Whose praise is not of men— Perhaps here is a reference to the etymology of the wordJew, it being derived from thename of Judah, which signifies praise. See Genesis 29:35; Genesis 49:8. We have observed, in the note on Romans 2:1 that there is a secret comparison of the Jews and Gentiles, which runs through what St. Paul says of them in this and the preceding chapter.
Inferences.—Miserable are those judges, preachers, masters, &c. who, in arraigning others, condemn themselves. It is for our own interest to be very slow and reserved in the judgment we pass upon our neighbours, because God judges us as we judge others. We readily enough blame vice, when we see it only in others; but God sees it better in us, than we do in them. We frequently condemn our fellow-creatures, in order to justify ourselves before men; and this very thing does but the more condemn us in the sight of God, Romans 2:1.
Let us revere the righteous judgment of God, which is here laid before us in so particular and affecting a manner; remembering that we are each of us to have our part in that day of final retribution; and that the secrets of our hearts will then be made manifest. It behoves us often to reflect upon the aweful result; and to consider, that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, will be our portion, if we are contentious and disobedient to the truth; yea, if we do not, by a patient continuance in well-doing, seek the promised glory, honour, and immortality. This if we do by the grace of God, we shall, through the alone merits of our adorable Saviour, secure eternal life. Romans 2:7-9. But otherwise, vain will our knowledge and our best profession be found, and our testimonies against the sins of others will only inflame the guilt of our own.
What cause have we to adore that goodness of God, which so gently takes unworthy sinners, as it were by the hand, and leadeth them to repentance! Romans 2:4. While we continually live upon this goodness, let us not act in contempt of its blessings, or abuse it to our own ruin. Is the wrath already laid up so small, that we should be increasing the treasure; that we should stimulate and arouse the terrors of the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of the Almighty, Romans 2:5.
It will be a most impartial, as well as important day! It does not much concern us to know how the Heathen will fare in it: it may suffice us, that if they be condemned, they will be righteously condemned;—not for remaining ignorant of that Gospel, which they never had an opportunity of hearing, but for violating those precepts of the divine law, which were inscribed on their consciences. See Romans 2:14-15.
This law within, accompanied by the secret workings of divine grace, accuses, judges, convicts, and condemns every sinner upon earth; who shall all be judged by the dispensation they have enjoyed. What a severe judgment then must attend on those, who, having besides this, the law of the Gospel, the example of the life of Christ, and the superior illuminations of the Holy Spirit, live notwithstanding as if they had no law at all! For how devoutly soever we may have heard and spoken of it, we shall be condemned, at the last, if we have not acted agreeable thereto. The use of the law is, to hear it with docility, to preserve the remembrance of it with gratitude, to meditate upon it with faith, to perform it with fidelity, to covet it with all our heart, and to make it our joy and delight: to effectuate all which is the work of grace in us, and that grace a gift of God, which we must earnestly supplicate, if we would savingly receive.
How little will it signify, to have the name of a Jew or a Christian! To boast in an external and temporary relation to God, if we be such as shall finally be disowned by him, will but render us more wretched. To have known his will; to have distinguished things that differ, and set up for instructors or reprovers of others, will only furnish out matter of condemnation from our own mouths, if while teaching others we teach not ourselves, Romans 2:17-21. Well may the punishment be aggravated, where the guilt is so great, when it brings so peculiar a reproach upon religion, and, in effect, dictates so many blasphemies against the name of God, at the very time it pretends to exalt it, Romans 2:24. For as a good life is the praise which tends most to the honour of God; so a wicked life, in a profession holy of itself, includes in it a kind of blasphemy, and is often the fatal occasion thereof in others.
We pity the Gentiles, and we have reason to pity them; but let us take heed, lest those appearances of virtue, which are to be found among some of them, condemn our conduct, who with the letter of the law and the Gospel, and with the solemn tokens of a Christian relation to God about us, transgress his precepts, and violate our engagements to him; turning the very means of goodness and happiness into the occasions of more unpardonable guilt, Romans 2:26-27.
May our hearts, therefore, be always attentive to those lessons of inward religion which the sacred oracles continually inculcate, and the Holy Spirit of God urges, Romans 2:28-29. We are holy only by living inwardly and outwardly according to the holiness of our profession, and observing its sacred rules. The outboard appearance, which was not sufficient to make a real Jew in the times of the law, can never be sufficient to make a true Christian in the times of Gospel grace. Christianity is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter. We are nothing for or before God, but what we are in the inward man; all the rest is shadow only, and hypocrisy in the sight of heaven. Let us remember, it is the praise, not of men, but of God, which is in question. And who can be so lost to all greatness of mind, all generous ambition, as not to long, and ever burn to attain the glorious prize? Who can enjoy, or attend to the praise of men, while he has any reason to fear that God,—the All-seeing,—All-wise,—All-powerful God, condemns and disapproves?
