Tamil Bible Study

Romans 2:11-16

Judgement of God Part 05

Romans 2:11-16, For there is no partiality with God. 12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

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

Romans 1:18-32, Romans 1:18-32, God has revealed His wrath in judgment against the sinful pagan world because the 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.

V12, as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.”

What does it mean? This refers to those who received the special revelation, those who had the Word of God, particularly Israel and anyone who is attached to them who knew the truth of God. Those who heard the prophets, those who read the law and the holy writings, those who had the special revelation. It refers to people today who sit in the church, people who know the truth, people who are in a Christian society or Christian environment.

They will be judged according to greater light and greater privilege and greater liability.

Matthew 11:20-24, Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.”

Why? Because they knew so much more, and the greater perishing will belong to them. They will be judged by the law. That refers to final judgment. They will be judged in accord with full knowledge of God’s law. So, God is very fair!

The hottest hell is reserved for the people who knew the most. That is why, beloved, it is such a fearful thing to be an apostate. It is such a fearful thing to know the truth and constantly turn your back on it. You would be better off eternally if you never knew than to know and turn your back.

But God is fair, and He will judge those without law as without law, and those with law as with law. The Jews, who have been the guardians of the law, who have been the agents by which God has revealed the law, who have written it and rewritten it and preserved it, we should have the higher honour, not the greater condemnation. We who have possessed the law should be protected from God’s wrath.

Maybe some of you might say that,

• I have been going to church all my life,
• I have been trying to be religious,
• I bought a Bible.

• I am trying to be religious.

How can I be condemned? Reply in V 13. V 13, (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; Now, the word for “hearers” is not the usual word. It is not the normal word akouō, which is the normal word to hear, but it is akroatēs, and it is used specifically of pupils who hear because they are constantly in the educational process.

The Jews heard and, it was read to them week after week, it was explained to them, and they were literally professional hearers. But it is not to the ones who make it their business to do the hearing, it is to the ones who make it their business to do the doing that justification comes. It is not performance, beloved, it is possession.

That is why James warns us!

James 1:22, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. God’s law does not protect hearers from judgment. No, the more they hear, the deeper the judgment.

Some of you may be exposed to greater truth through the church or from your parents but it brings them to greater condemnation. The more you know God’s law, the more it intensifies the consequence unless it is obeyed. But the one who does, the doer of the law shall be justified, not the hearer.

So, God requires perfect obedience. God requires a manifestation of righteousness, but no one can do that. Thus, the law is meant to drive us to a point of desperation where we turn to God for the power to do what we otherwise could not do.

The question the Jew might ask is answered. It does not do you a bit of good to have it unless you do it, it just intensifies your guilt because only the one who does it is justified. A judicial verdict there. The second question.

This is the question asked by the Gentile or the pagan or the one who did not have the law. We never had the law. If we never had the law, how in the world can we be condemned for not obeying it?

The Jew says this, “We are exempt because of special favour.” God says no. The Gentile says, “We are exempt because of ignorance.”

What about that pagan? What about that heathen who never saw the law of God, never read the Scripture, never heard the gospel? Can you condemn somebody for not obeying the written word?

Romans 4:15, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 5:13, (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Romans 7:7, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” If there is no transgression when there is no law,

There is no knowledge of sin when there is no law, How can we be responsible when we do not have the written law? Does God hold people responsible who have never heard the written law of God?

V 14-15, for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) You do not have to have the written law to be responsible for you have a law within you manifest in your,

• behaviour,
• conscience, and
• thinking patterns. 1. Creation.

There are four great reasons why the heathens are lost.

Romans 1:18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

The wrath of God revealed is not just the religious men, it is not just the people with the law of God, it is all men! The wrath of God is revealed against all the ungodliness and all the unrighteousness of all men, whether they had the written law or not.

Why? Because they hold the truth.

How do they hold the truth?

Romans 1:19-20, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, From Romans chapter 1, heathens are all lost because of creation.

They can look around them and know there is a God. They can look around them and perceive that He is supernatural and that He is more powerful than any being that they know of in their dimension, and so they are responsible because they hold that knowledge.

2. Conduct. V 14, for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves They don’t have an outside law, but they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves, and it is manifest in their conduct.

Pagans naturally do things that are written in God’s law.

Without ever reading God’s law. Their conduct proves they know what is right and wrong. Their conduct proves that there is available within, them residing in them, the law of God. Sometimes pagans pay their debts.

Is that in the law of God? Yes. They honour their parents. There are many people who do not know Jesus Christ, do not know God, never read the Bible, who love their wives. There are many wives who so love their husbands. There are many people who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ who care for their children and there are many children who care for their parents.

There are many of them who believe it is wrong to kill. There are many people who have never known Jesus Christ or the message of Christ or the Bible or the meaning of the gospel who would feed the hungry, who would help a man who was sick or a woman who was sick.

Pagans will tell the truth sometimes. They will even seek to do justice. They will struggle for equity. All these things reveal an internal human code of ethics that is the law unto themselves. We see it in our human system of justice.

The humanitarianism and the justice around the world even in very obscure and isolated peoples. Those heathen exercising

things which they do naturally that are in direct line with God’s law. and they therefore show that that law is in them. Man can recognize that there is a right, that there is a code of ethics. The very fact that man has a guilty conscience is because he violates the very code of ethics that is in him.

