Is this path steep enough for you?
You might be wondering what is going on in Romans 2 (as if Romans 1 wasn’t enough). I left you at the end of the last chapter still pondering the question, “Has most of the world given itself over to human passions and forsaken God?”
So, what was you answer?
What Paul is doing in Romans 2 is again pushing on this point. He picks up from the last chapter when he made it clear that God actually “gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (cf. 1:24). He then goes on to describe those lusts.
The point is that there are some people who try and hide the truth (cf. 1:18) even though this truth is plain to all, and those people will bear the judgment of God.
He continues with another interesting point with regards to people who judge those who do the debased things he has just described.
He basically says, “If you judge those people, do you not think you will be judged?” His point is simple: None of us should think that we are somehow better than those people who are denying God. We all have sin in our lives and therefore should not be judging. He says, “There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek.” (cf. 2:9)
We, the Church, need to hear this point. I do not know about you, but I often find the evil in the world disheartening. I, too, in the back of my mind think, “I am glad I am not like that.” Zap! There it is, me thinking I am better because of my right thinking, because I am following God. But consider Paul’s reference to the Jew and Greek.
Paul’s introduction here of “the Jew...and the Greek” has to do with those who are trying to follow Yahweh and those who are not.
He unpacks both groups of people and goes into a rather dizzying description of those who have the law and those who don’t, and those who don’t have the law but follow it, and those who have the law but don’t follow it; all to say, “We all fall short.”
If I might, let me just pause and answer a question about why Paul is doing this. He is taking a very specific angle into this debate of sorts to establish a very foundational fact: We need God to save us from our nature—both Jews and Greeks.
Do you believe that? Most people today want God to help them a little. They feel like they can do much of life on their own, but every now and then some help from God would take the edge off. After all, aren’t we all supposed to do our part? Paul in Romans is saying, you have one of two choices, either (1) keep the law perfectly— that’s right perfectly—or be judged for not keeping it, whether you know the law or not; and, make sure you don’t judge anyone else along the way. Or (2) we accept our human behavior—that we are not perfect, not a one of us—therefore we all miss the mark with God, which is, in that fancy religious term, sin.
Do you see how far he is pushing the point? As I said in the introduction, Romans is somewhat of an argument for all God has ever done, and this is one of the foundational points, and he is going out of his way to not let you or me, “shade it a little” one way or the other.
Just as I ended my thoughts on chapter 1 with the question of whether you think the world has largely forsaken God, here I invite you to ponder the following:
If we are “right with God” by keeping the law which includes not judging others, then is it true that we must not fall short?
Do we need to get a grade of A-plus, or will a C-minus suffice?
Remember, we have lots of chapters to go and so we are in the early stages; there is more, much more, in the person and work of Jesus, but for now Paul is getting some things into place and we need to stay on the path.
To help you ponder the question I have asked, consider those moments when you have erred, when you have messed up and you are just devastated over it. The Psalms capture those moments for us in poetry. Psalm 51 is one of my favorites and goes along the lines of what I have been writing about with regards to Romans. The Psalmist (King David) cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10.) There it is, that honest cry that we make when we come to the bottom of ourselves, that need for God. In Romans I pray you will find that God does indeed answer.
But, Romans does hang on a point, on a question, “Do you need God to save you, from your very nature, from yourself?”