The hottest hell is reserved for the people who knew the most. That is why, beloved, it is such a fearful thing to be an apostate. It is such a fearful thing to know the truth and constantly turn your back on it. You would be better off eternally if you never knew, and to know and turn your back. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Dr. James Montgomery Boyce said this about God's judgment. He said, "With God, we deal not with the imperfection of human justice, but with the perfection of divine justice. We deal with the one to whom not only actions but also thoughts and intentions are visible.
Sensing this truth, we therefore resist God's justice and deny its reality in every way we can.
Well, that." Pretty well describes the world today. People give no thought to being judged by their Creator, but as John MacArthur will show you today, we are all without excuse before a holy, just God, and John unpacks what that means and how you can escape the judgment that is coming. As John continues his study, simply titled "Without Excuse," and with today's lesson, here's John. Let's look at the Word of God together in Romans chapter two. We want to continue our examination of the principles of judgment as they appear in the first sixteen verses of this chapter.
It says in verse twelve, "Those who sin without law shall perish, and their punishment will be a perishing, a damnation, for they have sinned." Against God, but it will be a lesser judgment than Group Two. Look at Group Two in verse twelve: as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. What does it mean? As many as have sinned in the law. This refers to those who received the special revelation, those who had the Word of God, particularly Israel and anyone who is attached to them who knew the truth of God.
Those who heard the prophets, those who read the law and the holy writings, those who had the special revelation. It refers to people today who sit in the church, people who know the truth, people who are in a Christian society or Christian environment. They will be judged according to greater light and greater privilege and greater light. Ability, Jesus said in Matthew eleven, "How much greater will be the punishment of Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, because in those places Jesus walked and lived and did his miracles? It'll be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah and for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than it will be for those cities.
Why?" Because they knew so much more, and the greater perishing will belong to them. They'll be judged by the law. That refers to final judgment. They'll be judged in accord with full knowledge of God's law.
So God is very fair. He's very fair. The hottest hell is reserved for the people who knew the most. That is why, beloved, it is such a fearful thing to be an apostate. It is such a fearful thing to know the truth and constantly turn your back on it.
You would be better off eternally if you never knew than to know and turn your back. But God is fair, and He will judge those without law as without law, and those with law as with law.
Now, immediately at this point, Paul knows the Jew is going to ask a question. He's going to say this.
Now, wait a minute, Paul. We who have been the guardians of the law, we who have been the agents by which God has revealed the law. We who have written it and rewritten it and preserved it, we should have the higher honor, not the greater condemnation. We who have possessed the law should be protected from God's wrath. And some people today would join and say, "Yeah, I've been going to church all my life.
I've been trying to be religious. I bought a Bible." I'm trying to be religious. I mean, how can we be condemned? We've been the religious ones. We've preserved the law.
Some are going to say, "I've taught in seminary. I've taught in seminary all my career. I've prepared men to go out and serve in churches. Of course, seminaries that don't believe the Bible, churches that don't either. But we've been religious.
We've been connected to Christianity." I mean, it's us. I mean, you know, us—the religious folks. Paul replies in verse thirteen: "For the for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the what? The doers of the law shall be justified." Now the word for hearers is not the usual word. It is not the normal word "acuo," which is the normal word to hear, but it is "acroates," and it it's used specifically of pupils who hear because they're constantly in the educational process.
Vincent, I think, is a good translation of it. Those whose business is hearing. And that is exactly what the Jews did in the synagogues, didn't they? They heard and heard and heard and heard. It was read to them week after week after week after week after week.
It was explained to them, and they were literally professional hearers. But it is not to the ones who make it their business to do the hearing. It is to the ones who make it their business to do the doing that justification comes. It is not performance, beloved. It is it is possession.
That's why James warns us. You see, in the same way, James says, "But be doers of the word and not what hearers only, because if you are, you are deceiving your own selves. What a deceit!" God's law doesn't protect hearers from judgment. No, the more they hear, the deeper the judgment. I know some people are going to come to the judgment, and they're going to say, "God, if you—I mean, do you have a record of how many hours I listened to MacArthur?" That ought to be good for something.
And my wife. Wherever she is, tapes. I listened to those things all the time. She played them. I mean, isn't that good for some?
I mean, she even played Christian music, and then she bought Bible tapes. And some guy read the Bible all the time, and I used to have to sit in the kitchen while they had a Bible study in my living room.
Some of you fathers might have to say that about your children. Say, well, I mean, I heard it all. I was there. I, we, I did everything I could to make them comfortable. I didn't throw the tapes out.
I didn't kick my wife out. I mean, I went to church. Isn't that good for something? Yeah, greater condemnation. See God's law does not protect.
The more you know God's law, the more it intensifies the consequence unless it is obeyed. And here is a terrible frustration because you can't obey it in your own strength. And so He literally backs them into a corner. You see, I mean, you're you're constantly hearing, but you don't do it.
So there is a A judicial verdict against you, but the one who does—verse thirteen—the doer of the law shall be justified, not the hearer.
