Romans 2:16Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Although above the Apostle spoke of the Father alone, once he had struck his hearers with fear, he began to speak also of Christ. Yet he did not do so simply. Here too he first mentioned the Father, and then named Christ. By this he exalts the dignity of his preaching. He says that this preaching proclaims the very thing that nature had earlier revealed. Do you see how the Apostle wisely led his hearers, brought them near to the Gospel and to Christ, and proved that our deeds do not stop here, but extend beyond? What he disclosed above when he said, "You are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath" (Rom 2:5), he confirms here also: "God will judge the secrets of men."

Therefore let each one turn to his own conscience and reflect on his sins. Let him demand a strict account from himself, so that we may not then be condemned with the world. That judgment is fearful. The Judge's throne is dread. The demand for an account is full of terror. The river of fire is vast. "A brother will not redeem. Will a man redeem?" (Ps 48:8). Remember what is said in the Gospel. Remember the angels flying everywhere, the bridal chamber shut, the lamps unquenchable, the heavenly hosts dragging men to the furnace.

Consider also this. If now the hidden transgression of any one of us were exposed before only one church, he would rather perish and be swallowed by the earth than have so many witnesses of his crime. What then shall we experience when everything is displayed before the whole universe on that brilliant and open stage? What shall we experience when acquaintances and strangers alike behold all our deeds? But woe is me. By what am I forced to frighten you? Is it not by human opinion? Yet I ought to do this by the force of the fear of God and by one's own consciousness.

Tell me, what will happen to us then, when we are bound, gnashing our teeth, and led away into outer darkness? Or rather, what shall we do when, what is most fearful of all, we stand before God? If anyone has feeling and reason, he has already undergone Gehenna as soon as he finds himself outside the vision of God. But since even this does not grieve us, God also threatens fire. Yet we ought not grieve when we are punished, but when we sin. Listen how Paul weeps and is crushed over sins for which he was not to suffer punishment. "I am not worthy," he says, "to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God" (1 Cor 15:9). Listen also how David, though freed from punishment, nevertheless recognized that he had offended God. He called vengeance upon himself and said, "Let Your hand be upon me and upon my father's house" (2 Sam 24:17). To offend God is harder to bear than to be punished.

But we have fallen into so pitiful a disposition of soul that, if there were no fear of Gehenna, perhaps we would not wish to do anything good. For this reason we are worthy of Gehenna, if for nothing else, then precisely because we fear Gehenna more than Christ. Blessed Paul was not like this, but of an entirely opposite disposition. Since we are different from him, we are therefore condemned to Gehenna. If we loved Christ as He ought to be loved, we would know that offending the Beloved is harder than Gehenna. But we do not love, and therefore we do not understand the greatness of this punishment. This above all is what I lament and weep over.

What has God not done in order to be loved by us? What has He not undertaken, and what has He left unused? We offended God, who in no way wronged us, but instead benefited us with countless and ineffable blessings. We turned away from Him when He called us and drew us to Himself by every means. Yet He did not punish us. He Himself hastened toward us and stopped us as we fled, while we rushed away from Him and gave ourselves over to the devil. But even then God did not abandon us. Again He sent thousands to call us: prophets, angels, patriarchs. We not only failed to receive the embassy, but even insulted those who came. After all this, God did not despise us. Like an ardent lover among those despised by their beloved, He went everywhere and spoke to heaven, to earth, to Jeremiah, to Micah. He did this not to accuse us, but to justify His own deeds.

Together with the prophets He Himself came to those who had withdrawn from Him. He was ready to give them an account. He begged that we enter into conversation with Him. Since we were deaf to everything, He drew us into discourse with Himself. "My people," He said, "what have I done to you, or how have I wearied you? Answer Me" (Mic 6:3). After all this, we killed the prophets, stoned them, and committed thousands of other evil deeds. What came in return for this? God sent not prophets, not angels, not patriarchs, but His own Son. The Son also was put to death when He came to earth. Yet this did not extinguish love, but kindled it still more intensely. Even after the killing of His Son, the Lord does not cease to plead, to entreat, and to do everything to draw us to Himself. Paul cries out, "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: be reconciled to God" (2 Cor 5:20).

