ACC ~ Romans 2 v1 - 4

OVERVIEW:

Jesus taught his followers not to pass judgment, so that they would not be judged themselves. The apostle Paul repeats this teaching, but the Fathers had various interpretations of it. The question of evil and punishment inevitably raises the problem of God’s justice. The Fathers regarded the sins of those who are quick to judge as a sign of pride more than as a form of hypocrisy. Nobody should imagine that he or she is above the judgment of God. Rigorous self-examination should precede our moral evaluation of others. Nobody should assume that because God is slow to punish, he will not do so in the end. If he delays, it is only because he wants to give people time to repent.

2:1 | No Excuse for Judging Others

NO EXCUSE. AMBROSIASTER: Paul shows that the man who does evil and consents to others who do it is deserving of death, lest perhaps the one who does it and pretends not to approve of others who do it … might think he can be excused, because he can conceal his sin for a time. … It is not right to give in to someone who pretends to be better when in fact he is worse. Such a person appears to escape notice and to be worthy of honor, but in fact he will be punished. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

YOU CONDEMN YOURSELVES. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul says this with the rulers of the city in mind, because at that time they ruled the entire world. He was telling them … that when they pass sentence on someone they are passing sentence on themselves as well. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 5.

JUDGED BY GOD. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Here it is shown that each person knows that he will be judged by God in what he judges and condemns another man for doing. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

WHOEVER YOU ARE. AUGUSTINE: Paul is speaking here of sins already committed. And when he says “O man, whoever you are,” he includes not only the Gentile but also the Jew who wanted to judge the Gentiles according to the law. AUGUSTINE ON ROMANS 7-8.

PUNISHMENT FOR WICKEDNESS. PELAGIUS: This concerns those who are in a position to pass judgment. Judges and princes are being put on trial. By a natural process everyone pronounces a sentence which fits the crime and knows that righteousness deserves reward while wickedness should be punished. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

2:2 | The Judgment of God

ONLY GOD KNOWS THE HEART. ORIGEN: The judgment of God is to be expected … not only for those who do the things which are listed above but for all who have in any way done anything good or evil. What Paul wants to show here is that only God can judge rightly. For there are some crimes committed in which the deed is evil but the intention is not, e.g., when someone accidentally kills someone else. And there are other cases in which the deed may be good but the thought behind it is not, e.g., if someone shows pity not because God has commanded it but in order to win praise from men. And there are still other cases in which thought and deed are so interfused that one cannot distinguish which is good or evil. Given that only God knows the hearts of men and only he can discern the secrets of the mind, only he has the power to judge rightly.

God has judged rightly in the case of those whose iniquities have been forgiven by the grace of baptism, whose sins have been covered by repentance and whose sin has not been imputed to them because of the glory of martyrdom. Rightness of judgment presupposes that the evil person will receive bad things and the good person good ones. Although the gifts and generosity of God do not allow of any dispute, nevertheless we shall show just how right the divine judgment is. It is commonly accepted that a good man should not be punished and that an evil man should not be rewarded with good. Suppose a man has at some point done evil. It is certain that at the time he was doing it he was evil. But if he repents of his previous deeds, turns his mind to the good and does what is right, says what is right, thinks what is right, desires what is right—does not that person seem good to you, and worthy to receive good things? Likewise, if someone is turned from what is good to what is evil, he will be judged now not to be good (which he was but is no longer) but rather evil, which he is now. For the deeds of both a good and an evil man pass away, but they shape and construct the mind of the doer according to their respective quality and leave it either good or bad and accordingly destined to receive either punishment or rewards. Therefore it will be unjust either for a good mind to be punished for evil deeds or for an evil mind to be rewarded for good deeds. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

GOD JUDGES THE WICKED AS THEY DESERVE. AMBROSIASTER: This means that we are not unaware that God will judge these people in truth, for we judge them ourselves. If what they do is displeasing to us, how much more will it be so to God, who is truly just and efficient in carrying out his work. … Paul is instilling fear, so that although the ungodly say that God does not care, in fact he will judge the wicked and most severely render to each one according to his deserts, not sparing any. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

UNGODLY DESPITE KNOWLEDGE OF CREATION. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul shows that the ungodly had fallen even with a knowledge of God. Such knowledge they had got even from their creation. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 5.

JUDGMENT RIGHTLY FALLS. THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA: “Judgment” means the tribunal and judgment seat of God, and as if to make the condemnation of the wicked certain Paul added “rightly.” PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH.

DEFLECTING THE APPEARANCE THAT EVIL PLEASES GOD. PELAGIUS: If you, a sinner, pass judgment upon a sinner like yourself, how much more will God, who is just, condemn you as unjust? If he did not do so, it might appear that evil is pleasing to him while good is not. But God has no favorites, and he spared neither his friends (the patriarchs) nor his angels when they sinned! Human judgment on the other hand is imperfect in many ways. The integrity of judges is often compromised by love, hate, fear and greed, and occasionally mercy is allowed to overturn the rule of justice. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

2:3 | No Escape from God’s Judgment

JUDGMENT BEGINS IN THE HOUSE OF GOD. ORIGEN: For this reason it is right for each person to examine his own conscience first and then debate the deeds of the person whom he is judging. If this were to happen, all desire for high ecclesiastical office would vanish from those appointed to it, if those who want to preside over the people were more concerned to judge themselves than to judge others.

