Does God have favorites?

It is the world that God so loved; not a part of it, nor any class or race or colour in it. There is a notion abroad, and we fear what is called "organised religion" must bear some of the blame of it, that God loves the cultured, and the rich and the religious, and merely tolerates the rest; but our text sweeps away such a false conception of God and tells us that He loved the world. He is no respecter of persons. His love reaches out to all men, even to the uttermost part of the earth.

But do any or all of these things interfere, in the smallest degree, with the gracious activities of the divine nature, or the outgoings of God's love towards a lost world? In no wise. God is love. That is His blessed nature, and this nature must express itself toward all. The mistake lies in supposing that because God has His purposes, His counsels, His decrees — because He is sovereign in His grace and mercy — because He has chosen from all eternity a people for His own praise and glory — because the names of the redeemed, all the redeemed, were written down in the book of the slain Lamb, before the foundation of the world — that therefore God cannot be said to love all mankind — to love the world — and, moreover that the glad tidings of God's full and free salvation ought not to be proclaimed in the ears of every creature under heaven.

“For there is no respect of persons with God.” How worthy indeed this truth of our deep earnest consideration! Who shall influence God on his behalf? Who shall plead his personal prominence, importance, earthly position or advantage before the only true God? Whatsoever they are is no matter to Him: “God accepteth no man's person.” Personalities may mean a great deal in the proud, vain estimate of man; but let no man think to pass God's scrutiny wearing such a cloak: let him rather look well to his credentials, that they are in order — in such order as to meet the demands of perfect righteousness and truth. But neither the Jew's boast in the law, nor the Gentile's confidence in his learning and cultivation will avail at such a time. “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” Sin cannot escape the judgment of God, no matter where it is, whether in circumstances of greatest austerity and dignity, or whether in the lowest, most ignorant classes of humanity. No excuses, no exemptions will have the least shadow of consideration. This is justice, pure and perfect; this is righteous, holy judgment — which things we are told “are the habitation of God's throne” (Psalm 89:14). Verses 13 to 15, it will be noted, form a parenthesis, while verse 16 in few words tells us the time, the discernment, the measure, and the executor of God's judgment. The parenthesis meets the natural selfish protests both of the learned and unlearned. Learning does not justify (v. 13); and lack of education does not excuse (vv. 14 & 15). For in the latter case the Gentiles (“who have not the law” — a demarcation ever distinctly drawn in Scripture) manifest in their very nature a recognition of right and wrong such as the law declares. Not that they are by this means correct in every detail: such is not the point. But they naturally conceive some standard of moral regulations, so that “these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.”

(V. 11) This leads to the fourth great principle of God's judgment, that in judgment "There is no respect of persons with God". While God maintains the place He has given the Jew, yet God is no respecter of persons, and therefore the Jew will not escape because he is a privileged Jew, nor will the Gentile be able to plead he is only a poor ignorant Gentile.

(V. 12) The fact of not having the law will be no excuse for the Gentile who has sinned without it: and the fact of having the law will not shelter the Jew who has sinned under it. Those who have sinned without it will perish without it: those who have sinned under it will be judged by it. This brings out the important principle, that, in rendering to every man his deeds, God takes into account the measure of light a man has had. We have already seen that when it is a question of the sin, God measures it according to the truth of what He is; but when it is a question of measuring out retribution to the sinner, God takes into account the privileges he may have had under the law, or otherwise. This will become manifest in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.

"There is no respect of persons with God." (v. 11). In some countries today respect of persons provides the undoubted criminal with an avenue of escape. Favouritism does its work, or other influences behind the scenes, or even bribery is set in motion, and the offender escapes the penalty he deserves. It will never be thus with God.

In the next verse the apostle for the first time points directly at the Jew, no less than the Gentile, as obnoxious to divine judgment. We have seen with what consideration he approaches this subject, which, once cleared, is to hold so prominent a place in the epistle. In Romans 1 he had begun with the bright side, and affirmed the gospel to be God's power unto salvation to every one that believes, both to Jew first and to Greek. Now, in Romans 2, when handling, not the gospel that saves the lost, but the immutable principles of God's righteous government, he brings out the alternative — "tribulation and anguish on every soul of man that works evil, both of Jew first and of Greek; but glory, and honour, and peace to every one that works good, both to Jew first and to Greek; for there is no regard of person with God." (Ver. 9-11.) Such are His ways. Time, place, people can make no radical difference with Him, save that possession of privileges brings with it a prior responsibility, and this with evident justice. If the man who enjoys religious light works out evil notwithstanding, is he less guilty than his less favoured fellow-sinner? If he heeds the warning and testimony of God, working out that which is good, God will not withhold "glory, honour, and peace;" and neither last nor least stands the Jew thus found in His sight, though, as Peter truly declared on a great occasion, God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that fears Him and works righteousness is acceptable to Him. How this is made good in souls every believer knows. It is the fruit of His own grace; for it is not in man to direct his steps, nor in good in him or to be got from him, save when faith enables him to do His good pleasure: without faith it is impossible to please Him. Nor is it for a moment to be allowed that Romans 2 can clash either with Romans 1 or with Romans 3. Without such grace of God and faith of man there is no good about him: on the contrary, he needs God's power to save him. But God is here laying down His own inflexibly just ways as dealing morally with man. The believer, no doubt, is the only one who works good, the only possessor therefore of glory, honour, and peace; and while the Jew (as long as he had a place of relationship with God, and even till judgment manifestly closed it) had the precedence, the Gentile is not overlooked, but comes up in gracious remembrance before God, as we see in Cornelius and his house.

Peter's opening words then are precious, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him." Evidently he had himself considered that God was a respecter of persons, for his education was such as to give Israelites a higher place in God's sight than all other nationalities. In the church of God all of this must be totally leveled; and God used this miraculous way of impressing such truth upon Peter.