But none of this changed us. The Lord did not leave us in such a state. He continues now to threaten Gehenna, now to promise the kingdom, so that by this at least He might draw us. Yet we still remain in our insensibility. What could be worse than such savagery? If a man had done this, would we not have become his slaves forever? Yet we turn away from God, who benefits us. O carelessness, O ingratitude. We who always live in sins and vices, if ever we do even some small good, then, like senseless slaves, we calculate with great pettiness. We determine the reward with strict precision, if only the deed deserves any payment.

But you will receive a greater reward if you work without hope of reward. To speak of this and calculate precisely belongs more to a hireling than to a prudent servant. Everything must be done for Christ, and not for a reward. Therefore He threatened Gehenna and promised the kingdom, so that we might love Him. Let us therefore love Christ as He ought to be loved. In this is the great reward. In this is the kingdom and joy, delight and glory and honor. In this is light, immeasurable blessedness, which neither speech can express nor mind comprehend.

Yet I do not know how I passed into such words. I am advising people who do not despise present dominion and glory for Christ's sake to neglect the kingdom. Yet those great and renowned men attained even this measure of love. Listen how Peter burns with love for Christ, preferring Him to soul, life, and everything. Even when he denied Him, he did not weep from fear of punishment, but because he had denied the Beloved. That was more tormenting for him than any punishment. He showed all this before receiving the grace of the Spirit. He often turned to Christ and said, "Where are You going?" (Jn 13:36). And before this, "To whom shall we go?" (Jn 6:68). And again, "I will follow You wherever You go" (Mt 8:19). Christ was everything to the apostles, and they preferred neither heaven nor the kingdom of heaven to the Beloved. "You are all this for me," Peter says.

Why do you marvel if Peter was so attached to Christ? Listen to what the Prophet says: "For what have I in heaven? And besides You, what have I desired on earth?" (Ps 72:25). These words mean this: of all things above and below, I desire nothing else but You alone. This is love. This is attachment. If we too love in this way, we shall regard not only the present but also the future as nothing compared with this love of ours. Enjoying love for Him, we shall thereby acquire the kingdom.

But how will this be possible, you ask? It will be possible if we set before ourselves how many times we offended God after receiving countless blessings from Him, and how He did not cease calling us. It will be possible if we remember how many times we withdrew from Him, and how He did not despise us, but Himself came to us, called us, and drew us to Himself. If we reflect on all this and on things like it, we shall be able to kindle such love within ourselves. If the one who loved so greatly were an insignificant man, and the one so greatly loved were a king, would he not be moved by the greatness of the love? He would indeed be greatly moved. But when the opposite is true, when on one side there is the ineffable beauty, glory, and wealth of Him who loves us, and on the other our complete nothingness, what then? How are we not worthy of countless punishments? We are insignificant and contemptible, loved with immeasurable love by a great and wondrous Being, yet we arrogantly reject His love.

God has no need of us, yet He does not cease to love us. We have extreme need of Him, yet we do not accept His love. We prefer money, human friendship, bodily ease, power, and glory to Him, while He prefers nothing to us. He had one only-begotten and beloved Son, and did not spare Him for your sake. Yet we prefer many things to Him. Are we not justly threatened with Gehenna and punishment, even if they were twice, three times, or a thousand times more terrible? What can we say in reply, when we prefer the commands of Satan to the laws of Christ? What can we say when we neglect our salvation and prefer the works of wickedness to Him who endured all things for us? What excuse does all this deserve? What justification? None at all.

Let us finally stand firm, not swept along the precipices. Let us come to our senses and, reflecting on all this, render glory to God through works. Words alone are not enough. Then we too may enjoy glory from Him. May all of us attain it by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, dominion, and honor, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Therefore one must also imagine the future judgment, and how the conscience of those who lived outside the law will now justify itself, putting forward ignorance as a plea, and now accept accusation.

It will proclaim the justice of the sentence pronounced. So too Abimelech, having within himself the testimony of conscience, said to God: Lord, will You destroy an ignorant and righteous nation?

Did he not himself say to me, "She is my sister"? And she herself said to me, "He is my brother." With a pure heart I did this (Gen 20:4-5).

