Romans 2:13

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Michael Abendroth here,

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Michael Lee Abendroth, the theologian that�s not well known, named M .L. Abendroth.

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He�s not well known for lots of reasons. I was watching somebody on social media, and they kept bragging about themselves and their global influence and global theologian and all these things that they�ve done, and I just thought, �Oh, you know, what you see in others that you don�t like, it�s like then convicting to your own self.

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I mean, who do we think we are ?� There�s a reason why Mike Abendroth is in a town of 7 ,000 people in the middle of Massachusetts, probably because of my�

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I don�t think I have it anymore, at least not to the degree

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I used to, but to be known and to be well -known, and you speak at T4G and Ligonier and what else?

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Gospel Coalition. Well, I would never speak there. I never get asked. Shepherd�s Conference, you know, these big conferences and all this kind of Q &A stuff.

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I�m not berating any men who do those things. I�m just saying it�s better to live a quiet life and work with your hands.

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In some regard, NOCO has given me so many opportunities that it might have just been better to not have any of them.

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But I especially recommend to young pastors, when they ask me about podcasting, I tell them, �Don�t do it until your kids are out of the house.�

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Why start something that just is like the leech that has two sisters, �Give, give, podcast.�

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They just, you know, �Give, give, give.� And of course, I don�t do a weekly one or monthly, it�s daily, but that�s why there are sermons on Monday and Friday is the rerun.

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So I basically need an hour and a half, not quite an hour and a half, a week to do the radio show.

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And as you know, a lot of times I just review what I�ve prepared for a

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Sunday. So it�s kind of like my way to kill two birds with one stone.

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Has anybody ever killed two birds with one stone? I have a BB gun in the backyard and when

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I�m especially sick out of the hospital with COVID pneumonia, I would give a little Daisy BB gun, easy to crank, a lot easier than my 22 pellet gun that�s break action.

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It�s like 50 pounds of pressure. And you know, the 22 pellet gun, it can kill animals, but the little

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Daisy BB gun, I would just shoot the squirrels and then they do backflips. It would sting them.

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And that�s how I knew I hit them, if they do a little backflip. So squirrels backflipping around.

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What do we do here on the show? Well, we talk about the Lord Jesus who never compromised. I think

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I�m fairly direct, fairly blunt. I want to be kind and tender -hearted. I�m sure

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I�m not that way all the time, but that�s my desire. As I said last time on the last show, we are exploding with growth at Bethlehem Bible Church and I think some people turn around because there�s no room in the parking lot.

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The lady who owns the gym with her ex -husband said to me the other day, �I drove past the church on Sunday.�

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I think they come from a Seventh -day Adventist background. �I drove past the church on your church ,� she called it.

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Of course, it�s not mine. �I drove past your church and the parking lot�s packed. What are you doing in there ?�

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And then she said, �I drive past other churches and there�s nobody there.� I said, �What particular church did you drive by and there�s no one there ?�

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�Well, like the one in the center of town.� �Oh ,� I said, �well, let me just tell you why

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I think that�s why it�s happening.� She said, �Because the one in the center of town in an old congregational building is a

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Unitarian Universalist church.� I said, �Okay, think about the words �Unitarian.�

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It doesn�t mean Trinitarian. It means one God and Jesus isn�t God. The pillar in their name is we don�t believe

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Jesus is God. He�s not God, second person of the

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Trinity, eternal son, forget all that. Universalism is everybody goes to heaven, doesn�t matter, there�s no judgment.

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I said, �You know deep down in your conscience even that there�s sin and we break

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God�s law and we need remedy and so what�s the solution? We need a Savior.� People come to Bethlehem Bible Church because they want to hear about the

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Lord Jesus who paid the sin debt for all those that would trust in Him and take

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Him at His word. Think of John chapter 3 verse 14 and 15, of course before the famous passage in verse 16.

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There�s a serpent up on a pole in Numbers 21. You�re simply to look at it. Nobody can look at it for you.

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Nobody can say, �Well maybe if I rub some aloe vera juice on my snake bite, maybe if I look at it and get circumcised and get baptized.�

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No, you simply look and hear Jesus treated as an unclean thing on a cross, paying for our sins.

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He had already earned righteousness by living a perfect life and then spectacularly, wonderfully, supernaturally

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He is raised from the dead, defeating death. Ultimately when we think of 1 Corinthians 15, �Death wears your sting.�

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Think of Calvary when it comes to that. Therefore, people want to hear the truth and they want to hear it in such a way that they�re not getting berated, that it�s not a legal obedience, that they just have to with duty only or fear of God and His condemnation to obey.

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That�s not how it works. Certainly, unbelievers are under the judgment of God and they are receiving the law of God from a judge, but we as Christians, we have a mediator, so why doesn�t the pastor preach like that?

