Romans 2:1

Therefore {1} thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. (1) He convicts those who would seem to be exempt from the rest of men (because they reprehend other men's faults), and says that they are least of all to be excused, for if they were searched well and carefully (as God surely does) they themselves would be found guilty in those things which they reprehend and punish in others: so that in condemning others, they pronounce sentence against themselves.

Romans 2:1 . Therefore, &c. — The apostle, having shown that the Gentiles could not entertain the least hope of salvation, according to the tenor of the law of nature, which they violated, proceeds next to consider whether the law of Moses gave the Jews any better hope; an inquiry which he manages with great address. For, well knowing that on reading his description of the manners of the Greeks, the Jews would pronounce them worthy of damnation, he suddenly turns his discourse to the Jews, by telling them that they who passed such a judgment on the Gentiles were equally, yea, more guilty themselves, in that, with the advantage of the greater light of divine revelation, they were guilty of crimes as great as those he had charged on the Gentiles; and that therefore, by condemning the Gentiles, they virtually condemned themselves. Thou art inexcusable, O man — Seeing that knowledge without practice only increases guilt; whosoever thou art, that judgest — That censurest and condemnest; for wherein thou judgest another — Greek, τον ετερον , the other — Namely, the heathen, and pronouncest them worthy of condemnation and wrath; thou condemnest thyself — As deserving the same: for thou that judgest doest the same things. According to Josephus, quoted here by Dr. Whitby, the Jews of that age were notoriously guilty of most of the crimes imputed to the Greeks and Romans in the preceding chapter. “There was not,” observes he, “a nation under heaven more wicked than they were.

What have you done,” says he, addressing them, “of all the good things required by our lawgiver? What have you not done of all those things which he pronounced accursed? So that,” adds he, “had the Romans delayed to come against these execrable persons, I believe either the earth would have swallowed them up, or a deluge would have swept away their city; or fire from heaven would have consumed it, as it did Sodom, for it brought forth a generation of men far more wicked than they who suffered such things. It was sport to them to force women: and they exercised and required unnatural lusts, and filled the whole city with impurities. They committed all kinds of wickedness, omitting none which ever came into the mind of man; esteeming the worst of evils to be good, and meeting with that reward of their iniquity which was proper, and a judgment worthy of God.” The apostle, Mr. Locke thinks, represents the Jews as inexcusable in judging the Gentiles, especially because the latter, with all the darkness that was on their minds, were not guilty of such a folly as to judge those who were not more faulty than themselves, but lived on friendly terms with them, without censure or separation, thinking as well of their condition as of their own.

(1) Therefore. —The description just given of the state of one section of the human race contains implicitly the condemnation of the other; for it is equally applicable to both. Wherein thou judgest another.—By the very act of sitting in judgment upon your fellow-man, you pass sentence upon yourself. You declare those acts to be criminal of which you are yourself guilty. The words in the Greek, translated by “judge” and “condemn,” are related to each other much the same as the summing up of a judge is related to his verdict. In the first, sentence is in process of being passed, but there is still a possibility of acquittal; in the second, sentence has been definitely given in a sense adverse to the accused. “Another,” rather, strictly, the other, thy fellow, or neighbour.

Romans 2:1-16 . The Apostle has now to prove that the righteousness of God is as necessary to the Jew as to the pagan; it is the Jew who is really addressed in this chapter from the beginning, though he is not named till Romans 2:9 . In Romans 2:1-10 Paul explains the principle on which God judges all men, without distinction.

CHAPTER 2 Ro 2:1-29. The Jew under Like Condemnation with the Gentile. From those without, the apostle now turns to those within the pale of revealed religion, the self-righteous Jews, who looked down upon the uncovenanted heathen as beyond the pale of God's mercies, within which they deemed themselves secure, however inconsistent their life may be. Alas! what multitudes wrap themselves up in like fatal confidence, who occupy the corresponding position in the Christian Church!Romans 2:1-5 They that condemn sin in others, and are guilty of thelike themselves, cannot escape God’s judgment,Romans 2:6-13 which will be according to every man’s deserts,without distinction of Jew or Gentile.Romans 2:14-16 The Gentiles are not left without a rule of conduct.Romans 2:17-24 The Jew, who boasteth of greater light, is doublycriminal in sinning against it,Romans 2:25-29 nor will circumcision profit him, except he keep the law. It is much disputed to whom the apostle directs his discourse in the beginning of this chapter. Some think that having discovered the sins of the Gentiles in the former chapter, he here useth a transition, and turneth himself to the Jews, and lays open their more secret wickedness and hypocrisy. But the particle therefore in the front of the chapter, doth seem to intimate, that this is inferred from what went before, and is a continuance of the same argument.

