Principles of Judgment--Part 4

by

John MacArthur

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Romans 2:11-13      Tape:  GC 45-20

 

Let's look at the Word of God tonight together in Romans chapter 2. We want to continue our examination of the principles of judgment as they appear in the first sixteen verses of this chapter.

Having just been in a court of law on Friday, this particular chapter has gained a new vividness in my mind as I watched the system that we call justice working out its path. I am reminded that this has been something that men have dealt with throughout the history of human kind, seeking to do what is right, seeking to do what is just and always finding it extremely difficult. The traditional view of justice is the picture of the blindfolded statue with the scales in hand, trying to weight out equity without being influenced by the appearance of anyone. This idea that justice is blind simply means that justice does not want to take into account anyone's looks or anyone's position in life or anything other than the truth itself.

Years ago in ancient Greece and Rome, justice was pictured not only with eyes that were blindfolded but with no hands so that justice could not see and justice could not receive. It could not choose on the basis of appearance and it could take no bribes. It could not be bought.

Justice is a high goal and justice is an allusive thing. And in our society we know well about injustice. I heard this week about a man who just finished serving 17 years for a crime he did not commit. They let him go and started the punishment of the real criminal. We work hard at the problem of justice and sometimes there is an infinite price to pay.

There's an ancient story of a man who in spite of all of the passions of a father had to pass the death sentence on his own two sons for he was the leader of his country and his sons had conspired to overthrow the government. According to the historian, the youth stood before the man who was named Brutus the Elder and they pleaded and they wept and they hoped their tears would be the most powerful defense with a loving father. The men who sat behind the ruler whispered..."What will he do? These are his children." He said, "To you the executioners I deliver my sons."

And the historian wrote, "In this sentence he persisted in exorable notwithstanding the weeping intercession of the multitude and the cries of the young men calling upon their father by the most endearing names. The executioner ceased them, stripped them naked, bound their hands behind them, beat them with rods and then struck off their heads. The inexorable Brutus looking on the bloody spectacle with unaltered countenance. Thus the father was lost in the judge."

That may be a good picture of how it will be some day with God who offers Himself as a loving father, but some day the father will be lost in the judge. And God's justice is even more inexorable. God always does what is just.

In Leviticus 19:15, God indicts the people in anticipation as it were of their sins of injustice which will become a part of their life. He says you shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. You shall have just balances, just weights and a just ephah, ephah was a measure of grain. And a just hin, another form of measure. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

He demands of them justice. And as I said, it become for them an indictment because they proceeded to be so unjust. In Deuteronomy 16 and verses 19 and 20 it says, "You shall not distort justice, you shall not be partial. I and you shall take not a bribe for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice and only justice you shall pursue that you may live and possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you."

In Psalm 82 verse 2 it says, "How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?" And there we see that they began to proceed directly along the path that was forbidden. And the Proverbs tell us in chapter 17 verse 15, "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord." In Amos the prophet in chapter 5 says, "Therefore because you impose heavy rent on the poor and exact a tribute of grain from them, though you have built houses of well-hewn stone, yet you will not live in them, you have planted pleasant vineyards yet you will not drink their wine for I know your transgressions are many and your sins are great. You who distress the righteous and accept bribes and turn aside the poor in the gate."

Prophet Habakkuk likewise said in chapter 1 verse 4, "The law is ignored and justice is never upheld for the wicked surround the righteous therefore justice comes out perverted." God said be just. The people proceeded to be unjust and God proceeded to chasten them.

Now the reason God hates injustice is because it is such a deviation from His own character. God is absolutely just. He will judge rightly without favoritism. And some day those who would think themselves to be sons will find that the father is lost in the judge..for He will be just no matter who you are.

Now this is the theme of our text. And I want us to look at verse 11 and that keys the section down through verse 16 that we will examine tonight. "For there is no respect of persons with God."

Now what that verse is saying is that God is righteously impartial. He is not looking at the person on the outside, He is looking at the conduct to see whether it represents righteousness or unrighteousness. The issue is not whether a person is poor or rich, whether a person is a Jew or Gentile, whether a person is a church member or not, a man or a woman, educated or uneducated, wise or foolish. He's looking at the works. God's sentence will be strictly on the basis of character and God will be impartial and cannot be bribed. He judges without respect of persons.

Now that phrase, "there is no respect of persons with God," is a most interesting phrase. Respect of persons is basically one word. And the one word is a combination of the word face, your face and the word to receive. And with God He doesn't receive your face, is what it really says. God is not in the business of receiving anybody's face which means 1 Samuel 16:7, "God does not judge on the basis of an outward appearance but on the basis of the heart." God is not going to judge on the basis of the surface. God doesn't receive face. And the word, of course, later became the word for partiality. God is not partial. Partiality is the fault of one who gives judgment with respect to the outward circumstances and not the inward merit. To have respect of a person's appearance is to rule in their favor for what you see on the surface, rather than what you know to be true in the heart. And only the vice of an evil judge would so violate justice. God cannot, God will not do that.

In fact, I believe this is illustrated again and again by the reality that we that saw this morning, that throughout history it has been the quote/unquote wise and prudent, the erudite, the up and inners, if you will, the supposedly religious and God-fearing whom God has not received because they thought they could come on their own terms. And on the other hand, it has been the poor and the naked and the lame and the hauled(?) and the lepers and the blind and the destitute who have come because they were in desperation knowing they had no resource at all. But they were received because God doesn't look on the face.

