but, according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up to thyself wrath, in [the] day of wrath and revelation of [the] righteous judgment of God,
Paul has just spoken of God's kindness leading people to repentance. Here he shows what a hard heart does with that kindness. Instead of softening, the sinner collects. He builds a store that God will open on a fixed day.
The verse names the cause: a hard heart. Commentators point to a reversal here. The same mercy that should soften a man can harden him instead.
When judgment against an evil deed is not carried out quickly, people become fully set on doing evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11). With Pharaoh, what hardened his heart was exactly God's forbearing mercy (Exodus 8:15; 9:34). So what should be for good is turned again and again into evil through the revolt of man's will against his Maker. Treasures of mercy stored up for the future become treasures of wrath. A day of wrath must come for those on whom all His goodness has had no good effect.
The man in view here is respectable, not openly immoral. He judges others and assumes his own standards will get him through. Commentators answer whether they do.
There is, then, no way of escape for the refined sinner or the mere moralist. Indeed, it seems he will come in for a more severe condemnation. His very knowledge increases his guilt. God's goodness would lead him to repentance, but he despises that goodness in the hardness of his heart. So he treasures up wrath for himself.
"Treasuring up" pictures a deposit that grows. One writer names a second way it fills: refusing a warning God has already given.
The very fact of speaking about wrath beforehand is grace. It has not come, but it is plainly "revealed" that it will come. Are you then despising the warning of what is coming? Do you not know that you are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? You do it not only by committing sins, but by rejecting the testimony of God's Son.
"The day of wrath" is a real point in time, not a figure of speech. One writer also explains why it is taking so long.
Refusing to repent, man treasures up wrath for the day of wrath. Man calls down wrath by his evil. He also calls it down by despising the goodness of God that would deal with that evil. All this will become clear to the unrepentant in the day of wrath. In the goodness of God that day may be long delayed. Still, it is surely coming. It is an actual day when God's judgment, not man's, will be revealed and carried out.
The word "revelation" points to something already true but unseen. God does not form His verdict on that day. He makes it public and acts on it.
God always judges evil morally. But there is a day when that judgment will be revealed. Then He will deal with evil openly, according to His own nature. Judgment will be carried out.
The verse adds one more word: "righteous." A trial can uncover the facts and still go wrong.
A wretched criminal may have the truth of his crime dragged into the light. Yet if the judge is incompetent or unrighteous, he may still escape. The divine judgments are righteous as well as according to truth.
Does this day touch believers? One writer draws a line between two kinds of judgment.
A child of God who sins must come under God's governmental chastening in this life. But he cannot come into God's penal judgment when the world is condemned. 1 Corinthians 11:32 makes the difference clear: "But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world." But John 5:24, Romans 2:5 and Revelation 20:11-15 refer to God's eternal judgment of wicked unbelievers.
- Treasure — the cause. Hardness is not neutral. God's patience, when despised, turns treasures of mercy into treasures of wrath.
- Treasure — the depositor. Paul addresses the moralist who judges others. His knowledge increases his guilt instead of reducing it.
- Treasure — the deposits. The store grows two ways: by sins committed, and by refusing the testimony of God's Son.
- Treasure — the opening day. The day of wrath is a real day. God's goodness delays it. Then God reveals His judgment and carries it out.
- Treasure — the escape. God's verdict is righteous, so no one slips through on a technicality. But commentators separate this judgment from the discipline God gives His own children.
who shall render to each according to his works
God judges by one fixed standard, and this verse names it: what each person has done. So if God settles accounts by works, what happens to salvation by grace?
Once God has revealed Himself, He deals with people by what they do. Being Jew or Greek changes nothing under that test.
Now that God is revealed, He deals with man according to his actions. In the day of judgment He will render to everyone according to his works, whether he is Jew or Greek, for God shows no partiality. He had indeed chosen a people, and brought them near to Himself, to put man to the test... but at root there was no difference among men. All were sinners by nature, and all had sinned... In His righteousness God counts only the measure of light each person has.
People share one fallen nature, so nature cannot tell one from another. Works can.
In the day of judgment, therefore, God will give the award not according to the nature, in which they are alike, but according to their works, in which they are not alike. God "will render to each one according to his works" (Rom. 2:6). And this, and this alone, will be the exact measure of guilt and responsibility.
God renders to everyone. That is not the same as judging everyone.
The third great principle of God's judgment is that in judgment "God will render to each one according to his works". The verse does not say here when God will do this for well doing. But for evil doing it plainly names the time: the "day of wrath". Yet the Apostle does not say that God will judge each one, for only the evil doer comes into judgment in the "day of wrath". God will "render" to each one according to his works.
