Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study #12 of Romans 2, and we will read Romans 2:6-11:

Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God.

We have been going through this chapter, verse by verse, and we spent a little time in verse 5. We saw it is an important verse for a time that speaks of “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” And verse 6 follows naturally because in Judgment Day, God will do what He says here: “Who will render to every man according to his deeds…” And that is what the Bible teaches. Judgment Day is the time when God will look at the sinners before Him and execute judgment. That is what we see when we look at Revelation 20:11-15:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

God is upon His judgment throne, and that is currently taking place, as Christ is ruling the earth with a rod of iron from His judgment throne. He is Almighty God, and the “great white throne” is a figure that represents the purity and righteousness of God’s judgment. Remember, it is “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Christ has taken His seat; that is, He is ruling the earth and all its inhabitants in order to judge them. And His judgment will be to “render to every man according to his deeds.”

The word “deeds” in Romans 2:6 is #2041 in the concordance, and it is the Greek word “ergon” that is translated as “works.” It is the same word we saw in Revelation 20, where God as Judge will judge every man “according to his works,” and that is basically the same statement as the last part of Romans 2:6. So the Lord Jesus is executing judgment. The Word of God is the judge of the all the earth. He will render to every man according to his works. We may have thought not too long ago that in Judgment Day it would only be the unsaved that stood before that judgment throne. It would only be those that were still in their sins, and they would all be found guilty. Mr. Camping used to say that quite often – anyone that found himself before the judgment throne of Christ would be found guilty and cast into Hell.

But we now know that is not true. We also read from other information in the Bible that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” and that refers also to the elect, but we are not going to be found guilty. We are not going to be destroyed. Remember, a judge is supposed to determine guilt or innocence. A judgment can be one or the other. Our court system has the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty, so people go to trial before a judge and jury. The evidence is listened to and, finally, at the end of the trial, a verdict is given, and the judgment is passed. Occasionally, the verdict is “not guilty.” There may not be enough evidence to determine a person’s guilt, and that is the judgment of the judge as the judge finds the defendant “not guilty.”

And God is a righteous judge, so we must all stand before Him in the Day of Judgment, both the righteous and the wicked, and God is evaluating or scrutinizing all. And, of course, no man can “scrutinize” like God can because He can look upon the heart. He can see the inward man. God can see the sin that is flowing forth out of the heart of men in the spiritual realm. Nobody else can do that, which is why men generally pass laws that have to do with a man’s actions, and, occasionally, with a man’s speech. (There are some laws governing speech in that regard.) But no government tries to pass laws regarding man’s thoughts because they know it would be impossible to enforce. You cannot find a man guilty of wrong thoughts. And, yet, the Lord Jesus said, “That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” The perfect standard of God’s Law judges man in thought, word, and deed, even some thoughts a man does not realize he is having deep-down within. God looks upon the sinner, and He sees tremendous iniquity, like He did in the days of Noah prior to the flood. It says in Genesis 6:5:

And JEHOVAH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

That is what the gaze of the eyes of God can find, so no sinner stands a chance when the eyes of God are looking at him intently, searching him to find out his deeds and the things he has done in his body. And, certainly, God will find fault and guilt, and the sinner will be found guilty. They have violated the Law of God. They have transgressed and committed spiritual adultery. And the Law is “like a husband,” as mankind is really married to the Law of God. That is the reason the book of James refers to “ye adulterers and adulteresses,” as all human beings were married to the Law of God. But it is only because the Lord Jesus died and broke that relationship on behalf of those blessed few, the elect of God, that we became “dead to the law,” and the Law has nothing further it can say against us. It can no longer condemn us because we are no longer in that spiritual marriage to the Law. But for the majority of mankind, their relationship to the Law of God has never been ended through death because Christ did not die for them, so they remain actively married to the Law. And the Law, like a jealous husband, will pour out its rage and execute vengeance upon them.

That is why God gave the Law that someone engaged in adultery could be stoned to death. Spiritually, it always pointed to the sinner that committed adultery against God and the Law of God and, therefore, the Law of God can justly and righteously destroy them and take their lives. That is because the wages of sin is death.

So that is what God was looking for as all were before Him, and as soon as He shut the door, everyone’s spiritual condition was fixed and locked in. It will not change. The filthy will remain filthy, and the righteous will remain righteous. Of course, God knows the spiritual condition of every human being, and He will render unto every man according to his works. For every unsaved person, it will be their own personal works done while in this life. God will review it and He will see an enormous mountain of sin and iniquity and find them guilty, and they will die. They will be punished with spiritual judgment over the course of this prolonged judgment day. They will be “troubled” and “tormented” in that way, and then on the last day they will die the second death, as described in Revelation 20: “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” And that is pointing to annihilation where even the grave (death) is destroyed and gone forever.

