Romans Chapter 2

From The Open Bible Project

2:1 Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things.

• (1) He convicts those who would seem to be exempt from the rest of men (because they reprehend other men’s faults), and says that they are least of all to be excused, for if they were searched well and carefully (as God surely does) they themselves would be found guilty in those things which they reprehend and punish in others: so that in condemning others, they pronounce sentence against themselves.

2:2 We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

• (a) Paul alleges no places of scripture, for he reasons generally against all men: but he brings reasons such that every man is persuaded by them in his mind, so that the devil himself is not able to completely pluck them out.
• (b) Considering and judging things correctly, and not by any outward show.

2:3 Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

2:4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

• (2) A vehement and grievous crying out against those that please themselves because they see more than others do, and yet are in no way better than others are.

2:5 But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;

• (c) While you are giving yourself to pleasures, thinking to increase your goods, you will find God’s wrath.

2:6 who "will pay back to everyone according to their works:"[2]

• (3) The foundation of the former disputation, that both the Jews and Gentiles together have need of righteousness.

2:7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life;

• (d) Glory which follows good works, which he does not lay out before us as though there were any that could attain to salvation by his own strength, but, he lays this condition of salvation before us, which no man can perform, to bring men to Christ, who alone justifies the believers, as he himself concludes; see (Romans 2:21-22).

2:8 but to those who are self-seeking, and don't obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath and indignation,

• (e) By "truth" he means the knowledge which we naturally have.
• (f) God’s indignation against sinners, which will quickly be kindled.

2:9 oppression and anguish, on every soul of man who works evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

2:10 But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

2:11 For there is no partiality with God.

• (g) God does not judge men either by their blood or by their country, either to receive them or to cast them away.

2:12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

• (4) He applies that general accusation against mankind particularly both to the Gentiles and to the Jews.

2:13 For it isn't the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified

• (5) He prevents an objection which might be made by the Jews whom the law does not excuse, but condemn, because it is not the hearing of the law that justifies, but rather the keeping of it.
• (h) Will be pronounced just before God’s judgment seat: which is true indeed if any one could be found that had fulfilled the law: but seeing that Abraham was not justified by the law, but by faith, it follows that no man can be justified by works.

2:14 (for when Gentiles who don't have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves,

• (6) He prevents an objection which might be made by the Gentiles, who even though they do not have the law of Moses, yet they have no reason why they may excuse their wickedness, in that they have something written in their hearts instead of a law, as men do who forbid and punish some things as wicked, and command and commend other things as good.
• (i) Not that they are without any law, but rather the law of the Jews.
• (k) Command honest things, and forbid dishonest.

2:15 in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them)

• (l) This knowledge is a natural knowledge.

2:16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.

• (7) God defers many judgments, which he will nonetheless execute at their convenient time by Jesus Christ, with a most candid examination, not only of words and deeds, but of thoughts also, be they ever so hidden or secret.
• (m) As my doctrine witnesses, which I am appointed to preach.

2:17 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and glory in God,

• (8) He proves by the testimony of David, and the other prophets, that God bestows greatest benefits upon the Jews, in giving them also the law, but that they are the most unthankful and unkind of all men.

2:18 and know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,

• (n) Can test and discern what things swerve from God’s will.

2:19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,

2:20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.

• (o) The way to teach and to form others in the knowledge of the truth.
• (p) As though he said that the Jews under a pretence of an outward serving of God, attributed all to themselves, when in reality they did nothing less than observe the Law.

2:21 You therefore who teach another, don't you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn't steal, do you steal?

2:22 You who say a man shouldn't commit adultery. Do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?

2:23 You who glory in the law, through your disobedience of the law do you dishonor God?

2:24 For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,"[3] just as it is written.

2:25 For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

• (9) He precisely prevents their objection, who set a holiness in circumcision, and the outward observation of the law: so that he shows that the outward circumcision, if it is separated from the inward, does not justify, and also condemns those who are indeed circumcised, of whom it is required that they fulfil that which circumcision signifies, that is to say, cleanness of the heart and the whole life according to the commandment of the law, so that if there is a man uncircumcised according to the flesh, who is circumcised in heart, he is far better and to be more regarded than any Jew that is circumcised according to the flesh only.

2:26 If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won't his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision?

• (q) This is the figure of speech metonymy, and means "uncircumcised".
• (r) The state and condition of the uncircumcised.

2:27 Won't the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?

• (s) He who is uncircumcised by nature and race.
• (t) Paul often contrasts the letter against the Spirit: but in this place, the circumcision which is according to the letter is the cutting off of the foreskin, but the circumcision of the Spirit is the circumcision of the heart, that is to say, the spiritual result of the ceremony is true holiness and righteousness, by which the people of God are known from profane and heathen men.

2:28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;

• (u) By the outward ceremony only.

2:29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.

• (x) Whose power is inward, and in the heart.