'And Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears Him and works righteousness is acceptable to Him. The word which He sent forth to the sons of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all1) — ye know the matter that came to pass throughout the whole of Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached — Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed Him with [the] Holy Spirit and power; Who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. And we [are]2 witnesses of all things which he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem, Whom also2 they slew, hanging [Him] on a tree. Him God raised on the third day and gave Him to be manifest, not to all the people, but to witnesses that were chosen before by God, to us which ate and drank with Him after He rose from [the] dead. And He charged us to preach to the people and testify that this is He that is ordained by God judge of living and dead. To Him all the prophets bear witness that every one that believes on Him shall receive remission of sins through His name' (vers. 34-43). {1 Perhaps 'of all things". The two accusatives λόγον and ῥῃμα are dependent on the verb οἲδατε, 'ye know', the second being in apposition with the first. 2 'Are' is wanting in the best copies, which read 'also' omitted in the Text. Rec. 'We' here is emphatic, contradistinguished from the 'ye', also emphatic, in ver. 37.}

The coming and work of Christ have put all things in their true place. Only since then has God Himself been either manifested or vindicated, for during previous ages, since the flood or at least the law, God seemed the God of Jews only, and not of Gentiles also. Now it is made evident that He cares for Gentiles no less than Jews; but it never was evident in the fullness of the truth till the Son of God was come Who has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. Not till we know His Son Jesus Christ can we say, This is the true God and eternal life. Nor had anyone more difficulty to pierce through the cloud of Jewish prejudice than the instrument here employed, but God had cast the true light of the cross more fully on his soul; and now he could say, 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons' (even were they Hebrews of the Hebrews), 'but in every nation he that fears Him and works righteousness is acceptable to Him.' Of this Cornelius and perhaps others of his house were already to a certain extent a living but hidden example. The principle, however, was now to be extended immensely, and what had been comparatively hidden was to be avowed and made public through the gospel. The very piety of Cornelius kept him from appropriating to himself as a Gentile what he knew God had sent forth to Israel, till grace sent it to him also. Thus should the charge of the risen Lord, hitherto suspended as it were, be applied no longer partially but in all its wide extent: 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.' The law had been proved and declared powerless, and pretension to keep it to life became the plain proof that no life was there. Christ is all. 'He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he that disbelieves shall be condemned' (Mark 16:16). Peter understood all this as he never did before. Legal mist was passing away from his eyes. But nothing was farther from the truth than that there could be among Gentiles any more than Jews one to fear God or work righteousness without real living faith. The Jewish feeling which denied to any nation save their own the possibility of this acceptableness with God, he declares to be unfounded. His mission on God's part to Cornelius was expressly to assert His indiscriminate grace, as well as to begin authoritatively by one whom God set in the first place in the assembly the sending of the gospel to every creature.

But there is another consideration. In Deuteronomy 23 He would teach us differences in our judgments and thoughts of others, and consequently in our conduct towards them. There are few things that men so much dislike in general as to be taunted with partiality — specially those who may have a sense of righteousness according to God. Yet we must distinguish (though without partiality, which is always wrong); but if we are wise, we shall not be driven out of the painstaking and conscientious appraisal of all the circumstances which require to be taken into account; and we shall weigh also what God may give us to judge of each particular case and person, — for He makes differences, though no respecter of persons. Where it is a question of His grace, difference there is none, but a dead level. On the one hand sin is a great leveller in presence of His eternal judgment; on the other hand grace is no less so in an opposite way, but there it is a question of the value of Christ and His work for bringing souls into His presence in favour and in peace. Alike lost in sins, we are alike saved from them by the faith of Jesus. But then in saying this we have said all here, and come into a host of differences on either side. This seems to me most clearly shown in our chapter.

4 "But those who wish simply to follow the word of God easily free themselves from these. For, first, they firmly rest in this: that God Himself testifies concerning Himself, that out of the race of man, ruined by its first parent, He chooses some to re-form them to a new and blessed life; and has, or esteems the rest as vessels of His wrath, in whom he should shew examples of His just vengeance; whereby He should commend to the elect His mercy, because He translates them, born to the same death, into the inheritance of the divine life. This judgment of the Lord concerning men, the Scripture everywhere preaches and inculcates; as well in the history of the Lord's acts, as in the oracles themselves; for Cain was rejected; Abel elected. In the time of Noah all were destroyed by the flood save eight men: and of the sons of Noah, blessing came upon two, a curse upon the third … And where do we not see, as in whole peoples, so in private men, and these otherwise most closely united, that some are taken, others rejected? From these examples, therefore, and oracles, witnessing clearly the same thing, of which Scripture is full (in which, namely, the difference which God puts between men is declared), the saints have the fullest persuasion, that, before the foundation of the world, some are elected to life, appointed also before their doing anything, to that to which God at length brings them, namely, that in them He should give an example of His wrath, and that in that way His name should be sanctified in them. And, when they see it thus to be pleasing in the sight of God, they render thanks with our Lord to God the Father for this very judgment, as well that He hides this mystery of salvation from the wise and prudent of this world, as that He reveals it to the elect little ones; however He may will that the revelation of the mystery should be equally offered to both. Thence, whereas God nevertheless commands the gospel to be preached to every creature, and to call them to the communion of the gospel, be they who they may; the saints do not dispute why it is God's command to call them, whom nevertheless He will not have to come, yea, whom He hardens lest they should come: but they thus judge; it is the Lord who commands, it is our part therefore to obey, and to account it sufficient that in the meanwhile we so far serve the Lord as to the reprobate, that every excuse of their wickedness should be taken away from them, and they should be obliged themselves to confess that God justly condemns them."