[Editor’s Note: This is part of a devotional series through the book of Romans.]
Romans 2:1–5
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. [2] We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. [3] Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? [4] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? [5] But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
Paul has just outlined quite the laundry list of sins we love to commit apart from Christ. What’s worse, not only do we willingly live in this darkness, we know it’s wrong even as we “give approval to those who practice them” (1:32). Romans is devastating toward the conventional wisdom of the world that sees mankind in any state of moral innocence or ignorance.
Of course, this doesn’t stop us from attempts to absolve our conscience of wrongdoing. And one of the ways we do this is by judging others. The apostle is aware of this strategy of the human heart and aims to head it off at the outset of chapter two.
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? (2:1–3)
We are all “escape artists” in our fallen condition. That is, we attempt to “escape the judgment of God” by focusing not on our own sin and rebellion, but on that of others. We turn a blind eye to our own sin and say about other people with self-righteous delusion, “Look at what they’ve done! Can you believe it?!” We’re implying with our feigned outrage that we would never do such a thing. But Paul says, “Not so fast. Don’t you realize the sinfulness of sin? More than you know you’ve done some of the very same things, if not outwardly, then in your heart. You need to repent. As it is, you will not escape the judgment of God.”
Paul seems to think we have a bunch of logs in our own eyes while we decry the specks in others (cf., Luke 6:39–42).
We cannot escape the rhetorical question of v. 3. “Do you suppose,” asks Paul, “that you will escape the judgment of God?” The implied answer, of course, is an emphatic “No, you will not escape.” Indeed, our hypocrisy will finally find us out. Our pointing to other people’s sin will not acquit us before the Righteous Judge. In the end, there will be no successful escape artists.
Righteous God,
Thank you that you’ve shown me my hypocrisy! I was that man who feigned outrage at other people’s sin while I lived in my own. Oh how creative I was in my attempts to be an escape artist. But I knew what I was doing. I knew something was terribly wrong.
Make me a pastor who loves escape artists enough to warn them of their delusions of self-righteousness. Make me a faithful watchmen who proclaims with the apostle the convicting rhetorical question, “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?”
For your glory and the repentance of people, through Jesus Christ the Lord, Amen!