Romans 2:10

Vv. 10. The third term: peace, describes the subjective feeling of the saved man at the time when glory and honor are conferred on him by the judge. It is the profound peace which is produced by deliverance from wrath, and the possession of unchangeable blessedness. The simple ἐργάζεσθαι, to do, is substituted for the compound κατεργάζεσθαι, to effect (Romans 2:9), which implies something ruder and more violent, as is suited to evil; comp. the analogous though not identical difference between ποιεῖν and πράσσειν, John 3:20-21.

On the word first, comp. the remarks made Romans 1:16; Romans 2:9.

Here again the apostle indicates the result finally reached, whether evil or good, without expressly mentioning the means by which it may be produced; on the one hand, the rejection of the gospel (Romans 2:9), as the supreme sin, at once the effect and the cause of evil-doing; on the other, its acceptance (Romans 2:10), as effect and cause of the determination to follow goodness and of its practice. But what is the foundation of such a judgment? One of God's perfections, which the Jew could not deny without setting himself in contradiction to the whole Old Testament, the impartiality of God, whose judgment descends on evil wherever it is found, with or without law Romans 2:11-12).