If the natural, written, and gracious law are referred to Christ as Creator, Providential Ruler, Lawgiver, and Propitiator, then the divine Apostle speaks the truth.

He affirms that God will judge the secrets of men according to His gospel, that is, as He proclaimed through Jesus Christ, His Only-begotten Word, His own according to essence.

This Word penetrates all, reproving some and fittingly receiving others. He assigns what is worthy to those who live according to nature, law, and grace, through His own Only-begotten and Ineffable Word, proper to Him according to essence.

For the Word of God is the Maker of every nature, law, institution, and order. He is the Judge of all who are under nature, law, institution, and order.

For there is no law without the Word who establishes it. Therefore, whether one is judged in the law, he will be judged in Christ. Or if he is outside the law, he will again be judged in Him.

For the Word, as Creator, is the beginning, middle, and end of all beings, of all that is intelligible and spoken.

We should also withdraw from secret sins produced by deed, word, or thought. What does the Apostle here call his gospel?

Gospel means the same as good tidings. But this Apostle did not write a Gospel as the four Evangelists did.

By his good tidings or his gospel he means the evangelical teaching preached by him. He says this not only in the Epistle to the Romans, but also in the Epistle to Timothy.

Writing to him, he says: "Remember the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel" (2 Tim 2:8).

In the Epistles to the Corinthians he calls this evangelical preaching of his the gospel of Christ (1 Cor 9:12) and the gospel of the glory of Christ.

In the Epistle to the Ephesians he calls it the gospel of salvation (2 Cor 4:4; Eph 1:13), and in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the gospel of God (1 Thess 2:2).

And why did he say that God judges the secrets of men through Jesus Christ? He said this because "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (Jn 5:22).

It embraces how the decision occurred, and why, and what the general spirit and direction of all deeds, the whole life, and activity was. All this and the like constitute the essence of deeds and decide their worth in condemning or justifying their doer. Since all this is invisible, the Apostle says that on the last day God will judge the secrets of men, κρυπτά, the hidden things. He will judge not what a man is outwardly, but what he is according to his inner constitution. "In order to increase fear, the Apostle did not say: God will judge human sins, but: the secrets of men. This is so that you may not conclude that God's sentence is like the one pronounced by you, but may know that it is far stricter than your sentence. For men can judge only manifest deeds" (Saint Chrysostom), "but God will judge even the hidden" (Blessed Theophylact). According to my gospel, through Jesus Christ. "You may also understand the words 'through Jesus Christ' thus: according to my gospel, entrusted to me by Jesus Christ" (Blessed Theophylact). But more directly these words refer to the carrying out of the judgment by Jesus Christ. Thus: "God will judge the secrets through Jesus Christ, that is, the Father through the Son, because the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; see Jn 5:22" (Blessed Theodoret). When the Apostle says, "according to my gospel," he does not mean that he alone proclaims this and no one else. He means that in his preaching he never omitted this most important subject. To whomever he preached, he spoke to all about the judgment. With this he began his preaching, in order to awaken the conscience lulled to sleep. Then, taking this awakened conscience as an occasion, he led it to Christ, renewed it by grace, and laid upon it the Christian commandments. He concluded: thus, renewed and strengthened by grace, live unswervingly according to the commandments. Every minute await the second coming of Christ the Lord, Who, when He comes, will repay each one according to his works. The thought of the last and fearful judgment is the beginning and end in apostolic preaching. It was and is also the beginning and end in the life of everyone zealous for salvation. Whoever does not let it fall from attention, with the feelings corresponding to it, cannot sin. "Therefore let each one enter into awareness of himself and reflect on his sins. Let him demand from himself a strict account, so that he may not then be condemned with the world. For this tribunal is fearful, the Judge's throne is terrible, and the examinations are dreadful. 'A brother will not redeem; will a man redeem?' cf. Ps 48:8. Imagine that if the secret transgression of one of us were now to be exposed before the Church alone, the one convicted would rather agree to perish and let the earth swallow him than have so many witnesses of his transgression. What then will become of us when, before the whole universe, everything will be set forth on that splendid and open stage, and everything will become visible to our acquaintances and strangers?" (Saint Chrysostom).