So God requires perfect obedience. God requires a manifestation of righteousness, but no one can do that. Thus, the law is meant to drive us. To a point of desperation, where we turn to God for the power to do what we otherwise couldn't do.
So the question the Jew might ask is answered. Doesn't do you a bit of good to have it unless you do it. It just intensifies your guilt because only the one who does it is justified, and that's a judicial verdict. There. Are you ready for the second question?
Here it comes.
Now this is the question asked by the Gentile or the pagan or the one who didn't have the law. He's going to say, "Now wait a minute!
Now wait a minute! We never had the law, and if we never had the law, how in the world can we be condemned for not obeying it?" Fair question. The Jew says, "This we are exempt." Because of special favor, God says no. The Gentile says we are exempt because of ignorance. Is that right?
What about that pagan? What about that heathen who never saw the law of God, never read the Scripture, never heard the gospel? Can you condemn somebody for not obeying the written word? I mean, after all, in Romans four fifteen it says, "Where no law is, there is no transgression." And in Romans five thirteen it says, "For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law." And in Romans seven seven, what shall we say then? Is the law sin?
God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law.
So if there is no transgression when there's no law, and there's no knowledge of sin when there's no law, how can we be responsible when we don't have the written law? And a lot of people ask that question: Does God hold people responsible who have never heard the written law of God? Let's find out the answer. Verse fourteen: For when the heathen Or pagan Gentiles, ethne, who have not the law—that is, the written law.
Now, keep that in mind. The written law—they don't have that. When they do by nature, the things contained in the law. These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts; their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.
Now, what is he saying? He's saying simply this: You do not have to have the written law to be responsible. For you have a law within you, manifest in your behavior, manifest in your conscience, and manifest in your thinking patterns. There are four great reasons why the heathen are lost. Here they come.
Reason number one: creation. Creation. Go back to chapter one, and we'll pick up a thought from verse eighteen. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men.
Now you see, it is not just the religious men; it is not just the people with the law of God. It is all men, all men, all men. The wrath of God is revealed against all of the ungodliness and all of the unrighteousness of all men, whether they had the written law or not. Why? Because they hold the truth.
How do they hold the truth? Verse nineteen: That which may be known about God is manifest in them. How is it manifest in them?
Well, God has shown it unto them.
Well, how did He show it unto them? For the invisible things of Him, from the what creation of the world, are clearly seen, so that they are without excuse.
So, from chapter one, we learn the first reason why the heathen are lost: creation. They can look around them and know there's a God. They can look around them and perceive that He is supernatural, and that He is more powerful than any being that they know of in their dimension. And so, they are responsible. Because they hold that knowledge, but now as we come to chapter two, we find the three remaining reasons why the heathen are lost, and why we have to send missionaries to reach them.
Verse fourteen, and the word is conduct. First, they're lost because of creation. Secondly, because of conduct. For when the heathen, who have not the law, do by nature, or do naturally, the things contained in the law, these, though they don't have the law, become a law unto themselves. In other words, they don't have an outside law.
But they have an internal law that makes them a law unto themselves, and it is manifest in their conduct.
Now, when the heathen do by nature the things contained in the law, indicates that it does occur when they do it, and it is a common occurrence. Pagans naturally do things that are written in God's law. Did you know that, without ever reading God's law? Their conduct. Listen to this now.
Their conduct proves they know what is right and wrong. Their conduct proves that there there is available within them, residing in them, the law of God.
Sometimes pagans pay their debts. Is that in the law of God? Yes. They honor their parents. There are many people who do not know Jesus Christ, do not know God, never read the Bible, who love their wives.
There are many wives who so love their husbands. There are many people who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ who care for their children, and there are many children who care for their parents. There are many of them who believe it's wrong to kill. There are many people who've never known Jesus Christ or the message of Christ or the Bible or the meaning of the gospel who would feed the hungry, who would help a man who was sick or a woman who was sick. Pagans will tell the truth.
Sometimes they will even seek to do justice. They will struggle for equity. You see, all of these things reveal an internal human code of ethics that is the law unto themselves. We see it in our human system of justice. We see it in our humanitarianism.
And the humanitarianism and the justice around the world, even in very obscure and isolated peoples, sometimes it's warped. But in any society you ever see, you will find some of those heathen exercising things which they do naturally that are in direct line with God's law, and they therefore show. That that law is in them. The Stoics said that in the universe there were certain laws operative, which a man broke at his own peril. And the Stoics, who were utterly pagan philosophers, said there are the laws of health, the laws of morality, and the laws governing life and living.
And the Stoics called all of these laws Thucys. Which means nature. They said men are to live kata phusin. They are to live according to what is natural. The Stoics actually said that these laws were natural to man.
You see, man can recognize that there is a right, that there is a code of ethics. The very fact that man has a guilty conscience is because he violates the very code of ethics that's in him. There's a sense of right and wrong, and when men naturally do something that lines up with the law of God, and they do it all the time, they show that the law of God is written in them. The unregenerate world, you see, does do relative human good. They do not do good in terms of spiritual righteousness.
