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ADDRESSES ON ROMAN'S
And that is true of hundreds and thousands today. Many are not guilty of murder and deceit and uncleanness. The moral man is in this class. But the Holy Spirit of God knows that he, too, is a hopeless sinner and needs a Saviour. Therefore, He addresses such a man in the words of Rom. 2:1-16. We are still in the court room; only another type of humanity is being examined, the self-righteous, moral man, who is depend- ing on his own wor,ks to take him to heaven. "Therefore thou art inexcusable, 0 man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things" (2: 1 ). These words may well include the civilized Greek or the self-righteous Jew, though Romans 2: 17-3: 8 are directed especially to the Jew. There were men of culture, intellect, and refinement in Paul's day-moralists. Socrates was an idolater. yet he was a moralist. He would agree with Paul's condemnation of the base and the low, set forth in chapter one. And such as Socrates ·needed to be convicted of the sinfulness of their own pagan hearts. Moreover, those in polite society often do "the same things" as do those they judge and condemn. These words remind us of the Lord's parable of the publican and the Pharisee. (See Luke 18: 9-14. ) The publican represents the licentious sinner; the Pharisee, the moralist. "The Pharisee stood and prayed ... with himself"-not to God. He extolled himself, judged the publican, and went to his house a sinner still. But the publican "went down to his house justified," because he acknowledged his sin and asked the Lord to cleanse him. The hardest man in the world to deal with, in pointing him to Christ, is the self ~righteous moralist. He knows not the holiness of God or the sinfulness of the human heart. "The heart is deceitful above all ·things, and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). but the moralist has lived under restrain- ing influences; he thanks God that he is not as other men, and refuses to get down on his knees before a holy God and [Page 31
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