Slices
Prepare
‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners’ (Mark 2:17). How aware are you of the moral failures of others? How aware are you of your own?
Bible passage
God’s righteous judgment
2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favouritism.
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. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Explore
It is far easier for us to cast judgement on others than to concentrate on our own wrongdoing, and we often act hypocritically by judging others for issues that we struggle with in our own lives (v 3). ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?’ said Jesus (Matthew 7:3). Today’s passage reveals that all of us have a deep need for God (vs 4,11).
After focusing on Gentile wrongdoing in the previous passage, Paul turns his attention to Jewish believers, warning them of the dangers of a self-conscious moralism or religious hypocrisy. Jewish believers are not to think that their status as God’s chosen people automatically saves them from God’s judgement (see vs 3,9,11).
A righteous God cares about our behaviour (vs 6–8) and knows the truth about all of us. None of us can hide behind a religious moralism, for God is able to see beyond the facade – he sees our inner lives and he knows our hearts (v 16).
Respond
Ask God to save you from religious hypocrisy and to reveal to you areas of your life that need to be changed by his Spirit.
Deeper Bible study
‘For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.’1
How we think of God is crucial. In the Garden of Eden things began to go wrong once the goodness of God was questioned in human imagination.2 Paul has no doubt about the rich ‘kindness, forbearance and patience’ of God (v 4), but we are tempted to view divine judgement in negative terms. Actually we should do the opposite. We should welcome it. A good and faithful judge presides over a process in which the truth emerges; so it is with the ultimate Judge. In God’s final resolution of the human project the truth of all things will emerge, justice will be perfectly delivered and, through it all, God’s goodness will be displayed. God’s judgement is something to celebrate, to hope and to work for. Even when God judges us, God loves us. The sign of God’s love is that God does not overlook what is wrong but works to remedy it.
In the light of this confident hope there are certain ways we should live. One way is to avoid standing in superior judgement on others, because we all stand under judgement (v 3). Human beings, irrespective of ethnicity, race, temperament, class or religious background, share a fundamental equality in this respect: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’.3 To recognise this humbles and softens us in approaching other people. Jews and Gentiles are all the same in this regard (vs 9,10); this eliminates room for ethnic or religious arrogance. God alone knows how to judge people and how to take account of things done (v 6) and thoughts written in the conscience or the heart (vs 13,15). God will make no mistakes.
Supremely, God’s judgement is intended to lead us to repentance (v 4), to the kind of living that will lead to ‘glory, honour and peace’ (v 10). What’s not to like?
Where in your life is God leading you to repentance?
1 Acts 17:31 2 Gen 3:1–5 3 Rom 3:10
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Leviticus 15,16; Acts 9
Pray for Scripture Union
Give thanks for the work of Welsh Local Mission Partners Agathos and Gower Christian Youth Work which sadly had to close last year. Pray that ways will be found to continue the work in Mold and on the Gower Peninsula.
