Bible Study Romans Part 49-Ignorance is No Excuse

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel.

God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries.

We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God.

We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day.

The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold, and we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible.

It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us.

It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

There's truly nothing more important to you.

Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

Maybe he's trying to get our attention too.

We're going to read all the way through until we get to the verse we're covering tonight.

I read out of the King James.

Please follow along in the Bible that's in front of you.

You're going to notice there are some differences structurally, but the words are about the same.

Understand that you have to pay attention.

We have to dig deep into Scripture in order to really drag out what God is saying to us.

Not just the translations, but even the original languages.

That's something we key in on in this ministry.

Anyways, if you don't have a Bible, we do always put the verses up on our screen.

Romans 2:1, reading out of the King James, therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest.

Romans 2:1

For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.

For thou that judgest, doest the same things.

But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.

What things?

The things he was talking about in the previous chapter.

Go back and read the first chapter of Romans if you want the specifics.

Verse three, and thinkest thou this, O man, that judges them which do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Verse 5.

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

We have been going through all of these verses already.

If this is the first time that you're watching this program with us, go back and make sure you review all of these other verses.

It will help you.

Verse 6 Who will render?

God will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.

But unto them that are contentious and those that don't accept the truth, but instead obey, believe in, are persuaded by, accept unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath.

One of the unshakable realities, unavoidable pitfalls of all human beings is temptation to self-indulgence.

All unrighteousness at its core is self-indulgence, yielding to personal desires, personal will, personal satisfaction.

All of that is the heart of all sin.

If you'd like a definition of sin, that's it.

Choosing to please self, magnify self, satisfy self over pleasing God.

Doing what your body wants or what your mind wants instead of what God wants.

Obeying your own outlook rather than God's.

That's how sin starts.

It's how it started for Eve, right?

Genesis 3, 6.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

When that woman, when Eve, gave into her own viewpoint, she sinned.

When she chose to pursue her own agenda, one based solely on her own perception, sin entered into the world, and it's been burning through the rest of us for the same reasons ever since.

And God will not stand for it.

Verse 8 But unto them that are contentious and those that don't accept the truth, but instead obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath.

Increasingly, I never know if what I'm feeling is just grumpy vet syndrome or things are really getting worse.

Every day, let me say, it feels like the world is increasingly worshiping self-indulgence, not just engaging in it, but worshiping in it.

More and more, the world is telling us that if we just gave into ourselves more often, as if we've been lacking in that department for the past 10,000 years, that if we just started becoming more inwardly focused, you know, pay more attention to our own needs, setting aside our responsibilities towards others, we'd be happier and more well adjusted.

This sickness has even infected the church.

People are literally asking what they can get out of going to church.

Do they have a good singles department?

What's the choir like?

Any chances they have services later on Sundays?

I do not do mornings.

And the morons who are in charge are falling for it.

In these giant churches, they employ professional grade marketing techniques.

There are published roadmaps for increasing congregation size, ways to appeal to a younger crowd, how to appear, you know, less churchy and more accepting of everyone.

Look at just about any church website, and you're going to discover an enormous amount of space dedicated to convincing you that they'll do everything and anything in their power to make you happy if you attend there regularly.

Church, like almost everything else in our society, wants you to obey your own desires, what the Bible calls lusts.

Verse five, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds.

To them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor immortality, God's going to give you eternal life.

But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, you will receive indignation and wrath.

Listen, God's the judge.

God will decide the fate of each and every one of us.

And I mean that literally.

If I haven't said that already, I'm saying it now.

This isn't God judging nations and peoples and tribes.

And those who follow the leading of his spirit do what's pleasing in his sight to them, he's promising eternal life.

But those who seek self-satisfaction, those who yield only to their own will and desires and only do those things which bring themselves pleasure, they will receive what the King James calls indignation and wrath.

In the original, these are very evocative words that terrified, or they were supposed to terrify, those Greek-speaking people.

These words invoke thoughts of overboiling anger, a violent, passionate mental bend towards vengeance.

This is a very serious warning.

Paul is keen on communicating to the self-righteous crowd, particularly in this case the Jews, that they're in grave danger.

The Jews have been assuming for too long that they're part of some protected class.

So he's crafting a message that's sure to shock them back into clarity.

And we had better pay attention as Christians, as modern, comfortable Christians, we had better listen to this message.

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

When God uses the word the day of wrath, there's a certainty to it.

This isn't maybe someday God is going to rain wrath down us.

It is a set aside day when God will judge the world in wrath.

Verse six God will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life, but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile.

But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

For there is no respect of persons with God.

Now, I must admit this is a section we have to be careful with and address cautiously.

I continuously pause because it's important that you understand what Paul is actually saying.

You see, it appears to be dangerously close to a works-based doctrine.

In other words, it looks a lot like Paul is telling us that our salvation is tied to our works.

I mean, look at verse 7.

It says to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek glory and honor and immortality, they will receive eternal life.

What gifts here, Paul?

You changing your mind?

As I said, I know we've talked about this already, but that doesn't bother me.

We can talk about it a dozen more times, and it still won't be a waste of time.

