(Chapter 1:18-3 :20-continued from page 41.)

The cross of Christ is the full revelation of what the wrath of God is. No mere governmental, earthly and temporal judgments, however severe and terrible, could be an adequate expression of God's absolute and eternal wrath. It was not until the cross, that men had a full revelation of God's estimate of sin. There, infinite and divine wrath was fully told out. God showed all that it is as He poured it out on the holy head of His beloved Son.

What a spectacle that scene was for both angels and men! How impressive! How solemn! God revealing to all His intelligent creatures the due, the exact due, of sin!

If God has made manifest in the cross of Christ the exact measure of what sin must receive at His hand, it is necessary that men should learn that it is impossible for them to come into the court of God and clear themselves of the charge of guilt that in righteousness deserves such wrath as the cross is a revelation of. Men need to be convicted of the absolute impossibility of giving a justifiable reason for their sins, that they are absolutely without excuse, before they will appreciate the grace that the gospel proclaims. From verse 19 on, the apostle takes up the various pleas that men make why they should be exempted from the judgment of God against sin, and shows how unavailing these pleas are. He demonstrates the impossibility of any one establishing a valid excuse for sin. He shows that no one can clear himself of being justly charged with guilt.

First, If it is claimed that there are men who do not even know that there is a divine Being, he shows the claim cannot be allowed. Creation, both as a whole and in detail, is incessantly declaring there is a Creator, a God over all. It is a demonstration of both the eternal power and divinity of the Maker of all things. The responsibility and accountability of the intelligent finite creature is involved in this testimony of creation. No one, then, can excuse himself for violating the nature and character of his relation to the Creator of a creation of which he knows himself to be a part. As rational beings, all men owe subjection to their Creator, and sin in every form is in violation of this subjection, but no valid excuse can be made. No plea for violating creation's witness will stand. It is inexcusable guilt (vers. 19, 20).

Second, It is sometimes said there are hosts of men whom God has abandoned; that He has left to indulge themselves in their lusts; are they then to be blamed for sinking into low and degrading vices? The excuse will not avail. It is true that God, in governmental dealings, because men have turned away from Him and have chosen to indulge their lusts, has given them over to the vices they love. But notwithstanding this, there is in them innately (such is the constitution of their being) a sense of the justice of God in sentencing them to death. They know they deserve to die. They know the sentence by which they have been condemned to die is absolutely just. This is true of the lowest, of the most degraded and abandoned. None, then, can excuse themselves, or their sins, in the court of God on the ground of His, having given them over to judicial blindness. His governmental ways will not be a protecting shield against the charge of guilt (ver. 32).

Third, There are those who say, " But we are not so low and degraded as the great mass of the poor, ignorant, blind heathen. We know better; we condemn their vulgarities and vices. Are we to be judged along with them ?" Especially in so-called Christian lands, where the light of the truth of God shines more or less brightly, is there a large class of people who are thus making their superior light and knowledge a reason why they ought to be exempted from eternal judgment. But in the day when a just God will judge, their plea will not stand. It will be proof rather of despising the riches of God's goodness, forbearance and long-suffering, and of refusing to repent. It will be evidence of a hardened, impenitent heart.

God is just. He will judge justly in the day of judgment. Righteousness will be the principle on which He will judge. If any one can produce in the court of the judgment-day a record that will prove that he has been a seeker of glory, honor and incorruptibility, his record will be approved. But who will be able to produce such a record ? But if righteousness requires the approval of the record (supposing it possible for such a record to be produced), it would necessarily require the disapproval of a record that will be proof of disobedience and sin. Will there be any whose record will not be that ?

If, then, righteousness is the principle on which the judgment will be carried out, it will be in vain
for any to hope for exemption from judgment on the ground of having better light and knowledge than the poor, ignorant heathen. God will not respect persons when He judges the deeds and thoughts of men. Those who have sinned without having special advantages and privileges will receive the due reward of their sins. The guilt of those who have sinned under greater light and knowledge will be all the greater. Righteousness will demand a judgment commensurate with the guilt. Light and knowledge will not be accepted as an excuse for sin.

If chapter 2:1-16 thus clearly insists on the inexcusable culpability of those who boast of light and knowledge above their more unfortunate fellow-men, sunken in vice, we are now to learn how the case of the Jew stands. By the will and authority of God, he occupies a specially exalted position among men. He had received a divine commission, had been called to be Jehovah's witness and the exponent of His will. Set thus in the place of a light, guide and teacher to all men by divine authority, his responsibility was peculiarly solemn. How has he met it ? Why, instead of being a bright and shining light for God, a true and faithful witness that Jehovah was the one only and true God, by his idolatrous and incessant disobedience he has become the occasion and instrumentality of God's being blasphemed among the Gentiles. He has incurred very great guilt.

A Jew might answer, while admitting all this, that circumcision protected him from judgment by God. The apostle exposes the utter insecurity of such a retreat. No Jew would be willing to have an uncircumcised man who kept the righteousness of the law counted as a circumcised man. He, then, must submit to being counted as an uncircumcised man if he breaks the law. It is not the formal ordinance of circumcision that makes a man a really circumcised man, for circumcision to be real must be of the heart. No Jew has the right to count himself to be really a Jew unless he is one inwardly (vers. 17-29).

If a Jew objects that this makes formal circumcision useless, and that there is no good in being outwardly a Jew, the apostle answers that many advantages and privileges belong to those who have been outwardly circumcised, the principal one being the guardianship of the "oracles of God." Here, alas, the Jew had signally failed.
He might still argue, admitting the failure, that having put them in trust with the faith, God could not possibly nullify it. If He should finally judge them, He would falsify His character. To maintain His righteousness with those among whom He had deposited His oracles, He must exempt them from judgment. The argument means that God cannot vindicate His righteousness in the day of judgment, if He takes account of the sins df a Jew.

To silence this the apostle appeals to Ps. 51:4. Just as He took account of the sins of David, and was justified in doing so by David himself, so in the day of judgment the right of God to take account of sins will be fully justified. He will overcome every one who thinks to call it in question. It will be better to make every man a liar rather than challenge God's right to judge sin.

If refuge be taken under the plea that the unrighteousness of the Jew will commend the righteousness of God, the answer is, "That destroys God's right to judge at all. Every Jew is anticipating the judgment of God upon the world; but on this principle it never could be."

Besides this, it implies that the truth of God is dependent, for example, on my lie to abound to the glory of God; but this means that it is my right to sin-that it is a justifiable thing to say, " Let us do evil that good may come." But, the apostle says, The judgment of such is just.

Thus every argument is met, and the Jew is left without a single reason why he should be exempted from judgment in the day when God will call men to an account about their sins. He is in no better case than the Gentile. All Jews and all Gentiles are under sin. All are chargeable with guilt.

Thus far the apostle, saving a single exception, has been reasoning without appealing to the Scriptures. Every argument has been forceful, and there is no escape from the conclusion that not a single man can offer a valid excuse for his sins in the court of God. But before he drops the subject he adds an appeal to the Scriptures to show that they confirm his reasoning. Their testimony is that every mouth is stopped, that the whole world is guilty; and this is just what he has been proving.

He concludes now by insisting on the absolute impossibility of a man's justifying himself before God by deeds of law. The law convicts of sin. It does not clear the guilty, but affirms the guilt. It must be useless, then, to seek justification before God by it. C. Crain

(To be continued.)