Romans 2:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Romans 2:16

Comments

Here we pick up on the end of verse 12, ‘For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law … in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.’ That is something easy to prove from many Scriptures. Jesus Christ tells us that he is the appointed one of God to be the Judge of all the earth. There is one Day of Judgment. It is an event in a short space of time. These are simple words, but they have to be thought of individually – ‘in the day’. It is set; it is the day. We do not know when it is, but surely it is not far off now. It is at the end of time, but God has determined it. It is in God's calendar, even if we cannot see it in ours. It is final, only one judgment, irreversible, no appeals. God makes no errors. Everyone comes into judgment. God, who sees every heart, who scans every life all the time, knows exactly what we have thought, said, and done. He knows the constant state of sin. But at the end of the verse, ‘according to my gospel.’ Why does the apostle Paul use that language? ‘According to my gospel’ – it's very beautiful. Some critics say, ‘Yes, that is what it was. It was his gospel’, and they try to drive a wedge between the Apostle Paul's teaching and that of Christ. ‘Paul created something else’, they say. It is nonsense, of course. When you are familiar with the epistles of Paul and you read them with a reference Bible, you can't help noting how much he says – for all the clarity he gives it – that is not original at all. So when he says ‘my gospel’, he is not suggesting it is unique to himself. It wasn't. He compared it all with the gospel of the apostles who walked personally with the Lord, and he was one hundred percent in agreement with their teachings. So what does he mean then when he says my gospel? He means to remind us that he got all his truth by direct revelation from Christ. He was the last of the apostles, the one born out of due time. His gospel agreed with everything the others had learned personally from the Lord Jesus Christ. But as is true of all of us, he had made it his very own. Like the Old Testament sage made to eat the scroll, he'd taken it into himself. He was gospel through and through. Everybody knows this. Throughout the world, wherever they have heard of the apostle Paul, they link him to the two. He was inseparable from the preaching of Christ, crucified, the need of salvation, the need to trust in him for the forgiveness of sin, the need to repent before him, to be born again by the power of his spirit. These were the crucial things for the apostle Paul.

Application

What is my big secret and your big secret, your secret sin? Well, it may be something all-embracing. It may be that somebody is a hypocrite. You are not really a Christian at all. You say you are. You say you believe. Maybe you have even got into church membership, but you are not converted. You don't pray; you don't strive for holiness; you don't love or serve the law; you are a hypocrite, but nobody knows. It's your secret. Be careful: ‘In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men’ – it is coming out, and it may then be too late.

Or the secret may be something else. It may be some sin you have got wrapped up like a parcel, and it's in your thought life or where nobody sees. Maybe you have been looking at unclean images. Maybe you have been doing things and contemplating things and fantasizing things, and the devil will lead you on through temptation. It's a secret sin. Not even your closest friend knows it. But it will be opened.

My gospel. Can you say it? Does it rule you, govern you, motivate you? Is it everything to you? Is it your fortune, your substance, so that you do all you can to speed it on its way, support it?

It is a great burden in preaching to adequately represent the justice of God. The preacher may well fear that there will be some people who listen to him and have done over the years, who could say in the Day of Judgment, – because they are lost and because they never came to Christ – ‘I was never properly warned. I cannot say I was ever made to be alarmed at judgment.’ He must therefore strive to impress these things on the people. On the one hand, if you speak about sin and judgment all the time, you drive some people away. It is rather like setting a trap for the mice or something of this sort. You say to yourself, ‘How can I touch upon this in such a way that I will not drive people away before they have heard both the warnings and the way of salvation, and yet at the same time be firm enough and explicit enough. Young people particularly need to understand that they are under judgment, they are facing the wrath of God. The preacher cannot do it, but how can he represent this message so that God will work in the heart?

‘By Jesus Christ.’ Understand that the Father and the Holy Spirit have deputed judgment to Jesus Christ. Yes, but he is the Saviour. He is the one whose love was so great that before the foundation of the world, he was the member of the Godhead elected to come to earth to suffer and to die for all who would be saved. He is the one whose pity and compassion and love and kindness was so great that he would take our punishment. And yet he will be your judge if you never seek him. Would you ask someone who is known for their great kindness to do something that involves great severity? Would they be able to do it? Yes, the very same person will be Saviour to some and Judge to others.

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Romans 2:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Romans 2:16 explained