REFLECTIONS.—1st, Nothing could be urged against the prophane Gentiles which the Jews would not with satisfaction admit. But, while they judged them, they in fact condemned themselves, being chargeable with the same abominations, and that with more aggravated guilt because of their superior advantages. To them therefore the Apostle addresses himself, and proves them most inexcusable in their censures, and liable to the same wrath of a justly-offended God.
1. They were guilty of the same sins which the Gentiles committed, yet flattered themselves that they should escape the judgment of God. But it was folly in them to promise themselves impunity, when the God of truth and judgment had fully declared his determined purpose to punish such workers of iniquity: and all who knew the unchangeableness of his word were sure that vengeance must overtake the impenitent transgressors, whether they were Jews or Gentiles. Note; (1.) It is vile hypocrisy to condemn that in others which we allow and practise ourselves. (2.) God's judgment will be according to truth, and none shall be able to object to the righteousness of his sentence, any more than they can escape from the execution of it.
2. They abused God's patience, and made the most ungrateful returns for his goodness. Peculiar mercies they had enjoyed, the most wonderful forbearance they had experienced, and all his multiplied favours had the most direct tendency to melt down their obdurate hearts into ingenuous shame and contrition, and to engage them to return to him: but they considered not their deep obligations, were insensible to all the wonders of his grace, and, after their hardness and impenitent hearts, treasured up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; so eager in pursuit of their iniquities, as if they were heaping up the most valuable treasures. Note; (1.) There is a day of wrath, of terrible wrath, approaching, when inexorable judgment will seize the impenitent soul. (2.) In all God's decisions his righteousness will appear, and even the damned be forced to own their sentence just. (3.) A hard and impenitent heart is the direst plague on this side of hell. (4.) The time of God's patience is expiring, and abused patience will bring down the heaviest vengeance.
3. God, in his procedure at the day of judgment, will act with the greatest impartiality, rendering to every man according to his deeds. (1.) To them who by patient continuance in well-doing, who in the persevering exercise of faith in a Redeemer are in the use of the appointed means working out their salvation; and seek for the glory, honour, and immortality which is brought to light in the Gospel; to them God will give eternal life: glory, honour, and peace, are the assured portion secured to every man that, under the influence of faith and love, perseveringly worketh good, acquitted by Gospel principles, and proposing as his end the divine glory. And herein there is no difference between Jew or Gentile, nor is God a respecter of one more than the other; the faithful of both denominations shall share the same blessedness according to their measure of grace; as they are interested in the same divine Saviour, they shall be entitled, in proportion to their faithfulness and holiness, to the same reward. (2.) On the other hand, unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, contradicting and opposing the method of divine grace revealed in the Gospel; but obey unrighteousness, walking in unbelief, iniquity, and impenitence; indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, even all the terrors of vengeance which a righteous Judge will inflict, must be poured out upon every man that doeth evil; of the Jew first, to whom all his outward privileges will be no protection; and also of the Gentile, who shall no more escape than the Jew, if he perseveringly neglect the great salvation of the Gospel: and each will bear their punishment according to the advantages which they have enjoyed, and the means and mercies which they have abused.
4. In judging the world, God will regard the different measures of light against which men have sinned, and will punish them according to the several aggravations of their guilt.
The Gentiles, who have sinned without law, must perish without law. They have not had indeed the same clear revelation as was made to the Jews at Sinai; but they have a law written on their hearts, some more obscure traces of God's will have been delivered down to them, and their consciences, though defiled, have some general notions, of good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood; by which means these heathens, though not having the law, are a law unto themselves; and, when they correspond in their practice with these dictates of natural conscience through the secret influences of the Spirit of God, their thoughts and judgment acquit and approve them; or, if they deviate therefrom, they are accused, reproached, and condemned in their own hearts.* The unbelieving Gentiles, therefore, though not so criminal as the unbelieving Jews, who resist clearer manifestations of the divine will, yet cannot plead ignorance; they sin against their partial convictions, are without excuse, and God is just in executing his judgments against them.
* This passage is here considered according to the common interpretation of it; but for farther light upon it, see the Critical Notes.