The Old Testament gives this same principle again and again and I don't want to take all the time it would take to develop the total concept throughout the Word of God but I think enough to give you a hint. I would say that the most elevated and exalted creature that God ever made was Lucifer, the son of the morning who fell and is known as the devil or Satan. And if you were to go back into the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, you would read this, "O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou cut down to the ground who didst weaken the nations for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High, yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the sides of the pit. And they that see thee shall narrowly look on thee and consider thee saying, Is this the one who made the earth to tremble who did shake kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who opened not the house of his prisoners? Is this the one who had so much power and so much beauty and so much wonder?" If there was ever one that God might have dismissed because he was so exalted, it would have been that one but God cast him rapidly out of His heaven...for He has no respect of persons, not even the supreme personage of all of His creation. And if He has no respect against...for him, rather, when he sins against God, He will have no respect of persons toward someone lesser than that being.

This principle is repeated throughout the New Testament. And I just would suggest a few verses so that you'll be aware of this. In Acts 10:34, Peter opens his mouth and says, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." That's Peter in Acts. Paul in Galatians says essentially the same thing in chapter 2 verse 6, "God accepteth no man's person." In chapter 6 of Galatians and verse 7, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Whoever he is is the implication. "He that sows to the flesh shall have the flesh reap corruption. He that sows to the spirit shall have the spirit reap everlasting life." It depends on what you do and God will not pass by judgment because of who you are.

In Ephesians 6:9, "You masters do the same things unto your servants forbearing threatening knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with Him." The same phrase is used in Colossians 3:25 and again in 1 Peter 1:17.

Now that is the thesis of what I want you to understand tonight in Romans chapter 2 so you can look at it again. A phrase repeated at least five, six times in the New Testament is the key to our passage. God is no respecter of persons, whoever you are He promises to judge. In the 16 verses that begin the second chapter are the principles by which God will judge.

Now we've said that in verse 1 is the principle of knowledge. God will judge men who give evidence of knowing His law. The second principle in verses 2 and 3 is the principle of truth. God will judge according to the truth. You cannot hide the truth from God. Thirdly in verses 4 and 5, God will judge according to real guilt, for men are guilty more than anything else of abusing the mercy and the grace and the goodness and the forbearance and the long suffering of God. Then in verses 6 through 10 we learn that God is going to judge men based upon their deeds. He will look at their deeds and by their deeds determine whether in fact they have a right to enter into eternal life or not.

In John 5 verse 28 Jesus said, "Marvel not at this for the hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and shall come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life. And they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Our Lord in John 5:28 and 29 is saying exactly what Paul says in verses 6 to 10, that judgment will be made on the basis of an objective criterion of good works.

Now as we've been pointing out to you, good works are not the cause of salvation. It is a gift of God, not of works. But good works are the consequence of salvation for in the same passage it says "not of works lest any man should boast," the next verse says, "We were created unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." So that our works then can become an objective criterion by which God will judge.

There will also be a subjective criterion and that is faith. God knows who is a believer because the names are written in the book of life. Those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ will be judged and they will be granted eternal life. That's the subjective criterion because they have put their faith in Christ. The objective is that their works will in fact support the subjective and make manifests the reality of that saving faith.

God judges on the basis of deeds, that is a principle in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Verse 6, "He will render to every man according to his deeds." Now you can't argue with that, that's right there in the Bible. He will judge men on the basis of their deeds. "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give, implied, eternal life. To them who are contentious or rebellious really and will not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, He will give, implied, indignation and wrath."

Then he comes back and says it over again, only reverses the order. "Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, Jew first and also Greek. But glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, Jew first and also to the Greek."

In other words, God is going to render, it means to pay what you owe. God is going to pay the proper wages according to the deeds of our life. Now we showed you last time that God can judge every person on the basis of his deeds. How? Because you can always judge an unbeliever because his deeds are evil. And you can always judge a believer because his deeds are righteous. It's that simple. The difference is that all of an unbeliever's deeds, in effect, are unrighteous, but not all of a believer's deeds are unrighteous. Did you get that? In other words, it isn't that an unbeliever always sins and a believer always does righteousness, it is that an unbeliever never does righteousness but a believer sometimes does righteousness and manifests the life of God in his soul.

So, the righteous deeds that flow from a redeemed life are manifest by a person who seeks glory and honor and incorruption, or immortality. In other words, he has a heavenward view. A truly regenerated person, a redeemed person, is going to show it in his heavenward view. He is going to seek glory. He is going to seek heavenly honor. He is going to seek the incorruptible an the immortal. He has a godward perspective. But the other look only at rebelling against God, not obeying the truth and obeying unrighteousness. And so by the deeds of both they are obviously made manifest.

Now at this point, you've got to get this, at this point this particular standard is devastating because nobody on his own can seek glory and honor and immortality. Man doesn't have the capacity for that. And so in a sense this becomes a total indictment. God says here's the standard, if you want eternal life, if you want glory and honor and peace, then you have to show works in your life that seek glory and honor and incorruption...not works that rebel against God. You have to be a heaven seeker. You have to be a Kingdom seeker. You have to pursue true righteousness.

You say, "Well, does anybody do that on their own?" No. No, nobody does that and, you see, that's the whole point here. Everybody here in chapter 2 is still under condemnation, they're still under judgment because nobody does that on his own. You will be judged on your deeds, my friend, and your deeds don't cut it.

You say, "Well, what about my best deeds?" All your righteousnesses are as...what?...filthy rags. I mean, there is a thing you could call relative human good. I mean, it's better to be kind to people than to be unkind to them. And there's a certain good in that. But that is not true righteousness that pleases God. The reason is because the motive isn't right, see. In other words, you could do good but you could have a wrong motive. And any other motive than glorifying God is a wrong motive. Maybe you did good to salve your conscience, maybe you did good because you were pressured by your peers to do good. Maybe you did good because you wanted to relieve some guilt or anxiety. Maybe you did good because you wanted to feel good about yourself. Maybe you did good for a myriad of reasons and they might even be nice reasons. But if you didn't do good specifically to glorify the God of heaven, then you fell short of the standard of true righteousness. And the man in the natural world doesn't do good for that reason because he doesn't know that perspective, you see. Now we'll come back to that in a little while.

