Romans 2:1-11

“What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander”

Romans 2:1-11 (Message #5)

February 14, 2016 (Sligo, Ireland)

INTRODUCTION:

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” This is an old adage in America. I’ve heard it all my life. It means that what is fair for one is fair for the other. My parents were always very playful with each other. My dad would sometimes come up behind my mum and tickle or poke her. Then she would respond by going after him with her long fingernails, tickling him in the ribs until he would holler, give up, and run away. Many times I have heard her utter these very words: “What is good for the goose is good for the gander!” meaning that he was getting paid back with the same coin that he was paying out. Fair is fair, after all!

TRANSITION:

            Today we are continuing in our study of the Book of Romans. Over the last two Sundays we have looked at Romans 1:18-32 in which Paul paints a grim and terrible picture, explaining why the heathen, Gentile world is under the sentence of God’s judgment awaiting the outpouring of His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. In verse 18 we see Paul’s proposition of man’s universal guilt before God, which he proceeds to support with specific examples in the verses that follow. He explains that God has given sufficient clear revelation of Himself in the created world around us to expect men to respond in worship and thanksgiving. However, rather than honor, worship, and serve the Lord, the Living God, men choose to worship idols of their own making. There is evidence of this truth wherever we look. For this reason, the Bible says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and deserve to be eternally separated from Him.

            This message is one to which Paul’s Jewish friends and relatives would have shouted, “AMEN!” They would have thoroughly agreed with every word here concerning the condemnation of the Gentiles because they believed that God would someday blast the heathen out of existence for their sins, and frankly, they couldn’t wait to see it happen! They remind me of how kids are sometimes. Did you ever have the experience of watching a brother or sister get paddled? You peeked around the door not wanting to miss anything, getting a kind of sadistic pleasure watching that obnoxious little rat finally get what he/she had coming. This is the same kind of smug, self-righteous attitude the Jews had toward the punishment of the Gentiles.

            But the Jews never for a moment dreamed that they were under the same condemnation. They thought that they occupied a privileged position in the sight of God. They said to themselves, “God might be the Judge of the heathen, but He is the Special Protector of the Jews.” Many Jews believed that their membership in the Jewish race gave them a special “in” with God, regardless of their sinfulness. They believed that Gentiles, meaning anyone who is not a Jew, are fully deserving of God’s judgement and wrath, while the Jews, being God’s chosen covenant people and the “apple of His eye” will receive a much more lenient treatment in the day of reckoning.

            Paul’s purpose then, in today’s passage, is to explain the principles of God’s judgement and to point out forcibly to the Jews that the Jew is just as much a sinner as the Gentile is, and that when he is condemning the Gentile, he is simultaneously condemning himself. Paul explains the fact that even being a pure-blood Jew will certainly not save him from judgement, and that he will be judged, not on his racial heritage, but by the kind of life he himself lived.

Let’s look then at Romans 2:1-11. “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practise the very same things. ² We know that the judgement of God rightly falls on those who practise such things. ³ Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practise such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgement of God? ⁴ Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? ⁵ But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgement will be revealed. ⁶ He will render to each one according to his works: ⁷ to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, He will give eternal life; ⁸ but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. ⁹ There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, ¹⁰ but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. ¹¹ For God shows no partiality.”

MAIN BODY:

Verse 1: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practise the very same things.”

• While Paul does not specifically mention the Jews by name until verse 9, the whole context makes it clear that he was addressing self-righteous Jewish people who looked down their noses at Gentile sinners but were, in reality, just as guilty themselves.
• Three times in this verse Paul uses the Greek work krino, which means to pass unfavorable judgement by criticizing or finding fault. The man who is inexcusable is the one who has great power of criticism but no self-discipline to do what is right.
• ”For in [the act of] passing judgement on another you condemn yourself” Preaching without practicing results in self-judgement and condemnation. There is an old Brazilian saying that goes, “O peixe morre pela boca!” Translated it means, “The fish dies by its mouth!” This is what the Word says, too. We need to be slow to speak of other people’s sins, recognizing that we have plenty of our own that we need to deal with.
• “…because you, the judge, practise the very same things.” If the judge is just as guilty as the accused then he has no moral high ground from which to pronounce sentence. This is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Verse 2: “We know that the judgement of God rightly falls on those who practise such things.”    

• In verses 2 and 3 we see the first two of Paul’s 7 Important Principles of God’s Judgement. Today we will look at 5 of these Principles, and next Sunday we will examine numbers 6 and 7.
• The FIRST PRINCIPLE of God’s Judgement is that mere knowledge of God’s Law does not justify one before God. Notice Paul’s words: “We know…” The Jews knew the Law and assumed that this knowledge was enough to make God happy. There are lots of people today who know what the Bible teaches. They just don’t practise it! In James 1:22 we learn that those who are merely hearers of the Word but not doers are deluding themselves. In fact, Hell will be populated by people who knew the truth and could even quote it from the Bible, but they were disobedient to the truth and chose to rebel.
• The SECOND PRINCIPLE of God’s Judgement we find in this verse is that God’s judgement is always according to truth, not bias. God’s judgement is always righteous and based on reality. Paul literally says: “God’s judgement is according to truth against those who practise such things.” Man’s judgement is invariably selfish and therefore twisted by personal motivations.
• Illustration: In assaying gold the test considers only the metal in question. It matters not from where it came, whose it is, but only what it is. God’s judgement is apart from birth, race, social status, wealth, or religion but is based on deeds and His knowledge of what we are like on the inside.

Verse 3: “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practise such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgement of God?”    

