Judgement of God

Romans 2:6-11

Judgement of God Part 03

who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: ⁷ eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality; ⁸ but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, ⁹ tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; ¹⁰ but glory, honour, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹¹ For there is no partiality with God.

The Scripture claims for itself that every word of God is pure, and that all Scripture is given to perfect the man of God.

Psalm 9:7, But the Lord shall endure forever; He has prepared His throne for judgment.

Psalm 96:13, For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth. Now, those are just two of multitudes of scriptures throughout the Bible that tell us that God is coming someday to judge the world.

2 Timothy 4:1, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:

2 Thessalonians 1:8, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 13:41-43, The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, ⁴² and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

These scriptures simply help us to get our focus on the coming judgment which will bring Jesus Christ into His throne, and all the dead of all the ages will be brought to that throne to be judged by Him. All men on the face of the earth will face the inevitable judgment, we have something that we should clearly understand. If all men are to face Jesus Christ in that hour, then we had best know what is necessary to avoid that judgment.

Hebrews 9:27, And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

God will judge and God will judge all men, and if that’s true, we need to know that, and so God has constantly in the pages of Scripture warned us. But a question of great importance now faces us. If all men will face the judgment of God, what, then, will be the standard for that judgment?

How is it that He is going to judge us?

Romans 2:1-16 are a single section and gives us the principles on which God judges men.

Romans 1:18-32, that God’s wrath is revealed in judgment, and that God has revealed His wrath in judgment against the sinful pagan world because the sinful pagan world is guilty of rejecting His revelation and then of descending into idolatry and horrifying vice. Men abandon God and God abandons men to the consequence of their own sin, and thus the wrath of God is at work. A very important question that is unanswered.

What about the good people? The people who are not murderers, liars, thieves, fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals.

Where do they fit? Many moral people, basically outwardly good people, would probably agree with Paul’s condemnation of the godless pagan world in chapter 1.

Romans 2:1-16 we can derive ⁶ principles of God’ judgement. 1. Knowledge, 2. Truth, 3. Guilt, 4. Deeds,

5. Impartiality, and

6. Motive.

4. Deeds

God judges based on deeds. V 6, who “will render to each one according to his deeds”:

He will render to every man according to his deeds. White throne judgement described in Revelation 20.

Revelation 20:11-15, Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. ¹⁴ Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. ¹⁵ And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

God is going to judge men according to their works. It said it twice! This is not a new concept. That is a concept that is all throughout the Scripture.

Jeremiah 17:10, I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.

Isaiah 3:10-11, “Say to the righteous that it shall be well with them, For they shall eat the fruit of their doings. ¹¹ Woe to the wicked! It shall be ill with him, For the reward of his hands shall be given him.

The Old Testament tells us that God will judge based on the the works, the deeds, the life pattern of an individual. It is equally New Testament that God will judge men based on their works.

Matthew 16:27, For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.

1 Corinthians 3:8, Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labour. Some of us have built upon a foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and stubble, and every man’s work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it for because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall test every man’s work of what sort it is.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. ¹⁴ If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

2 Corinthians 5:10, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

Galatians 6:7-9, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. ⁸ For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. ⁹ And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

We find the same principle elsewhere in the New Testament. There is a place for works in judgment, both unbeliever and the believer.

Romans 14:12, So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Whether you are looking in the Old Testament or the New Testament, you will find many scriptures that remind us that God will judge men based on their deeds.

The primary thrust here is that,

• God does not judge us based on our profession.
• God does not judge us based on our relationships.
• God does not judge the Jew based on his Abrahamic heritage.
• God does not judge you based on your identification with a church.

God judges based on the product of your life. The question will not be whether a man is a Jew or whether he is a Gentile, whether he is heathen, whether he is religious, whether he goes to church or does not go to church, the issue is: Does his life manifest obedience to God?

The actions of men form an infallible index to their character. That is what the Scripture says again and again, by their fruit you shall know them. The life pattern the works and the deeds of life are an infallible index to character, and so this forms one of the unchanging standards by which God judges.

