Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study #14 of Romans 2, and we are reading 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.

In our last study we were looking at several places in the Bible where Christ is seated upon His judgment throne, and He is proceeding to judge mankind. We are told that He will bless those who have done good, and He will curse those who have done evil. He will judge one group for their wrongdoing, and He will uplift the other group for their well doing.

And we find that same truth in this passage where the Lord, in the day of wrath and the revelation of His righteous judgment, will “render to every man according to his deeds, and then it says in Romans 2:7:

To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

We spent some time discussing “good works,” and we saw that the way God looks at the human race insofar as those who have done good, the only ones that could possibly be accounted to have done well is through Christ. It is through the Lord Jesus having paid for all our sins and, therefore, God sees no evil upon us because of the new heart He has placed within us, as we read in in Ezekiel 36:26-27:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

That is the definition of “good works.” God commands in His statutes, and the response of obedience is a “good work.” The Lord also tells us in Ephesians 2, as He lays out His salvation program, in Ephesians 2:8-10:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

There is the order of events regarding how it works out in the life of someone that has become saved by God’s grace. It is not of our own works, but of the works and faith of the Lord Jesus performed on our behalf. And because it is Christ’s faith and work that saves the sinner, we have no cause or occasion to boast or glory. To God be the glory! When it comes to the salvation of the Bible, God gets all the glory, and man receives none. And, yet, after stating that it is not of works, lest man could boast or glory, in the next verse the Lord says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.”

And this is an area that some are blind and ignorant of, and they cannot see it. I will not speculate as to why, but it is very clear that God saves one of His elect by applying the salvation that Christ wrought on that person’s behalf at the foundation of the world in time, through the hearing of the Word of God. They receive that new heart and they are a new creature created in Christ Jesus unto good works. That is, after they become saved, they will begin to walk in God’s statutes and keep His commandments. In so doing, they will perform “good works,” as God says to do this or that (in the Bible), and they obediently follow and do it, and that is the definition of “good works.”

So the elect learn a doctrine from the Bible and seek to keep it, and a good example would be the Sunday Sabbath because it does require action; or it could be the command to come out of the churches, which also required action that could be seen and observed. And there are many other commands that God gives that require obedient action. So when God’s people read that Sunday is the Sabbath and we are to remove our foot from God’s holy day, it means we do not cut the grass on Sunday, go the game, or go to work. And, immediately, some people charge, “Well, you are mixing grace with works. We are saved by grace, so do not try to tell us to keep the Law.” That is what they say. “You are trying to get right with God through the keeping of the Law.”

There was a movement (and I do not know if it is still around), but there was a group of Baptist preachers, I think, that formed this “sovereign grace movement,” and they would have a conference every year. For a little while, some of them got mixed up with Family Radio, and one of their preachers came and preached at the conference in Tuscarora, and he would go outside and have a cigar. So the topic came up, “We know we are saved by grace, so does that mean we do not have to keep the Law of God, and we can drink and smoke, go to a game, or cut the grass on the Lord’s Day? After all, we are saved by grace.” Mr. Camping addressed this once when people asked about it at the conference, and his answer was the same as I am going to give now because it is the Bible’s answer. And the Bible’s answer is that when it comes to salvation and entrance into the kingdom of God, no man is justified by the works of the Law. No work is able to save a sinner, not even the work of faith, because it, too, is a work, like every other work. And salvation is all of God. Salvation is of the Lord, and we are not saved by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Christ. And through His faith, we see the “work” that was finished at the foundation of the world, at a point when mankind was not in existence and could not have contributed anything to God’s salvation. And that is the teaching of the Bible, and that is why it says here in Ephesians 2:8:

For by grace are ye saved through faith…

We can understand that to mean “through Christ,” as this is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ and His faith. And referring back to “faith,” it goes on to say in Ephesians 2:8:

…and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

It is not a man’s faith who says he is saved because he “accepted Christ,” or he “believed.” Or he may put the Reformed slant on it: “Well, I was elected, but I had to exercise my faith, and God took care of that, too, but I had to play my little part.” No – it is not of yourself. Man did not do a thing. A man who is truly saved did not contribute anything to his salvation. It is always of the Lord. With man, salvation is impossible, but with God all things are possible. We are not born of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” How much clearer could God be? “It is not of him that runneth and not of him that willeth, but I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.”

