ROMANS ROAD
to RIGHTEOUSNESS |
Romans
1:18-3:20
|
Romans
3:21-5:21 |
Romans
6:1-8:39 |
Romans
9:1-11:36 |
Romans
12:1-16:27 |
|
SIN
|
SALVATION
|
SANCTIFICATION |
SOVEREIGNTY |
SERVICE |
NEED
FOR
SALVATION |
WAY
OF
SALVATION |
LIFE
OF
SALVATION |
SCOPE
OF
SALVATION |
SERVICE
OF
SALVATION |
God's Holiness
In
Condemning
Sin |
God's Grace
In
Justifying
Sinners |
God's Power
In
Sanctifying
Believers |
God's Sovereignty
In
Saving
Jew and Gentile |
Gods Glory
The
Object of
Service |
Deadliness
of Sin |
Design
of Grace |
Demonstration of
Salvation |
|
Power Given
|
Promises Fulfilled |
Paths Pursued |
Righteousness
Needed |
Righteousness
Credited |
Righteousness
Demonstrated |
Righteousness
Restored to Israel |
Righteousness
Applied |
God's Righteousness
IN LAW |
God's Righteousness
IMPUTED |
God's Righteousness
OBEYED |
God's Righteousness
IN ELECTION |
God's Righteousness
DISPLAYED |
|
Slaves to Sin |
Slaves to God |
Slaves Serving God |
|
Doctrine |
Duty |
|
Life by Faith |
Service by Faith |
|
Modified from Irving
L. Jensen's excellent work Jensen's
Survey of the NT |
AND DO YOU (continually) SUPPOSE THIS O MAN: logize (2SPMI) de touto, o anthrope:
(2Samuel 10:3; Job 35:2; Psalms 50:21; Matthew 26:53) (O man - Ro 2:1;
Daniel 10:19; Luke 12:14; 22:58,60 )
Suppose
(3049) (logizomai
related to the English "logic") (Click
for in depth study of
logizomai) means to think about something in a detailed
and logical manner and draw a conclusion. Logizomai is an
arithmetical word used in
bookkeeping to describe the making of an entry into the account book. It
includes the ideas of
to calculate or compute, as when figuring an entry in a ledger. The
purpose of the entry is to make a permanent record that can be consulted
whenever needed. But it is often used metaphorically or figuratively
where numbers are not in question with a meaning like “take into
account”, “reckon”, “consider”. It is a word that invites to reasoning,
which may be why it turns up so often in Romans. It is suited to the
argumentative style that Paul adopts throughout this letter. Logizomai implies a process of reasoning. The
present tense
indicates that were continually making a "miscalculation".
John the Baptist warned his
Jewish audience of
the "miscalculation" that physical lineage or bloodline guaranteed immunity to God's judgment,
admonishing them...
"Therefore (i.e.,
because of "the wrath to come" - the judgment of God) bring forth fruit
in keeping with repentance (fruit or works would not save them but fruit
borne of the Spirit and abiding in the Vine, Jesus, would prove they
were genuinely regenerate new creations in Christ) and do not suppose (not logizomai but
dokeo - still the idea is similar) that you can say to yourselves, 'We
have Abraham for our father' (i.e., just because you are a physical offspring of Abraham
does not mean that you will escape from God's judgment); for I say to you, that God is able
from these stones to raise up children to Abraham." (Mt
3:8-9)
The able French commentator, Godet
renders this section as follows...
"Dost thou reason that thou wouldst escape,
-thou? A being by thyself? A privileged person?" And he adds, "The Greek
word here used (logizomai) well describes the false calculations whereby
the Jews persuaded themselves that they would escape the judgment
wherewith God would visit the Gentiles. According to the Jewish tradition only the Gentiles would be
judged; while all ‘Jews, as the children of the "kingdom" of Messiah,
would inherit it!"
Donald Grey Barnhouse
offers this pithy paraphrase of Romans 2:3:
"You dummy-do you really figure that
you have doped out an angle that will let you go up against God and get
away with it? You don’t have a ghost of a chance. There is no escape.
Do you understand? No escape-ever. And this means you-the respectable
person, sitting in judgment upon another fellow creature, and remaining
unrepentant yourself” (Expositions of Bible Doctrines, vol. 2, God’s
Wrath. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans)
Paul obliterates his reader's
false reasoning. He is saying in essence that...
Those using the law
as their ladder to heaven
will be left standing in hell.
WHEN YOU PASS
JUDGMENT UPON THOSE WHO PRACTICE SUCH THINGS AND
(continually)
DO THE SAME: o krinon (PAPMSN) tous ta toiauta prassontas (PAPMSA) kai poion (PAPMSN) auta:
Practice
and Do = both in the
present tense
= habitually or as
their lifestyle.