No one should imagine that he can escape the judgment of God, as the prophet also says: “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” These things apply most of all to those who preside over the judgment of the people. Scripture also says elsewhere that “judgment will begin at the house of God.” … Therefore judgment begins with the children of God first of all, for God chastises everyone whom he accepts into the number of his children. Indeed, I think that even if it were possible, nobody should try to escape God’s judgment, for not to come to God’s judgment is not to come to improvement, to health or to a cure. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

THE ABILITY TO JUDGE. AMBROSIASTER: Paul does not want them to hope that they can be pardoned, since that would be unjust, when they have been given the ability to judge evil and wrongdoing and to avoid it. If they cannot manage to avoid it in this life, they will not be able to escape the judgment of God in the future. For God, with whom there is neither flattery nor respect of persons, will judge them on his own authority.

If someone thinks he ought to be immune from such punishment, let him say so. But if it is right that he should not escape, let him trust that God will judge and judge rightly, and that God, the Creator of the world, will offer proper attention and care to his creation. If God had made the world and then neglected it, he would be called a bad Creator, because he would be demonstrating by his neglect that what he had made was not good. But since it cannot be denied that God made good things—for it is unworthy and impossible for one who is good to make evil things—it is necessary to say that he is concerned about them. It would be a crime and a reproach to him if he were to neglect the good things which he had made. Life itself is governed by his servants the natural elements, who act according to his pleasure and plan, as the Lord himself says: “he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Therefore, if he does all that, will he not take care to look after what he has made, so as to reward those who love him and condemn those who reject him? COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

FALLING INTO THE SAME SINS ONE HAS ACCUSED OTHERS OF COMMITTING. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul argues that these people, because they have condemned themselves by their condemnation of others, will not escape the judgment of God. For how can it be reasonable if they condemn themselves and then expect God to approve of them and praise them?

Sinning, by itself, is not as serious as falling into the sins one has accused others of committing. See how Paul makes the whole thing more serious! For if you punish a person who has committed smaller sins … how will God not turn the tables on you and punish you who have committed greater transgressions? … And if you say that you know you deserve punishment but think that because God is patient with you that you will escape it and therefore do not take it seriously, this is all the more reason to fear and tremble! For the fact that you have not yet suffered punishment does not mean that you will not suffer it but that you will suffer more severely if you do not repent. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 5.

BAD JUDGMENT AND EVIL MEN. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: This talks about the bad judgment of evil men who judge according to the law of this world. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

GOD PERSISTS IN PATIENCE. AUGUSTINE: Is the fact that some persist in their wickedness any proof that God does not persist in his patience, punishing very few sins in this world, lest we fail to believe in his divine providence and, saving many for the last judgment, to justify his future decree? LETTER 153.

2:4 | God’s Kindness Encourages Repentance

THE RICHES OF GOD’S KINDNESS. IGNATIUS: The last times are upon us. Let us therefore be of a reverent spirit and fear the longsuffering of God, lest we despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance. EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS 11.

FORBEARANCE DISTINGUISHED FROM PATIENCE. ORIGEN: You can recognize the riches of God’s kindness if you consider how many evils men do every day on earth. Almost everyone has fallen away and become worthless, traveling down the wide and broad way of perdition, ignoring the narrow road that leads to eternal life. Yet God lets his sun shine daily on all of them and sends them rain, however much they may blaspheme him. … Therefore if anyone despises God’s kindness and forbearance and patience, he does not know that he is being encouraged by these things to repent.

Forbearance differs from patience in that it applies more to those who sin because of their weakness and not deliberately, whereas patience is brought to bear in the case of those who sin deliberately, as if to glory in their wrongdoing. But as God has made everything with a certain measure, weight and number, so also his patience has certain limits. Those limits were reached by the people who perished in the flood, as well as by the men of Sodom who were destroyed by fire from heaven. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

TOWARD REPENTANCE. AMBROSIASTER: Paul says this so that no one should think that he has escaped, just because God’s goodness has allowed him to go on sinning. Nor should anyone think that God’s patience is to be despised, as if he did not care about human affairs, but rather understand that God conceals himself, because his judgment is not promised in this life. It is for the future, so that in the next life the man who did not believe that God is a judge will repent. For in order to reveal the terror of future judgment and that his patience should not be despised, God said: “I have been silent. But shall I be silent for ever?” Thus the man who has been punished and has not re-pented will repent when he sees the future judgment of God, which he has spurned. Then he who thought that the longsuffering of God’s goodness was something to laugh at will not hesitate to beg for mercy. COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES. OPPORTUNITY TO REPENT. CHRYSOSTOM: God shows us his kindness in order to lead us to repentance, not in order that we might sin even more. If we do not take advantage of this opportunity, the punishment we shall receive will be all the greater. HOMILIES ON ROMANS 5.

GOD DESIRES REPENTANCE. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: Here it is clearly shown how God has left the sinner with the desires of his heart. God could stop the sinner altogether from taking vengeance, but he prefers to give time to be converted to repentance. THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

GOD’S GOODNESS IN WAITING, JUSTICE IN PUNISHING. PELAGIUS: Do you imagine you can act with impunity just because God does not punish immediately. … Listen to the words of Scripture: “The Lord is not slow with his promises … but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.” The Lord is good in as much as he waits and just in as much as he punishes. … People may go far astray because of God’s patience, because he does not want to punish sinners immediately. And because he delays, people suppose either that he does not care at all about human affairs or that he overlooks sins. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.