's what we're seeing. He says, therefore you have no excuse. So because God's wrath is revealed against all ungodliness, you have no excuse. So if he's talking still about having no excuse against the wrath of God, no claim of ignorance, I didn't know any better. None of that is a valid excuse. Why is he bringing up judging? You have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges, why do you think he's bringing up judging? I think that's a little difficult because we might think he is saying that judging others is sinful. It's certainly treated as sinful, kind of amongst friends, amongst our society. Judging is a vice. Being judgmental is a vice. It's a bad thing to do in some sense. Yeah. You don't need to be overly critical and judgmental. But I think that's not what he's talking about. The way that we might think of being judgmental, I don't think is what he's talking about. Because then Paul himself would be sinning and writing this passage because he's being very judgmental towards all People on earth being ungodly, knowingly rejecting God, and being without excuse. So we can't have a very wide liberal view of being judgey because Paul is indicating there's good and bad. There are people on both sides of this line, which is by some definition, judgment. So how is passing judgment on another leading to them condemning themselves? Well, I think this will become clear as we go. The condemnation comes from this, he says, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. So their condemnation is not because they are judging. Their condemnation is because they practice the very same things. Their condemnation is because of their own sin, their own vices, their own unrighteousness. It is in the things one does that condemns him or her. Now, this becomes more clear in verses 9, 10, 11, 12 through 17 that Paul is mostly talking to the Jews in this section, although it's not necessarily clear if you just drop in on this first verse. But it becomes more clear. But he's establishing still that all are without excuse. So that's kind of what he was doing at the end of chapter one. He's still doing it. All are without excuse. So what might be a better application for us than simply don't judge? What do you think? What might be a better application than just don't judge.
• 11:09
  Speaker B: To turn from the things that are causing you to be condemned?
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, turn from your sin if you're not in Christ repenting of your sinful life. And even if we are examining our lives to see the fruit that we are producing, if we are sinning in any way, asking God to search our hearts, helping us to see those things, to turn from them, I think it's helpful to remember that the way that we might exercise then this judgment after repenting of sins ourselves might look different. You know, how could you judge a nonbeliever? Well, it's a lot stickier. I think when we're talking to nonbelievers, we need to just give them generally the call to all people to repent of our sins. We don't need to nitpick the behaviors of nonbelievers and force them to feel like they need to obey a God that they don't believe in. We need to tell them that, you know, whether you get rid of this sin or that sin, if you don't believe in Christ, then you're just as condemned. That's kind of the judgment that Christians can make to non Christians. But can we judge other believers? I think so. I think lovingly we can help people see sins that they might be ignoring or might be blind to. People have certainly done this in my life and have helped me greatly. But we need to remember in all of it that God is ultimately the judge. He is the ultimate judge. So we mostly just point nonbelievers to their final judge. And we call believers to live in a way that is consistent with their faith. So I think that's a better way to apply it than reading this and saying, see, the Bible says, don't judge. We shouldn't judge. I think we just need to clarify a little bit more what he means here. Now look at verse two. Having said that, he says, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. So what are these things? What are such things that he's talking about? Yeah, I think that's right. I think he's. Which, you know, these sins, if you remember. I'm saying he's not trying to make a comprehensive list of all sins, but he's just trying to show you he did it poetically, that sin is just everywhere. So he's saying all sins, but he's kind of referring to that list. Those are the things that they're practicing. So if you are not in Christ, not fully given to him, then only look at your own works and turn from them. That's what we should do. If you're in Christ, you need just to recognize that we cannot practice these things. We have God as our judge. Okay, so we got verses one and two. Look at verse three. So starting in verse two, just to make sure we're keeping track, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Verse 3. Do you suppose, O man? I'll stop there. Who is man? Everybody. That's right. He's even using a singular here. But he is speaking of all people. That's important to remember. Who are you, O man? Who are you? Humankind. But that's true. But maybe more specifically, he's saying, you, who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself. Saying, who are you? You, who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself. That's kind of what he's getting at. So that's why you have. At least in your esv, you'll have those hyphens, the EM dashes with a clause in between. You, who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself. So he says, do you suppose, O man, that you will escape the judgment of God? Do you suppose that you will escape the judgment of God? Now, if he is talking to the Jews, like I'm saying will become clear soon enough. Why would the Jews think that they can escape the judgment of God? Why do you think they would? Yeah, I think the possession of the law, which that's not the purpose of the law given to them. And certainly not all Jews would have thought this way. But this was kind of a common way to begin to think we have the law, we can't have the same. We are God's chosen nation. He chose us, so we cannot be condemned. That's what they were thinking. They were chosen by God as his people, given the law, given the prophets. And Paul is starting to show us that merely being born a Jew does not seem save someone from judgment. It is not the blood in their veins via their birth that makes them redeemed. We even see hints of this in the Old Testament here and there. But what we'll see is that they can only be saved through faith in Christ. Again, we'll talk a lot more about this in chapter four when Paul tells us how Abraham, he was credited with righteousness through his faith, not by being chosen by God, he was given it by his faith. So how might someone live life like he or she will escape judgment? I'm asking this. I think this is common. I think we live frequently as if we will just escape judgment. So how might someone live life like he or she will escape judgment? What do you think?
