The Pulpit Commentary — Romans — Section 72

on your hee.d, and melts down, by deede of kindness and a forgivinu spirit the hardneaa of your heart. la it not a picture of how God deals with men? We 'have sinned. He has borne with us. We have stood condemned 68 guilty sinners in the presence of a broken Lo.w. He has sent his own Son to redeem, to justify, to eave our souls. All this God h11e done tho.t he might dro.w our hearts from ein, that by all hie overflowing goodness he might lead us to repentance. He puts before us the guilt of sin and the danger of it, the terrors of the jurlgment and the agony of the lost. But over and above o.11 he puts the message of mercy. " God commendeth his love toward WI, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." It is thie, the story of a heavenly Father's mercy; it is this, the story of a Saviour's love; it is this, the story of the cross,-that has touched the blunted conscience and melted the hardest heart, and won the most hardened sinners to repentance. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him return unto the Lord, for he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."-C. H. I. Vera. 6-16.-" The righteousjudgment of God." In the previous verses we saw how the goodness of God is too often received; how there are many who despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering. It is especially to such persoll8 that St. Paul addresses his account of God's righteous jud.gment from the fifth ,erse to the sixteenth. Those who despise God's goodness have a great fact to face. Those who live as if there was no God, who evade his co=andments, who evade his offer of salvation, cannot evade his righteous judgment. As there is one event to all in the universal certainty of death, so we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. It is good even for Christians to be reminded of the judgment to come. We live too little under its power. We realize too imperfectly that one day we shall have to give an account of our stewardship. We realize too imperfectly our responsibility toward those around us. How little we enter into Paul's views of the judgment, when he said, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. v. ll) ! The subject of God's righteous judgment is an important one both for Christian and for sinner. I. THE JUDGE. He is a righteous Judge. It is most important that, in thinking of the judgment, we should think of this aspect of God's character. "The righteous judgment of God" (ver. 5). We are not to think of the jud.gment as necessarily a. terror in itself. It is, what the laws of human society ought to be, a terror to the evil-doer, but a praise to them that do well. If we think of the judgment with terror, the fault lies, not with God, but in ourselves. God is a righteous Judge. His judg- ment is a righteous judgment. 'l'here are some who cherish hard thoughts of Goo. who think of him as a stern and relentless Judge. For such hard thoughts there is no foundation anywhere in God's dealings with men. His character is what we should call a character of perfect fairness. His judgment will be perfectly fair. There may be some one who will say, "I did not know that such a course of action wa.s wrong; I had not the Law of God to guide me." St. Paul meets just such a case: ".A..s many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law" (ver. 12). The judgment will be entirely according to our opportunities and privileges. If God condemns us or inflicts punishment upon us, it will only be because we deserve it. Every man will got a fair hearing. "There is no respect of persons with God" (ver. 11). Every man will get a fair chance. Those who have the Bible in their hands cannot say that they ho.vo not ho.d a fair chance. We have all got the offer of salvation. We have all heard of the love of Jesus. Wo have e.11 heard the invitations of the gospel What could God have done for us tho.t he has not done? He has done all he could do for our salvation, when " he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Ho has done all he could, so long as man remains a free agont, to warn us to flee from the wrath to come, to win our hearts to himself. Ho is slow to anger, plenteous in mercy, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; aud yet ho will by no means clear the guilty. Ho gives ns every chance, tlmt by his goodness he may lead us to repentance. It mo.y be obser.ed here that the idoo. of rightoouencss is so bound up in the idea of the jndgment ,,f Gtxl, that St. Paul uses uno wurd iu the original tu oxpross what we doscribo by two wuros-" right,x,ua,, Judgmunt." BOHANS. F 66 THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. [oH. n. 1-29,