Romans 2:4

Romans 2:4

I. The Jews thought that St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, was tempting them to despise the privileges of their birth and election. He retorts the charge. He asks the Jew how he could dare to despise the riches which God had bestowed upon him. What were those riches? The Law and the Covenant were the pledges and witnesses of their wealth; they could be converted into wealth, but they were not the thing itself. They spoke of a living God near to the Israelite; of a God of goodness, forbearance, longsuffering. These names were given to him in every page of the Divine oracles; the names were illustrated by a series of facts. To boast of the Law and the Covenant and the Scriptures, as if they were not revelations of Him, was to deny and despise them. To accept them as revelations of Him, and not to believe that He was good and longsuffering and forbearing, was to deny and despise both them and Him. To admit that He was good and forbearing and longsuffering at all, and not to believe that He was so at every moment, to themselves and to all men, was to play with words, to despise their sense, their power, their blessing.

II. It is even so with each one of us. Our New Testament, our Baptism, our Communion, testify of a God good and forbearing and longsuffering. Now, if this goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering belong to the very name and character of Him in whom we are living and moving and having our being, they constitute a wealth upon which we may always draw. The more we call them to mind, the more we believe in them, the more truly and actively they become ours. We may become moulded into their likeness, we may show them forth. This is that kingly inheritance which the Scriptures and the Sacraments make known to us. If we enter into the meaning of the festival of Epiphany, we shall believe that Christ's glory may be manifested in the greatest weakness, because it is the glory of goodness, of forbearance, of longsuffering. We shall ask that that glory may humble us and lead us day by day to repentance. We shall be sure that there will be at last a full revelation of those riches which eye hath not seen nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which God hath prepared for them that love Him.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. iii., p. 97.

References: Romans 2:4. J. Foster, Lectures,p. 351; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1714.Romans 2:4; Romans 2:5. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxix., p. 187. Romans 2:4. Homilist,vol. v., p. 423; new series, vol. iii., p. 522; W. H. Brown, Clergyman's Magazine,vol. vii., p. 149. Romans 2:5. G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends,p. 269; W. Dorling, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 200. Romans 2:7. Homilist,3rd series, vol. iii., p. 327; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iv., p. 39. Romans 2:8. Ibid.,p. 247. Romans 2:9. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 18; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 373.Romans 2:11. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 3152.Romans 2:12. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 98.