THE GOSPEL OF GOD
Meditations in the letter to the Romans
GOD'S WAY AND REQUIREMENTS
Romans 2:12-16

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THE APOSTLE Paul is continuing his purpose of bringing his readers to understand how much they need the Good News in Jesus Christ. His words may seem on the surface to be hard and depressing. It is when we understand his purpose, we realise that his purpose is one of deep love and concern. Paul tells us some eternal verities and truths about Gods way and requirements which would be totally depressing and destructive if there was no Gospel through Jesus Christ. If God had not given the Lord Jesus Christ for us, our future would be bleak indeed. There would be no hope for us, and the best thing we could do would be to be as happy as we can in this life, and seek to forget about the reality for us when this life is over. There would be no good purpose in telling people the truth about God's requirements unless there was some way for us to be able to meet them. Paul tells us of these requirements of God because God has given a way they may be met in Jesus Christ. It is only when we realise that we can't meet God's requirements on our own, and realise the importance of meeting those requirements, that we will be ready to reach out in desperation for the complete help that God has given in Jesus. Further, in seeing how lost we are without God's gift in Jesus, and the awfulness of that loss, we will see the wonderful love of God in giving his Son to die.

Further, if we are to appreciate the Gospel of God's love in Jesus, we need to realise also that God has no moral obligation to provide the Gospel. We need to realise that it is out of pure love and grace that God accepted the infinite cost of the gift of his Son to die, in order to save us.

There are four eternal truths about God in these verses before us. These tell us that we have no excuse before God. We are lost without the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Paul is not telling us what is possible for us fallen human beings to do, but simply what God requires and the outcome if God's requirements are met or not met.

Paul tells us in verse 13 of the passage before us that the law of God must be obeyed. Paul tells us this truth by saying that only those who obey will be righteous in God's sight.

We need to remember that the holy standard of God embodied in his moral law is a whole package. Our obligation of obedience is to the whole law. One hundred percent obedience is what is our obligation. In our human living we accept the fact that 100% is very rarely achievable. We talk of the fact that being human is to make mistakes and to be imperfect. Thus we are ready to make concessions and compromises. This is not possible with God. God is complete perfection and can accept nothing else.

Paul tells us in verse 13 of our passage the grounds on which God will declare a person righteous in his sight, and therefore accepted. The issue is not whether we know the law of God. The point is whether we keep the law of God. God looks at our actions, thoughts, emotions and intentions, and makes a judgement as to whether we have kept his law. If he judges that we have, then he declares us righteous. If he judges that we have not kept his law, he declares us unrighteous and sinners.

The basis on which God makes his judgement is on the basis of his perfect law of love, which is codified for us in the ten commandments, and expounded for us by Jesus in the sermon on the mount. The basis of his judgement is not whether we have done quite well, but whether we have kept his law perfectly without any failure whatsoever. Our obligation to God is to be perfect and not to commit any sin at all. There is no differentiation with God concerning little or big sins as to whether we are righteous or not. James tells us that if we keep the whole law and offend in one point we are guilty of all. God only considers whether a sin is big or little in apportioning punishment.

Today, it is felt very much in the church at large that God does not deal with us in a forensic or legal way. We are told that God is all love, and he is compassionate and merciful, and even if we fall short of what is perfection, he understands and forgives. All that God requires is that we do our best, or something like this. Under this view it matters very little whether Christ came or not. Further this theology majors on Christ's incarnation, rather than his death. The basis of this theological view is that the coming of Christ assures us of God's compassionate love, and that God became human in order to be amongst us and help us. The death of Christ is simply a further example of God being ready to take all that we throw at him, and still love us. In this view any idea that Christ's death is accepting God's punishment on account of our sin is felt to be both unnecessary and offensive.

There is no assurance here. All that is offered is pious hope. Instead, the Gospel of Jesus is real good news. The Gospel as taught in the New Testament accepts the fact of our obligation to keep God's law perfectly, and then tells the marvellous love of God that, knowing our inability due to corruption in us to keep his law, provides Jesus as our substitute, to keep the law in our place and to suffer the punishment of the law against our sin, so that in Jesus the law of God is completely satisfied. Then God can justly account us righteous. This is real assured salvation.

Following the truth of our obligation to keep the whole law of God affirmed by Paul in verse 13, is the related truth of the certainty of God's judgement for sin. Paul says in verse 12 "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law."

Paul speaks like this because he has the division between Jew and Gentile in mind and is addressing this. The Jews were under the law because God had given them his law through Moses and bound them to it by choosing the nation for special privileges. The Gentiles are described as 'apart from the Law', not because the moral law of God had no application for them, but because they had not been given the law like the Jews. In the previous chapter we have seen that the universal moral government of God is over all his creation.

Paul's point in verse 12 is that if we sin, whoever we are, God will judge that sin according to his strict justice. From the very beginning, as recorded in the story of Adam and Eve, the just penalty for sin is death. Any sin is an imperfection that violates God's pure perfection. It is marring the purity and beauty of his creation, and thus can't stand. It does not matter whether we are a Jew, with spiritual privileges, or Gentiles who have not been taught as the Jews. In the same way it does not matter whether we are British with all our spiritual privileges, or whether we may be a South American Indian who has total ignorance of Christianity.