They do not do good in terms of good that is based on the right motive, because nothing is truly good unless it is done for the glory of God. Right. But they do good in a relative human sense, and when they do that, they show the law of God at work, though unwritten, at work in their heart. They will do good in the right manner, if not for the right motive. I think about Cyrus in the Old Testament, who did good.
He let God's people go. I think about Darius. I think about Artaxerxes, and they are even commended. Ezra, chapter seven, commends Artaxerxes, pagans who did good on behalf of God's people. What about the city clerk in Ephesus, a pagan who quieted the rioters?
What about Romans of high standing in Acts twenty three who protected Paul, and even the barbarians who showed unusual kindness to Paul in building a fire in Acts twenty eight to warm him? Yeah, man is is totally depraved. In the sense that he cannot do anything that is righteously good, or that is good toward God, or that is good as revealing God, but he can do a man kind of good. But every time he does that, he proves that there is a law within him that points to that as good. Are the heathen lost?
Yes. Can they claim ignorance? No. First, because of creation, it is around them, and they can perceive within their own minds God in that creation. And secondly, because of their conduct, they prove that there's a law within them.
This may shock you. Basically, if you look at it simply from the standpoint. Of general human good, most people are outside the prisons. Right? It's the few that are inside.
What does this mean? This does not mean that man is basically good. He is depraved, but there is in him a sense of rightness that keeps him from being as bad as he possibly could be. And that is the law of God within him.
Now, extending the thought, let's look at a third reason why the heathen are lost, and that is conscience. And this is part of that same concept in verse fourteen, but it's in verse fifteen. They not only reveal the work of the law within them by their conduct when they do naturally the things that are written. But they also reveal the law of God written in their hearts when their conscience functions in bearing testimony. And stop there for a minute.
Now we all know what conscience is. The word simply means co-knowledge, and I guess we could say that it means co-knowledge with oneself. The etymology of the word basically comes, whether it's in Greek or Latin or English, from the same root. The idea is to know along with, and conscience is sort of that thing in you that knows along with you what's right. It refers to a person's inner sense of right and wrong, the moral consciousness that pronounces judgment on thoughts and attitudes and speech and deeds.
You know, I remember reading about a tribe in Africa that had a very interesting process to determine who was guilty of something. When there was some stealing that had gone on in the tribe, they would line all of the men up. Because stealing was normally done by men, and they would go along, and they would ask them if they did it, and they would say yes or no, and then they would, after having said it, ask them to stick their tongue out. At which time they took a hot knife and placed it on the tongue. If there was saliva on the tongue, the knife would be removed without a problem.
If there was no saliva on the tongue, the knife would stick and burn its way through their tongue. And they could always tell who the liar was because he had no saliva. What makes your saliva dry up when you do something wrong? There's a conscience in you. There's a thought process in you that knows right and knows wrong, and deals with you when you violate it.
It's it's like when you cheat, and you live in this constant state of fear of being found out. That's conscience. Conscience responds to the internal norm, and I would say, in the Christian, of course, conscience is tremendously intensified because you not only have that basic law within you, but you have also the law of Christ from His Word added to the normal in natural law, and the compounding of that even excites the conscience more to respond. And Paul listened to his conscience several times. He said, "My conscience bears witness," didn't he?
In other words, he was saying, "My conscience agrees with me that I'm doing right, that my heart is pure." The Bible also suggests that your conscience can become scarred, and scar tissue has no feeling. That's why Paul in Romans tells us, "Do not violate your conscience. Don't violate your conscience." In other words, he's talking about Christian liberty, and he says, "If you, if somebody tells you it's okay to do that, but your conscience says, 'Don't do that,' then don't do it, even though it is okay. Because if you get in the habit of violating your conscience, you're going to, you're going to scar something that you desperately need to protect you." You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. Today we continued John MacArthur's study called "Without Excuse." Now the unflinching look at sin and God's judgment that John has been taking; these are not soft and easy truths to listen to, but it's vitally important that you be prepared for God's coming judgment.
To help with that, I want to remind you about John's book called *The Vanishing Conscience*. This book will help you clearly recognize sin in your life and find victory over it. To pick. Up a copy of the Vanishing Conscience. Get in touch today.
Our number here eight hundred fifty-five Grace, and our website gty dot org. The Vanishing Conscience has chapters on how to handle temptation, how to keep your mind pure, how to kill sin at its roots. It's an ideal resource for a new believer. The Vanishing Conscience is available for eleven dollars, and shipping is free. Again, to order, call eight hundred fifty-five Grace or visit gty dot org.
That's our website gty.org, and when you visit there, you'll also find thousands of free resources. You can download more than thirty-six hundred messages free of charge in MP3 format, and that includes John's current series, "Without Excuse." You'll also find daily devotionals, Grace to You television, and blog articles. All of these resources can help deepen your understanding of Scripture and help you worship more biblically. And if you're not sure what to try, click on Grace Stream. It's a continuous loop of John teaching through the entire New Testament.
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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow as John Macarthur unpacks one of life's most sobering facts: that one day God will judge everyone. We'll continue John's study called "Without Excuse" with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
