Sermon: "No Partiality"

1. You who are part of the religious "in crowd", do you think that you are not sinners, in desperate need of God? Remember that Paul’s aim here is not to justify any group of people based on their own merits of any kind. He wants everyone caught up in the net of gospel guilt so that they will find that they are candidates for the mercy of God in Christ.

2. You judge others so quickly and so harshly, yet you do the same things. Do you think that’s safe? To make his point concerning sin, He urged them to carefully consider their own hypocrisy, and to see that they were ripe candidates for the judgment of God.

TODAY’S PASSAGE:

1. There is no partiality with God.

The gospel that Paul preaches to the Romans is not some made-up good news that just sounds religious, but then runs around the tough issues. It is the real thing. In today’s passage, Paul tells the ancient church in Rome that God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ in a future day of final judgment. Did you notice that in verse 16? There is a Day of Judgment coming, and it will involve those things that we think are secret. They may be secrets as far as people are concerned, but God knows all and He will judge rightly.

Before we continue, it may help to identify four different forms of divine judgment. First, there can be events that God uses to discipline those He loves, for instance when your church burns down to the ground, and you are brought to rely more on God and His promises, and less on what you see. This is a form of judgment in a way, but it is actually the merciful discipline of God that calls us to a more consistent life of faith. I’ll call this "Disciplinary Judgment." Second there is the judgment of God expressed day by day when God turns us over to our own depraved desires. This is the revelation of His wrath that Paul spoke about earlier in Romans. It is a very frightening thing, because as we turn away from God, we have less and less of a sense of anything being wrong. It is a kind of deliberate insensibility to spiritual truth that necessitates rescue by God if there is to be any deliverance from its deceptive grip. Let’s call this "I’m-all-set Judgment." In the third place, there is the final Day of Judgment that Paul speaks about here in verse sixteen, when all our secrets are laid bare before all. This is "Final Damnation Judgment." Finally, there is one more expression of the judgment of God, and it is the only way to have any peace with God. It is "Cross of Christ Judgment." It is the judgment that has fallen upon the Son of God on the cross when He died for the elect. When we see this judgment of God for us, when we see that Jesus Christ has taken the justice of God instead of us, when we embrace this great message of grace and forgiveness, we can face the disciplinary acts of God with joy. We know that God is for us. "Disciplinary judgment" goes with "Cross of Christ Judgment." And the "I’m-all-set–Turn-us-over-to-our-own-depravity" judgment goes with "Final Damnation Judgment" that Paul writes of here.

In this "Final Damnation Judgment" it is apparently very important that there is no partiality with God. That is what verse 11 says. The Greek word that is used is proswpolhmyi,a (prosopolempsia). It seems to be related to the Greek word for face or appearance. It has to do with outward appearances or more generally with those things that everyone knows or can find out about a person. Men judge with partiality. If you are rich, good looking, optimistic, intelligent, strong, or possess some other sought after quality, you may find that you can get away with more than those who are poor or powerless. But God does not judge with partiality. He is not impressed with our credentials or our outward appearance. Here, Paul wants to make it very clear that those who are counting on their religious status to somehow take away God’s demands for justice are very sadly mistaken. He is addressing the fact that there are some that have recommended themselves to God based on their religious title. They are Jews, as Paul himself is. Paul is saying here that your Jewishness that you are so proud of, is not going to save you from the judgment of God. Your Gentileness will not save you and your Jewishness will not save you. God is not impressed with your label. He sees the inner work of His Spirit that man cannot see. He sees His own work in the hearts of the elect. Understand this. God is impressed with His own work. His election of you is not based on anything that you bring to the table. There is no respect of persons with God. There is no partiality with Him.

The particular distinction that Paul is most concerned with here is the self-recommendation of those who are "in the Law." They believe that they are following God’s ways, though they have added many of their own laws and have come to treat these as the Law of God. They recommend themselves because they are part of the in crowd of those who know the Law and who have the Law.

Paul cuts right through all of this by noting that sin is the issue when it comes to the justice of God. He says first that those who do not have the Law have sinned without the Law. The Ten Commandments are at the heart of the covenantal system given on Sinai to the people of Israel. These were a tremendous revelation of His holiness, and they quickly exposed in brighter rays the sinfulness of humanity. But sin existed before the Law was given through Moses, and those who never heard a word of the Law still had plenty of sin. They sinned against God without the Law, and their lack of the written code of instruction was not a valid excuse before a holy God. They still had sin. This, the Jews would have readily endorsed.

But Paul has no intention of stopping there. His point here is to convict Jews of their sins, not just Gentiles. He does this by saying that the Jews, who have the Law in written form, have sinned as those who are in the Law, while the Gentiles have sinned without the Law. He especially makes his case in a long parenthetical remark in verses 13-15. He asks his readers to imagine a Gentile who had never heard the Law, but yet followed the Law. Would not such a person demonstrate that the law of God was written upon his heart? Would not his obeying of the Law be a sign of his being right with God? In one sense, Paul is merely raising a hypothetical case here. Yet, in a way, this is precisely what happens when Gentiles are brought to faith in Jesus Christ. The Messiah’s perfect Law-keeping is applied to us, and we are moved by His Spirit to follow the pathway of God’s good Law in ways that are appropriate for us as New Covenant believers.

Paul is trying to make those who are trusting in their Jewishness jealous of Gentiles who are actually moving in God’s ways by His Holy Spirit. As he says very pointedly in verse 13, it is not the hearers of the Law that are declared right with God (justified). It is the doers of the Law that are declared right with God. Christ did not merely hear the Law of God for us. He did the Law of God for us, and then faced the penalty of the Law of God in our place. This is fantastic news that unites us together in worship, and sends us out into the world with faith and purpose. We want everyone in the world to hear this message clearly. This is the bell that must be rung loudly in New England in our day. This is the message that is worth proclaiming until the Day of final Judgment comes.

Dear brothers and sisters, true religion is not a matter of an outward face, or outward cleanliness, or outward beauty, or outward merit, or anything about which a man can fake out other men. Nor is it a matter of mere outward affiliation. It is a matter of God’s electing power that draws us to the table of grace as those who are not worthy. There is no partiality with God. There is only one thing that will work. The Sovereign God who ordains all things that come to pass must actually claim us, renew us, and keep us in His love through Jesus Christ, our Lord. If you are counting on anything other than the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to you and savingly at work within you, then you are counting on the wrong thing. Buildings come and go. So do people. Jesus remains. Anything less than Him, and our consciences will defend us on some days, and accuse us on others. Don’t bother to defend yourself. With Christ as our sure foundation, and with Him alone, we are safe, now and forever. Amen.