“God’s Answer to Hypocrites”
Romans 2:1-11
September 28, 2008
When you talk to imaginary friends, like Harvey, Jimmy Stewart’s 6-foot white rabbit, they come to take you away. But in Greek literature, there was a literary device which consisted of pretty much this thing: a conversation with an unseen, unnamed individual. It was called a diatribe, and it was used to make a point, and that’s what Paul is employing here; the question is, who is the imaginary person Paul is conversing with? Some believe that Paul, having begun at the end of chapter 1 to address the pagan world, now turns his attention to the religious Jews. He clearly does this later in chapter 2, but remembering that the chapter divisions are man-made, we’re under no obligation to make that assumption. He may have Jews only in mind, but I believe that he is speaking, not per se with either a Jewish or a Gentile individual, but with the person who imagines himself to be an upstanding citizen, a person who is “above” such deeds as are described in Romans 1. And such people could also be Gentiles…
The Roman Seneca was an example of one such highly-moral Gentile individual. Seneca would have been at the forefront of our so-called “culture wars”. F.F. Bruce comments, of Seneca, that “he exposed hypocrisy, he preached the equality of all human beings, he acknowledged the pervasive character of evil…he practiced and inculcated daily self-examination, he ridiculed vulgar idolatry, he assumed the role of a moral guide…” By his example of moral living, Seneca put to shame the vast majority of licentious Roman culture, and if we were to speak of his “theology”, at some points he’d be more orthodox than some of our contemporary “Christian” pulpits! And so to suggest that all Gentiles were living lives of debauchery would be as foolish as to suggest that all Jews were living lives of pious devotion.
It seems to me that in the first 11 verses of chapter 2, if not in the first 16 even, Paul is addressing people who in their own eyes live moral lives, who might well fancy themselves good enough people to achieve heaven in their own merits. He’s confronting the moralizer, the person who not only lives by a strict moral code but also who looks down his nose judgmentally at others who don’t live up to the code.
And let’s not kid ourselves: there are plenty of these people who sit in nice churches on Sunday mornings, who sing consistently and listen politely and give significantly and work diligently in the church’s ministries. They’re upstanding members of the Kiwanis Club, they serve on the board of the PTA, they coach Little League and take their kids to Girl Scouts and vote in every election. And they think that they’re living pretty good, moral lives, and that in the end, God will take all of that into account because, you know, they’re not like those “other people”.
And they’d listen to Paul’s words at the end of Romans 1 and say a hearty “Amen”! And when Paul got to the part where he talks, in :32, about people who “not only do (evil things) but give approval to those who practice them”, they’d shake their heads and tut-tut about how horrible it is not only to do bad things but to cheer on others to walk deeper and deeper in sin, and they’d say, “can you imagine that!” And then, they go out and do the very same things themselves, and condemn others for doing them. At least the folks in Romans 1:32 are consistent; these people are hypocrites!
Table Talk
“The church is full of hypocrites”. We’ve all heard people say that…but is it true? Why or why not?
What conclusion(s) did you reach? Is there a difference in being a hypocrite and acting hypocritically? Is there a difference in getting drunk and being a drunk? I believe every Christian acts hypocritically from time to time; some we could label “hypocrite”. That’s my subject for today.
I. The Peril of Hypocrisy - :1-4
The word hypocrisy derives from the Greek ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means "play-acting", "acting out", "feigning, dissembling". It was used of one who on the Greek stage wore a mask, taking on a persona other than his own for the purpose of looking to be someone other than who he was. This is what a hypocrite does: he wears a mask to pretend to be someone he is not, and to play a role that makes him think in his own mind that he is better than other people.
Christ had strong words for the Pharisees of His time, not because they weren’t doing some of the outward things associated with religious devotion, but because their hearts were far from God, and because they used their own warped sense of superiority to judge others.
A. The hypocrite’s predicament - :1a,b
“you condemn yourself”
“Therefore” always raises a question: “what’s the ‘therefore’ there for?” In this case, it would seem to me that it hearkens back, not to the immediately preceding verses, but instead to 1:18-20, where Paul has said that man is guilty of “suppressing the truth”. The argument then is this: the self-righteous hypocrite is also engaged in suppression of the truth and therefore is “without excuse” and no better off than the sin-indulgent pagans that said hypocrite imagines himself better than.
Paul speaks of “everyone who judges” and the one who “pass(es) judgment on another”. It’s important to take a few minutes and understand what he is, and what he is not, saying by using these terms, because we’ve gotten hold of some warped ideas about the subject, and because some Christians don’t know what to think, let me give you some Biblical thoughts to put into practice:
Paul is not telling us that it is wrong to make judgments. You cannot live life without making judgments about things. “But didn’t Jesus say, ‘judge not, that you be not judged’?” Yes, He did…but He then turned around and encouraged His followers to make judgments, and in John 7, Jesus gave the definitive answer to how we ought to approach the subject, when He said, “Judge righteous judgment”. How do we know the difference between “right judgment” and un-right?
