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Romans chapter two takes the dissertation on maladjustment to God's justice from antinomian libertine reversionists to those who are reacting to them as self-righteous legalistic religious reversionists.
The worst type of reversionism is the self-righteous reversionist because they have deceived themselves into thinking they are righteous when they are not.
Verses 1-8 address the judgment function of God's justice toward self-righteousness.
Verses 9-16 address the judgment function of God's justice toward evil.
Verses 17-20 address the judgment function of God' justice toward the Jews as a special case of religious self-righteous reversionism.
This chapter describes four principles of God's judgment that result in either blessing or cursing. In Rom 2:2; there is the principle of doctrine: "according to doctrine." It is doctrine that is the basis for either blessing or cursing toward any person in the human race.
Positive volition is the basis of blessing. The first blessing that comes to the human race is salvation that comes from positive volition toward the doctrine of the Gospel. Negative volition is the basis of cursing.
After a person is saved their attitude toward doctrine determines advance into maturity or decline into reversionism. Positive or negative attitude toward doctrine is always the basis for blessing or cursing for their entire physical life on this earth.
Second, in Rom 2:6; there is the principle of production. God never judges us according to our works. In other words doctrine and production are considered to be mutually exclusive because anything we do is not part or God's grace policy.
We must adjust to God's justice by our attitude toward doctrine, positive or negative. But we do not adjust to God's God through our works.
According to works is the standard for judging the self-righteous person, the person who always is clinging to some system of human works or good deeds that he thinks is going to impress God and be the basis of receiving blessing from God.
God does not bless people with this attitude He curses them because they are incompatible with His grace policy.
Third, in Rom 2:11; God is not partial.
There is the principle of personality. God's justice is never impressed with a pleasing personality. Personality is meaningless when it comes to our relationship with God. Human personality reform is not the means of adjustment to God's justice.
Fourth, in Rom 2:16; there is the principle of adjustment for the unbeliever. This is our initial adjustment to God's justice that is found in the phrase "according to my gospel."
This adjustment is made through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Two other principles should be anticipated in this chapter. First, this chapter deals with the judgment function of God's justice against the unbeliever who is self-righteous.
While self-righteous people may not sin overtly all self-righteous people are evil. Remember all sin is evil but not all evil is sin.
A second principle is that God's justice must express itself in judgment against the unbeliever who is maladjusted to God's justice.
In this case the maladjustment is based on his self-righteousness but self-righteousness can also be based on religion.
Apart from Israel the ancient world did not possess a clear-cut concept of morality. Remember that the only concept of true morality until the Church Age began at the end of ancient history was when God directly revealed morality to believers before the Old Testament was written, and the only other source was the Old Testament scriptures themselves.
So God's direct revelation to people like Noah and Abraham is the only clear-cut concept of morality during the time of the patricharal priesthood
The only other clear-cut concept comes from the Old Testament scriptures, especially the Mosaic Law that is very beneficial.
This means that the Greeks, the Romans, the Assyrians and before them, the Chaldeans, the Persians, did not have clear-cut concepts of morality except as they came into contact with Israel, or with divine revelation from some source.
Because of this lack of specific definition justice before the law was considered to be the highest form of morality by the Romans, Greeks, Chaldeans, the Medes and the Persians.
Justice means giving everyone equality before the law, so there was a basic concept of morality related to justice but there was no definition regarding one's personal function in one's relationships with people.
Relationship to people and relationship to God are only defined in the Old Testament scriptures that only Israel had.
The Greek word "dikaiosunh" is one of the most important words in Romans. The suffix "sunh" is an abstract concept that describes a morality related to justice. "Dikaios" means justice and righteousness, "sunh" means the abstract thinking of justice and righteousness.
It is the thinking of a judge. "Dikaiosunh" is what God as judge thinks.
The supreme court of heaven is made up of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; and what they think is important. We must relate to what they think; doctrine is the means by which we relate to what they think.
"Dikaiosunh" therefore becomes the principle of objective thinking and judicial righteousness in our relationship with God.
When used with the possessive genitive, as it is many times in Romans as in "dikaiosunh Theou" it means God's justice, it means the thinking of the judge.
Mankind's relationship with God is based on the concept of "dikaiosunh."
God's justice is the issue. God's justice is the direct source of blessing to mankind and God's justice is the watchdog on God's essence.
God's justice protects other divine attributes from being compromised. This means that while all of God's attributes are involved in God's blessing of mankind justice is the only direct source of God's blessing.
God's love may be the motivation for the blessing but the final arbiter is God's justice. The phrase "dikaiosunh Theou" is the key to the book of Romans. God's love is the expression of divine motivation but God's justice is the direct source of either blessing or cursing.
We are accustomed to associating love with emotional sentiment but do not associate the God's love with sentiment or emotion. Do not expect God to be emotional about you, count on something that has more security. God cannot afford to be emotional about you because God would not be God if He were emotional.
We must understand that neither love nor sovereignty nor righteousness, nor any other attribute other than justice has any direct bearing on our blessings from God.
When it comes to blessing from God it is justice, justice, justice because it isn't happening if God's justice doesn't sign off on it.
Rom 2:1; starts with the presumption of the self-righteous unbeliever, or the person who is maladjusted to God's justice at salvation, who decides that they will build up a system of righteousness to reach God.
"Therefore" is the inferential conjunction, "dio," that infers something that is obvious or self-evident. "Therefore" or "For this reason." is a conjunction and it refers to God's justice that judges the heathenism that comes from unbeliever reversionism.
However, the moral self-righteous person often compares themselves to the reversionistic immoral, heathen person described in Romans 1 and thinks inwardly, "I don't do those things."
Because they don't do those things they rationalize that they are righteous. This is self-righteousness. Comparing themselves to immoral people instead of to God's perfect standard.
Self-righteousness is blind because righteousness cannot be built on someone else's unrighteousness.
"You have" is translated from the present active indicative of the verb "eimi." The present tense is static present for a condition that continuously exists. There are always people who are evaluating themselves on the basis of their judgment of other people.
The active voice: the self-righteous unbeliever produces the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of reality.
"No excuse" is the predicate nominative singular from the compound noun "anapologhtos" (a = negative; anpologeomai = to defend one's self against charges in court) that says in effect, you have no defense, and are therefore without excuse. "Therefore you keep on being without excuse."
"Everyone of you" in the Greek it is literally "o man" from 'o", plus the vocative of "anthropos," and the nominative singular from "pas" is an adjective meaning "all" that can be used as a substantive and when it is it means "everyone