_HUMAN GUILT UNIVERSAL: HE APPROACHES THE CONSCIENCE OF THE JEW_
ROMANS ii. 1-16
We have appealed, for affirmation of St Paul's tremendous exposure of
human sin, to a solemn and deliberate self-scrutiny, asking the man
who doubts the justice of the picture to give up for the present any
instinctive wish to vindicate other men, while he thinks a little
while solely of himself. But another and opposite class of mistake has
to be reckoned with, and precluded; the tendency of man to a facile
condemnation of others, in favour of himself; "God, I thank Thee that
I am not as other men are" (Luke xviii. 11). It is now, as it was of
old, only too possible to read, or to hear, the most searching and
also the most sweeping condemnation of human sin, and to feel a sort
of fallacious moral sympathy with the sentence, a phantom as it were
of righteous indignation against the wrong and the doers of it, and
yet wholly to mistake the matter by thinking that the hearer is
righteous though the world is wicked. The man listens as if he were
allowed a seat beside the Judge's chair, as if he were an esteemed
assessor of the Court, and could listen with a grave yet untroubled
approbation to the discourse preliminary to the sentence. Ah, he is an
assessor of the accused; he is an accomplice of his fallen fellows; he
is a poor guilty man himself. Let him awake to himself, and to his
sin, in time.
With such a reader or hearer in view St Paul proceeds. We need not
suppose that he writes as if such states of mind were to be expected
in the Roman mission; though it was quite possible that this might be
the attitude of some who bore the Christian name at Rome. More
probably he speaks as it were in the presence of the Christians to
persons whom at any moment any of them might meet, and particularly to
that large element in religious life at Rome, the unconverted Jews.
True, they would not read the Epistle; but he could arm those who
would read it against their cavils and refusals, and show them how to
reach the conscience even of the Pharisee of the Dispersion. He could
show them how to seek his soul, by shaking him from his dream of
sympathy with the Judge who all the while was about to sentence _him_.
It is plain that throughout the passage now before us the Apostle has
the Jew in view. He does not name him for a long while. He says many
things which are as much for the Gentile sinner as for him. He dwells
upon the universality of guilt as indicated by the universality of
conscience; a passage of awful import for every human soul, quite
apart from its place in the argument here. But all the while he keeps
in view the case of the self-constituted _judge_ of other men, the man
who affects to be essentially better than they, to be, at least by
comparison with them, good friends with the law of God. And the
undertone of the whole passage is a warning to this man that his
brighter light will prove his greater ruin if he does not use it; nay,
that he has not used it, and that so it is his ruin already, the ruin
of his claim to judge, to stand exempt, to have nothing to do with the
criminal crowd at the bar.
All this points straight at the Jewish conscience, though the arrow is
levelled from a covert. If that conscience might but be reached! He
longs to reach it, first for the unbeliever's own sake, that he might
be led through the narrow pass of self-condemnation into the glorious
freedom of faith and love. But also it was of first importance that
the spiritual pride of the Jews should be conquered, or at least
exposed, for the sake of the mission-converts already won. The first
Christians, newly brought from paganism, must have regarded Jewish
opinion with great attention and deference. Not only were their
apostolic teachers Jews, and the Scriptures of the Prophets, to which
those teachers always pointed, Jewish; but the weary Roman world of
late years had been disposed to own with more and more distinctness
that if there were such a thing as a true voice from heaven to man it
was to be heard among that unattractive yet impressive race which was
seen everywhere, and yet refused to be "reckoned among the nations."
The Gospels and the Acts show us instances enough of educated Romans
drawn towards Israel and the covenant; and abundant parallels are
given us by the secular historians and satirists. The Jews, in the
words of Professor Gwatkin, were "the recognized non-conformists" of
the Roman world. At this very time the Emperor was the enamoured slave
of a brilliant woman who was known to be proselyted to the Jewish
creed. It was no slight trial to converts in their spiritual infancy
to meet everywhere the question why the sages of Jerusalem had slain
this Jewish Prophet, Jesus, and why everywhere the synagogues
denounced His name and His disciples. The true answer would be better
understood if the bigot himself could be brought to say, "God, be
merciful to me the sinner."