• Notice, “Do you suppose?” in this verse, and “Do you presume?” in verse 4. Obviously a major change in thinking is needed here. Man’s ideas about right and wrong don’t cut any ice with God. You can have all kinds of religious ideas and sincerely believe they are right but if they don’t coincide with the revealed truth of the Bible then you are just sincerely wrong and will pay the eternal price of doing it your way. Proverbs 16:25 tells us, “There is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.” 

Verse 4: “Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”   

• Here we see encounter the THIRD PRINCIPLE of God’s Judgement: namely, God’s kindness should never be misinterpreted as permissiveness. The Jews were trading on the mercy of God, undervaluing His kindness, forbearance, and patience towards them. The Greek word, kataphroneo, here translated as “presume on” is in some versions translated “despise.” To despise something does not necessarily mean to hate it, but rather, to think little of it, to undervalue it, to view it with disdain. This is the same Greek word we encounter in I Timothy 4:12 where Paul tells young Timothy, “Let no man despise thy youth…” What he is saying is to let no one underrate you or think little of you just because you are young.
• People tend to underrate “the riches” of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience. Peter deals with this fact in II Peter 3:9-10, “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. But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” 
• Notice that God is rich in…

1.      Kindness = crestos [used here] vs agathos; i.e. inner goodness vs kind acts. Kindness is one of the fundamental attributes of God, part of His essence.

2.      Forbearance = toleration, also related to the Greek word for  “truce” which has a time-frame, a window of opportunity.

3.      Patience = Greek macrothumia, literally “long-wrath, or long-tempered.” God has a long, slow fuse.

• These three are intended by God to lead men to “repentance,” an 180^o about-face in our attitude toward our sin and toward Him.

Verse 5: “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the Day of Wrath when God's righteous judgement will be revealed.”    

• Just as in the case of the self-justifying moralists of Paul’s day, an unrepentant heart characterized by stubbornness against turning to Christ will earn you your fair share of God’s wrath on that day when His righteous judgements are finally poured out. That day will certainly happen, and apart from Christ’s righteousness being put to our account through His redemptive work on the cross, no man, not even the most moral and religious, will have a leg to stand on before God! Those who reject the Father’s mercy freely offered through the shed blood of Christ will surely taste His wrath!   

Verse 6: “He will render to each one according to his works:”     

• Here Paul quotes from Psalm 62: 12 and in so doing gives us a FOURTH PRINCIPLE of God’s Judgement; namely, that God’s Judgement will be according to men’s deeds rather than their professions of faith and holiness. This does not mean that Paul has suddenly started preaching a doctrine of salvation by works. He is simple reminding us that a genuine change of heart and attitude toward God, evidenced by sincere repentance and receiving Christ as Lord and Saviour, will always result in a changed life. You may be able to trick people by swearing up and down that you are a Christian but God sees your heart and knows the truth about you. We can’t fool Him about anything.

In the next four verses of our text, the Holy Spirit prompts Paul to use a Hebrew literary technique to emphasize the truth He wants us to grasp. In each of the four verses you will notice the same three elements: Character, Pursuit, and Award. The order may change but the elements are still there.

Verse 7: “…to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, He will give eternal life;” [Stated positively]      

• …to those who by patience in well-doing  = Character (patiently seek to do good)
• …seek for glory and honour and immortality = Pursuit (seek [God’s] glory and honour, and look forward to eternity with Him) 
• …He will give eternal life = Award (God will give them eternal life) 

Verse 8: “…but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.” [Stated negatively]   

• …but for those who are self-seeking = Character (self-seeking rather than God-seeking) 
• …do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, = Pursuit (do not seek after the truth but run after unrighteousness) 
• …there will be wrath and fury. = Award (they will inherit God’s wrath and fury) 

Verse 9: “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,” [Stated negatively]   

• There will be tribulation and distress = Award (tribulation and distress) 
• …for every human being who does evil  = Pursuit (The tense of the verb implies, “who constantly does evil,” continuing action.) 
• …the Jew first and also the Greek = Character (cf. 1:6) 

Verse 10: “…but glory and honour and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.”  [Stated positively]    

• …but glory and honour and peace  = Award   
• …for everyone who does good  = Pursuit (lit., “constantly does good”) 
• …the Jew first and also the Greek. = Character 

Verse 11: “For God shows no partiality.”      

• This verse gives us a FIFTH PRINCIPLE of God’s Judgement; namely, that His judgement will not be according to our human pedigree.  This means that a Gentile will not be at a disadvantage in the judgement merely because he is not a Jew. It is like today’s sermon title says: “What is good for the goose is also good for the gander.” Jew and Gentile will be treated alike. 
• God is not interested in the outward trappings of men’s lives, those things in which most people put so much stock—i.e. racial origin, nationality, noble family, social standing, political party affiliation, size of bank accounts and stock portfolios, etc. The Bible says, “Man looketh upon the outward appearance but God looketh upon the heart.” Whether Jew or Gentile, the only way that a person can be made righteous before God is through the blood of Jesus!    

CONCLUSION:

Today, you can leave this place knowing you have made peace with God and have done what the Bible says everyone must do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Today, you can open your heart to Christ and invite Him in to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness as He promises to do for anyone who will simply ask Him. It doesn’t matter if you are Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, male or female, good or bad by human standards, intelligent or average, young or elderly, black or white, gay or straight. The ground is all level at the foot of the cross. No one stands higher than another. We all must come to Him by simple faith, accepting His free and gracious gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible says in II Corinthians 6:2, “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of Salvation.” Won’t you place your faith and trust in Him today?   

FEEDBACK:

            Any comments, questions, or observations about what I’ve presented?