• We should not judge on the basis of mere appearance. In selecting David to be the new king, Samuel said that while man looks on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart.
• We should not judge on the basis of personal opinion. Where the Bible does not speak pretty clearly, we need to be quiet and reserve judgment.
• We should not attempt to take the place of God in issuing final judgment upon a person (though we can and must judge actions in the light of God’s Word). I don’t know the ultimate state of a person’s heart before God, as much as I might suspect what it is. Final judgment is reserved for the Judge, and I shouldn’t act otherwise.
• Our first impulse toward another person ought not be to seek to be judgmental; there is a “judgmental spirit” that we can lapse into wherein we look for the wrong in another, and are happy to find it so that we can criticize. No, this kind of judgmental spirit is contrary to Christ.
At the same time, as Roy Davison has written, "’Judge not, that you be not judged’ is often the wailing cry of false teachers and hardened sinners who misapply the verse to ward off censure for their evil deeds.”
And so a woman will run around on her husband, and when you express concern, she’ll hit you with, “judge not, that you be not judged”, as though she were some great Bible scholar, when in fact she’s misapplying the words of Christ to try to cower you into silence and justify her sin. That’s utterly bogus. There is another problem on the opposite side of the coin from judging, addressed in Proverbs: "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD" (Proverbs 17:15).
• When a Christian persists in sin, the church is called upon to intervene with righteous judgment to call him back to Christ.
• When there is a conflict between Christians, Scripture makes it clear that wise, mature Christians are to intervene and make a judgment as to right/wrong for the good of both parties and the name of Christ.
• Finally, on the basis of Scripture, we are required, while loving the sinner, to judge that sin is wrong, for it always is.
The hypocrite is the judgmental person who points his finger at the “sinner” but fails to consider that while he’s pointing at another, there are always those three fingers pointing back at himself! Why does the hypocrite condemn himself?
B. The hypocrite’s problem - :1c-3 “you do such things…”
The hypocrite is a sinner just like the pagan is. It may be that some of the more gross sins Paul mentions in Romans 1 aren’t the domain of the hypocrite, but certainly some are, and C.S. Lewis is of the belief—and I concur—that the greatest of all sins isn’t murder or rape, but pride. Pride is the stock-in-trade of the hypocrite who imagines himself holier-than-thou.
One of the curious things about our sinfulness is that we all tend to see the faults of others much more quickly than we see our own (that’s why Jesus talked about getting the massive log out of our own eyes before we try to deal with the little speck in the eyes of others!). It’s a game we play; when we really look down inside ourselves we see things that we don’t like very much, things that shame us and embarrass us that we don’t want others to see, don’t even want to see in ourselves, so if we can find in others faults we judge equal to or greater than our own, that’s what we focus on. The hypocrite condemns himself by doing the things he claims to despise in others.
C. The hypocrite’s presumption - :4
“do you presume on…His kindness?”
Jews cannot sin with impunity on the basis that they represent God’s chosen people. Man cannot sin with impunity on the basis of God’s mercy/grace. Voltaire, the French skeptic, cavalierly said, “God will forgive; that’s His business”. That is a sub-Christian attitude, to be sure! Yes, my understanding of Scripture is that the person who places sincere faith in Christ will not lose his salvation, but the person who can treat sin as though it “ain’t no big deal” is guilty of misunderstanding and abusing the grace of God, and gives evidence that he likely has never experienced the grace of God.
II. God’s Judgment on Hypocrisy - :5-11
A. The surety of God’s judgment - :5
God’s kindness toward us, His grace and mercy, are not extended toward us so that we can continue to live in our sin, footloose and fancy-free. Grace doesn’t lead to license. When it does, when we mistake God’s kindness and forbearance for nonchalance, indifference regarding our sin, then we invite the judgment of God in the end. And His judgment is sure. The Bible tells us that it is appointed to every one of us to die, and after that comes the judgment of God.
B. The basis of God’s judgment –:6-10
Justification is by faith alone, as Paul will make clear, but judgment will be based upon our works. But this said, we are left with some interesting choices in interpreting these words. To jump to the conclusion that Paul is contradicting himself here and teaching salvation by works would be ridiculous, so we can rule that out. Of all the options for understanding these words, two in particular commend themselves. Let me spell them out in a nutshell:
• Option 1 – Paul is suggesting that our works demonstrate the reality of our faith, that those who have real saving faith will evidence that faith by a changed life that performs good works. There is ample Scriptural evidence to back this up! Jesus said that it would be by the fruit of individuals that men would know the reality of their professions of faith. As John Stott writes, “the presence or absence of saving faith in our hearts will be disclosed by the presence or absence of good works of love in our lives.” Faith saves us, not works, but real saving faith is a faith that works; faith that is more than mere intellectual assent, more than mere head knowledge of theological facts, will demonstrate itself by deeds done for others in the name of and in the love of Christ. Paul says this in Ephesians 2:10; James echoes it in James 2:18. And this may be the point Paul is making here, but there is a second option.