This seems so very hard to us. What we do not realise is the essential purity and justice of God and that it would be a denial of this for God to overlook any falling short of his moral perfection. For God to act as we do and overlook sin, and reduce the standard to fit our failure, would be to deny his essential deity, and to act in a way that destroyed that deity. God, by his very nature, can't overlook sin, and his justice demands that sin meets its just desert.

Again the amazing love of God is that he meets all the demands of his holiness in himself in the person of Jesus, so that we sinners are saved from the justice our sin deserves, and the law of God is satisfied completely for us without any pain and cost to us. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for this very purpose. God cannot overlook failure to meet his moral perfection. God cannot deny his infinite love. These two facets of God's character, he brings together in Jesus. God meets all the demands of his moral perfection, on behalf of us sinners, in the person of his incarnate Son. He made Jesus the second Adam to stand in place of every sinner, and be our substitute and representative, and then live and die in our place. Isaiah writes in Isaiah 53:4-6 of this amazing love of God -

"Surely he took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought our peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us have turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all."

What amazing love is this! What infinite and wondrous grace! How could God have loved us so much, who have so hurt him by our sin and failure, that he was willing to give his only well beloved Son to suffer in our place. For loves sake God meets all the demands of his moral perfection in Jesus, so that we who deserve to suffer may be saved from all pain and punishment in time and eternity.

One of the awful facts about our human failure is that we will make excuses for ourselves, and try to wriggle out of our guilt, or plead that it is not very large, and does not deserve any censor. This miserable fact is illustrated so vividly in the case of Adam and Eve. After they had eaten the forbidden fruit, we see that they knew they were guilty. Yet when God taxes Adam with his sin, he blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent. Neither are willing to take responsibility for their actions. Both will not accept their guilt.

This attitude of fallen human nature is seen in the fact that when this doctrine of God's justice is brought before us, we will do every thing we can to avoid facing it, or avoid accepting that we are responsible. How often have we heard people side-stepping the issue by saying 'what about the heathen who have never had an opportunity to hear the Gospel?' 'Is it just that they should be condemned?' Another ploy we adopt is to plead ignorance and say that it is unfair of God to judge us when we did not know that we were doing any wrong. These and many other arguments we bring to avoid responsibility before God for our sin, and speak as if it would be unfair of God, even unjust, to judge us.

Paul brings out the truth in verses 14 and 15 that God has not left us in ignorance about his moral requirements. There is written in heart and mind of all human beings, wherever they come from and whatever their condition, enough of his law and requirements to know when we sin. This is proved, says Paul, in the fact that wherever you go in the world, human beings and society recognise certain moral verities, and penalise those who break them.

The fact that we all recognise these moral necessities and live by them, and when we break them we feel guilty, shows that God has written his moral law within us. The fact of conscience is an eternal proof of the fact we have no excuse before God.

However let us remind ourselves again that Paul does not speak of these things for the purpose of depressing us, or in the mood of self-righteous criticism. His purpose is to bring us to realise our need, that we may seek and embrace the love of God in Christ.

The last truth Paul speaks of in order to move people to close with God's offer of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ is the fact of the final judgement day.

In this life, as the psalmist in Psalm 73 complains, people who do wrong and are godless, often seem to get away with all they do, and flourish and seem to have an untroubled life. On the other hand often the godly, who seek to do right, often seem to have hardship and trouble. But as the psalmist points out in verse 17 of this Psalm, they have a final destiny, and then they will have to face the just desert of all their living and doing in this life.

In the end, on the certain judgement day, when Christ, on the throne, will judge the living and the dead - then the secrets of all our hearts will be made open (v.16 of our passage). There are two certainties here. Firstly, there will be a judgement day. Secondly, no one will be able to hide anything from God on that day. All our secrets, even the ones we may have forgotten. will be remembered by God and he will face us with them.

In this life there is often a sense of frustration that those who do evil seem to be able to get away with their actions, simply because the proof and evidence is not forthcoming. The wrong doer can keep silent and tell lies. We may know that this is happening, but because we can't bring sufficient evidence to expose the lies, the wrong doer goes free. This will not be possible on God's judgement day. No one will be able to avoid trial, and no one will be able to hide from the truth. Justice will be done according to the strict holy justice of God.

In the face of this awesome truth, how wonderful is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though in ourselves we will not be able to stand at that judgement day, and must be condemned, in Christ all is different. If we have closed with God's offer of salvation in Christ, and have believed in Christ as Saviour and rested our souls upon his work for us, then on that dread judgement day we will have nothing to fear. God will open the books, and our name will be in the book of life, and there will be no accusation recorded against us. The words of the hymn writer, Augustus Toplady whom we know as the author of the hymn 'Rock of ages', in another hymn, are so true. He writes - "The wrath of a sin hating God, with me has nothing to do. My Saviour's obedience to blood, hides all my transgressions from view".

What amazing grace? What wondrous salvation? What a great and glorious Saviour is Christ, our Lord. How precious is Jesus to us. As John Newton wrote, "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, in a believers ear. It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, and drives away his fears." Jesus is my ever precious Saviour. May he be yours too.