[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =Wherefore you are without excuse, O man, every
man who judges; when you judge the other party you pass judgment on
yourself; for you practise the same things, you who judge.=
[Sidenote: Ver. 2.] =For[17] we know=--this is a granted point between
us--=that God's judgment is truth-wise,= is a reality, in awful
earnest, =upon those who practise such things.= [Sidenote: Ver. 3.]
=Now is this your calculation, O man, you who judge those who practise
such things, and do them yourself, that you will escape God's
judgment?= Do you surmise that some by-way of privilege and indulgence
will be kept open for you? [Sidenote: Ver. 4.] =Or do you despise the
wealth of His kindness, and of His forbearance and longsuffering=
--despise it, by mistaking it for mere indulgence, or indifference--
=knowing not that God's kind ways (τὸ χρηστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ) lead you
to repentance?= [Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =No, true to (κατὰ) your own
hardness, your own unrepentant heart, you are hoarding for yourself a
wrath= which will be felt =in the day of wrath,= the day =of
disclosure of the righteous judgment of God,= [Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =who
will requite each individual according to his works.= What will be
that requital, and its law? [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =To those who, on the
line of (κατὰ) perseverance in good work, seek,= as their point of
gravitation, =glory, and honour, and immortality,= He will requite
=life eternal.= [Sidenote: Ver. 8.] =But for those who side with
(τοῖς ἐκ) strife,= who take part with man, with self, with sin,
against the claims and grace of God, and, =while they disobey the
truth= of conscience, =obey unrighteousness,= yielding the will to
wrong, =there shall be wrath and fierce anger,= [Sidenote: Ver. 9.]
=trouble and bewilderment, inflicted on every soul of man,= man
=working out what is evil, alike Jew=--Jew =first--and Greek.=
[Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =But glory, and honour, and peace= shall be =for
every one who works what is good, alike for Jew=--Jew =first--and
Greek.= [Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =For there is no favouritism in God's
court.=
Here he actually touches the Jew. He has named him twice, and in both
places recognizes that primacy which in the history of Redemption is
really his. It is the primacy of the race chosen to be the organ of
revelation and the birth-place of Incarnate God. It was given
sovereignty, "not according to the works," or to the numbers, of the
nation, but according to unknown conditions in the mind of God. It
carried with it genuine and splendid advantages. It even gave the
individual righteous Jew (so surely the language of ver. 10 implies) a
certain special welcome to his Master's "Well done, good and
faithful"; not to the disadvantage, in the least degree, of the
individual righteous "Greek," but just such as may be illustrated in a
circle of ardent and impartial friendship, where, in one instance or
another, kinship added to friendship makes attachment not more
intimate but more interesting. Yes, the Jew has indeed his priority,
his primacy, limited and qualified in many directions, but real and
permanent in its place; this Epistle (see ch. xi.) is the great
Charter of it in the Christian Scriptures. But whatever the place of
it is, it has no place whatever in the question of the sinfulness of
sin, unless indeed to make guilt deeper where light has been greater.
The Jew has a great historical position in the plan of God. He has
been accorded as it were an official nearness to God in the working
out of the world's redemption. But he is not one whit the less for
this a poor sinner, fallen and guilty. He is not one moment for this
to excuse, but all the more to condemn, himself. He is the last person
in the world to judge others. Wherever God has placed him in history,
he is to place himself, in repentance and faith, least and lowest at
the foot of Messiah's Cross.
What was and is true of the chosen Nation is now and for ever true, by
a deep moral parity, of all communities and of all persons who are in
any sense privileged, advantaged by circumstance. It is true, solemnly
and formidably true, of the Christian Church, and of the Christian
family, and of the Christian man. Later in this second chapter we
shall be led to some reflections on Church privilege. Let us reflect
here, if but in passing, on the fact that privilege of other kinds
must stand utterly aside when it is a question of man's sin. Have we
no temptation to forget this? Probably we are not of the mind of the
Frenchman of the old _régime_ who thought that "the Almighty would
hesitate before He condemned for ever a man of a marquis' condition."
