The last part of the second chapter of Romans, as shown in the study of those verses last week, presents the fact that making the profession of the religion of the Bible is of no avail unless the professor comes into actual possession of the righteousness of God. Professing to be a follower of the God of heaven, and still doing the wicked things that were practised while making no such profession is mere hypocrisy; it is not Christianity.
In those verses already referred to, Paul condemns the Jews of his time for making their boast of godliness while at the same time they were dishonoring God by the iniquities that they were practising. And yet, while the Jews of that time were largely living these hypocritical lives, still there were some among them that were true to the religion that they professed. For in the first part of the next chapter we read:
"What advantage then hath the Jew? or what is the profit of circumcision? Much every way: first of all, that they were intrusted with the oracles of God. For what if some were without faith? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar; as it is written,
"That Thou mightest be justified in Thy words,
And mightest prevail when Thou comest into judgment.
"But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath? (I speak after the manner of men.) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? But if the truth of God thru my lie abounded unto His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? and why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? whose condemnation is just."
Light-Bearers for God.
Since there was so much hypocrisy among the Jews, and since because of this hypocrisy (as shown in chapter 2: 23, 24) the name of God was made a byword among the Gentiles, or unbelievers, what was the advantage then of the Jew? What advantage did God gain by taking to Himself the Jewish people, and what advantage was there in it to the Jew himself? There was much in every way, because they furnished a depository for the oracles of God; they furnished a medium thru which God could reveal Himself, not merely to the Jews, but to the whole world.
Now, it is true that many of the Jewish nation did not really believe, and consequently could not practise the things that they professed; but it is equally true that there were some among the Jews who really did believe God and practise the righteousness that He bestowed upon them; and it is furthermore true that the light of the righteous lives of these faithful ones reached many individuals in the heathen world; and thus were both Jew and Gentile blessed by the committing of the oracles of God to the Jewish nation.
In committing His oracles to the Jews, and thus making them His light-bearers to the world, the Lord knew that there would be many hypocrites among them that would bring discredit to His name. He knew that many would take only a superficial view of what He was seeking to do for each man in all the world, and hence these superficial persons would have nothing but sneers and ridicule for the Lord and His work. But while the Lord knew all this, He also knew that there would be some that would believe and consequently would truly represent Him. These true believers would be fitted by His grace for everlasting life. And so the Lord "for the joy that was set before Him [the joy of seeing in immortality those who had accepted His grace and salvation] endured the cross, despising the shame." Heb. 12: 2.
God Ever Faithful.
"What if some were without faith? shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar." Verses 3, 4. No matter what men may do, God is always faithful. "If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He can not deny Himself." 2 Tim. 2: 13. Our salvation rests upon the faithfulness of God. It does not rest upon the faithfulness of man. Hence we have a secure foundation, for He "abideth faithful," no matter what we may do.
Even tho the great majority of the human family may deny Him and despitefully mistreat Him, yet He is ever the same. Because the great majority of the human race reject Him He does not become disgusted with the whole of mankind and turn them all into destruction. He stands ever with open arms, entreating, entreating, ever entreating, all to come to Him; and every one who comes meets with a royal welcome, and is immediately cleansed from all his sin and defilement and thus fitted to associate with the angels and the spotless Son of God.
God Will Be Justified.
God is true, even tho every man be found a liar; and thus our God is "justified" in His words, and He will prevail when He cometh into judgment. When the individual stands before the great tribunal he will not be able to say that God was unfaithful or faulty. He will be forced to admit that God was always kind to him; he will be forced to admit that the tenderest sympathies were ever extended to him by the Father in heaven; he will be forced to acknowledge that the Lord has sent him the same rain and sunshine and the rest of the bounteous blessings of nature that were bestowed upon His own loyal children. God has shown Himself faithful in every way, but the unrepentant sinner has spurned Him and now stands in the judgment speechless.9The sinner comes up to the bar of God, having treated the divine kindness with contempt and resentful scorn; he has met love with hatred; he has met faithfulness with indifference, and now what can he say for himself? He can only acknowledge that God is just in condemning him to eternal death. He has refused the eternal life so kindly and entreatingly offered by his heavenly Father, and now all that is left for him is eternal death, a thing that by his whole course of life he has insisted upon having.
Then is not the answer to the apostle's next question perfectly clear? "Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath?" We must certainly say No, even tho we "speak after the manner of men." Even tho we have no higher sense of justice than the unregenerate man himself, yet must we say that God is just when He visits wrath upon the incorrigible evil-doer.
God presents a perfect plan for saving man from sin. He has arranged to save man from all his sins of the past, and also to lift him to the place that he can live free from sin in the present, and thus be fitted to live in righteousness forever. And since God has provided all this, and also tenderly and faithfully urged it upon each individual thruout all his probationary life, what can men say in the judgment if they have refused it?
"But when the king came in to behold the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding-garment: and he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding-garment? And he was speechless. Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth." Matt. 22: 11-13. The king at his own expense had provided the wedding-garments for all his guests,—and this person showed contempt for his host by presuming to come into the wedding in any such a way. He was dumb before the question of the king. And so will the sinner be "speechless" when he stands without the "wedding-garment" of character in the judgment day.