1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Romans 2:1-2
This should be a convicting passage for all of us! If I think I am exempt from God’s judgement because I have not indulged in the immoral excess described here, then I am strongly mistaken. Here is the thing, I have more knowledge of who God is, His grace/mercy, and what His Son did for me and therefore I have a greater accountability.
I have the knowledge of God’s commands and therefore the sufficient knowledge to judge others, then I have to condemn myself for my own sin (all sin is in equal defiance of a pure and holy God). I essentially have the knowledge to evaluate my own condition, so I have no business looking down on and judging those in the end of chapter 1. In the condemnation of others, I run the risk of excusing and overlooking my own sin.
John MacArthur says that the Judging Person’s self-righteousness exists because of two deadly errors:
- Minimizing God’s moral standard usually by emphasizing externals.
- Underestimating the depth of one’s own sinfulness.
Those of who have been redeemed must live in a constant state of understanding who we were when God redeemed us from our ‘Old Self’ and now gives us an avenue of grace when in our flesh stumble. We remember that we have been saved from what we rightly deserve, and we now live in a state (in this earthly carcass) where we are reminded every day that we can’t rise above what we deserve. We live in a humility of knowing we deserve exactly what that practicing pagan across the street deserves.
The last thing I’ll say here is what my title of this post talks about -> Whatever God does is by nature RIGHT. So, when His judgement falls, it is what is supposed to/must happen.
APPLICATION
This goes right back to supporting what I was saying yesterday…I have a tendency to judge the person, when I am just as guilty of what I have judged that person of. I can’t just call out specific sins, calling them worse than anything I have done, because when I have committed ANY sin, I have sowed the deserving seed of wrath for my own works.