COMMENT
In our adult Sunday School classes, we have been working our way through the Baptist Catechism. Recently, we have been looking at Questions 40-43, which deal primarily with the death and judgment of believers and non-believers.
Many “Christian” folks today are surprised to learn that they, too, will be judged. The water-downed Gospel that has been preached for far too long has made a mockery of God’s sovereignty and His right to judge the righteous and sinners alike. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul makes clear in Romans 2 that God will not have His just day, and all will stand before His judgment seat. This is also found in 2 Corinthians 5:10.
STUDY
Ver. 12. “For as many,” he says, “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.”
For here, as I said before, he shows not only the equality of the Jew and the Gentile, but that the Jew was even much burdened by the gift of the Law. For the Gentile is judged without law. But this “without law” (Gr. lawlessly) here expresses not the worse plight but the easier, that is, he has not the Law to accuse him. For “without law” (that is, without the condemnation arising from it), is he condemned solely from the reasonings of nature, but the Jew, “in the Law,” that is, with nature and the Law too to accuse him. For the greater the attention he enjoyed, the greater the punishment he will suffer. See how much greater is the necessity which he lays upon the Jews of a speedy recourse to grace! For in that they said, they needed not grace, being justified by the Law, he shows that they need it more than the Gentiles, considering they are liable to be punished more. Then he adds another reason again, and so farther contends for what has been said.
John Chrysostom, “Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,” in Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Romans, ed. Philip Schaff, trans. J. B. Morris, W. H. Simcox, and George B. Stevens, vol. 11, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 364.
v.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. Peshito: For those without law, who sin, will also perish without law; and those under the law, who sin, will be judged by the law. By the law we may here understand the entire revealed preceptive will of God; Tholuck, the will of God; Stuart, revelation; Hodge, the rule of duty. This was not fully and in many cases not at all made known to the heathen, they having only the light of nature. And yet it is said they had sinned. This is true. Their consciences said so. The smoke of ten thousand altars declared the same. Their superstitious devices for quieting conscience and appeasing divine wrath confirmed the sad truth. Such, living contrary to the very light of nature and neither knowing nor accepting a Redeemer, shall perish. To sinners the light of nature is killing and condemning, not saving. And those, who had and knew the whole preceptive will of God, and heeded not that great light, but sinned still, shall be judged, yes, and condemned (for the word has that force; John 3:17, 18 and often) by the law. Hodge: “Men are to be judged by the light they have severally enjoyed. The ground of judgment is their works; the standard of judgment, their knowledge.” Haldane: “In one word, the divine justice will only regard the sins of men; and wherever these are found it will condemn the sinner.” The next three verses are parenthetical and explain the principle here laid down.
Wm. S. Plumer, Commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans with an Introduction on the Life, Times, Writings and Character of Paul (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 1870), 96.
DEVOTION
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