I cannot have you getting confused and backtracking.

Listen, Paul is not talking about salvation here.

In fact, he's not even talking about sanctification.

He's telling us objectively that God judges us, and that's it.

God will judge you whether you're saved or not, whether you're a Jew or not, whether you're a Christian or not, judgment is coming.

We talked about the different types of judgments.

We're not going to do it again.

Just know that God is going to judge.

Now, if we weren't sinners, this would have never come up.

If Adam hadn't eaten that fruit, none of this would be relevant.

But he did.

And since we're born in Adam, he's the head of the human race.

When we are born, then we too are sinners.

That's why we have to be born again.

And when we're born again, we're born in Christ.

That changes the entire scenario.

But for now, we're all sinners by birth, or before Christ enters into our lives.

We are all born sinners.

We are sinners by birth, as well as action.

And Paul is passing on the message that sin and God do not mix.

And God will judge it.

God will judge our sins according to Paul.

But John, I'm saved.

Again, should I say it?

That doesn't have anything to do with Paul's statements here.

He's just telling us that God does care about what we do, and it doesn't matter who we are.

There is no respect of persons with God.

Sin is sin to him, no matter who it is.

And Paul is hammering that point home.

For there is no respect of persons with God.

This statement must have clattered inside the brains of the Jews who heard it.

This must have hit them like a ton of bricks, as they say.

You see, they thought God's respect of persons was understood.

It was axiomatic.

It was a given.

To them, it's the whole reason for their continued existence.

They thought the very reason they were chosen was because God had respect for persons, despite what he had told them on numerous occasions, like Deuteronomy 7.7.

The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people.

But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the faith, keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

It's God's love alone that made the difference.

It had nothing to do with who they were.

Back in Romans, verse 11 of chapter 2, for there is no respect of persons with God.

Who you are as a person doesn't come into play with God's justice.

Verse 12.

Whether you have the law or not, you know right from wrong.

If you ignore what you know to be good and true and pursue any other path, you will be judged.

Just like those well-taught Jews are without excuse, so too are those who have no direct revelation from God at all.

Now, the interesting thing this statement tells us is that we have within us the capacity to choose right from wrong.

It's natural to us.

We don't have to be told that murder is wrong and stealing is wrong and lying is wrong.

Some time back I mentioned how so many homosexuals and their apologists claim that since Jesus didn't say being gay was bad, it must not be.

Listen, wrong is wrong, and we know it when we do it.

The gift of intelligence God has given all of us includes knowing when we're sinning.

And listen, this isn't John Tomasi telling you that.

This is the Apostle Paul who was inspired to say that by the Holy Spirit.

If you don't believe it, then you don't believe the Holy Spirit.

Anyhow, Paul is leveling the playing field here.

Doesn't matter if you've received God's instructions directly or not, he's going to judge you.

And this is going to be the theme for the next little bit.

Just because he's been walloping the Jews for a couple of verses doesn't mean the heathen are off the hook.

And to be honest, it's still the same point he's been making all along.

His purpose in all of this is to convince his readers, Jew and not Jew, that the judgment of God is according to truth.

No one is off the hook.

Just as direct exposure would not grant the offender any special license, neither will ignorance of the law be an effective defense.

I didn't know is not an acceptable response to God when he judges.

Now, isn't this just like us humans?

Those without the law think their ignorance is going to save them.

Those with the law think their knowledge is going to save them.

Well, in God's way of judgment, none of that comes into play.

Verse 12, 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.

Paul keeps dropping these bombs on the entire belief system of his day.

Down through the centuries, they had completely, the Jews had completely lost sight of what the law was.

They no longer saw it as God's standard of conduct.

They had long ago stopped turning to what was written in the law for any reason.

To them, the law, and more specifically, the giving of the law was nothing more than symbolic.

To them, the law was an icon.

It was a dead, cold ornament whose only purpose was an indication of favored status.

Look, we have the law, aren't we special?

They regarded it simply as a precious object presented to a loved one as a token of esteem and affection.

To the Jew, the law was nothing more than a locket offered as a keepsake, as a reminder of the feelings of the one who.

Who passed it on.

But Paul is here placing the law in a completely different light.

Listen, the Jews thought the heathens, the ones without the law, would be judged just because they didn't have the law.

God, they thought, hated the non-Jew simply because they were non-Jews.

And likewise, they thought the only judgment they themselves would receive would be favorable.

And the contents of the law, what the law said, what the law demanded, had nothing to do with it.

That was their impression.

They used the law when it suited their needs, but they never saw it as a means by which they would be condemned.

But that's not how Paul sees it, nor God for that matter.

Paul seems to be putting the law in a category the Jews had never considered it to be in.

Ironically, in their minds, judgment and the law were unrelated.

And that is how they got themselves into so much trouble.

This is what Paul is trying to correct.

Now we're going to come back to verse 12 a little later.

We're not done with it yet.

We've made a few general comments, but I'll have more to share later on.

Not a lot more, you'll see.

Let's move to verse 13.

For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Having the law, knowing the law, doesn't justify you.

It takes action.

Head knowledge leads nowhere.