In spite of the axiomatic truth
that God judges righteously, there are always those who think they can
escape the inescapable. In this verse Paul addresses those who think
they will "get in before the Ark closes"
The first
insight into the minds of self-righteous moralizers is that they do not
understand the nature and extent of sin. They imagine that because they
have not actually committed one of the principal sins they are beyond
judgment. The truth is, they may not have overtly committed adultery,
but it has happened in their heads. They did not overtly steal, but
their minds have robbed even their loved ones. They have not overtly
committed murder, but numerous times the mental knife has plunged. God
sees all this! He is not deceived by our indulging in self-righteous
delusion by renaming our personal sins. Others lie and cheat—we simply
stretch the truth. Others betray—we protect our rights. Others steal—we
borrow. Others are prejudiced—we have convictions.
The second insight, related to the first, is that the self-righteous
have an intrinsic blindness to their own faults. They do not see they
are doing the same things for which they condemn others. An example of
this is found in the life of David after he had committed adultery with
Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet came and told the king the tale of a
rich man who took a poor man’s sheep which the poor man loved and
slaughtered it to feed his guests. David was horrified (2 Sa12:5-7)
David, though immensely guilty of a similar and far greater sin, was
blind to his own condition even while enraged at the similar sin of
another. The religiously self-righteous easily forgets his own wrongs
and feels that others’ sins are worse than his own.
As Brunner has said "The knowledge of
the good is not the good itself”.
Robert Burns famous request was
O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as ithers see us!
THAT YOU WILL
ESCAPE JUDGMENT: hoti su ekpheuxe (2SFMI) to krima tou theou: (Ro
1:32; Pr 11:21; 16:5; Eze 17:15,18; Mt 23:33; 1Th 5:3; Heb 2:3; 12:25)
Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing them and
not judge you when you do them, too? (NLT)
The
stress rests upon the second “you” of the verse , the Greek
word for "you" (su) being
emphatic (placed at the beginning of the Greek sentence for emphasis).
Do you think that you, because you are "religious" or "moral", will
escape? Do you think that you, because you are a Jew, will escape the
righteous judgment of God? "Do you think that you of all people
will escape… ?” The clear implication is of course “No; you do not
stand a ghost of a chance. There is no escape, not now, not ever!”
Some Jews did expect precisely this: “even if we sin we are thine”
(from the apocrypha, Wis. 15:2).
Jewish tradition taught that
Abraham sat at the gate of hell to prevent any Jew from entering. They
were not ignorant of God, but of God’s design to bring them to
repentance. Jesus rightly accused the Pharisees and the scribes, the
Jewish religious leaders, of
invalidating (making of
no effect) the Word of God
by your tradition (paradosis = literally that which is handed
down, from generation to generation) which you have handed down; and you do many things
such as that. (Mark
7:13)
Escape
(1628)
(ekpheugo from ek = out of, from + pheugo = move
quickly from a point; flee; run) means to flee out of a place, flee
from, run away or escape. The idea is to seek safety in flight or to
become free from danger by avoiding some peril.
Ekpheugo is found 8 times in
the NT (Luke;
Acts
2x;
Romans;2 Corinthians;
1 Thessalonians;
Hebrews
2x) and is translated in the
NASB as: escape, 5; escaped, 2; fled, 1.
A review of the NT uses of
ekpheugo gives one a
graphic picture of the meaning...
Regarding His second coming and the
difficult times that would precede His return Jesus warned men to "keep
on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength
to escape all these things that are about to take place (judgment
of God when His wrath is fully revealed), and to stand before the Son of
Man (the Righteous Judge)." (Luke
21:36)
The Philippians jailer "when (he) had
been roused out of sleep and had seen the prison doors opened, he drew
his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners
(including Paul and Silas) had escaped." (Acts
16:27)
In Acts Luke describes a man
possessed by an evil spirit who "leaped on (the seven sons of Sceva) and
subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of
(ekpheugo) that house naked and wounded." (Acts
19:16)
Paul recounting his escape from the
king of Damascus explained "I was let down in a basket through a window
in the wall, and so escaped his hands." (2 Corinthians
11:31)
In a passage that parallels Romans
2:3 Paul explains that preceding the coming Day of the Lord men will be
deluded "saying, "Peace and safety!" (and) then destruction will come
upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child; and they
shall not escape (ekpheugo)" (see note
1Thessalonians 5:3)
Comment: The
Day of the Lord is a familiar Old
Testament image for the ultimate day of God’s judgment, His final day in
court when He settles the injustices of the world.
The writer of Hebrews asks "how shall
we escape (in context refers to the judgment of God) if we
neglect (are careless of, unconcerned about) so great a salvation? After
it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by
those who heard" (see note
Hebrews 2:3)
Finally and once again in the context
of God's judgment the writer of Hebrews warns his readers (and all men)
to "See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those
did not escape (judgment) when they refused him who warned them
on earth, much less [will we escape] who turn away from Him who warns
from heaven." (see note
Hebrews 12:25)
Comment: Because the
Israelites refused to listen to God when He spoke to them on earth in
regard to His law, that generation perished in the wilderness. How much
more accountable, then, will those be who disregard the infinitely
greater message of the gospel? And how can they escape?