And so, men will be judged on their deeds. And here in this chapter they're condemned. I mean, he's going to get us all before he gets into chapter 3 verse 20 and then he's going to sum it up and say, "Every mouth is stopped." We all manifest the knowledge because we condemn others. We will all be judged on the truth and the truth is we are sinners, no matter what kind of mask we wear. And we have all been guilty of trading on the grace of God and none of us can produce the kind of deeds that ought to be produced. We're all really in the same boat. None of us in the natural really seeks after God.

In 3:10 of Romans, "There is none righteous, no not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." Man on his own doesn't do that. And so he's condemned in this text because he doesn't produce these kinds of works.

Now we said last time, also, that these kind of works can be produced and a life can turn heavenward and godward and a life can seek after glory and honor and immortality, but that will occur only when Christ comes to dwell in that life, right? And then that life will manifest a heavenward seeking. And I said to you last time, and it's something that I've taught for years and you must understand it, that where the life does not seek after those things, there is no reason to believe that salvation has occurred because they are the manifestation of the reality of salvation.

Now listen to this statement very carefully. Justification by faith alone applies to the time of entrance into salvation, but not to the time of judgment. We are saved by faith alone but we will be judged, says Romans, by our works. You say, "What do you mean by that?" Follow, when God in free grace receives the sinner at the time of his conversion, he asks nothing but that we believe and submit to Him, right? That's it. He asks nothing more. But from that moment on the believer enters into a responsibility of obedience and then the mark of that believer becomes the obedient pattern of his life, we call it the fruit of grace. Faith doesn't mean that now I've received Jesus I can do whatever I want. On the contrary. True faith always results in holy living. Now there are lapses, there are times when we fail. But there has to be some evidence there, some evidence of a seeking after God and glory, honor and incorruption because that's the standard by which we'll be judged.

I can illustrate this to you in James chapter 2 verse 9. And this is such a clear passage and yet people have been so confused by it...needlessly. In James 2:9 it says, "If you respect of persons, you commit sin," we're back to that same attitude that we're seeing in Romans 2, "You commit sin and are convicted of the laws a transgressor. Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point is guilty of all." So if we broke one law, we've broken it all. And he goes on to give some illustrations.

Verse 14, "What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he has faith and has no works, can faith save him?" That's an important question, isn't it? Can faith save him? Well, what if he has no works. Is faith enough to save him? "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say to them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled. Not withstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?" In other words, if somebody comes across your path and they have nothing and you say, "Well, I sure wish you well." Does that prove your faith? Hardly. "Faith if it hath not works is...what?...dead being alone, and there's no saving faith that is alone." That's what he's saying. "Yes, a man may say thou hast faith and I have works, show me thy faith without thy works and I'll show thee my faith by my works." And that, of course, is the true faith. The only way to demonstrate true faith is by works. I hear people say this all the time, "Well, you know, I know they're not living it and I've never seen the evidence but I remember the day they put their faith in the Lord." You know what that was? That wasn't saving faith because faith without the product is dead...not living faith, dead faith.

Verse 20 sums it up, "Faith without works is dead." Then it goes on to say that "Abraham our father was justified by works." You say, "Oh my word, heresy." Martin Luther choked on the epistle of James, he called it "a very strawy epistle," he didn't like it very well cause he didn't understand that as he should have. Abraham was justified not by God but he was justified by those about who said he truly is a righteous man, it is evident in his works that God has changed his life. By works his faith was made perfect, it says in verse 22.

Sums it up, well you can read every verse clear to 26, but 26 is a good sum. "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." The point is that men are going to be judged by their works. And the only way that you or anyone else on the face of the earth could ever produce one single righteous work would be when your spirit was energized by the indwelling presence of God through salvation. And then when salvation truly occurs, you will produce the works which become the attestation to the legitimacy of your faith. So God will judge by works.

And when it comes to God's judgment we come into the next element of principles of judgment and that is God will judge with impartiality, verses 11 through 15. Verse 11 sets the section in motion, it says, "There is no respect of persons with God." When God goes about judging men by knowledge, by truth, by guilt and by deeds, He will do so absolutely without favoring anyone, based only on the subjective reality of their faith in Christ and the objective confirmation of that in their works.

Now someone might immediately say, "How could God judge everybody the same?" Well, what it says is that God will not be unfair, it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody will get the same reward or the same punishment. We know there are degrees of reward. We know that when we face the Lord Jesus Christ at the Bema Seat, some of our works will be gold, silver, precious stones, some will be wood, hay and stubble. And some of us will have a lot of wood, hay and stubble and very little gold, silver, precious stones, and some will have very little wood, hay and stubble and a lot of gold and silver and precious stones. There are crowns promised to believers who are faithful in the Scripture and some of us will have some of them and some of us will have all of them. And so we know there are degrees by which God will reward. And the same is true in punishment.

God is fair. He doesn't favor people, nor does He hold people responsible when they didn't know as much as someone else knew who is more responsible. So bound up in the statement "there is no respect of persons with God" is the fact that He doesn't favor certain people, and secondly, that He deals fairly with everyone according to the light or the knowledge they have had. And someone is going to say, "Well, does God judge everybody the same?" No...no, and that's what we find beginning in verse 12, God without respect of persons will judge. Verse 12, now watch this amazing verse, "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law."