Does forgiveness cancel the accounting? No — an honest man still settles his accounts, and past kindnesses do not make that settlement unjust.
This is the unchanging principle of God's righteous dealings, and grace does not weaken it at all. Grace, it is true, lays our sins on another as our substitute. It credits us with the good deeds God's own power works in us. But this confirms the principle instead of contradicting it. If an upright man winds up his affairs, he collects what is due to him, and pays what he owes. And it is no less just if he has cancelled some debts, or taken on some obligations, out of kindness.
Salvation and reward do not rest on the same basis:
Judgment takes account of everything, including greater advantages. Each person gives account according to his light and receives according to his deeds. Salvation is according to grace; reward or judgment is according to works.
Verses 6 to 11 never mention faith, and some read that as a doorway to earning eternal life by effort. Reading further closes the door.
Verses 6 to 11 trouble some minds, because they never mention faith in Christ. Some read verse 7, for instance, and say, "There! So after all you have only got to keep on doing good and seeking good, and eternal life will be yours at the end." But read on a little further, and you discover this: no one does good or seeks good unless he believes in Christ.
The verse can be misused, and that tempts us to soften it. The counsel runs the other way: answer the misuse from other Scripture, and let this sentence keep its full weight on the conscience.
Well, a man says, "There may then be good people, and if they do good, they will get glory, honour, and peace." But I say to him, "You are completely wrong; no one is good but God." Plenty of Scripture meets such a case. But we do not need to weaken this sentence in Romans to do it. God's nature requires a certain life and character in a man for him to be with God... You must have that life and walk in that life, or you will not be in heaven. So this is broad dealing with conscience, and that is what we must not weaken.
- Render — God's rule is fixed: He deals with each person by what they did, not by which group they belong to.
- Measure — all share one fallen nature, so works alone measure each person's guilt and responsibility, against the light they had.
- Distinction — God renders to each one, but the text does not say He judges each one. Only the evil-doer comes into judgment in the day of wrath.
- Confirmed — grace does not suspend this accounting. It lays the sins on a substitute and works the good deeds by God's own power. That upholds the rule instead of breaking it.
- Unweakened — no one seeks good except by believing in Christ, so let the verse stand at full force on the conscience.
to them who, in patient continuance of good works, seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, life eternal.
This verse sits inside Paul's account of how God will judge every person, Jew or Gentile, "according to his works." Here we get the reward side of that judgment. It raises two questions: what are these people seeking, and how can such a verse stand beside salvation by grace?
The verse states a rule of God's dealings that runs through the whole Bible and is not softened by the good news of forgiveness.
This is the unchanging principle of God's righteous dealings, and grace does not weaken it in any way. Grace, it is true, lays our sins on another as our substitute. It also credits us with the good deeds worked in us by God's own power. But this confirms the principle instead of contradicting it. If an upright man settles his affairs, he collects what is owed to him and pays what he owes. Kindness may have cancelled some debts, or taken on some obligations. That does not make what he does any less just.
The Greek word translated "immortality" here is not the usual word for deathlessness.
In Romans 2:7 and 2 Timothy 1:10 the word is aphtharsia — not "immortality," but "incorruption."
Older translations read "incorruptibility" here instead of "immortality." That changes what the seeking is about: not deathlessness, but a state that belongs to the resurrection.
God will render eternal life "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption." That is not at all the same as seeking immortality. It is the blessed, incorruptible state into which resurrection, or the "change," will bring the saints at the coming of Christ.
The test is not flawless performance. It is what the heart aims at.
It is of course not a matter of absolute holiness or perfection here; but the heart clearly shows itself. Does the heart set itself on what is good? Does it patiently continue to follow what is pure and true? Does it bear the unmistakable stamp of eternity — the weighing of everlasting realities?
Verse 7 is only half of a pair. The next verse names the opposite of patient endurance.
"To them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality" — this marks out their object — "eternal life." Set against these are "them who are contentious." Contention is the opposite of enduring and suffering, and it marks the way of the world. They "do not obey the truth": they have not God's object, and they do not submit to His righteousness.
Nobody seeks glory, honour and incorruptibility by instinct. Someone has to tell you about them first.
But without the gospel men never heard of these things. The law set men to seek life on earth by fulfilling their obligations. It is the gospel that sets these great objects before the soul. So no one can meet the conditions for eternal life without hearing and believing the gospel.
God holds to this rule without exception. Yet nobody meets it out of his own resources.
God always holds to His own principle: those who "by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honour, and incorruptibility" have eternal life, and none others. What produces this patient continuance in well-doing is another matter, and what awakens souls to seek after it. It is not from themselves, but from God.
Elsewhere eternal life is a present possession. Here it stands at the end of a journey, still ahead.