The
Septuagint (LXX)
has 6 uses of ekpheugo (Jdg.
6:11; Est. 8:12; Job 15:30; Prov. 10:19; 12:13; Isa. 66:7). In Proverbs
we see a
contrast in two lifestyles and associated destinies declaring that
An
evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his lips, but the righteous
will escape from trouble. Proverbs 12:13
As MacDonald notes...
"the judgment of God is
inescapable on those who condemn others for the very sins they practice
themselves. Their capacity to judge others does not absolve them from
guilt. In fact, it increases their own condemnation. The judgment of God
is inescapable unless we repent and are forgiven." (MacDonald, W., &
Farstad,
A.
Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and
New Testaments. Nashville: Thomas Nelson)
Hodge writes...
“If, then,” as Theophylact says, “he
cannot escape his own judgment, how can he escape the judgment of God?
If we are forced to condemn ourselves, how much more will the infinitely
Holy condemn us?” (Hodge, C. Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans,
1835)
Why might they think they will
escape? Solomon explains that men are inclined to consider that
God is condoning their ways if...
"the sentence against an evil deed is
not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them
are given fully to do evil. " (Eccl
8:11).
John MacArthur gives an
illustration of judgment:
It has been told that nomadic tribes
roamed ancient Russia much as American Indians once roamed North
America. The tribe that controlled the choicest hunting grounds and
natural resources was led by an exceptionally strong and wise chief. He
ruled not only because of his superior physical strength but because of
his utter fairness and impartiality. When a rash of thefts broke out, he
proclaimed that if the thief were caught he would be punished by ten
lashes from the tribal whip master. As the thefts continued, he
progressively raised the number of lashes to forty, a punishment that
everyone knew he was the only one strong enough to endure. To their
horror, the thief turned out to be the chief’s aged mother, and
speculation immediately began as to whether or not he would actually
sentence her to the announced punishment. Would he satisfy his love by
excusing her or would he satisfy his law by sentencing her to what would
surely be her death? True to his integrity, the chief sentenced his
mother to the forty lashes. But true also to his love for his mother,
just before the whip came down on her back he surrounded her frail body
with his own, taking upon himself the penalty he had prescribed for her.
In an infinitely greater way, Christ took the penalty of all men’s sin
upon Himself. (MacArthur,
J: Romans 1-8. Moody)
Why is it important to understand
that one day there will be an actual judgment of God? Listen to
Francis Schaeffer's answer in his section entitled "The
Necessity of Judgment":
But let me stress this warning. It
(the message of coming judgment) is more than just. It is the only
message that is able to speak into the 20th-century mentality because it
is the only message which really gives an answer to the two great
problems of all men—modern man and man throughout the ages. First, man
needs absolutes, universals, something by which to judge. If one has no
basis on which to judge, then reality falls apart, fantasy is
indistinguishable from reality, there is no value for the human
individual and right and wrong have no meaning.
There are two ways to get away from God's judgment of men. One is to say
that there is no absolute. But one must be aware that if God does not
judge on a 100% basis, he is indeed like an old man in the sky. And
worse—not only is man left in relativism, but God himself is bound by
relativism. God must be the judge whose own character is the law of the
universe or we have no absolute. We do not need to be embarrassed as we
speak of the individual coming to God to be judged in the full historic
sense of judgment. It is quite the other way. If this is not true, then
we no longer have an absolute, and we no longer have an answer for
20th-century man. (he
Church at the End of the 20th Century, pp. 49-50)
William Newell writes
"Of course, this whole second chapter, and the first part of the
third, is meant by God, whose name is Love, to drive us out of our false
notions of Himself and His judicial procedure, into the arms of our
Redeemer, Christ; who has borne wrath, the wrath of God, as our
Substitute. But whether you are brought to flee to Christ or not, you
must face the facts: God is a God of judgment, and a God of truth. See
how He "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up." It is not because
God loves to judge and condemn, for He definitely says judgment is "His
strange work" (Isa28:21). Nevertheless, He must judge, and it must be
"according to truth, " according to the facts, the realities which are,
of course, known to Him. He needs no "jury" to decide any case. He is
Himself Witness, Jury and Judge. " (Romans
2)
Ray Stedman emphasizes that...
"As G. K. Chesterton points out, it
is impossible to swear properly without reference to God. Imagine
ripping off a round oath in the name of natural selection, for instance.
So, you see, there is a knowledge of God. And there is enough knowledge
of God in the conscience of man, and in nature around, to induce a
spirit of reverent worship if it is followed. But men refuse to
recognize this knowledge, and this is the basic human sickness that
grips our race. They suppress and smother the truth they know by
permitting wrong actions and wrong attitudes in their lives. I shouldn't
say, they, I should say, we. We do this, don't we? Even Christians do
it! " (The
Secrets of Men)