Now think with me, the fact is there's no respect of persons with God. If you don't have the law, you'll be judged as one who didn't have the law. If you have the law, you'll be judged as one who had the law. God will be utterly absolutely fair. And the basic idea of the verse is that in the final eternal judgment, God will show His equity and God will show His impartiality by dealing with men according to the light they possess. Did you get that? If they did not possess the law, they'll not be judged as those who possess the law. If they possess the law, they'll be judged as those who possess the law, that's the basic principle. He has just said that men will be judged according to their deeds, Jew or Gentile, and here he really is saying much the same. The Jew has the law, the Gentile does not have the law. If a man has the law, he'll be judged on that basis. If he doesn't, he'll be judged on that basis.

Now notice in verse 12 then you have two distinct groups of people. First of all, "As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law." Take the little phrase "without law." That's group one. They don't have the law, a nomos, without law, that's what it means. They don't have the law. What law? The law of God. The Mosaic law. This is a term to designate Gentiles who do not have the written Scripture. They had no prophets, they had no biblical writers, they did not have the written revelation of God, the law of God. He doesn't mean they're without any law, he doesn't mean they have no sense of what is right and wrong, he'll get to that in verses 14 and 15, of course they have some. They have a law written in their hearts, he says that. But they are without THE law in the sense of the Mosaic law. They are without special revelation, Moses, the Scripture, the prophets.

And let's face it, you'd have to agree with me, wouldn't you, that throughout history most people who have lived in the earth have been in that category, right? I mean, just statistically speaking, most people that come into the world don't ever hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. In modern times with development of media and the translation work that is wonderfully being done today, we're really getting the Word out. But most people who have lived on the face of the earth have not had the law of God, they have not had the written Scripture.

What about them? What about them? Will God judge them when they never had the law? Yes, but He'll judge them as those who never had the law. "Well, if they never heard the gospel, will He hold them responsible?" Well, let's find out. Back to verse 12. It says the people without the law shall also...what's the next word?...perish...perish, apollumi, basically means to destroy, to put to death. It is used of eternal death in Matthew 10:28, Luke 4:34. It does not mean annihilation, even though it can be translated to destroy, annihilation is not what it means. It doesn't mean they go into an unconscious existence. Basically the best way to understand that is when something is apollumi, it is ruined so that it no longer can serve its intended purpose. And all people were created for the glory of God and for fellowship with Him and when they do not come to God, they are then apollumi, they are ruined as to that purpose and intention.

Our Lord, for example, uses the word apollumi when men put new wine in old wineskins and the wineskins apollumi, they were ruined by the new wine. They perished, they ceased to have any function or usefulness. The noun form is used by the disciples when they saw the woman anointing the feet of Jesus and putting all that precious ointment and they asked, "Why this waste?" And that is the noun form of apollumi, why are you just letting the stuff perish or be rendered useless? It didn't go out of existence, it just was used for a useless purpose in their mind. So the word came to mean useless or ruined, put to death, wasted. It does not mean to go out of existence.

This is no better place illustrated than in the book of Revelation. In speaking of the doom of the Antichrist we read this in Revelation 17:8, "The beast that thou sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition." Same word as perish here, a form of apollumi. So the beast is going into perishing, the beast is going into apollumi. A verse or two later it says, "The beast goes into perdition," verse 11, so twice in the seventeenth chapter it says the beast goes to apollumi, the beast goes into perdition or perishing or destruction.

Now if we want to find out what that is, all we have to do is go to chapter 19 and it says, "The beast was cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone," Revelation 19:20. So perishing, apollumi, being destroyed, did not mean that that beast goes out of existence, it meant that he was sent into a living judgment, cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And by the way, in Revelation 20:10 we find he is still there as a conscious being 1,000 years later. And I only point that up because there have been people who say that this is teaching us that the unbelieving people who've never had the law simply go out of existence. That is not what it teaches. They are ruined as to their intended purpose, they are put to death but it is a casting alive into the lake of fire as graphically illustrated by the use of the same term in reference to the beast. So God will condemn those who have never heard and even without the Scripture they will perish.

Their perishing, it says in verse 12, will be without law. What does that mean? It means it will be commensurate with them not having the Scripture, which means that it will not be as severe as it will be for those who had the Scripture, but it is nonetheless perishing. It isn't less than hell, it is hell. It is that those who had the law do not receive hell while the others receive less than hell, it is that they receive a greater hell than the hell the others receive.

Why? Verse 12 again, "For as many as have sinned without law." Even though they didn't have the law of God, they sinned and the wages of sin is...what?...death. People say, "Will those people who never heard perish?" Yes. What does perishing mean? It means the same thing to them that it meant when it was said in Revelation of the beast, they will be cast alive into a lake burning with fire and brimstone. Why? Because they have sinned.

You see, man does sin, even though he doesn't have the written law of God because he has in him a sin principle and because he chooses a life time and a life style of sinfulness. Specially revealed law, Scripture is not the precondition of sin. Men sin without Scripture. They're guilty and they're perishing.

Let me give you an illustration that might help in Luke 12:47. The end of the parable relating to the servants, and all you really need to know is Luke 12:47 and 48, "The servant who knew his lord's will," get that? He knew his lord's will, that would be the one who had the law, in a sense. "And did not prepare himself, neither did according to his will shall be beaten with...what?...many stripes. But he that knew not and did commit things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with...what?...few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

They both get beaten. They both are punished. They both perish but the greater punishment comes to those who knew the most. Now go back to Romans 2. Those who sinned without law shall perish. And their punishment will be a perishing, a damnation, for they have sinned against God. But it will be a lesser judgment than group two. Look at group two in verse 12, "As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law."

