[AI translation] An unusually harsh tone is used by the apostle Paul in the passage just read! His words crack like the crack of a whip! But even in his sharp words there is the pastoral love with which he turns to his countrymen, seeking to strip them of their religious pride and to show them that they have no more merit before God than the Gentiles. In the previous section, if you remember, he spoke of the sins of the Gentiles, of men who do not know God, of the awful corruption of the world. Now he turns to the Jews and explains that they are no different from the Gentiles! But what have we to do with what the Jews of Paul's day were like? Let me point out at the outset that, according to what the Scriptures say, when Paul speaks of the Gentiles, he generally means the sons of the world, the non-temple-goers, the indifferent, the unbelievers. When he speaks of the Jews, he always means us, the temple-goers, the pious, the practitioners of their religion. So now the Word is speaking to us, to us who are here at this moment!In the previous passage, Paul paints a terribly dark picture of man (Rom 1,29-31). But there are other kinds of people who condemn this total depravity, who are not so deeply immersed in sin. In ancient times, the Jews, conscious of their own moral superiority, condemned the heathen with profound condemnation. And today, we, the very people who know a purer morality, often speak of the sins of the world with almost indignation! Indeed, we hear and read of many moral defects. We are astonished: how terrible! We are filled with dismay, we are always expressing our shock: wow! That this can happen! So much injustice, so much depravity! We are full of criticism, full of judgement! This is where the Word stops us: does condemning evil mean that we are free from evil? Such self-righteous condemnation of the wickedness of others is like a boomerang that strikes back at the one who threw it. O harsh truth says Paul: "thou art without excuse, O man, whoever thou judgest: for in what thou judgest others thyself thou condemnest" (Rom 2:1) Indeed, is it not true that we often cry out against the lawlessness and moral depravity in the world, and are convinced that God's judgment cannot fail to fall on those who do such things. At the same time, we do not realise how we live a lie under a Christian ethical cloak, how we could be condemned for similar sins! It is no merit if one can be outraged at the wickedness of others, it would only be so if the same wickedness were not present in him! Judgment shows that it is! It is a psychological fact that we usually criticize and condemn most sharply that fault in others which we cannot cope with in ourselves! I have observed many times that when someone is stumblingly judging, for example, someone's sexual sins, or even their selfish behaviour, vanity or ambition, their unconscious psyche is usually filled with unfulfilled sexual desires, repressed, selfish emotions, vanity and ambition! All such unloving criticism of others: unconscious judgment of myself! I am basically the same rotten person! For example, to blame someone for being unloving: that is itself unloving! Such criticism is a testimony to the fact that I have not yet descended from the throne, that I feel myself above the other.
Such judgement is based on the arrogance that I know what is right and what is wrong. I have a standard, a moral standard. I can measure things, I have something to measure things by. Like the ancient Jews, who measured human morality by God's revealed law, the Ten Commandments. And rightly so, because that is why God gave the law. The law is the index card of God's will, the divine order set down in propositions. But here in the Word it is precisely the point that this knowledge is not enough, it is not enough to know what is good and right and to condemn the evil in the other. Knowing what is good is not good in itself! Many people fall into the mistake of thinking that because they know from the Bible what is good, they are actually better than those who do not. God does not require the knowledge of good, but the doing of it. We believers are judged by God not by the purity of our known moral standards, but by our actions. Twice the apostle stresses this: 'Or do you think, O man, that you judge those who do such things, and do them yourself, that you escape the judgment of God?' (Rom 2,3) God 'will render to each according to his deeds' (Rom 2,6): Lord! Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Mt 7,21) Let us not exchange the knowledge of the moral good for its practice, theory for practice. Christianity in principle with Christianity in practice! Religiousness with the life of faith! It is no merit to know the whole Bible well and to be able to quote a verse from it for every situation! In fact, this knowledge only obliges one to do more! To whom more is given, more is required. Yes, there, at the judgment, more will be demanded of us than of the sons of the world! Much more! Oh, how right the German neurologist was who said the other day, "How much more cautious we Christians would be in judging people and situations if we once saw how much we ourselves have contributed to things turning out the way they have".
But let us go further! Nor is it a merit that we are less depraved compared to the depravity of many, many people! Paul does not deny that Israel has not sunk as low as many of the Gentile nations around her. There is no doubt that it is a great advantage to have faith, to have someone to flee to in the midst of temptations. If one has someone to cling to in the drifting tide of sinful desires. But the apostle says: "See not merit, but the riches of God's goodness, forbearance and longsuffering. In the story of the prodigal son, is it a merit for the elder brother that he never sank as low as his younger brother? Is it to your credit that God took hold of you when you were young and held you close? Is it a merit to have heard the gospel of Jesus from childhood? If you happened to have deeply believing parents? Or if someone followed Jesus, and spoke to him, drew him into their environment? Is it a merit for someone to feel in their heart a longing for God, a thirst for God? Can it be a merit for someone to love to pray, and not be able to imagine life without praying regularly? Can a person boast that God has kept him from committing all kinds of evil and gross sins? That he has not had the opportunity to experience first hand many of the immoral filth that others may be drowning in? Is it a merit to any of us that he can now be here in church, praising God with his psalms, and not staggering about in some stall with a drunken head?