There is another way of viewing eternal life — its full completion in glory, according to the whole purpose of God. Seen this way, we are of course not said to have it, but to follow after it… Romans 2 puts this as a great general principle. It throws no cloud over that great truth. It is simply what is everywhere found in the New Testament: the energy of faith on the wilderness journey, moving on through grace toward the full result for which God has redeemed us. We have to go the road to arrive, but we have sure grace and the keeping of God to go it.
So what about John's writings, where the believer already has eternal life?
Paul here looks at eternal life more in its future aspect — that is, when it is separated from the very presence of sin, in its own proper sphere, heaven itself. But this does not deny the truth found in John's writings, that "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." Every believer possesses eternal life at present, but that life is out of its own home… so its full display must await heaven's glory.
- Standard. God renders to each according to his works; grace pays the debt but never repeals the rule.
- Object. They seek glory, honour and incorruptibility — the incorruptible state resurrection brings the saints at Christ's coming, not mere deathlessness.
- Direction. The test is not perfection but a heart stamped by eternity, patiently continuing in what is good.
- Source. No one hears of these things apart from the gospel. And no one produces the patient well-doing from himself; it comes from God.
- End. Eternal life is here the finish of the road; we must walk it to arrive, kept the whole way by grace.
But to those that are contentious, and are disobedient to the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [there shall be] wrath and indignation,
Paul describes people who refuse the truth, obey unrighteousness, and so receive wrath and fury. The questions are what that refusal is, what "the truth" means for someone who never heard the gospel, and how a chapter that weighs works fits a letter that says salvation comes by grace.
Where the ESV says "self-seeking," older translations say "contentious," and the writers below use that older wording. The word means more than a bad temper in an argument. One writer traces it to the whole bent of the natural life, and shows where the conflict comes into the open.
Verse 8 describes their character: they do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. They are contentious! Man's natural life is a contest with God — the mind set on the flesh is hostile to Him. The desires of the natural mind stand in constant opposition to the will of God. The test of this hostility is the word of truth. By nature man refuses to obey that word. It is the declared expression of a will that the whole course of fallen nature stands against.
The verse does not describe someone who obeys nothing. It sets one obedience against another, and one writer turns that into a question for the reader.
But on the other hand, is the heart rebellious against the truth? Is there contention instead of submission? Do you yield yourself to unrighteousness instead of to the truth of God? For there is always yielding of some sort: there must be obedience either to what is true or to what is unrighteous. The very word "obedience" is offensive to the hardened heart. Yet he has still yielded himself to obey unrighteousness.
Not everyone has heard the same message. One writer defines "the truth" by what God sets before each person.
The truth is whatever testimony may be set before men. In chapter 1 we see the descendants of Noah turn the truth of God into a lie. They went so far that righteousness required God to give them up to their own uncleanness. They ignored the testimony of creation and went on in their godless ways. So they stored up wrath for the day of wrath, when God reveals His righteous judgment. These people did not have the law. God will judge them by the light they had, not by the law.
Verse 8 and the verse after it use four terms. One writer sorts them into two pairs.
On the other hand there are those who are contentious. They do not obey the truth of Christianity, but obey unrighteousness, and their works are evil. They will come under the indignation and wrath of God. They will also suffer "tribulation and anguish." "Indignation and wrath" describe God's attitude towards evildoers; "tribulation and anguish" describe their portion. In contrast, the portion of those who work good will be "glory, honour, and peace". God will show His attitude toward them in "eternal life".
This chapter weighs deeds, yet the letter says salvation comes by grace. One writer holds both together in a single line.
Those who sin without law perish without it too. Those who sin under law will be judged by it. This happens on the day when God judges the secrets of men through Jesus Christ, according to the apostle's gospel. Here he names the "Jew first" and the "Greek" in judgment, just as he did earlier in the ministry of the gospel. Judgment takes account of everything, including greater advantages. Each person gives account according to his light and receives according to his deeds. For salvation is according to grace, reward or judgment according to works.
Verses 7-10 tell us how God judges. They do not explain how anyone could do good in the first place.
These are general principles. The passage does not take up the question of how a person can do good, or can show "patience in well-doing." But we know from the Scriptures that a man must be born again to do good, for "no one does good, not even one." (Rom. 3:12.)
- Contention. This is not bad manners in an argument. It is a life set against God's will, and God's word brings it into the open.
- Obedience. No one obeys nothing. To refuse the truth is to obey unrighteousness instead.
- Light. God measures each person by the testimony set before him: creation, the law, or the gospel.
- Portion. Indignation and wrath show how God regards the evildoer. Tribulation and anguish are what the evildoer receives.
- Principle. Judgment goes by works. Salvation goes by grace, and only a person born again can do good at all.