What does it mean "as many as have sinned in the law?" This refers to those who received the special revelation, those who had the Word of God, particularly Israel and anyone who is attached to them who knew the truth of God. Those who heard the prophets, those who read the law and the holy writings, those who had the special revelation, it refers to people today who sit in the church, people who know the truth, people who are in a Christian society, or Christian environment, they will be judged according to the greater light and greater privilege and greater liability. Jesus said in Matthew 11, "How much greater will be the punishment of Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum," because in those places Jesus walked and lived and did His miracles. "It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah and for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, then it will be for those cities." Why? Because they knew so much more and the greater perishing will belong to them. They'll be judged by the law. That refers to final judgment. They'll be judged in accord with full knowledge of God's law.

So God is very fair. He's very fair. The hottest hell is reserved for the people who knew the most. That is why, beloved, it is such a fearful thing to be an apostate. It is such a fearful thing to know the truth and constantly turn your back on it. You would be better off eternally if you never knew than to know and turn your back. But God is fair and He will judge those without law as without law, and those with law as with law.

Now immediately at this point Paul knows the Jew's going to ask a question, he's going to say this, "Now wait a minute, Paul, we who have been the guardians of the law, we who have been the agents by which God has revealed the law, we who have written it and rewritten it and preserved it, we should have the higher honor, not the greater condemnation. We who have possessed the law should be protected from God's wrath." And some people today would join and say, "Yeah, I've been going to church all my life, I've been trying to be religious, I bought a Bible, I'm trying to be religious. I mean, how can we be condemned, we've been the religious ones, we've preserved the law." Some are going to say, "I've taught in seminary, I've taught in seminary all my career, I've prepared men to go out and serve in churches..." of course, seminaries that don't believe the Bible and churches that don't either. But we've been religious, we've been connected to Christianity. I mean, it's us, you know, us, the religious folks.

Paul replies in verse 13, "For the...for not the hearers of the law are just before God but the...what?...the doers of the law shall be justified." Now the word for "hearers" is not the usual word. It is not the normal word akouo which is the normal word to hear but it is akroates and it's used specifically of pupils who hear because they're constantly in the educational process. Vincent, I think, is a good translation of it, "Those whose business is hearing," and that's exactly what the Jews did in the synagogues, didn't they? They heard and heard and heard and heard, it was read to them week after week after week after week after week, it was explained to them and they were literally professional hearers. But it is not to the ones who make it their business to do the hearing, it is the one who make it their business to do the doing that justification comes. It is not performance, beloved, it is possession.

That's why James warns us, you see, in the same way. James says, "But be ye doers of the Word and not...what?...hearers only because if you are, you are deceiving your ownselves." What a deceit.

God's law doesn't protect hearers from judgment. No, the more they hear the deeper the judgment. I know some people are going to come to the judgment and they're going to say, "God, if You...I mean, do You have a record of how many hours I listened to MacArthur? That ought to be good for something. And my wife, wherever she is, tapes...I listen to those things all the time she played them. I mean, isn't that good for something? I mean, she even played Christian music and then she bought Bible tapes and some guy read the Bible all the time. And I used to have to sit in the kitchen while they had a Bible study in my living room." Some of you fathers might have to say that about your children, and say, "Well, I mean, I've heard it all. I was there, I was...we all...I did everything I could to make them comfortable and I didn't throw the tapes out, I didn't kick my wife out, I mean, I went to church...isn't that good for something?" Yeah, greater condemnation. See, God's law does not protect. The more you know God's law, the more it intensifies the consequence unless it is obeyed.

And here is a terrible frustration because you can't obey it in your own strength. And so he literally backs them into a corner, you see. I mean, you're constantly hearing but you don't do it. And so there is a judicial verdict against you. But the one who does, verse 13, the doer of the law shall be justified, not the hearer.

So, God requires perfect obedience. God requires a manifestation of righteousness but no one can do that. Thus the law is meant to drive us to a point of desperation where we turn to God for the power to do what we otherwise couldn't do. so the question the Jew might ask is answered. It doesn't do you a bit of good to have it unless you do it, it just intensifies your guilt because only the one who does it is justified. And that's a judicial verdict there.

Are you ready for the second question? Here it comes, now this is the question asked by the Gentile or the pagan or the one who didn't have the law. He's going to say, "Now wait a minute. Now wait a minute. We never had the law. And if we never had the law, how in the world can we be condemned for not obeying it?" Fair question? The Jew says this, we are exempt because of special favor. God says no. The Gentile says, we are exempt because of ignorance. Is that right? What about that pagan? What about that heathen who never saw the law of God, never read the Scripture, never heard the gospel? Can you condemn somebody for not obeying the written word? I mean, after all in Romans 15 it says, "Where no law is there is no transgression." And in Romans 5:13 it says, "For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law." And in Romans 7:7, "What shall we say then, is the law sin? God forbid, nay, I had not known sin but by the law." So if there is no transgression when there's no law and there's no knowledge of sin when there's no law, how can we be responsible when we don't have the written law? And a lot of people ask that question. Does God hold people responsible who never heard the written law of God?

Let's find out the answer. Verse 14, "For when the heathen, or pagan, Gentiles, ethna, who have not the law," that is the written law now, keep that in mind, the written law, they don't have that, "when they do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another."

Now what is he saying? He's saying simply this, you do not have to have the written law to be responsible. For you have a law within you manifest in your behavior, manifest in your conscience, and manifest in your thinking patterns. There are four great reasons why the heathen are lost. Here they come. Reason number one, creation...creation. Go back to chapter 1 and we'll pick up a thought from verse 18. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men." Now you see it is not just the religious men, it is not just the people with the law of God, it is all men, all men, all men. The wrath of God is revealed against all of the ungodliness and all of the unrighteousness of all men...whether they had the written law or not. Why? Because they hold the truth.