That is true sovereign grace, and if those involved with that movement acknowledge that, that is good and well. But their next step is to say, “Yes, we are saved by the grace of God and, therefore, I can live as I please. Do not tell me that the Bible says I am not to do this or that. Who are you to tell me that I cannot smoke my cigars?”

But it is the same Law of God that tells us about the Sunday Sabbath, or tells us that it is “not for kings to drink wine,” or that we are not to kill and, therefore, we should not partake of alcohol, drugs or cigarettes that bring death to our bodies. And that same Law of God also says that thou shalt not steal, murder, or commit adultery. Are we not to abstain from those sins? Are we not to keep those Laws? Of course we are!

The truth is that once we become saved, we enter into spiritual marriage with the Lord Jesus, and we are now “dead to the law,” in order to be married to another. And we can read about that in the first few verses of Romans 7. So we are married to Christ, and in that spiritual marriage to Him, there is to be love, and Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” So we desire to show forth our love through the keeping of His commandments, but it has nothing to do with obtaining salvation, because that was already obtained through the grace, faith, mercy, and work of Christ.

But now we are talking about the life we live after we are saved, the Christian life. We are to walk according to God’s commandments: “I will cause you to walk in my statutes.” And Psalm 19 speaks of “running” the way of God’s commandments. We are to do the will of God on every point of doctrine and in every teaching of the Bible as it is brought to our attention and we are to perform the doing of it. And to say, “I will smoke and drink,” these are just people that are abusing the things the Bible says, and they are misusing the Scriptures in order to justify living like the world. They want the “best of everything,” or so they think: “I am saved by grace, hallelujah, what a wonderful thing, and now I am going to do as I please. I use the Bible as just a sort of general guide.” I do not know how they understand what is to govern their lives. Is it just the dictates of their own minds? Is that how they determine how they will live their lives when it comes to the Sunday Sabbath, or what they will put in their bodies, or whether they will rob their neighbor, or not? Is it all according to how they feel or think? You know, there is no logic or reason to that kind of doctrine. It is based on a fallacy and the erroneous conclusion that any attempt to keep the Law means that you are trying to get yourself saved. But, no, this is what we do after salvation, as God has created us in Christ Jesus unto good works.

And these are the “works” in the Day of Judgment that God is witnessing. The elect are before Him, and He is not seeing our sins or wicked deeds and all the evil we have done in our lives, because it was all paid for by Christ before the world was at the foundation of the world. Salvation has now been applied to us and He only sees these good deeds: “Well done, thy good and faithful servant.”

On the other hand, no atoning work had been done for the wicked and, therefore, God sees their evil. If they are guilty in one point, they are guilty of all, and God sees their guilt, shame, and wickedness, and He must judge them for it.

And this is why the elect will endure to the end and “stand” before the judgment seat of Christ, but the wicked cannot stand in the judgment. They cannot abide or endure through it. The elect, as “gold, silver precious stones,” will be purified in the fire. And by that, we can understand that we live, more and more, to the glory of God in obedience to the commandments of God. As we go along through this prolonged judgment period, the people of God will keep His commandments in a greater way than we ever had before in our lives. This is the purification process, as we bring our bodies under, more and more, until that last day.

But the unsaved, as “wood, hay stubble,” will be burned up. They will be gone forever when we get to the final day, the last day of judgment, because it will be the time for the end of the world and the annihilation of all the unsaved and the destruction of this cursed creation. It is coming quickly and is fast approaching.

