Comentários bíblicos

Romans 2:1. The representation of the moral state of the heathen world, in the foregoing chapter, is a proof of the necessity of the Gospel, or of a further dispensation of grace or favour, for the salvation of mankind: and how rich the favour wherewith God visited the world! To have destroyed the race of the apostate rebels who had abused their understandings and every gift ofa bountiful Creator, would have been justice; to have spared them, lenity and mercy: but to send his only-begotten Son from heaven to redeem us from all this iniquity and ungodliness by his own blood, is the most wonderful and exuberant favour. Rightly is the doctrine which teaches it called Gospel, or glad tidings: according to its true nature it should have filled the whole world with transports of joy: however, one would think it could not possibly have met with opposition from any part of mankind. But the Jew opposed it: he abhorred the Gentile, and contradicted the grace which honoured and saved him. The Apostle pleads and defends our cause: his business is, to confound the Jew, and to prove that we have as good right as he to all the blessings of the Messiah's kingdom; and by the description of the vicious state of the Gentiles in the former chapter, he has delicately availed himself of the prejudices of the Jew. He endeavours, from the beginning of the epistle, to court his attention; but nothing would please him more than a discourse, in which the Gentiles were reduced to such a vile and abject state. Thus the Apostle rouses his contempt of the Gentiles, and gives him occasion to condemn them:—but it is, that he may the more effectually humble him in this chapter; in which he proves, that the Jews, having in an aggravated manner despised the goodness and broken the law of God, were as obnoxious to his wrath as the Gentiles. How could they,with any conscience or modesty, arrogate all the divine mercy to themselves; or pretend that other men were unworthy of it, when they had done as much, or more, to forfeit it than others? Must they not exclude themselves from being the people of God under the Gospel, by the same reason that they would have the Gentiles excluded? This, however, was an argument highly ungrateful to the Jew: and it would be very difficult to fix any conviction upon his mind: therefore the Apostle first addresses him in a covert general way, thou art therefore inexcusable, O man! &c. not giving out expressly that he meant the Jew, that the Jew might more calmly attend to his reasoning, while he was not apprehensive that he was the man. Secondly, Most judiciously, and with irresistible force of reasoning, he turns his thoughts from his present superior advantages to the awful day of judgment (Romans 2:5-16.), when God, in the most impartial equity, will render to all mankind without exception according to their works. Thusthe Apostle grounds his following argument very methodically and solidly on God's equal regards to men in all nations, who fear him and uprightly practise truth and goodness; and his disapproving, and at last condemning all men in any nation, however privileged, who live wickedly. This is striking at the root of the matter, and demolishing, in the most true and effectual manner, the Jew's prejudices in favour of his own nation, and the unkind thoughts that he had entertained of the Gentiles. For if a Jew could be convinced, that a sober virtuous heathen, fearing God and working righteousness, might, through the infinite merit of the Messiah and the secret influences of the Holy Spirit, be blessed with eternal salvation, he must be persuaded that it was no such shocking or absurd matter, that believing Gentiles should be pardoned and taken into the visible church. Thus the Apostle advances with great skill and with the justest steps in his argument; insinuating himselfby degrees into the Jew's conscience. This passage is also well adapted to encourage the Gentile, humbled by the dismal representationin the foregoing chapter; for he would here see, that he was not utterly abandoned of God; but might, upon good grounds, hope for his mercy and kindness. We may just observe farther, that what St. Paul says of the Jews, in the present chapter, answers to what he had charged on the Gentiles in the first. Forthere is a secret comparison of them one with another, running through these two chapters; which, as soon as it comes to be considered, gives such a light and lustre to St. Paul's discourse, that one cannot but admire the skilful turn of it, and look on it as the most soft, the most beautiful, and most pressing argumentation; leaving the Jews to say for themselves, why they should have the privilege continued to them under the Gospel, of being alone in a national sense the people of God. See Locke, and on Romans 2:29.