How do they hold the truth? Verse 19, "That which may be known about God is manifest in them." How is it manifest in them? Well, God has shown it unto them. Well how did He show it unto them? "For the invisible things of Him from the...what?...creation of the world are clearly seen so they are without excuse." So from chapter 1 we learn the first reason why the heathen are lost, creation. They can look around them and know there's a God. They can look around them and perceive that He is supernatural and that He is more powerful than any being that they know of in their dimension. And so they are responsible because they hold that knowledge.

But now as we come to chapter 2 we find the three remaining reasons why the heathen are lost and why we have to send missionaries to reach them. Verse 14, and the word is conduct. First they're lost because of creation, secondly, because of conduct. "For when the heathen who have not the law do by nature or do naturally the things contained in the law, these though they don't have the law become a law unto themselves." In other words, they don't have an outside law, but they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves and it is manifest in their conduct.

"Now when the heathen do by nature the things contained in the law" indicates that it does occur. When they do it...and it is a common occurrence. Pagans naturally do things that are written in God's law. Did you know that? Without ever reading God's law. Their conduct, listen to this now, their conduct proves they know what is right and wrong. Their conduct proves that there is available within them residing in them the law of God.

Sometimes pagans pay their debts. Is that in the law of God? Yes. They honor their parents. There are many people who do not know Jesus Christ, do not know God, never read the Bible who love their wives. There are many wives who so love their husbands. There are many people who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ who care for their children and there are many children who care for their parents. There are many of them who believe it's wrong to kill. There are many people who've never known Jesus Christ or the message of Christ or the Bible or the meaning of the gospel who would feed the hungry, who would help a man who was sick or a woman who was sick. Pagans will tell the truth, sometimes. They will even seek to do justice. They will struggle for equity. You see, all of these things reveal an internal human code of ethics that is the law unto themselves.

We see it in our human system of justice. We see it in our humanitarianism. And the humanitarianism and the justice around the world even in very obscure and isolated peoples. Sometimes it's warped but in any society you ever see, you will find some of those heathen exercising things which they do naturally that are in direct line with God's law. And they therefore show that that law is in them.

The Stoic said that in the universe there were certain laws operative which a man broke at his own peril. And the Stoics who were utterly pagan philosophers said they are the laws of health, the laws of morality and the laws governing life and living. And the Stoics called all of these laws phusis which means nature. They said men are to live kata phusin, they are to live according to what is natural. The Stoics actually said that these laws were natural to man. You see, man can recognize that there is a right, that there is a code of ethics. The very fact that man has a guilty conscience is because he violates the very code of ethics that's in him. There's a sense of right and wrong. And when men naturally do something that lines up with the law of God and they do it all the time, they show that the law of God is written in them.

The unregenerate world, you see, does do relative human good. They do not do good in terms of spiritual righteousness. They do not do good in terms of good that is based on the right motive because nothing is truly good unless it is done for the glory of God, right? But they do good in a relative human sense and when they do that, they show the law of God at work though unwritten at work in their heart. They will do good in the right manner if not for the right motive.

I think about Cyrus in the Old Testament who did good. He let God's people go. I think about Darius. I think about Artaxerxes. And they are even commended, Ezra chapter 7 commends Artaxerxes, pagans who did good on behalf of God's people. What about the city clerk in Ephesus? A pagan who quieted the rioters. What about Romans of high standing in Acts 23 who protected Paul? And even the barbarians who showed unusual kindness to Paul in building a fire in Acts 28 to warm him.

Yeah, man is totally depraved in the sense that he cannot do anything that is righteously good or that is good toward God or that is good as revealing God. But he can do a man kind of good. But every time he does that he proves that there is a law within him that points to that as good. Are the heathen lost? Yes. Can they claim ignorance? No. First, because of creation. It is around them. And they can perceive within their minds God in that creation and secondly, because of their conduct they prove that there's a law within them.

Now this may shock you. Basically if you look at it simply from the standpoint of general human good, most people are outside the prisons, right? It's the few that are inside. What does this mean? This does not mean that man is basically good, he is depraved. But there is in him a sense of rightness that keeps him from being as bad as he possible could be. And that is the law of God within him.

Now extending the thought, let's look at a third reason why the heathen are lost and that is conscience. And this is part of that same concept in verse 14 but it's in verse 15. They not only reveal the work of the law within them by their conduct when they do naturally the things that are in them, but they also reveal the law of God written in their hearts when their conscience functions in bearing testimony. Now stop there for a minute.

Now we all know what conscience is. The word simply means co-knowledge. And I guess we could say that it means co- knowledge with oneself. The etymology of the word basically comes whether it's in Greek, or Latin or English from the same root, the idea is to know along with. And conscience is sort of that thing in you that knows along with you what's right. It refers to a person's inner sense of right and wrong, the moral consciousness that pronounces judgment on thoughts and attitudes and speech and deeds.

You know, I remember reading about a tribe in Africa that had a very interesting process to determine who was guilty of something. When there was some stealing and it had gone on in the tribe, they would line all of the men up because stealing was normally done by men, and they would go along and they would ask them if they did it. And they would say yes or no. And then they would, after having said it, ask them to stick their tongue out at which time they took a hot knife and placed it on the tongue. If there was saliva on the tongue, the knife would be removed without a problem. If there was no saliva on the tongue, the knife would stick and burn its way through their tongue. And they could always tell who the liar was because he had no saliva.

What makes your saliva dry up when you do something wrong? There's a conscience in you. There's a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong and deals with you when you violate it. It's like when you cheat and you live in this constant state of fear of being found out. That's conscience. Conscience responds to the internal norm and I would say in the Christian, of course, conscience is tremendously intensified because you not only have that basic law within you but you have also the law of Christ from His word added to the normal natural law and the compounding of that even excites the conscience more to respond.