That explains the wicked, but what about the elect who are alive and remaining on the earth? They are making an appearance or manifestation before the judgment seat of Christ. However, their sins were paid for by the Lord Jesus at the point of the foundation of the world. All their sins were cast on Christ. He died, thus paying the Law’s demand, and then He resurrected and rose up in justification. And that was the work of Christ, as the Bible says in the Epistle of James. And it is really as though the Lord Jesus is speaking in this passage where He is indicating that a profession of faith is not sufficient for the two billion in the corporate churches that profess faith with their mouths and believe in their minds. But faith alone is of no value. Faith must be accompanied by “work,” and the work is not the work of man. Some people make that mistake and they think, “If you believe, then you are saved and then you will do good works.” And “works” is what James is referring to in James, but it has nothing to do with that. Yes – there will be good works by all those that God has saved, but that is not God’s point in James 2. The point is that faith without works is “dead.” There needed to be work performed that caused faith to be acceptable and something that could bring life and not death. Let us go there, and look at James 2:17-18:

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works…

And, again, the “man” is the Lord Jesus here. Then it says in James 2:18:

…shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Then we are given examples like Abraham and Rahab the harlot.

Christ is saying, “I will show you my faith by my works.” And it tells us in Hebrews 4:3:

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

That was Christ’s work, and there He showed us His faith, the faith that saves. Christ performed the atoning work on behalf of His people at the point of the foundation of the world when He was the Lamb slain. He was smitten of God and gave up His life, performing that necessary work that is essential to anyone’s salvation. Then throughout the history of the world, someone could say, “I believe. I have faith.” They are professing faith, but the Lord Jesus is saying in the book of James: “You have faith. I have works. I died for certain ones, so you show me your faith without that work, and it is meaningless. It is vain belief. It is empty. I does not matter what you believe in your mind or what you think.”

It does not matter what your church tells you about accepting Christ. Or, if you are in a Reformed Church, they put a little twist on it by using the language of election, but it comes right back to “exercising your faith.” It is no different, except, perhaps, it is more deceitful. The free-will churches at least admit that a person must exercise their faith, while the Reformed churches try to hide that detail, but both are incorrect. It is not your faith, and it is not your work. You can profess faith, but you need to have the work of Christ performed on your behalf, and if Christ did not perform that work on your behalf, then you will not be saved. That is why the Bible says, “salvation is of the Lord.” God does not say He will have mercy on everyone who “accepts Him,” but He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It is God’s choosing. It is God’s salvation program, having chosen certain ones before the foundation of the world. That is the salvation of God. We read in Romans 9:11-13:

(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

It was before they were born, and they could not possibly have done any work. God made choice, and that is election. Election is the choice of God, and that is why Jesus said in John 15:16:

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you…

That is how people become saved. Then after God saves them, the profession of their mouth will match the condition of their heart, and it will have the necessary accompanying work of Christ in dying for their sins. Then we have a true elect child of God. It is someone whose sins have been washed away and someone who can rejoice in salvation and thank God for His great mercy.

In the case of others, they can profess whatever they want, but if they lack that work (of Christ), then it does not matter.

Again, our verse says, in Romans 2:6:

Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

The word “render” is Strong’s #591, and it is the word “apodidōmi,” and it is found 48 times in the New Testament. Nine times it is translated as “pay;” and nine times it is translated as “give” or “to give;” and nine times it is translated as “render;” and seven times it is translated as “reward,” and as a few other different words. But this word is used sometimes in relationship to Judgment Day. For example, in Matthew 5:26, we read of someone who has been cast into prison, and they cannot come out until he has “paid the uttermost farthing,” and the word “paid” is this word. Or, in Matthew 12:36 where it says, “That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment,” the word “give” is this word translated as “render.” It is also the word used, for example, in Revelation 18 concerning the fall of Babylon or the fall (judgment) of this world. It says in Revelation 18:6-7:

For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

And we could probably read that as, “Give her even as she gave you.” Again, it is in the context of Judgment Day and the time to render the wrath of God and the payment for sin. And that word is translated as “paid” in a couple of places that have to do with the final judgment of mankind.

Let us go to one other place in Revelation 2, and I referred to this earlier concerning the filthy being filthy still. It says in Revelation 2:10:

And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.

Since God is saying to seal it not, it means the Word of God, the Bible, is not sealed. And given that we know it was sealed up until the time of the end, this implies that this is referring to the time of the end, the time that is at hand. Then it says in Revelation 2:11-12:

He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

The word translated as “to give” is the word translated as “render.” If we read that, “Render to every man according as his work shall be,” it would fit very well Romans 2:6 where it says, “render to every man according to his deeds,” and the deeds are works. We know this was written almost two thousand years ago, but Christ came quickly in the sense that He came at the first available instance allowable according to God’s program of times and seasons. He could not “come quickly” while God was still saving people. Once God completed His salvation program, which was immediately after the Tribulation, Christ came quickly, like a thief in the night, to take His seat as judge and to carry out His judgment program. There is a time and a season, as can be seen in Ecclesiastes 3:1: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose…” And this includes God’s judgment program. God gave many centuries to the day of salvation, and He has given just a few short years to Judgment Day, the time wherein He “will render to every man according to his deeds.”

Lord willing, we will go on in our next study to look at the language here regarding those that “obey not the gospel,” and we will see how that fits in with 1Peter 4:17. And we will also see how it was always God’s plan to give them “tribulation,” to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. That is, God has always planned to have two tribulations. I am not speaking of the two-part Great Tribulation, which complicates things further, because the Great Tribulation was in two parts. But there are two distinct “tribulations.” One was “to the Jew,” or to the churches, and the other was “to the Gentile,” or to the world.