It is of the Gentiles then that he is still discoursing, and he begins by name to deal with the Jews, Romans 2:17. Some think he speaks more particularly of such as were judges and magistrates amongst the Gentiles, who, though they made laws for to judge and punish others for such and such crimes, did yet commit the same themselves. Some think he intends more especially such as were philosophers, and men renowned for virtue, as Socrates, Aristides, Fabricius, Cato, Seneca, &c., which last, as is said, was well known to the apostle. These, in their speeches and writings, did censure the evil manners of others, and yet were as bad themselves. As Cato is said to have used extortion, prostituted his wife, and to have laid violent hands upon himself; and yet he was affirmed by Velleius to be homo virtuti simillimus, a most virtuous man. But the received opinion is, that the apostle in general doth tax all such as censure and find fault with others, and yet are guilty of the same things themselves. Thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: q.d. Thou art without all excuse, that dost assent and subscribe to the righteous judgment of God, that they who do such things as are mentioned in the foregoing chapter, are worthy of death, and yet doest the same thyself; if not openly, yet secretly and inwardly thou art guilty of the same or as great sins.

Romans 2:1 . Διὸ , wherefore ). Paul passes from the Gentiles to the Jews, as the whole of the following discourse clearly shows; and yet he does not use the transitive, but the illative particle, of which two the latter, as being the more powerful, absorbs the former. The Gentile does evil; the Jew does evil. Then in the 6th and following verses, he comprehends both, Jews and Gentiles.— ἀναπολόγητος , inexcusable .) Man seeks to defend himself.— ἄνθρωπε , O man ) In ch. 1 he spoke of the Gentiles in the third person, but he deals with the Jew in the second person singular; even as the law itself deals with the Jew, not in the second, but in the third person singular; because it had no concern with any one but the Jew.—Comp. ch. Romans 3:19 . But the apostle, who directs his discourse to Gentiles and Jews, addresses the Jew indeed in the second person singular, but calls him by the name [O man ] common to all.—comp. ch. Romans 1:18 ; nor does he acknowledge the Jew , as such, Romans 2:17 ; Romans 2:28 . The same difference between the third and second persons occurs again, Romans 2:14 ; Romans 2:17 . It is a not dissimilar circumstance, that the Gentiles are put off [as to their condemnation] till the final judgment, Romans 2:16 ; but the Jews are threatened by the law with a present judgment also [besides the final one Romans 2:2 .]— ὁ κρίνων , thou that judgest ) being removed [ i.e. wherein thou art distinguished] from those that have pleasure in evil-doers, Romans 1:32 .

Verses 1-29. - ( b ) Those who judge others, not excepting the Jews. Here a new stage of the argument, in proof of the position propounded in Romans 1:18 , begins, and is continued to the end of the chapter. The position to be proved is that all mankind is guilty before God (see note on ver. 18). So far this has been shown with regard to the mass of the heathen world; its general moral corruption, prevalent and condoned, having been pointed out finally as a glaring proof; the main point of the argument having been to trace this state of things to man's own fault, in that he had refused to retain and act on a knowledge of God originally imparted to him through nature and through conscience. From such refusal had ensued idolatry; thence, as a judicial consequence, profligacy; thence a general prevalence of abominable practices; and at last (in many at least) the "reprobate mind," lost to moral restraint, and approving of vice as well as practising it. Thus it is sufficiently proved that the heathen world, regarded as a whole, is under sin, and liable to the wrath of God. But the required proof that the whole of mankind is guilty is not yet complete. It might be said that there are many still who disapprove of all this wickedness, and sit in judgment on it, and who are, therefore, not themselves implicated in the guilt.