There is a sense of right and wrong, and when men naturally do something that lines up with the law of God and they do it all the time. They show that the law of God is written in them. The unregenerate world does do relative human good. They do not do good in terms of spiritual righteousness. They do not do good in terms of good that is based on the right motive because nothing is truly good unless it is done for the glory of God.

But they do good in a relative human sense, and when they do that, they show the law of God at work, though unwritten, at work in their heart. They will do good in the right manner if not for the right motive. Cyrus in the Old Testament who did good. He let God’s people go back to their own homeland.

Artaxerxes commended by Ezra, chapter 7. Pagans who did good on behalf of God’s people.

What about the city clerk in Ephesus? A pagan who quieted the rioters.

What about Romans of high standing in Acts 23 who protected Paul? The barbarians who showed unusual kindness to Paul in building a fire in Acts 28 in Malta to warm him. Man is totally depraved in the sense that he cannot do anything that is righteously good or that is good toward God or that is good as revealing God. But he can do a man kind of good.

But every time he does that, he proves that there is a law within him that points to that as good.

Are the heathen lost? Yes.

Can they claim ignorance? No. 3. Conscience. Man is basically good, but he is depraved. There is in him a sense of rightness that keeps him from being as bad as he possibly could be and that is the law of God within him.

V 15, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

We all know what conscience is. The word simply means co-knowledge. The idea is to know along with. Conscience is sort of that thing in you that knows along with you what’s right. It refers to a person’s inner sense of right and wrong, the moral consciousness that pronounces judgment on thoughts and attitudes and speech and deeds.

A tribe in Africa that had a very interesting process to determine who was guilty of something. When there was some stealing that had gone on in the tribe, they would line all the men up because stealing was normally done by men, and they would go along, and they would ask them if they did it and they would say yes or no. Then they would, after having said it, ask them to stick their tongue out, at which time they took a hot knife and placed it on the tongue. If there was saliva on the tongue, the knife would be removed without a problem. If there was no saliva on the tongue, the knife would stick and burn its way through their tongue. And they could always tell who the liar was because he had no saliva.

What makes your saliva dry up when you do something wrong? There is a conscience in you. There is a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong and deals with you when you violate it.

It is like when you cheat, and you live in this constant state of fear of being found out. That is conscience. Conscience responds to the internal norm, and in the Christian, conscience is tremendously intensified because you not only have that basic law within you, but you have also the law of Christ from His Word added to the normal natural law, and the compounding of that even excites the conscience more to respond.

Paul listened to his conscience. Several times he said, “My conscience bears witness.” The Bible also suggests that your conscience can become scarred and scar tissue has no feeling. Romans 14 Paul was talking about Christian liberty, and if somebody tells you it is okay to do that but your conscience says don’t do that, then don’t do it even though it is okay because if you get in the habit of violating your conscience.

Even the heathen has a conscience, but over a long period of time, they can dull that conscience. But I do not think they can always obliterate it. Little children are the perfect illustration. Why do you think an ungodly family with an ungodly little kid – the kid does something wrong, and he comes back, his mother says, “Did you do it?”

What is the first thing he does? He lies.

Why? Because he knows what he did was wrong. Even though he maybe never did it before. There is a standard. His conscience tells him that. 4. Deliberation V 15, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) There is in us the capacity to contemplate or to reason and to determine what someone does is right or wrong.

For example, a person without God, without Christ, without the Bible hears about someone who has murdered a child.

What is his reaction? He is going to accuse. We ought to find that person and do something to that person. Why do you think we have a disciplinary system in our society? Because men know what is right and wrong. They have the capacity in their minds to accuse or excuse.

They know that is all right, we can excuse that, but not this.

People in our society who are Godless, heathen people fight against crime. People want a life for the life when murder took place.

Why? Because there is in her the capacity to contemplate right and wrong and this is excusable. Creation, conduct, conscience, and deliberation. What they do, how they deal with the good and bad in their own life and how they deal with it in the lives of others indicates that they know the law of God as written in them.

If they live up to that much light, and they accept that much light, God will reveal to them the full light of Jesus Christ.

Acts 17:27, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

John 7:17, If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. If the willing heart is there, he will know. 6. Motives.

God will judge on the basis not only of what a man’s deeds are but what his reasons were. Because you can falsify the deed, but you cannot falsify the motive. V 16, 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

1 Chronicles 28:9, “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.

The Lord searches the heart and understand the motives.

Psalm 139:1-12, O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. 3 You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. 4 For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. 5 You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost

parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; 12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

There is nowhere you can go to escape. God know you deep inside.

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. Yes, God judges’ deeds. Yes, He judges ways.

But He judges the motive behind them as well. Jesus said three times in Matthew 6, “The Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Doing good

Matthew 6:4, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

Prayer

Matthew 6:6, But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in

the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Fasting

Matthew 6:18, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Our inmost secrets may be hidden from human judgment, but they are not hidden from God, and we will be judged for our motives. You either do what you do for the glory of God, or you do it for the glory of man.

It will all be determined in the day!

What day? The day when God shall judge.

What day is that? The day when He judges by Jesus Christ, the final day, the ultimate day, the great white throne when all judgment is committed unto Christ. In that glorious climactic culminating day when the Lord Jesus Christ judges, all these criteria will be use.

Romans 2:5, But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, Deal with your sin today by Accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and saviour!