And Paul listened to his conscience several times, he said, my conscience bears witness, didn't he? In other words, he was saying my conscience agrees with me that I'm doing right, that my heart is pure. The Bible also suggests that your conscience can become scarred and scar tissue has no feeling. That's why Paul in Romans tells us, "Do not violate your conscience. Don't violate your conscience." In other words, he's talking about Christian liberty and he says if you...if somebody tells you it's okay to do that but your conscience says don't do that, then don't do it even though it is okay because if you get in the habit of violating your conscience, you're going to scar something that you desperately need to protect you. It's like losing your sense of feeling.

You know, I shared with you some months ago that I read a book about leprosy and they have discovered that leprosy is not what they thought originally. People thought that when you got leprosy your skin just kind of ate itself and eventually your extremities were just disappearing. What they now know is that leprosy creates the absolute deadening of all sense and you wear out your extremities. Because you can't feel anything, you rub your fingers off. Or your rub your nose off because there's no feeling.

That's what happens when conscience is scarred. And so Paul says don't do that. Even the heathen have a conscience. But over a long period of time they can dull that conscience. But I don't think they can always obliterate it. I think it's there telling them what is right and what is wrong. And I don't care if you're in a primitive society or any other one, you show me a person who has committed a crime and they may do everything they can to justify that crime, but they're always looking like this...to see whose coming after them because they know what's right and what's wrong.

Little children are the perfect illustration. Why do you think an ungodly family with an ungodly little kid, the kid does something wrong and he comes back, his mother says, "Did you do it?" What's the first thing he does? He lies. Why? Because he knows what he did was...what?...was wrong. Even though he maybe never did it before. There's a standard, his conscience tells him that.

The heathen are lost because of creation, conduct, conscience. Fourth, the heathen are lost because of contemplation. Here's another indicator of the lostness of the heathen. "Their thoughts are in the process of accusing or excusing one another." In other words, there is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason and to determine what someone does is right or wrong. For example, a person without God, without Christ, without the Bible hears about someone who has murdered a child, what is his reaction? Unless the person is totally at the extremity of vileness he's going to say that's awful. He's going to accuse, we ought to find that person and do something to that person. Why do you think we have a punitive system in our society? Why do you think there are punitive systems in every society? Because men know what is right and wrong. They have the capacity in their minds to accuse or excuse. They know that's all right, we can excuse that, but not this. The heathen do that.

People in our society who are godless heathen people fight against crime, don't they? They...I don't think everybody who is for the death penalty and capital punishment is a Christian, do you? I think there are some people who just think that somebody ought to do something about the crime because it's wrong. I watched a mother who used profanity on the news, I know she wasn't a Christian, and she said that a man had raped her little girl and killed her and she said, "I want that man to give his life for the life of my daughter that he took." Why? Why did she feel that way? Because there is in her the capacity to contemplate right and wrong and to say this is excusable, this is inexcusable.

That's true of the heathen. The sum of it is this, people. Creation, conduct, conscience, contemplation, what they do, how they deal with the good and bad in their own life and how they deal with it in the lives of others indicates that they know the law of God as written in them. Now here is the most important thing I've said yet. The sum of it is this, if they live up to that much light, and they accept that much light, God will reveal to them the full light of Jesus Christ. I believe that with all my heart. You see, that's what it says in Acts 17, "He is not far from us if we would feel after Him." Do you see? If they would just take what they have and accept that. John 7:17, mark it down, "If any man wills to do My Father's will, he shall know of the teaching." If the willing heart is there, he'll know.

We had a living illustration of this in our church in the last week. A man by the name of Augustus Marway(?), some of you came on Wednesday night and heard his testimony. He is proof positive of this and I have his testimony and I'm just going to read a few excerpts from it.

This man lived in a village involved in tribal wars, never put a stitch of clothes on his body till he was 14. In a most aboriginal circumstance in Africa and this is his own testimony.

I resented it whenever strangers passing through the village were invited to our house. At first mother allowed me and my two brothers to eat with the guest, but I made a pig of myself, stuffing my mouth with handfuls of rice and grabbing another handful before I could even swallow what I had. Mother was ashamed of me. She wouldn't let me eat with the guests after that. I would just sit and glare at the visitors, making them feel uncomfortable until they would invite me to the table.

From then on mother made me sit outside the house until the guests had finished eating. I don't know what made me so incorrigible. In fact the whole village asked the question, "What's the matter with that so of Marwey(?)," they would ask and my poor parents were at their wits end.

Even though I love my mother dearly I found myself doing terrible things. I can remember seeing her sitting on a bench outside the house and impulsively picking up a stick to throw at her legs. I missed her and struck a little child, hurting him badly.

At times like that the villagers would join my parents in meting out a punishment. That time they held me down on the ground by my legs and my arms while they poured a bowl of hot pepper soup down my nose. I nearly choked to death and for hours afterward my nose burned.

There's a new one for you, mom and dad. If Campbells only knew. Let me stop in this testimony for a moment. Why did that tribe of aboriginal people who never heard about the true God, who never heard of the gospel, never heard the name Jesus, why did they punish a young boy for throwing a stick and hurting a child? Why? Who told them that was wrong? Why did this young man feel guilty? He told us when he talked to our staff one day, he said, "My heart was broken every day because I loved my mother and I knew she was ashamed of me but I couldn't correct my behavior." Why did he feel that way? Where did he get to feel that guilt? Where did that come from? And why was his mother ashamed of him? Who told her what the standard was?

He goes on:

I couldn't understand myself. After one of those episodes I would go off into the forest and pound my head against a tree crying, "What's wrong with me? I should kill myself." I hated being the white sheep of the family. (All depends on your perspective.)