A great advantage, no doubt, but no merit! A gift! Grace! As the apostle says: the riches of God's goodness, forbearance and longsuffering. (Rom 2,4) Whoever attributes this relatively more morally pure state not to this, but to his own merit, says the apostle: he despises the riches of God's goodness! Let not such a man, however good he may think himself, and however good others may think him, that he has no need of conversion! It is not only God's wrath that leads to repentance, as we said last time, but also God's goodness that leads to repentance! For where is this morality, which is undoubtedly higher than total depravity, from the standard which God has set in his law?! According to the degree of divine judgment, there is no difference between a small transgression and a great transgression, between a small sin and a great sin, between a very ugly sin and a less ugly sin. Just as it makes no difference whether one drowns half a metre under water or ten metres under. What does Paul say? "For it is not those who obey the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law who will be justified." (Rom 2:13) Who is the one who truly fulfills the law of God, besides the One who came to fulfill it? Measure yourself by him, Jesus! Never to the prodigal, prodigal son, nor to the good son left at home, but to Jesus! To His holiness and righteousness! Then all boasting and exaltation will be silenced! Then you may see that even you, who have never plunged into the depths of great sin, who have tried to live your whole life belonging to God, you too need conversion! In fact, perhaps it is precisely those who are in need of God's forgiving grace, of Jesus' cleansing sacrifice, who need to feel deeply how much they need God's forgiving grace, who need to live their lives in a way that belongs to God. Think about it: the fact that we know the Bible, that we hear God's will over and over again - unlike others who do not know it and do not hear it - the fact that we bear the mark of Jesus' redeeming blood in baptism, that we sometimes take his broken body and shed blood in the Lord's Supper, all this truly sets us above others: In terms of commitment to a purer, holier life, the Christian name is an honourable one, but it is also a devastatingly heavy task. For Jesus says of those who would follow him: 'You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the city built on a mountain. You are the prototypes of the new humanity. By you the world will know the goodness, the love, the patience of God. You are the living illustrations of divine revelation to the world. You are the living, living Bible for other people. Or as the late, great teacher of world Christianity, Charles Barth, said: the Christian man is an ethical gift to the world, and it is by seeing your good deeds that the world must come to know and glorify God!
Shall I continue? Haven't you crumbled under what you are, a church-going man, a man who wants to follow Christ, a man who bears the sign of baptism, a man invited to be a guest at the Lord's table? Do you not say with me: Oh, no, Lord, I am not the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the advertisement of your cause, the testimonial of your goodness, the pleaser of your kingdom! No, Lord, I am not! (Rom 2,24) Has not a Gentile ever said that if under the cover of pious words there is so much vanity, pride, self-righteousness, if believers are so unloving, insensitive and unmerciful, then thank you, I don't need it! As if Paul were pointing the finger at you and me: 'For this cause thou art without excuse, O man, whoever thou judgest: for in that thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself: for thou that judgest doest the same.' (Rom 2:1) Do you see what man is like before God? Not only the heathen, but also the believer, in his most humble form! Can anyone speak of any merit?
O man, whether heathen or believer, can you have any hope of being saved at the judgment, but the merit of Jesus alone? Than the grace alone which Jesus has earned for us all by his redeeming death? Can it be? No! It is indeed our only excuse! Our only hope is Jesus! This is where the Apostle Paul was going with this long rant. You know why there is a rooster on the steeple of the Reformed churches, don't you? It is so that every time we enter the church, we remember the rooster that crowed three times when Peter denied Jesus three times. Let us remember again and again that belonging to Jesus is the only way to exist other than as one who lives for the forgiveness of sins. Within the Christian church, every breath is forgiveness of sins. With repentant, humble faith, we accept the gospel of Christ, "The power of God is for the salvation of everyone who believes, Jew first and Greek second. (Rom 1:16-17) Yes, the power of God is for the salvation of all believers, of the Greek also, but first of all of the Jew - of us! Perhaps now with a more sincere heart we can say in the words of our beautiful song, standing before God:
Thy law is not enough for sinful men;
Let my zeal burn, and my tears flow like a flood:
It cannot satisfy, but thou canst redeem thyself.
I come bearing nothing, clasped in thy cross,
Naked to clothe me, orphaned, trusting you to pity me;
Sin gives me no rest: wash it off, O, for it devours me!
(Song 458 verses 2-3)
Amen
Date: 2 March 1969.