• Option 2 – Paul is saying here that God’s judgment will be based upon our works, but he later says that all of our works are tainted and none of them can possibly measure up to God’s standard of holiness. Notice that judgment is based upon what we seek and upon what we do. But Paul says this in the next chapter, Romans 3: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”
According to this understanding, then, Paul is saying that there is no one whose works measure up to God’s perfect standard, that because our innate sin taints everything we do, we can’t possibly be counted right with God by our works, since they aren’t that “good” anyway! This would accord with the teaching that “all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags”. It seems to me that this is the more likely option. God will judge our works for what they are: unworthy of His holy standard!
C. The fairness of God’s judgment– :11
That said, in the end, God is the impartial judge. Ed Hochuli is an infamous man in San Diego right now, because Hochuli, an NFL referee, blew a late-game call two weeks ago that cost San Diego a victory over their rivals, the Denver Broncos. Nobody is accusing Ed Hochuli of being partial to one team or another, of course, but he got the call wrong. God never gets the call wrong, and He is never swayed by some partiality to cook the books. He’s not partial to His chosen people, the Jews; He’s not partial to Americans in some way; He judges each person impartially. And because you sin, your sins will be judged.
But here’s the wonderful news: your sins were judged on Calvary’s cross. The cross isn’t about God saying, “sin ain’t no big deal”; it’s about God saying, “sin is a huge deal—and then paying Himself an excruciating price to deliver us, the objects of His love, from that sin!
III. The Cure for Hypocrisy
A. Brokenness – A right response to myself
I am a broken person. And so are you—the question is whether or not you are willing to admit it. When Ted Turner said, “Christianity is for losers”, he was dead…right! His problem was that he didn’t understand that he himself is a loser as well! I should be broken over my sin because my sin has broken me! I see myself through the lens of brokenness, that I have been fatally marred by my sin in such a way that I cannot by any means fix myself. That was David’s attitude; listen to Psalm 51: 16-17:
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
David was a man who understood that acts of religious devotion didn’t compare, in the sight of God, with a heart that was truly broken by the reality and the depth of his innate sinfulness. Before God, I must do the same: see myself, not as one who’s “got it all together”, but as a person who needs the fix God provides, and my attitude toward the sin that “breaks” me should be one of godly sorrow. On the heels of brokenness comes
B. Repentance – A right response to God
The only appropriate response to a holy God, Whom I’ve offended by my continual sinful affronts to His holy character, is heartfelt repentance, on a regular basis. Paul says, in :4, that this is what God’s kindness toward us should lead us to, heartfelt repentance. Repentance is a change of mind and heart that leads to a change in action. Scripture tells us that “godly sorrow brings about repentance” (II Corinthians 7), implying a couple of things: one, that mere sorrow over my sin—brokenness, even—doesn’t equate to repentance. Two, that real repentance does include the element of being sorry before God because I understand that sin is an affront to His character.
If I am indeed broken by my sin, sorrowful for it and repentant before God, desiring to allow Him to change my motives, attitudes, and behavior into the image of Christ, then it will affect how I respond to other people as well.
C. Mercy – A right response to others
The hypocrite is under the judgment of God because he minimizes his own sin and maximizes the sins of others, condemning them for the very same types of things of which he himself is guilty, wearing a mask of bogus spirituality to hide the rottenness within. To keep up appearances, and to make himself feel better on the inside, he’ll judge other people while failing to turn that searchlight on himself.
But the faithful follower of Christ is different. I must see myself as one who, though broken, has received the abundant grace and mercy of God, and on that basis, I extend mercy to others instead of judgment. Realizing that God has forgiven me of a whole multitude of ugly sins, that in His sight we all fall short of His glory, I see others as being in the same predicament: sinners, lost apart from Christ, and as God has treated me with mercy and grace, so I do the same toward them.
God has an answer for hypocrites, and it is this: when you condemn others, you condemn yourself, because you are guilty of the same things. Your hypocrisy earns the wrath of God—which is why we all, every one of us, need the grace of God.
Table Talk
What is your gut response to considering yourself a “broken person”? Are you used to thinking of yourself in this way? Why or why not? How does this perspective change the way you think of God? Of others?