But are we quite clear on the point that the Eternal Judge will admit
no influences from other sides? The member of so excellent, so useful,
a family, with many traces of the family character about him! The
relative of saints, the companion of the good! A mind so full of
practical energy, of literary grace and skill; so capable of deep and
subtle thought, of generous words, and even deeds; so charming, so
entertaining, so informing; the man of culture, the man of
genius;--shall none of these things weigh in the balance, and mingle
some benignant favouritism with the question, Has he done the will of
God? Nay, "_there is no favouritism in Gods court_!" No one is
acquitted there for his reputable connexions, or for his possession of
personal "talents" (awful word in the light of its first use!), given
him only that he might the better "occupy" for his Lord. These things
have nothing to do with that dread thing, the Law, which has
everything to do with the accusation and the award.
Before we pass to another section of the passage, let us not forget
the grave fact that here, in these opening pages of this great
Treatise on gratuitous Salvation, this Epistle which is about to
unfold to us the divine paradox of the Justification of the Ungodly,
we find this overwhelming emphasis laid upon "_perseverance in good
work_." True, we are not to allow even it to confuse the grand
simplicity of the Gospel, which is to be soon explained. We are not to
let ourselves think, for example, that ver. 7 depicts a man
deliberately aiming through a life of merit at a _quid pro quo_ at
length in heaven; so much glory, honour, and immortality for so living
as it would be sin not to live. St Paul does not write to contradict
the Parable of the Unprofitable Servant (Luke xvii.), any more than to
negative beforehand his own reasoning in the fourth chapter below. The
case he contemplates is one only to be realized where man has cast
himself, without one plea of merit, at the feet of mercy, and then
rises up to a walk and work of willing loyalty, covetous of the "Well
done, good and faithful," at its close, not because he is ambitious
for himself, but because he is devoted to his God, and to His will.
And St Paul knows, and in due time will tell us, that for the loyalty
that serves, as well as for the repentance that first submits, the man
has to thank mercy, and mercy only, first, midst, and last: "It is not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that pitieth"
(ix. 16). But then, none the less, he does lay this emphasis, this
indescribable stress, upon the "perseverance in good work," as the
actual march of the pilgrim who travels heavenward. True to the genius
of Scripture, that is to the mind of its Inspirer in His utterances to
man, he isolates a main truth for the time, and leaves us alone with
it. Justification will come in order. But, that it may do precisely
this, that it may come in order and not out of it, he bids us first
consider right, wrong, judgment, and retribution, as if there were
nothing else in the moral universe. He leads us to the fact of the
permanence of the results of the soul's actions. He warns us that God
is eternally in earnest when He promises and when He threatens; that
He will see to it that time leaves its retributive impress for ever on
eternity.
The whole passage, read by a soul awake to itself, and to the holiness
of the Judge of men, will contribute from its every sentence something
to our conviction, our repentance, our dread of self, our persuasion
that somehow from the judgment we must fly to the Judge. But this is
not to be unfolded yet.
It was, I believe, a precept of John Wesley's to his evangelists, in
unfolding their message, to speak first in general of the love of God
to man; then, with all possible energy, and so as to search conscience
to its depths, to preach the law of holiness; and then, and not till
then, to uplift the glories of the Gospel of pardon, and of life.
Intentionally or not, his directions follow the lines of the Epistle
to the Romans.
But the Apostle has by no means done with the Jew, and his hopes of
heaven by pedigree and by creed. He recurs to the impartiality of
"_that day_," the coming final crisis of human history, ever present
to his soul. He dwells now almost wholly on the impartiality of _its
severity_, still bearing on the Pharisee's dream that somehow the Law
will be his friend, for Abraham's and Moses' sake.
[Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =For all who sinned= (or, in English idiom, =all
who have sinned, all who shall have sinned=) =not law-wise, even so,
not law-wise, shall perish,= shall lose the soul; =and all who in= (or
let us paraphrase, =under=) =law have sinned, by law shall be judged,=
that is to say, practically, =condemned,= found guilty.