Again, it says in Romans 2:7:

To them who by patient continuance in well doing…

We did not talk about “patient continuance.” It is a translation of one Greek word, #5281, that is normally translated as “patience,” about 29 times. It is also translated as “endurance,” and “patient waiting.” For example, it is translated as “patient waiting” in 2Thessalonians 3:5:

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

And this certainly applies to the people of God today, as we are patiently waiting for the Lord to accomplish His judgment process. This word is also used in Romans 5, and there it is joined to “tribulation.” It says in Romans 5:3:

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

I suppose we could say that tribulation develops patience. Now, in one sense, “patience” is Christ Himself, because the Bible tells us in Luke 21:19:

In your patience possess ye your souls.

Our souls possess Christ, not some attribute, just as faith or love reside in Christ, and He is the essence of it. However, just like faith and love, patience does become an attribute as a “fruit of the spirit” in the life of a child of God as we begin to develop a likeness to the Lord. As He is the essence of faith, we begin to believe. As He is the essence of love, we begin to love. And, again, the “love” is an action, not a feeling: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” And as the Lord is the essence of patience, we begin to show forth patience. Remember that God said, “Ye have need of patience after ye have done the will of God,” in order that you receive the recompense of the reward. The reward has to do with eternal life that the Lord will give all His people.

Concerning patience, we also read in Romans 8:23-25:

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

We are waiting for the completion of our salvation. We are waiting for Christ. It is one and the same, and there is hope in the meantime. We hope, we believe, and we have faith, and we trust the Word of God. We know that God is faithful and true. We know He has promised these things, and He perfectly keeps His promises, so we have good hope. We have expectation that the things the Bible says will come to pass in due time.

So this is the waiting posture or condition of God’s elect. We look expectantly toward things to come, and we are certainly doing that in this point in time, as we realize we have gone through the church age and the Great Tribulation, and we are currently going through the prolonged judgment on the world. We are well into that, and there are just a few more years to go, so we wait in hope, and we are in “patience continuance,” as it says in our verse in Romans 2:7. And that patient continuance as we wait for Christ is accompanied by “well doing.”

There are people that say, “Yes, I am waiting for the Lord,” but they have gone back to the churches, or back to the world, or back to former doctrines, or back to their former life. They are not waiting, patiently enduring and continuing in well doing. In other words, the spiritual fruit of “patience” is not in evidence unless we are obediently doing the will of God. Another way to say it is that if a person stops obediently doing the will of God and they go backwards, then they have ceased to be patient. They failed the test of patience. They have not continued to abide in the doctrine of Christ and, therefore, they have not been patient, and that is why the Bible says, “In our patience possess ye your souls.” Lack of patience causes one to go backwards, and the backward direction is not the direction of the kingdom of heaven. It is the direction toward Satan. “Get ye behind me, Satan.” And it is the direction that brings the wrath of God, the direction of the world.

So it is very important for the people of God, as it says in our verse in Romans 2:7:

To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

This is also the same word we find in Revelation 14 in the context of Judgment Day and the fall of Babylon, which identifies with Judgment Day. It says in Revelation 14:10:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

We know why it says, “in the presence of the holy angels,” and the word “holy” is the same word as “saints.” It is Strong’s #40, and in verse 12, we read the word “saints,” and they are the identical Greek words. So this refers to the “saintly messengers.” The Greek word translated as “angels” should most often be translated as “messengers.” So God is pouring out the cup of His wrath. Remember it said in Romans 2:5: “…the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” God would not bother to bring about more revelation if His saints were not still on the earth, but we are alive on the earth. We are alive and remaining, so He brings revelation of His righteous judgment during the time period of the day of His wrath. This is why when He pours out that cup of wrath and the unsaved are partaking of it, it is done “in the presence of the saints,” the messengers of God, and “in the presence of the Lamb.” Then it says in Revelation 14:11-12:

And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up to for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Notice that! Here are they that keep the commandments of God. These are the ones that are doing good works. These are the ones who have patience continuance in well doing (good works), and are seeking for immortality and eternal life. And there we are in the context of Judgment Day – still on the earth, and still obeying God, even as we go through hell itself, as it were.