The Basis of God’s Judgment
Even as believing Christians, we must not take the outcome of God’s final judgment for granted . . . . Romans 2:2–16 describes God’s judgment, showing how we can prepare ourselves for it. God’s righteous judgment will be:
1. According to truth (2:2, 3): Nothing is hidden from God. He sees everything and knows the truth about each of us. One of mankind’s great self-deception's is to say, “Who sees us?” (Is 29:15) and think there is no judgment.
2. According to impenitent hearts (2:4, 5): An unrepentant or hard heart despises God’s goodness, treasuring up the wrath of God at the judgment. A repentant heart, on the other hand, is grateful for God’s patience and abides in Christ, practicing a lifetime of repentance, which produces confidence before Him at the judgment (1Jn 2:28).
3. According to our deeds (2:6–15): The “doing good” referred to in 2:7 is not an attempt to gain merit with God. Rather, it is the unity of intentions with actions, faith with works. Even unbelievers are rewarded for good works, apart from spiritual understanding (2:14, 15). But note the following:
(a) “Doing good” means seeking God’s glory (2:10), not our own glory; God’s honor, not our own honor . . . . “Doing good” is seeking first the Kingdom of God (Mt 6:33).
(b) Good intentions alone, or faith without works, will not save (2:13). Simply to hear and not do is religion without reality. Those with true faith, “the doers” of the truth, practice virtue from pure and repentant hearts (Jam 1:21–27).
(c) “By nature” (v. 14) people are inspired by and cooperate with God’s grace. Therefore, good deeds are natural to us, whereas evil deeds are contrary to nature. Because we all fail, we need God’s mercy (3:9–19). The presence of God’s law in our conscience (2:15) condemns anything we do contrary to true human nature. Therefore, even Gentiles—people not under the Law of Moses, those who do not know of Christ— have an internal law from God, the natural law written in their hearts, according to which God will judge them. . . . Jews, then, have two laws from God — the Law of Moses and conscience—and are accountable to Him for both (2:12).
(d) Those who are condemned choose to reject God. There is no automatic, fated condemnation: God’s just judgment of us is based on our exercise of free will. . . .
4. By Jesus Christ (2:16): In the day of judgment we are not judged directly by God the Father, whom we cannot see, but by the incarnate Son whom we do see, Christ Jesus (Acts 17:31; see Jn 3:16–21, 35, 36). Christ will judge on the basis of the light He Himself has given to each of us (Jn 1:9) and our response to His light (Jn 3:16–21). “The secrets of men” (Rom 2:16) are “the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb 4:12).
Taken from The Orthodox Study Bible
“He will judge everyone according to what they have done. He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness. There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight. Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.”
Romans 2:6-15
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