Listen, if you get arrested for drunk driving, do you think it's going to help you if you tell the cop that you knew that driving under the influence is against the law?

Of course not.

Why would it?

Well, for some reason, that's how the Jews viewed their position with God.

They thought merely having the law relieved them from being responsible to it.

Verse 14.

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves.

And here's another important point that would have been breaking news, been a breaking news alert to the rank and file Jew.

It's not some set of rules that you follow that makes a difference to God.

It's your heart, your innate sense of right and wrong.

That's the wellspring of your actions.

And that's how God judges, because that is judgment according to truth.

And you know, they probably they probably would have had an easier time processing all of this if Paul had not been talking about the heathen.

They might have thought, well, okay, you know, maybe we Jews need to do better.

Message received Paul.

God wants us to refocus on the content of the law.

I mean, that would have been tough enough.

But Paul is here actually saying that God even accepts the conduct of some of those idol-worshiping pagans, that he would, again, all things being equal, judge them positively on their actions.

The Jews thought God despised the pagan no matter what they did.

The Jewish worshipers had a twisted view of God's word, which led them to believe that doing and acting and behaving didn't really matter to God.

They thought all Jews good, all Gentiles bad.

It was that cut and dry.

No other factors were considered.

Acceptance and judgment came down to who you were related to.

Verse 13, for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

God's not looking for religious people.

He doesn't care that you can recite scripture verbatim.

You may have been able to memorize the whole Bible in your head, but what's in your heart?

What are you doing with the instructions you've memorized?

Can you see why God gave you instruction?

Can you discern and spread the truth contained in God's word?

How do you respond to it?

How do you respond to the things of God?

For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

And by the way, this may be obvious to you, but I'm going to say it anyways.

The word hearers, as in hearers of the law, can be interpreted in our minds as readers.

In Paul's day, no one read the Hebrew scriptures except the religious elite.

For most, the normal mode of exposure to the sacred writings was carrying it read to them in their synagogues or wherever else they were worshiping.

They heard the law.

Today we read and hear the law.

There's nothing special about the word hearers.

It's just an expression of a cultural norm.

For not the hearers or readers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Now let me make a very important point, and I'm going to make this quickly.

I don't want to linger on this issue because it touches on a matter that's caused confusion here, and we've already talked about it, but this verse is a tiny treasure box.

Listen to me.

Paul says, not those that just listen to the law are just, but, and this is crucial, not hearers, but doers of the law, the King James says here, are justified.

But the original literally means are acquitted.

You know what it means to be acquitted, right?

When you are acquitted, the charges that have been brought against you are dismissed.

Those who wish to tell us that Paul abandoned his religious Hebrew upbringing should read this verse a little closer.

Clearly, Paul and the Holy Spirit hold the law in very high esteem because here we're told that the law has the power to acquit you.

The power to acquit you is in the law.

I'll say it again, lest you think I said one thing and meant another.

And listen, this is the teaching of Scripture.

The law can acquit you.

If you're a doer of the law, you shall be acquitted.

You shall be justified, as the King James folks put it.

But the problem is, what the problem isn't, is with the law.

It's not what the law can do, it's what you can do.

The law doesn't hold you back, you hold you back.

Elsewhere, Paul said that the law was weak through the flesh.

It's the human side of the law that's the problem, not the law side of the law.

The law is God's standard and therefore it is as perfect and holy as He is.

But the law becomes the law of sin and death when it comes in contact with our weak flesh.

The entire problem with the human race comes down to this one universal truth.

We don't have the means to activate the law's power to acquit.

We don't have what it takes to be a doer of the law.

It doesn't change the basic fact that the law is good and has the power to acquit.

It doesn't change the fact that doers of the law are acquitted just because we can't do it.

And by the way, that doesn't say that there are any doers of the law getting acquitted.

Don't make that mistake.

So many people point to this verse as providing some sort of proof that there have been morally perfect people in history and that they've been saved because of their obedience to the law.

They point to this verse and say, aha, there you go.

There have been perfect people in the past.

But that isn't what this verse says.

It says, and nothing else than this, that moral perfection can get you saved.

No one has ever denied that.

It's just that no one can be morally perfect.

Listen, a universal law of physics states that if you can run the speed of sound, you in that running will cause a sonic boom.

That's a given fact.

But no one can do that, can they?

Of course not.

It's not possible.

It's not in our nature to prove that if we run fast enough, we can break the sound barrier.

But that fact doesn't negate the law.

It's true whether or not we can do what it says.

For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Since this is a conversation about how God judges according to truth, Paul is saying that God is honorable enough to acquit anyone who does the law.

That would be judging according to truth, but don't forget what that means.

And this is why it's impossible for this law to be proven.

To do the law means to do all of the law.

That's how our Lord's brother James put it.

James 2.10.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Now I hope that's clear.

Please forgive the awkward language I was using.

Doing the law is not how we normally express that thought.

All I was trying to do is keep the connection to verse 13.

All right, that might be enough for now.

We're slowly making our way through this very important chapter in Paul's letter to the Romans.

We're nowhere near finished with it, so please come back next time as we continue working this out.

See you then.

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