In fact, you might say there are only two classes of people in the world.

• Those who obey God, and
• Those who do not obey God.

None of us perfectly obeys God, but there are some people in the world who do not obey God at all and there are others who seek to obey.

Those are the two kinds of people. So, every man faces an impartial judge who has a comprehensive record of that man’s deeds. By that record will his eternal destiny be determined, says Paul. God has a book about everybody’s life that is absolutely on target and by that record shall God judge.

Now, some of you are getting a little nervous. Some of you might think that I am preaching about salvation by works. No! I am not talking about that because the Bible does not teach that. The Bible does not teach that you can be saved by your works. The Bible teaches just the opposite.

Not of works lest any man should boast. The Bible never teaches salvation by works.

Psalm 115:1, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, But to Your name give glory, Because of Your mercy, Because of Your truth.

Isaiah 48:11, For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.

God says, “I will do what I will do. I will save. I will fulfil My promise for My sake. I will not give it to someone else to do that, lest I give My glory to another. So to maintain God’s glory for Himself in saving grace, there can be no works salvation.

Jeremiah 31:31-34, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

The essence of that new covenant is that it is a covenant of mercy and grace extended to unworthy people. There can be no works salvation.

1 Timothy 1:15-16, This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. ¹⁶ However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.

Ephesians 2:8-9, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast.

We will be judged by our works, says Romans 2:6, but we cannot be saved by our works.

How do works fit in? Though we cannot be saved by works, works are a very important part of our life.

Philippians 2:12-13, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is

God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. You must show some works. You must work out on the outside the salvation that you have received on the inside.

Ephesians 2:9-10, not of works, lest anyone should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You cannot be saved by works, but you will be saved unto works!

When God judges, can look at a man and if He sees the works, He knows that the salvation has been accomplished. It is not that you are saved by works, it is that you are saved unto good works. A person’s deeds, works, reveal whether he has been saved, and they are the absolute infallible indicator.

So, an unbeliever will be judged by his works, his deeds, and they will reveal his unbelief. They will reveal the absence of God in his life because all his works will be unrighteous. Even when he tries to be righteous, it will turn out to be filthy rags.

So, all God must do is look at the works. If He sees works that are manifestations of righteousness, He knows there is a regenerated person. If God sees no such manifestation of righteousness, He knows there is an unregenerate person.

Therefore, judgment in the end can be rendered based on works.

The believer, the one who by faith has been given the power of God to produce righteous works, will be clearly indicated by those works of righteousness. So, the deeds, then, of a person, what you do in your life, is a fair indicator of where you stand with God.

Romans 2:6-10, Paul is not talking about salvation here! Paul does not talk about salvation until Romans 3:21. He is simply dealing with one of the elements of judgment. He does not say how the righteous people got righteous or he doesn’t say why the unrighteous people were unrighteous, he just says you can judge them by their works. A true Christian is known by his righteous deeds. A non-Christian is known by the absence of righteous deeds.

There may be periods of time when we walk in disobedience and the flesh, but there cannot be a life that is barren of righteous deeds that can still claim to be redeemed.

Two sides

1. Those whose deeds manifest that they receive eternal life. 2. Those whose deeds manifest that they are the recipients of wrath. 1. Those who receive eternal life. V 7, eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honour, and immortality; This is such a critical verse, and so many people misunderstand the standard of salvation.

That is the mark of a believer. Three terms in V 7. Glory. The highest and most wonderful goal of a believer is glory. He seeks to glorify God. He seeks to attain unto the glory of God someday.

1 Corinthians 10:31, “in whatever he does to do it all to the glory of God.”

Glory basically is to manifest the essence or nature of God, and the believer seeks to be a vehicle through which God can be manifest, through which God’s glory can be seen. That is his desire. Somebody who does not have the desire to glorify God cannot be truly a Christian because that is basic to the desire of a true believer.