He says, But one day when I was about twelve years old a boy returned to our village from the coast where he had been visiting his father. (By the way, that was a long, long, long journey by foot.) None of us younger ones had ever seen the ocean. So we crowded around him to hear all about it. It was as though he had been to the moon and back. Enjoying the acclaim he kept us spellbound with his experiences as he recounted the strange things he saw. Among other things he told us about how some people met together in a house on Sundays and they sang and stayed a long time.

He couldn't figure out what they were doing. And finally his curiosity got the better of him so he asked one of the villagers, "What do you do in there for such a long time?" They told him they were praying to God, the God who created everything and they said they believed He heard their prayers.

I had never heard anything like this. A God who hears your prayers? It excited me. And I wanted to pray to God, too. I asked the boy to meet me on Sunday since that's the day they met in that house and we would go someplace outside the village and he could tell me how to pray. But he wasn't interested. Disappointed I decided the next Sunday to try it by myself.

I went to a hut that my cousin was still building and with no one around I tried to pray for the first time. I had never heard anyone pray. But I decided I would just talk to this God like He was my father. I can't explain what happened but it was an exciting experience. I wanted to know more about this God but there was no one in our village who knew anything about Him. So for two years I kept praying by myself on Sundays and hoping that some day some one would come along who could tell me about Him.

You see? Now he lived up to the light he had, didn't he? He followed that light.

About this time the government started building a motor road to prepare for the new invention called the automobile. And along with many of my relatives, we spent two weeks a month for the next two years building the road under terrible working conditions. Then I went back to Sidor(?) where I had been born to stay with my cousin. When I reached Sidor I made the most wonderful discovery of my entire life, for in Sidor there was a house where people met to pray to the God who created the world.

How excited I was. I could hardly wait for Sunday. All night I lay on my mat waiting for that bell that my cousin said would ring and call us to that house. That morning I sat in the back. I listened to a man tell about God for the first time in my life. I found He was far more wonderful than I had ever imagined. The preacher said that God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son named Jesus to take away my sins. I wondered if He knew how terrible I was. I wonder if He knew the awful things I had done back in my village. But the preacher said no matter what I had done, God would forgive me and make my heart clean.

Listen to this next statement.

I knew it was all true.

How did he know that? How did he know that was true? You say, "Well, he went to the counseling room. He gave him a sheet on apologetics." How did he know that was true? He was following a light God had given him and that was the next logical step and his heart was a prepared heart.

Hadn't this God heard my prayers when I talked to Him and asked Him to help me? Hadn't He sent me here to Sidor when I didn't even know He had one of His houses here? I gave my heart to God that morning and it was nice to know He had a Son, too. He was really a father, just like I had been praying to.

You know what happened to that man? That man became the most significant man in the nation of Liberia in our day in founding and building churches.

Do you get the picture? You see, the very...listen to this..the very fact that that could occur proves the heathen have the knowledge if they'll live up to it. God will be fair, no favorites but each is responsible for the light he has.

Finally, there's a sixth principle of judgment, I'm just going to mention. God judges by knowledge, by truth, by guilt, by deeds, by impartiality and sixthly, by motives. There's another dimension and these all interface and overlap. There not as distinct as I've made them in the outline but they are elements of the act of judgment. God will judge on the basis not only of what a man's deeds are but what his reasons were. Because you can falsify the deed but you can't falsify the motive, right? And so verse 16 says, "In the day when God shall judge the...what?...secrets of men." Judgement, you see, will finally reach down into the secret place of motives...of motives.

In 1 Chronicles 28:9 it says, "And thou Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve Him with a perfect heart." Why? "For the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts." Solomon, my son, serve God from the heart because God knows the heart. The Psalmist said, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me, Thou understandeth my thought afar off." In that marvelous 139 Psalm, "Thou knowest my down sitting and mine up rising, there is not a word in my tongue but, Lord, Thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid Thine hand on me. Wither shall I go from Thy spirit, wither shall I flee from Thy presence. If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be as light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to Thee."

In other words, there's no where I can go to escape. You know me deep inside. Jeremiah 17:10 puts it this way, "I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind even to give to each according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds." Yes, God judges deeds. Yes He judges ways. But He judges the motive behind them as well. Jesus said three times in Matthew 6, "The Father who sees in secret will reward you openly." Our inmost secrets may be hidden from human judgment, they are not hidden from God. And we will be judged for our motives. You either do what you do for the glory of God or you do it for the glory of man. And it all comes to this, people, it will all be determined, verse 16, in the day...the day? What day? The day when God shall judge. What day is that? The day when He judges by Jesus Christ, the final day, the ultimate day, the Great White Throne when all judgment is committed unto Christ. In that glorious climactic culminating day when the Lord Jesus Christ judges, all these criteria will be put to use.

And may I close with a look back at verse 5? If your sin hasn't been dealt with before that day in the blood of Christ, if you haven't confessed Jesus as Lord and accepted His sacrifice on your behalf and His atonement and His payment for your sin, then you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. There's going to be a pile that will damn your soul and don't think...it says at the end of verse 3...that thou shalt escape the judgment of God. Let's bow in prayer.

Father, we know that some day the light of divine judgment will throw its beams to illuminate the remotest universe. We know that at that point souls will face the reality of judgment, they will walk, as it were, down a hall of mirrors where every act of their earthly life on all sides is seen and reseen and they'll be judged. Father, we thank You that in Jesus Christ we never need to face that day because there is therefore no judgment, no condemning judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus. May it be, Lord, that no one in this place is outside of Christ waiting for the explosion of the wrath of God. We know You'll judge, we shall not escape but we know that You've already judged Jesus Christ for the sins of those who put their faith in Him. That is our prayer that those who have not done that will do it even tonight.

© 1997 Grace to You

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur's Collection" by:

Tony Capoccia
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