• 17:45
  Speaker B: Sinning without conviction.
• 17:47
  Speaker A: Sinning without conviction. Yeah, that's one of the ones I had written down. I wrote down two things, and these have been hinted at earlier in the book already. The first is legalism. What is that? Can you guys remind us what that is? Legalism. Yeah, David. Yeah, it could be adding extra laws. There's a couple ways to conceive of it. Adding extra regulations, rules, or living as if obedience to those rules is what justifies you. It's kind of used in more than one way, so it's a little bit of a messy term, but yeah. So legalism, Someone thinks because he lives a good life, goes to church, he'll be saved, which in some way those are the same things because those are adding laws for your own justification. When the justification comes through faith, even if they are things we should do, living a good life, going to church, legalism is when we put those at the center. We want those behaviors to do more work than they can really do. And the other is lawlessness. I use the word antinomianism, which you don't need to remember. Lawlessness is maybe a little bit easier to Remember, it's the same thing. Anti law is what antinomian means. So lawlessness, where someone thinks, because I made a decision, I will be saved, even though my life does not look distinctly Christian at all. I sin without any conviction. As Ezra said, that is the other way that people live. I'll escape judgment because I'm a good person. I'll escape judgment because I made that decision already. And yet, if you're living by faith, then you will obey Christ. So it's not that the lawless, the person that says, I made a decision, so I'm good. Sure, you trusted in Christ. You can have confidence in that. But if you're living by faith, it'll look like it. And if you don't live by faith, then you don't have the righteousness of God. So this is what Paul's getting at in verse four. So look at verse four now. Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? What does presume mean? Yeah, Malachi. Yeah. Acting as if you. Yeah. And assuming that you will receive it, receive the kindness because you deserve it. Yeah, that's. That's presumptuous, presuming. So how would they be presuming on God's kindness and patience? How would they be presuming on his kindness and patience? Well, they'd be acting as if they deserve it by their merit. I deserve it because of my good life, says the legalist. Or I deserve it because whether or not I obey God is irrelevant, because I've trusted in Him. That's also presumptuous of God's kindness and patience. Assuming that we deserve it because God is kind and loving and incredibly merciful. We think I deserve mercy, but we do not. If you deserve mercy, it's not really mercy. Just by definition. Mercy is not receiving judgment that you do deserve. So you don't deserve the mercy. So what are they overlooking about God when they presume upon his kindness and patience? Yeah, yeah. God is holy. Just is another way to put that. So this is why how we think about God is so important. You almost certainly don't remember this from like 2 years ago when I taught on the doctrine of God. Back then, we talked about God's attributes or God being His attributes. We can't take God and cut him into a pizza. And this part is patience, and this part is love, and this part is holiness. Because when we do that, then what are we going to do? We're going to maybe take the pieces that are convenient to us and we chop them up. And then you look back at him and he's not God. Who God is is complex to us, but it's. He is one being. And when this one being interacts with the world, we see different things. Sometimes it looks to us like love, sometimes it looks to us like kindness. Sometimes that looks to us like wrath or holiness. But God is who he is. And so I think when we think of it this way, we're going to be less tempted to think, well, but he's merciful, so how can he also have wrath? Well, it's because he's not these different pieces. He is who he is. Sin causes who he is. Or because of sin, God pours out wrath. Because of God's character, He continues to pour out love and mercy to some. And so I think maybe this helps us just remember who God is is so important because we look over his holiness, then we presume upon other what we would think are aspects of his character, like kindness and patience. Because he is holy, his holiness demands that all sin be dealt with. It's going to be another huge theme in Romans. All sin has to be dealt with. If there's sin not dealt with, then God is not just. Sin is an offense to God, so it has to be punished. Is it punished on Christ or is it punished on you? It's going to be one or the other. God is completely consistent with his character, so he can't just wave sins away at will. I think we grow up kind of thinking, why can't God just decide to forgive and forget the sins? Well, because he's holy. That's not actually rectifying anything wrong, it's just overlooking wrong. But God's not here to overlook wrong. He's here to correct and justify it. So if we take the common view of today that God can just forgive sins as he will, then why would the Son be crucified? You know, there are all sorts of problems when we kind of get these really kind of complicated but essential matters of who God is. Wrong. Because if God are these different pieces, if he's not this one being, that to us we perceive as these different attributes. And if God can just will what he wants and will away sin, then why does he kill His Son? Well, the reason the Son was crucified is because sin has to be dealt with. Because God has to act in accordance with his own character. When there is sin, there must be wrath. But what is the function of God's kindness and patience? Does anyone know what would be the function of his kindness? And patience. To lead you to repentance. That's what he says here in verse 4. Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. His kindness, the kindness is that he doesn't immediately sentence you to eternal punishment. What you deserve. What I deserve. So that's his kindness. He doesn't immediately sentence and punish us like we deserve. He gives us an opportunity to repent of our sins and trust in Christ. He wishes that all would be saved. 1 John 2:2 says, he does not have to give us that chance, yet he does. And so often we squander it and we presume upon his patience and kindness instead of being thankful for it. Now look at verse five. But because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. What is a hard heart? What is a hard heart?
