Romans 2:5-11
But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.
In chapter one Paul described the decent of the sinner’s path. It could also be described as a gradual hardening. The word translated hard or stubborn is sklerotes, from this we get sclerosis which means hardening. Hardening of the arteries is a gradual process and so is the hardening of our spiritual hearts. And just like hardening of the arteries can be reduced or reversed with dietary changes, spiritual hardening can be reversed but it requires change. Repentance means to change your mind. Impenitent means never changing. God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance but hardened and unchanged hearts will not be led.
Paul says the impenitent heart is storing up wrath. It’s like canning and storing up food in your pantry. It’s a lot of work. Sinners put a lot of effort into earning God’s wrath. All of the results are natural and inevitable. They are not imposed from the outside they are earned day by day. The wrath of God is the removal of the grace that prevents the natural result of sin from happening immediately.
And yet there is a day of wrath coming. It may seem like there is no end to evil and sin and death yet a day is set for them to be done away with. We live in a period of God’s gracious patience but God’s indignation against sin will have its day.
2 Peter 3:8-9, “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Sinners kid themselves that there is no God. Or if there is a God, God is love and nobody will be condemned. Or there will be another chance like purgatory or reincarnation. But on the day of unveiling when we see clearly the horror of sin and the rightness of the need for sin to be condemned, sinners will condemn themselves.
Revelation 6:15-17, “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
The righteous judgment of God is perfectly correct and irrefutable discernment that is unlimited and independent. This is what Abraham found when God told him of the judgment coming on Sodom. Genesis 18:20-21, “Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” Abraham interceded on behalf of any potential innocents in the city. Genesis 18:23-25, “Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” As it turned out, there was only one man in the whole city who was not completely sold out to evil, Abraham’s nephew Lot. God rescued Lot and his family before the destruction of the city. God’s judgment is perfect.
The payment for sin will be remanded in full. Not one fraction of a cent will be missed from the ultimate accounting. Everything our deeds have earned will be accounted for. Everyone will be paid in full. If you fall off a cliff, you can’t avoid the ground. If you sin against God, you can’t avoid death.
Ezekiel 18:4, “Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.”
What we do in this life matters in eternity. Revelation 20:12, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
Some will teach this passage as if Paul is saying that a hypothetical perfectly moral person would earn God’s favor but when I consider Job I think that even if someone could be morally perfect it would earn nothing from God. I think that Paul is dropping an early hint about salvation being by grace through faith.
All the usual categories that we use to define groups of people don’t have any currency in the Kingdom of God. The only thing that matters is what we have pursued. There are only two paths a human life can pursue. Love God and love others is the upward way and everything else is the road to perdition. Not that we are saved by works, but as James says in James 2:26, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” Also consider John 6:28-29, “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
Patient endurance is the method; working on good is the means. Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Thought precedes action.
Entering into this way, by the cross, begins a lifelong search. My wife and I like to hunt mushrooms. Success in mushroom hunting requires intention, desire, and focus but most of all it requires movement, getting out there and looking. Our search for the good includes looking for that highest state of blessedness that is only found in God’s presence and looking for what is actually valuable, what will retain it’s value into eternity, those things that will not rot or rust or decay but are incorruptible and permanent. By looking for these things we find eternal life, which is Christ himself.
On the other hand, those who seek the approval of men above the approval of God will go to any depth of depravity, without regard to consequence, in order to get it. They start from unbelief and wind up unattached to reality. The will to power is substituted for the will of God. They use any means to get what they want. They use fear to control others. They use uncontrolled outbursts of fierceness to force their will upon the world.
The payoff of this way of life is an unbearable weight of frustration and distress in the knowledge of being trapped in a bad place without recourse. They find that they are only human and ultimately their will does not overcome reality. It ends up in hard labor of not good. Sin will send you to hell and make you work hard to get there.
The group Paul is addressing, the church in Rome, is split into ethnic and cultural Jews and ethnic Italians who are pursuing Greek culture. This oversimplification is to make the point that the things that often divide us in this world do not matter in eternity.
Peter learned about this when he was sent to proclaim the gospel to gentiles in Acts 10:34-35, “So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Proverbs 24:23-25
Partiality in judging is not good.
Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,”
will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,
but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight,
and a good blessing will come upon them.
brotherpayne 