The unbelieving Jews, as many as have sinned in the law, against the holy commandments which were delivered unto them, shall be judged by the law; and, as their sin is more aggravated, their condemnation will be more grievous. And though they valued themselves highly on their external privileges as the disciples of Moses, and thought themselves the favourites of heaven, because they were acquainted with God's law, and heard it constantly read and explained to them, they were most fatally deceived; since not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
In the day therefore when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, to whom all judgment is committed, according to the Gospel, which Paul calls my Gospel; not as if he was the author of it, but as being put in trust with it; then shall impartial justice be executed on transgressors, and according to the measure of their guilt shall be their condemnation. Note; (1.) An aweful day of judgment approaches: it highly imports every soul to inquire how they shall come and appear before God. (2.) Whatever is now concealed with most cautious care shall soon be brought to light: we believe that he shall be our Judge, from whom nothing is hid, nothing is secret.
2nd, The great rock on which the Jews split, was their vain dependence on the law of Moses, when in fact that very law on which they trusted denounced indignation and wrath upon them as transgressors of it.
1. The Apostle mentions various particulars in which they proudly gloried. Behold, thou art called a Jew; they valued themselves highly on their descent from Abraham; and restest in the law; secure of heaven because they had Moses for their teacher, though they obeyed not his injunctions; and makest thy boast in God, as if peculiarly interested in him, and, exclusive of all other nations, possessing his favour and regard; and knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, puffed up with the conceit of their superior knowledge of God's mind above any other people, accurate to discern truth from falsehood, professing their high estimation of the divine-law, and from earliest youth (κατηχουμενος) catechised and instructed out of it; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes; such high and lofty titles they assumed, when regarding their Gentile neighbours, on whom they looked down with sovereign contempt, and thought the wisest heathens were but as infants to them, and needed to come to their school to learn the elements of divine knowledge; when, in fact, all they possessed was but a form of knowledge and of the truth in the law; for in reality they neither understood its nature, extent, or spirituality; nor practised its precepts. Note; (1.) External privileges rested upon, instead of improved, tend but more fatally to deceive and destroy us. (2.) Unsanctified knowledge is a dangerous possession, puffing up the soul in pride, and leading it to perdition. (3.) A form of sound words in our lips may impose upon men; but without the power of divine grace in the heart, all the rest is no better than sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
2. He charges them with various crimes, the more aggravated because of the privileges in which they boasted, and the knowledge which they professed. While they taught others, they never preached to their own hearts; their lives gave the lie to their instructions. They declaimed against theft, yet practised it themselves, Matthew 23:14 and lived in that adultery which they so sharply condemned in others: they testified their abhorrence of idols, yet sacrilegiously robbed God of his honour, not only by withholding their offerings from his altar, but more abundantly by making void his law through their traditions, and, while scrupulous in trifles, neglecting the weightier matters. Thus they stood most inexcusably guilty; and by such flagrant breaches of his law, even while they boasted of it as their great privilege, and trusted on it as their security, they put the highest dishonour upon God, and brought the greatest reproach on their profession, giving occasion to the very Gentiles to blaspheme and speak evil of that religion, the professors of which were so infamously vile; and acting over the same part as it is written their fathers had done before them, Ezekiel 36:20-23. Note; (1.) Example influences more than precept. Indeed how can it be expected that the people should believe those, who shew by their practice that they do not believe themselves? (2.) They who prove false to their professions, give the deepest stab to the cause of God.
3. The Apostle considers the Jewish plea of circumcision, and proves the vanity of it. It profited them, if they kept the law perfectly; but, in case of transgression, it stood them in no stead but as it led them to view the great atoning Saviour, nor were they at all more acceptable to God than an uncircumcised Gentile. And if, for argument's sake, it be supposed that a heathen should observe all the precepts of the law, would he not be an object of God's regard, as much as if he had been circumcised? and would not such a moral heathen, though uncircumcised, condemn thee a Jew, and circumcised, if he observed that law, which you, though professing to hold, and by circumcision obliging yourself to keep, notwithstanding transgress? Undoubtedly he would. Note; The comparative exemplariness of those who enjoy less means, and make less profession of religion, will justly condemn those, who with greater advantages and more pretensions to piety dishonour, by their unfaithfulness, the holy name whereby they are called.
4. He describes the true circumcision. It is not mere outward profession which seals a man a true Israelite; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh available to any saving purpose: but he is the true son of Abraham, who in faith and spirit resembles this eminent friend of God; and the true circumcision, which God regards, is that of the heart, purified by faith; in the spirit, and not in the letter; where not only a profession is made, but a real inward change is wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost; whose praise is not of men, but of God; it is what men cannot discern; and as they who profess it desire not human but divine approbation, their great care and concern is that they may be accepted of God. Note; It is the heart which God regards. Let us remember then, that we have to do with him, on whom the most plausible professions cannot impose.