Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

This video is a little over 4 hours long, but is broken into 15 segments. This part is covered from 8 minutes to 13.

Romans 2

Third: There are those who say, “But we are not so low and degraded as the great mass of the poor, ignorant, blind heathen. We know better; we condemn their vulgarities and vices. Are we to be judged along with them?” Especially in so-called Christian lands, where the light of the truth of God shines more or less brightly, is there a large class of people who are thus making their superior light and knowledge a reason why they ought to be exempted from eternal judgment. But in the day when a just God will judge, their plea will not stand. It will be proof rather of despising the riches of God’s goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, and of refusing to repent. It will be evidence of a hardened, impenitent heart.

God is just. He will judge justly in the day of judgment. Righteousness will be the principle on which He will judge. If any one can produce in the court of the judgment-day a record that will prove that he has been a seeker of glory, honor and incorruptibility, his record will be approved. But who will be able to produce such a record? But if righteousness requires the approval of the record (supposing it possible for such a record to be produced), it would necessarily require the disapproval of a record that will be proof of disobedience and sin. Will there be any whose record will not be that?

If, then, righteousness is the principle on which the judgment will be carried out, it will be in vain for any to hope for exemption from judgment on the ground of having better light and knowledge than the poor, ignorant heathen. God will not respect persons when He judges the deeds and thoughts of men. Those who have sinned without having special advantages and privileges will receive the due reward of their sins. The guilt of those who have sinned under greater light and knowledge will be all the greater. Righteousness will demand a judgment commensurate with the guilt. Light and knowledge will not be accepted as an excuse for sin.

If Romans 2:1-16 thus clearly insists on the inexcusable culpability of those who boast of light and knowledge above their more unfortunate fellowmen, sunken in vice, we are now to learn how the case of the Jew stands. By the will and authority of God, he occupies a specially exalted position among men. He had received a divine commission, had been called to be Jehovah’s witness and the exponent of His will. Set thus in the place of a light, guide and teacher to all men by divine authority, his responsibility was peculiarly solemn. How has he met it? Why, instead of being a bright and shining light for God, a true and faithful witness that Jehovah was the one only and true God, by his idolatry and incessant disobedience he has become the occasion and instrumentality of God’s being blasphemed among the Gentiles. He has incurred very great guilt.

A Jew might answer, while admitting all this, that circumcision protected him from judgment by God. The apostle exposes the utter insecurity of such a retreat. No Jew would be willing to have an uncircumcised man who kept the righteousness of the law counted as a circumcised man. He, then, must submit to being counted as an uncircumcised man if he breaks the law. It is not the formal ordinance of circumcision that makes one a really circumcised man; for circumcision to be real must be of the heart. No Jew has the right to count himself to be really a Jew unless he is one inwardly (verses 17-29).