[Sidenote: Ver. 13.] =For not law's hearers= are =just in God's
court;= nay, =law's doers shall be justified;= for "law" is never for
a moment satisfied with applause, with approbation; it demands always
and inexorably obedience. [Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =For whenever (the)
Nations,= Nations =not having law, by nature=--as distinct from
express precept--=do the things of the Law,= when they act on the
principles of it, observing in any measure the eternal difference of
right and wrong, =these men,= though =not having law, are to
themselves law;= [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =shewing as they do
(οἵτινες)=--to one another, in moral intercourse--=the work of the
Law,= that which is, as a fact, its _result_ where it is heard, a
sense of the dread claims of right, =written in their hearts,= present
to the intuitions of their nature; =while their conscience,= their
sense of violated right, =bears concurrent witness,= each conscience
"concurring" with all; =and while, between each other,= in the
interchanges of thought and discourse, =their reasonings accuse, or it
may be defend,= their actions; now in conversation, now in treatise or
philosophic dialogue. And all this makes one vast phenomenon, pregnant
with lessons of accountability, and ominous of a judgment coming;
[Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =in the day when God shall judge the secret
things of men,= even the secrets hid beneath the solemn robe of the
formalist, =according to my Gospel,[18] by means of Jesus Christ,= to
whom the Father "hath committed all judgment, as He is the Son of Man"
(John v. 27). So he closes another solemn cadence with the blessed
Name. It has its special weight and fitness here; it was the name
trampled by the Pharisee, yet the name of Him who was to judge him in
the great day.
The main import of the paragraph is plain. It is, to enforce the fact
of the accountability of the Jew and the Greek alike, from the point
of view of Law. The Jew, who is primarily in the Apostle's thought, is
reminded that his possession of _the_ Law, that is to say of the one
_specially revealed_ code not only of ritual but far more of
morals[19], is no recommendatory privilege, but a sacred responsibility.
The Gentile meanwhile is shewn, in passing but with gravest purpose,
to be by no means exempted from accountability simply for his lack of
a revealed preceptive code. He possesses, as man, that moral
consciousness without which the revealed code itself would be futile,
for it would correspond to nothing. Made in the image of God, he has
the mysterious sense which sees, feels, handles moral obligation. He
is aware of the fact of duty. Not living up to what he is thus aware
of, he is guilty.
Implicitly, all through the passage, human failure is taught side by
side with human responsibility. Such a clause as that of ver. 14,
"_when they do by nature the things of the law_," is certainly not to
be pressed, _in such a context as this_, to be an assertion that pagan
morality ever actually satisfies the holy tests of the eternal Judge.
Read in the whole connexion, it only asserts that the pagan acts as a
moral being; that he knows what it is to obey, and to resist, the
sense of duty. This is not to say, what we shall soon hear St Paul so
solemnly deny, that there exists anywhere a man whose correspondence
of life to moral law is such that his "mouth" needs _not_ to "be
stopped," and that he is _not_ to take his place as one of a "world
guilty before God."
Stern, solemn, merciful argument! Now from this side, now from that,
it approaches the conscience of man, made for God and fallen from God.
It strips the veil from his gross iniquities; it lets in the sun of
holiness upon his iniquities of the more religious type; it speaks in
his dull ears the words judgment, day, tribulation, wrath,
bewilderment, perishing. But it does all this that man, convicted, may
ask in earnest what he shall do with conscience and his Judge, and may
discover with joy that his Judge Himself has "found a ransom," and
stands Himself in act to set him free.
[17] Reading γὰρ.
[18] Here, perhaps, for once, the word εὐαγγέλιον is used in an
extended and "improper" sense, to denote the whole message _connected
with_ the Glad Tidings, and so now the warning of judgment to come,
which gives to the Glad Tidings its sacred urgency.
[19] Manifestly "_the_ Law" in this passage means not the ceremonial
law of Israel, but the revealed moral law given to Israel, above all
in the Decalogue. This appears from the language of ver. 15, which
would be meaningless if the reference were to special ordinances of
worship. The Gentiles could not "shew the work of" _that_ kind of "law
written in their hearts"; what they shewed was, as we have explained,
a "work" related to the revealed claims of God and man on the will and
life.