• 26:34
  Speaker B: Stubbornness.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: A stubborn heart. Yeah, I think that's. I actually wrote that word down. It's like a rock. It does not move. It is unaffected. It is stubborn in its way. What is an impenitent heart? Does anyone know what impenitent means? Yeah, that's right. It is unrepentant. These kind of go together. A stubborn, unrepentant heart refusing to be affected by the loving kindness of God and to repent of your sins. A heart that has been given over to do all sorts of ungodliness according to chapter one. So because of your heart and impedance at heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself. Well, what will this wrath look like? Well, I think it is the final execution of wrath, because we see in some sense, God's wrath is poured out on the ungodly now by letting people giving them up to their sins. But there's another sense in which there's wrath being stored up for eternity because of our sin. And the reason I think he's talking about this future wrath, not the current wrath, is that he says, on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. So that's what he says there. On the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. That's at the end of verse five. So back in chapter one, verse 18, we talked about God's wrath being revealed already. But now we're talking about this future wrath, this eternal wrath, and this wrath he explains in verse 6, he will render to each one according to his work. So how does this statement work within Paul's greater framework of justification? By faith alone, he will render to each one according to his work. How does that work with maybe what we're taught about being saved, apart from works?
• 28:41
  Speaker B: I think works in this context refers to whether or not they respond to the gospel.
• 28:46
  Speaker A: I think, yeah. Whether or not they respond to the gospel. Hmm, that's interesting. Yeah, that could be right. Yeah. Any other answers? You know, I think certainly the work of repentance is included here. One thing, when I read this verse, I think this shows that despite what Papists or Roman Catholics and others maybe say, Paul is not contradictory to James at all. So, you know, people think, are we more like Paul, more like James? You know, justification by faith or justification with works? Well, this is showing us that they don't contradict at all. James says that faith without works is dead. What we're seeing is that being judged by one's works was how Jews thought of judgment, and they were right because it is your sinful works that render you guilty and worthy of punishment. So they weren't wrong that you are judged by your works. Later verses, even in this chapter, will show more clearly that Paul has in mind that Christians are judged by works, but their works are brought about by the Holy Spirit. When you are accredited with righteousness because you live by faith. And if you live by faith, you do the works of God and obey him by the Spirit's work. Another way to look at this, I'm not sure that's what he's saying here, but I think another way you can look at it is that he's referring to either your works which are sinful, or Christ's works credited to you. He does say that, at least in other places. I'm not sure exactly what he means here. And it's okay to not always know, but if you lack the Spirit because you lack faith in Christ, then your works are worthless. They're worthless. Now, these last few verses of this section, which are verses. 7 through 11, just for the sake of time, I'll save for next week because they really. I don't want to stop in the middle of them. They kind of form this mirror structure, the first beginning and the end and kind of work to the middle. So we're going to keep those together. But I just want us to reflect on what Paul is saying here about God's righteous judgment. So we see, and we'll continue to see, that God's judgment is righteous. It is deserved. We ought not presume upon the grace and kindness of God. I think that's kind of the main point I want you guys to take away is to not presume upon it. And I don't want you to be confused and think this means I need to chronically doubt whether or not I'm saved. That's also a really bad application. And sometimes that's kind of the sense like, oh, well, I'm sinning or I'm struggling with a sin, and therefore I really need to doubt. Well, I think struggling with sin should cause us to fear and to go to Christ. Because if we are not in Christ, then we have reason to fear. But if you live by faith, if you actually trust him and you live a life that repents of sin and tries to follow him earnestly, even with countless, numerous failures, then you can feel secure. But I just know that so often, even, you know, myself at your age, so often people presume upon the grace of God in one of the ways. For me, it was more being kind of legalistic and looking at how, you know, perfect my life looked and thinking, okay, well, then I'm good, because I got all these things in order. But what happens when things get out of order? What happens when I go through a season of struggling? Well, then I struggle spiritually. But if you are relying on Christ, then that doesn't happen. And the other can be true. You're presuming on God's grace by thinking, well, you know, I made this decision, whatever. God will forgive me, with just kind of a flippant attitude that your sin doesn't matter. You can kind of. You'll figure it out later. You know, maybe when you're older, you get married, you have kids, you know, you'll figure it out later. But not as important now as presuming on his kindness. I just want to encourage you to not do those things, but to trust in Christ, and you can trust him. All right, we're out of time. Let's pray. Oh, Father, thank you for your wonderful patience and kindness that we may have opportunity to repent, even though we do not deserve that. Lord, we pray that you would help us to be steadfast in faith and live according to that faith. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.