Presuming on Grace
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things. Romans 2:1
Paul outlines in Romans 2, more than anywhere else in his writings, his picture of the final day of judgement. It’s simply untrue to characterise the Old Testament as portraying judgement fairly exclusively in contrast to the New Testament which portrays mercy fairly exclusively. The New Testament does highlight the extraordinary love of God revealed in the death of Jesus. But if people insist on rejecting God’s love, and part of the logic of love is that it can always be rejected, there is no merciful alternative. God is committed as the truly good God He is, to bringing justice and righteousness to the earth. That means confronting humanity. Those who live in the dehumanizing ways described in Romans 1 are courting disaster. Those who persist in wickedness, despite having every chance to turn back, are facing God’s judgement. There is no alternative.
In Romans 2:1-16 Paul is addressing the person who doesn’t identify with the kind of behavioural slide described in 1:21-32. Most commentators seem to think Paul has the Jews in mind; others think it is some kind of moralist. Paul has gone from ‘they’ (‘they knew God’; ‘they exchanged’; ‘they know God’s righteous decree’) to ‘you’ (‘you judge another’; ‘you are condemning yourself’). Paul uses a popular ancient literary form called diatribe, in which a speaker or writer instructs his audience by letting them listen in on an imaginary discussion between himself and someone who has a different view.
‘You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things’ (2:1). By the time Paul wrote Romans, he had been preaching the gospel for at least twenty years. He knew just how different groups of listeners would respond to his different emphases and would have constantly come across people who smiled to themselves as the kinds of sins described in the first chapter were outlined. They were not like that. They were self-consciously moral to the point of passing ‘judgement on someone else’ (2:1) Paul wrote ‘you who pass judgement do the same things’ (2:1). The moralists of Paul’s day couldn’t live up to their own high standards. The Jews might pride themselves on not being idolaters or involved in homosexuality, but what about ‘gossips, slanderers … boastful … heartless’ or other realms from the list in 1:29-31? Morality is like a pane of glass. Just one crack makes it unusable.
While the position of Jews in Paul’s day is somewhat removed from us, in other respects it is similar to that of people today, regardless of their particular religious background. Even as Christians we can ‘show contempt’ for God’s kindness towards us by using that very kindness to cover up our sin. “God will forgive; that’s his business” wrote the French sceptic, Voltaire, and too many Christians think similarly. We can grow cavalier toward our sin because we think God will simply overlook it out of His love for us in Christ. But the Bible teaches that a lack of concern about sin is incompatible with true faith. So Paul’s warning here in 2:1 carries the same warning for the Christian in our day as it did for the Jew in Paul’s day.