Patient continuance in well doing and seeking that God would be glorified. They seek glory. They seek it even in its fullest sense, that in that incredible reality of the future day when we see Jesus Christ, we will be transformed into His own image and eternally without flaw will radiate His marvellous glory.

The goal of a true Christian, you see, is to reflect God’s glory. Honour. It is the result of glory. To reflect the glory of God is to receive divine honour, is to receive the honour that God gives, the blessedness that God gives.

Seek to hear God would be pleased and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” You seek to manifest the glory of God, that marvellous reality of what He is through your life, you also seek that God should honour and reward such faithfulness.

Incorruption

Ultimately, we seek incorruption when full glory and full honour is realized in the resurrection when we are like Jesus Christ. A true believer patiently continues in doing good works because he seeks after glory and honour and immortality.

Summary

His perspective is heavenly! The true objective of the saint is to live for eternal.

Colossians 3:2, Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. That is a Godward perspective.

These three terms describe a person with divine aspirations. The highest level of the Christian’s life is to aspire to glorify God, to receive honour from God, and to enter the incorruption of ultimate immortality and being transformed into the image of Christ. This is not only the goal of our life here, but the goal of our life in the future.

Paul is not saying anything about how a person like this is produced. He just says you can judge that person by their works and say they have been redeemed. He is not talking about how they got that way. Simply saying it is fair to judge them by those righteous patterns.

God gives them eternal life. Eternal life means the life of God in the soul of man forever.

1 John 5:20, And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true

God and eternal life.

What is eternal life? Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to have eternal life? To have Jesus Christ living in me.

Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Eternal life is the life of God in the soul of man by the presence of the indwelling Christ, and it goes on throughout eternity. Basically, eternal life is not a quantity of life, it is a quality of life.

It is the life of God in the soul of man and the life of God in the soul of man will always produce a righteous pattern. If you have an unrighteous pattern in your life, you are fighting against the very nature God has created in you in salvation.

Once Christ comes to live in your life, which the flow of God’s life should dominate, and we fight it and resist it in our human sinfulness. God says in the final judgment, ultimately, when we say eternal life or eternal death.

A Christian already has eternal life in its fullness.

He that believes has eternal life. But in the ultimate sense, when final sentence is given, we who receive eternal life will receive it because God has looked at our life from this perspective and seen a patient continuing in well doing as we have sought for glory and honour and incorruption.

God sees that there is a perseverance! God sees that there is an obedience!! God sees that there is a constant seeking Him!!! So, there are people whose aim is heavenward, and they will be judged by the life that God has produced in them because they have done well.

V10, but glory, honour, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. All that we seek we receive. We seek glory, He gives glory. We seek honour, He gives honour. We seek incorruption, He gives peace.

For when we enter into eternal holiness in the presence of God, the battle with our corruption will be over and the result will be eternal peace. We seek for those things and He gives us those things. What a thought! At the time of judgment in the future, when God sends the righteous into His eternal heaven and the unrighteous into an eternal hell, the ones who enter into eternal heaven will be those who have sought.

They have sought. They do seek for glory. That does not say they deserved it. They just sought it. They aspired for what was heavenly and godly. They sought for glory and honour and incorruption. They will receive the glory, honour, and the peace of eternal life for they are the ones that have worked well.

If there is no such good work visible in a life, then there is no genuine salvation. We will be rewarded for our deeds because they are the proof of the righteousness within us. In Romans 3rd chapter, he will tell us how to get the righteousness of God within us, and this applies to the Jew first and to the Gentile.

God will give heavenly and eternal blessing to the Jew and the Gentile. The Jew thought the Gentile would be shut out. No, the Jew had a priority in the covenant, the Jew was first in the priority of the covenant. The Jew was first in chronology as Christ came first to the Jew.

Because of their priority in salvation, they also have a priority in judgment too!

Amos 3:2, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

There will be a severer punishment on Israel because of the intimacy they had with God. So, they are first in salvation opportunity and they are first in judgment responsibility. There is no exemption for the Jew or the Gentile, no exemption for the moral man, the religious man, they do not make it any easier on Him, they just make it harder.