That judged— 'Ο κρινων, the judger, is here very emphatical; and the more so, as it is repeated in the latter part of the verse. It denotes more than simply judging: it implies assuming the character, place, and authority of a judge; which would be seen more clearly, if the verse were rendered thus; Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man! whosoever art a judger; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou, the judger, doest the same things. There will need no remark, to those who read this epistle with the least attention, to prove that the judging which St. Paul here speaks of, refers to that aversion which the Jews generally had to the Gentiles: insomuch that the unconverted Jews could not bear the thought of a Messiah who admitted the heathen equally with them into his kingdom; nor could the converted Jews be easily brought, for a considerable time, to admit them into their communion, as the people of God, now equally with themselves; so that they generally, both one and the other, at that time judged them unworthy the favour of God and incapable of becoming his people any other way than by circumcision and an observance of the ritual parts of the law;—the inexcusableness and absurdity whereof St. Paul shews in this chapter. Dr. Doddridge observes, that there is a greater delicacy in the Apostle's transition here, than most commentators have imagined. From what he had before said, to prove the wicked and abandoned among the heathens inexcusable in their wickedness, he justly infers, that the crimes of those who had such knowledgeof the truth as to condemn the vices of others, were proportionably yet more inexcusable. This was eminently the case with the Jews. But he does not directly speak of them till the 9th verse; drawing the inference at first in such general terms, as might also comprehend Gentiles, philosophers, and all others who contradicted the moral instructions which they themselves gave. Though the black detail of vices enumerated in the preceding chapter is such as cannot fail to shock the thinking mind; yet whoever will take the trouble to search into the state of religion and virtue among the Jews at the same period will confess, that the Apostle is rather tender than rigid in his accusations. See Joseph. Jewish War, b. 5. 100. 13 b. 7. 100. 8 and Whitby.

return to '

Romans 2:2. Is according to truth— The Apostle is here speaking of the general punishment of sin, in whomsoever it is found. The judgment of God is according to truth against them [—all of them, Jews or Gentiles] who do such things: and he has his eye, not upon the rejection of the Jews, in this world, but upon the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Romans 2:5; Romans 6:16.

return to '

Romans 2:4. Goodness and forbearance, &c.— Taylor observes, that goodness is here to be understood of the mercy and goodness of God, which bestowed superior light and advantages upon the Jews. Goodness is used in the same sense with regard to the Gentiles, chap. Romans 11:22. We may observe, that the Apostle uses general terms, that the Jew may not too plainly see that he is speaking to him. When he says, leadeth thee to repentance, the meaning is, ought to lead thee: for it should be carefully noted, that it is very common in the sacred writings, to express not only our Christian privileges, but also the duties to which they oblige, in the present or preterperfect sense; or to speak of that as done which only ought to be done; and which, in fact, may possibly never be done. See Matthew 5:13. 1 Peter 1:6. Hebrews 13:14; Hebrews 13:25.

return to '

Romans 2:6. Deeds— u917?ργα, works; as it is rendered in other places.

return to '

Romans 2:7. By patient continuance— Patient, in this verse, seems to be opposed to contentious in the next: the former referring to the patience of Christians under Jewish persecutions, the latter to the bitter persecuting spirit of the Jews. See Locke.

return to '

Romans 2:8. Do not obey the truth— Though by the truth the Gospel be here meant, yet St. Paul seems plainly to have used the term truth with an eye to the Jews; for, though some few of them received the Gospel, yet even a great part of these few joined with the rest of their nation in opposing this great truth of the Gospel;—that under the Messiah, the Gentiles were the people of God as much as the Jews; and, as such, were to be received by them. In the last words of this verse there seems to be a reference to Psa 78:49 when,speaking of the Egyptians, it is said, He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble: and it may intimate with great delicacy, that the Jews would in the day of vengeance be more severely punished than even their Egyptian enemies were, when God made their plagues so wonderful. There should be a full stop at wrath. Tribulation and anguish in the next verse begin a new sentence, which affirms that to be a general rule of God's dealing with mankind at large in judgment, which in the two foregoing verses he seems to mean only of Christians so called, and Jews. The word στενοχωρια, rendered anguish, signifies straitness; and is used by Xenophon to denote a narrow way, which cannot be passed. See Locke, Doddridge, Raphelius, and Elsner.

return to '

Romans 2:11. There is no respect of persons with God— That is, in passing the final sentence he is determined by their real characters. See the note on Acts 10:34. This is perfectly consistent withan inequality in distributing advantages, and opportunities of improvement, according to the sovereign pleasure of the great Lord of all. This assertion of the Apostle, so often repeated, will appear the more important and reasonable, as the Jews thought that no Israelite should be deprived of future happiness, whatever his faults had been, unless he was guilty of apostacy, idolatry, and some few other very enormous crimes. See Jortin's Discourses, page 26.

return to '

Romans 2:12. Without law—without law— Without the law, &c. Those under the law, St. Paul says, shall be judged by the law; and this is easy to conceive: because they were under a positive injunction, wherein life and death were annexed as the reward and punishment of obedience and disobedience. But of the unbelieving Gentiles, who were not under that positive injunction, he says barely, that they shall perish. St. Paul does not use these so eminently different expressions for nothing. See particularly chap. Romans 5:13.

return to '