As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these
verses:
5But
because of the stubbornness of you and unrepentant heart, you are storing up to
yourself wrath in [the] day of wrath and revelation of [the] just judgment of
God.
In verse 4, I was pondering the reality of God’s kindness,
tolerance, and patience. Those attributes are a rock of truth which remain true
regardless of whether a person chooses to believe them or not. Those who do
believe them are drawn to Him “by the cords of His love,” while those who
refuse to believe live their lives in a delusion. His love is a fact and it is
offered to all who live, while they live, that they might see Jesus in His
beauty, accept His forgiveness and live forever. As love always is, however,
though it is offered, it must be received. In v. 4, people were presuming on
His love and patience, however, and utterly missing that its purpose was to give
them the chance to repent and be saved.
In v. 5, we learn what may be the single most important
truth that any human being could grasp: “The day of the Lord will come.”
It will come. What we learn in v. 5
is that, not only are people wasting their chance to be saved, they are
actually accumulating a swelling account of sin which will finally burst on the
day when the Lord calls them into account. That is reality. In v. 3, He asked the question, “Do you think you will
escape God’s judgment?” The love He offers is reality, but so is the Day of
Judgment. To live like there will be no such day is to deny what may, again, be
the single most important truth of human existence. To do so then commences a
lifetime of self-delusion and denial of reality, while the fact remains from v.
2, “God’s judgment is based on truth.” We may choose to live in delusions, but
God’s judgment itself is a fact and it will be based on the truth.
What does Paul call the problem here in this passage? “Your stubbornness
and unrepentant heart.” In v. 4 he spoke of people “not knowing” or “not
realizing.” In v. 5, we learn the source of their apparent ignorance – they are
stubborn and don’t want to turn from their pride and lust. What should be a
horrifying thought to us all is to realize that Paul is speaking to “moral” people!
Once again, Paul is not here speaking to the people of chapter 1, the moral
degenerates of our world. He is speaking to people who might appear to be the
most upright people in town, people who consider themselves a step above the
gross immorality of chapter 1. He is speaking to us.
The bottom line is, if you or I can read chapter 1 and say, “That’s
right, Lord, those people deserve Your judgment,” we’ve already proven that we
ourselves deserve His judgment too. The question then is not, “What about them?”
The question is, “What about me?” If
reality says the Day of the Lord will come, that no one including me will
escape God’s judgment, that on that Day, the entire truth about my life will be
revealed, regardless of whether I was “more” moral than someone else, where
will I stand? The answer that any honest heart will confess is “condemned.” The
real truth is that no matter how moral I may want to appear, I am myself a
sinner, I am myself a transgressor. The truth is I myself have spurned His love
and wasted my life.
This is a horrible place to find oneself, but it is the
undeniable truth we all must face. This is precisely where Paul wants us to be.
Unless we allow the Lord to bring us guilty and hopeless before Him, us “moral”
people will be quite assured the answer is, “We’ll do better.” If we would stand
before the Lord in truth, we would know that won’t work. Even if we could do “better,”
the truth of the sins already committed will still remain.
The question then remains, “What shall wash away my sins?”
and the answer from the Gospel is, “Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Even His
very name “Jesus” means “Savior,” “for He shall save His people from their
sins.” For those who will face the truth and flee to Jesus, Paul will triumphantly
announce in 8:1, “There is, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ
Jesus!”
It is an enormous comfort of my own life that on that day
when “the books are opened,” I will face a very different judgment than the
rest of the world. For the rest of the world, the truth will simply be the
truth, in all its condemning horror. But for those of us who, in this life,
have fled for refuge to Jesus, His blood will cover all my sin. For us, His
judgment is called not the “Great White Throne,” but rather the “Bema Seat of
Christ,” described in I Cor. 3:12-15. At the Bema seat, my whole life, all my “works,”
will first pass through the fire of His judgment where all my sins are “burned up,”
so that all which remains are the few things I did right, my tiny accumulation
of what the Lord calls, “gold and silver and precious stones.” Now what
(little) I did right will be judged, not to condemn me, but rather to reward
me. Again, where is the truth of my sins? Covered by the blood of Jesus and
cast away “as far as the east is from the west.”
For those who flee to Jesus, the words of the old hymn will
forever be true:
My sin, oh the bliss, of this glorious thought,
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to the Cross,
And I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord,
Praise the Lord,
O my soul!
The truth is there will be a Day of Judgment. But God’s
heart is not that we all be condemned, but rather that we should all be saved. “For
God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved!”
Today is the day of opportunity. God’s love is offered. Each
of us is, at this very moment, choosing how to respond to that love.
I pray anyone who stumbles across these feeble scratchings
would face the truth and flee to Jesus – our only hope!
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