Are people today really responsible for their sin? Do they know the standards of God? The Jew might ask, how can the Gentile be judged, because the Gentile does not have the Ten Commandments? He does not have the revelation which the Jewish nation has. Certainly, he deserves to be judged; he is a sinner. In fact, the Jew thought the Gentile was an infinitely worse sinner that he himself was, which was not true. They regarded the Gentiles as utterly beyond the pale. But the question is important to us also. We live in times when ethical relativism dominates everything. The theories of atheism and humanism dominate society. This generation says the Ten Commandments are a nuisance. They prevent you from having a happy life and enjoying yourself. Furthermore, they might cause you enormous psychological problems, because they give you terrible pains of conscience when you do not need to have them, since you are entitled to do what you want to do. Most of our politicians are moral and ethical relativists and utter humanists without even realising it. This does not apply to all; some are very well read, some believe these things as a result of their own conviction, but most are. Their heads have been filled with moral relativism, and they accept it because they think it is smart to be politically correct. There are no moral absolutes. There are no absolute standards. Any so-called morals that there are, or ethics, are only necessary for the reasonable regulation of society, not because anything is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. All that matters is that you do not harm people, you do not steal from people, and you do not unduly aggravate them or annoy them. This is what people these days believe even if they do not where it comes from. The answer of God given in this chapter is, ‘Yes, we are responsible.’ It does not matter about the brain-washing and the propaganda which tells us we are not, and that there are no morals and no absolutes. There are two great answers to that, and the first is in this first verse. ‘Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.’ We are responsible for doing what we know to be evil. In doing it we condemn ourselves. How could you more conclusively prove that you are guilty and without excuse than be condemning yourself.
Of course people do not condemn themselves; they are careful not to do so. But they condemn other people. If you want to see evidence for the existence and activity of the conscience, don’t look at what people say about themselves. When it comes to themselves there is a bias, and they deliberately avoid applying the standards they know are right. Look at what they say about other people. They judge each other constantly, especially when their own interests are at stake. When they suffer injustice, the conscience – which they may deny really exists – springs to life, and they show that they do know God’s standards after all.
This also gives the lie to another claim of modern man. Morals are cultural, it is claimed. They are a convention agreed by society. But if that were the case, then morals would vary from one culture to another. Now it is true that there may be some minor variation, and that the situation is complicated by the efforts men make to silence and reprogram their consciences. But everyone knows that stealing is wrong, that unprovoked violence is wrong, and murder; everyone knows that a man does not lie to his friend, and that no society can survive which is built on a lie. When a man meets a stranger, and that stranger cheats on him, tricks him, does violence to him, he does not stop to first ask: ‘Is that what your culture taught you to believe?’ Instead he makes an immediate judgment about the conduct of the other, and assumes that the same standard which is written on his own conscience is also written on that stranger’s conscience. The standards by which his own behaviour may be judged, can without doubt be applied to the other. That same standard is written on the heart of the other by God, and he too knows that he should not behave in this way. And this is not a half-hearted judgment; it is often accompanied by anger.
How can Paul say that men condemn each other, when in chapter 1 verse 32 he has just said that they approve of what each other do? Which is true? Both are true, but not at the same time. What decides whether they will approve or disapprove in any particular case, is what serves self-interest best. They approve each other’s sin when they wish to do the same thing themselves, and they disapprove when they think they will suffer at the hands of the other.