2. The works of those who receive wrath. V 8-9, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness— indignation and wrath, ⁹ tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; They are sandwiched in the middle of those other two verses.

Those who by their good works prove they have sought God are contrasted with those who by their evil works prove they have sought self.

Three phrases

• a. Self-Seeking:

V 8, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness— indignation and wrath, Eritheia is the Greek word. The basic concept of the word is self-seeking.

The first characterization of an unrighteous person is that he is utterly wrapped up in what pleases him.

What satisfies me?

What makes me feel good?

What makes me happy?

2 Timothy 3:2, For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

This is the basic problem of unregenerate man, he is totally wrapped up in himself.

2 Corinthians 5:15, and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

• b. Rebellion:

A person, who is totally self-seeking that would lead to a contentious attitude toward the Lord. That would basically lead to a spirit of rebellion. “They do not obey the truth.” If you are self-seeking, you are going to resist what God says. God speaks the truth, and you say, “I’m not interested in what You want, I am going to do what I want.”

They do not obey the truth. It does not say why in this passage, it just says they do not. We are only looking at the deeds. They just do not obey the truth. Man, rebels against God, his reaction is against God and this reflects the basic egotism of sinfulness.

• c. Obey unrighteous:

Not only does he not obey the truth, but he does obey unrighteousness. No man lives in a vacuum, you either do right or wrong, you just do not go down the middle. First there is rebellion, and out of that rebellion comes disobedience, and then comes dire sinfulness as the life simply goes toward unrighteous behaviour.

The road to hell is basically simply defined. It is a spirit of resentment toward the lordship of Jesus Christ.

You will not respond, you will rebel. You will not obey, you will disobey. If the road to hell is a spirit of hatred toward the lordship of Christ, then the road to heaven must be the opposite, it must be an attitude of submission to the lordship of Christ!

God wants you to seek for glory, honour, and incorruption. Even though we do not always attain, there is that seeking heart. When we fail, there is that brokenness. Eternal life belongs to those who show the work of God in their hearts by living under the obedience of the lordship of Christ. Those who refuse to do so are the unregenerate and those who receive wrath.

You can see that sin is basically an attack on God and calls for His holy reaction. V 9, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; It always carries the idea of affliction.

The narrowness of a place, a confined. Hell is an everlasting punishment, an everlasting fire, a furnace of fire, a lake of fire, fire and brimstone, an unquenchable fire, a place of suffering where the worm dies not, the fire is not quenched, there’s weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. It is anguish in a confined imprisonment, and it will come upon every soul of man that doeth evil – everyone whose life pattern is continually evil, everyone whose mode of living is that of an unrighteous behaviour, people filled with selfish ambition, refusing to obey the lordship of Christ – wrath and anger.

Conclusion

Look at David. David committed terrible sins, but the direction if not the perfection of his life was Godward! On the other hand, look at Judas. Judas was outwardly attached to Christ, but the direction of his life was self-centred rebellion and disobedience all the while.

Key thought is that true righteousness produces true good deeds. God can judge based on those deeds. Unrighteousness, no matter how religious it gets, will produce only evil deeds. God will have no respect for any person. He will judge all equally. There will be an absolute equity in ultimate judgment.

How can a person produce the good works that gain for him glory and honour and peace and eternal life?

Romans 3:21-24, But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

The way and the only way to produce the righteous deeds is to possess the righteousness of Christ. The only way to possess the righteousness of Christ is by faith in His redemptive work. Do you believe that He died God incarnate for your sin?

Do you believe that He rose again for your justification? Do you believe that He ever lives to make intercession for you? If you believe and you receive Christ, He gives you the capacity by the implantation of His own eternal life to produce righteous deeds.

When the day comes that judgment is to occur, God will see the record of a righteous life and know that such a life could only be the product of the indwelling presence of the living Christ and grant eternal life.