Verse by Verse

⁶ who “will render to each one according to his deeds”:

⁷ eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality;

The judgment for the unsaved will be before the Great White Throne where those who do not believe will receive differing degrees of punishment based on their knowledge and behavior.

The judgment for the saved will be at the Judgment Seat where believers will be rewarded according to their deeds.

doing good — In this dispensation this means trusting Christ. Only what is done in Christ is good. The first step is faith. Then, and only then in Christ one can continue to do good.

Glory = rewards

Honor = God’s esteem

Immortality = should be translated “incorruption.” We already have immortality.

God would reward the good — if there were any. But in Romans 3:10, Paul says There are none righteous.

⁴ Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

⁵ But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

Goodness = kindness

Forbearance = willingness to tolerate, withholding punishment

Longsuffering = patience which continues forgiving until the hope of repentance is gone

Not knowing — willful ignorance

Repentance = a change of mind

treasuring up = stockpile God’s wrath by impenitence

In other words — Are you ignoring and sneering at God’s patience with your sins? Don’t you know that His patience is intended to show you your need to turn to Him? The more you ignore Him, the greater will be your punishment.

  ² But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

³ And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

According to the truth — according to facts with nothing hidden, according to God’s unerring assessment.

Judgment — In verse 2 “judgment” is an adverse sentence. In verse 3, it is the carrying out of the sentence.

Paul is referring to the moralizer who is of the opinion that he doesn’t sin because he doesn’t sin outwardly and that he will escape judgment. Paul says that that person sins inwardly (and probably outwardly too) and will not escape judgment.

1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

The “therefore” is referring to the fact of the universal knowledge of sin and its consequences as mentioned in 1:32.

Paul is saying that moralists — by which he means “civilized” people such as the Jews, Greeks and Romans — are wrong for judging the heathen (Gentiles) because they are guilty of the same sins inwardly as the heathen are outwardly.

When you recognize sin in others, you prove your own awareness of right and wrong and so are without excuse for your own sins.

judge = distinguish between right and wrong and pass and adverse sentence on

Same things — referring in particular to the sins mentioned in 1:29-31.

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Who — this word indicates that the statement to come refers back to the list of sins in verses 29-31.

Knowing the judgment of God — again, deliberate denial of God

Judgment — what God has declared to be right

Commit (practice) = course of conduct

Death — termination of life plus Divine penalty

Do — repeated acts

Pleasure — hearty approval of sinfulness

The progress in this verse is this: Men sin, then justify it in themselves, then condone it in others.

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

Filled = saturated (not just tainted), full up

Unrighteousness = injustice, not right with God

Covetous = wanting more

Envy = disquiet with other’s advantages

Debate = strife

Whisperers = conveying information detrimental to others

Backbiter = evil speaker

Disobedient to parents = not persuaded by

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.

Did not like — forgetting God is a deliberate action, a self-willed choice. Man refused to remember God, so God rejects man as if he failed a test.

God gave man over to what man wanted.

Reprobate = unapproving, undiscerning

To do those things — restraining influences are removed

Not convenient = not fit, not of benefit to man’s nature as God’s creations

Psalm 14:1-3 — The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Because of idolatry, God gave man up to sin — after He worked with them for a prolonged period. Our moral nature is governed by God. To reject God leads to moral disease. God did not give man up because of sin but gave them up to sin because they rejected Him.

Uncleanness = sexual aberration – not illicit sex but perversion

Change = exchange. Man gave up one thing (truth) for another (lie) which meant giving up natural affections for vile perversion

Truth = glory of God, the true God (not just truth about God)

Lie = idolatry

Worship and serve — These words always appear in this order. Acknowledgment always proceeds service.

More than — abandonment. Man abandoned the Creator to worship and serve the creation.

Blessed = praise and adoration of the Creator by creation.

Amen = “it is and shall be so”

Sexual perversion results from idolatry. Breaking natural laws brings natural consequences. Perversion is the natural and inevitable result of turning from God.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

Man broke the first Commandment when he invented his own divinity and placed it above God.

Man broke the second Commandment when he fashioned God as an animal.

Foolishness is a departure from knowledge of God, not a stage in the development of knowledge. In other words, fools are on the way down, not on the way up.

Change — Man cannot change God, but they exchanged His glory for another.

Glory = everlasting power and divinity (verse 20) that was revealed through creation.

Made like = likeness. Man exchanged the real thing for an image.

In the Old Testament, Israel (which knew God) was ridiculed for turning to idols. In the New Testament, Gentiles who grew up with idols are taught but not ridiculed.

Corruptible = subject to rust and decay.

Man > birds > beasts > reptiles — a progression of degradation

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Man knew God was God but willfully determined not to glorify Him. Humanity began with a knowledge of God. They accepted God’s creation but weren’t thankful for it.

Vain = useless. Men became futile for the purpose for which they were created.

Imaginations = self-willed, evil reasonings in opposition to facts revealed by God about God. Since man rejected God, he had to invent man-made philosophies to replace Him. This plunged them deeper into darkness.

Darkened — spiritual darkness. Ephesians 4:17-18 — This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.