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That could be the name of the show, �Why does your pastor not preach like you have a mediator ?� Come on!

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Anyway, we need a bigger building. If you know people, and there are people out here like this, so I�m just going to throw it out.

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There are people who love to give money to Bible teaching churches for buildings or buy buildings.

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There are people that have millions of dollars. I know one particular person just gave $18 million to a

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Christian organization. $18 million! So they can look at our

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Statement of Faith, they can pull up the website and listen to the preaching, and if they want to invest and support,

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I need a new building. So Lord, please give us a new building. Would you pray for that? If you know somebody who�s got the

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Hobby Lobby money, let us know, because we need a bigger building. So maybe we rent, maybe we lease, buy, whatever it might be, but just if you�re praying for NOCO Radio, that might be something that you could remember.

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Please. Today I�m going to pull out a commentary. When I first became a

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Christian, I didn�t know what a commentary was. I didn�t really know what any Bible study tool was. If you said to me, �Do you know what a

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Bible atlas is ?� I could have gotten that one right. Bible dictionary? I probably could have gotten that right.

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I didn�t know the nuances to those, but I could understand. Manners and customs in the

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Bible? Okay, I guess I can get that. I didn�t know they existed, but if you say, �What do you think that is ?�

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I probably could have guessed. Well, commentaries, if you just think of comment, they�re written by people, probably in the centuries mainly men, but there�s ladies write commentaries now.

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It�s interesting, most ladies seem to write on what books of the Bible? Esther and Ruth. If you want to go to the little

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Tyndale series, I think it�s Joyce Baldwin who writes on Esther and or Ruth. Anyway, that doesn�t, that�s beside the point.

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I have a commentary here. It was a man, a Christian man, who wrote comments about a particular book of the

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Bible, or you could have a one -volume Bible commentary.

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The best one -volume is Wycliffe, I think, not written by Wycliffe, but that�s just the publisher. This is a commentary on Romans, and it�s a famous commentary by Robert Haldane, Geneva series of commentaries, and it is published by a well -known publisher, and when

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I pull it out, I was going to say Banner of Truth, I just want to make sure, yes, Banner of Truth Trust, and it is reprinted several times, and it is the exposition of the epistle to the

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Romans, Robert Haldane. Haldane had a brother. I wonder what it would be like to have a brother in ministry. That would be so good, wouldn�t it?

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Don�t forget the pactum, Pat Avendroff. Romans 2 .13.

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Romans has 16 chapters. In Romans 2 .13, Paul is still trying to show everybody that they need a perfect righteousness, and that since they don�t have that righteousness, they�re going to need to look to the

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Savior. If you go to chapter one, verse 18 and following, Gentiles, they�re unrighteous.

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You go to chapter two, certainly Jews and moralistic people are unrighteous, but compounding the problem is they are self -righteous, and if you think you already have righteousness, well, why look for other righteousness?

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Right living, obeying the law, meriting righteousness by rightly doing

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God�s righteous law. Well, if you�re a Gentile, pagan, then you think, �Well,

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I don�t have any, and I need some.� But if you�re some type of moralist, you think, �Well, hmm,

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I think I�ve got righteousness. Isn�t that going to be good enough? Maybe God will take into account my sincerity.

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I know I�m not perfectly righteous, but I�ve got something, maybe a little bit more than other people, maybe a lot more than other people, especially compared to those

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Gentiles. I�m certainly not a pagan prostitute or a homosexual.�

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Paul says, essentially, �You might as well be, because you need a perfect righteousness.� To stand before God, the ground before God�s bar of justice, what do you need to stand upon?

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Not the quicksand of your own self -righteousness or religious duties or baptism or circumcision or confirmation or irrigation or trifurcation.

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You can�t have any of those things. You need something perfect. So, Paul is trying to say, �You need righteousness.�

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And he says in chapter 2, verse 13, this is not the sanctification section, holy living section, which is in chapter 6 and 7.

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This is the condemning section. You don�t have the righteousness you need to stand before God, and you�ll die one day, and you�re going to need perfect righteousness.

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And Paul says in verse 13, �For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God.�

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Hey, we�ve got the law. We�re Jewish people. We�ve got the law. We listen to it. Hear, O Israel.

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We have Shema. We have all that. We hear, we hear, we hear. I mean, we�re certainly better off than other people.

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They don�t even have the law. They�ve got it engraved on their hearts, but we have external law, Ten Commandments, Mosaic law, et cetera.

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Start trek, not track. It�s been a long time since somebody corrected me when

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I used to say et cetera, and it�s et cetera. I still say things I ought not to, but I�m trying. �It�s not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.�

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Hmm. That�s interesting. The doers of the law. Now what people end up doing with this, no pun intended, is they jam it into the sanctification section and say, �Hmm.

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Doers of the law will be justified. Would you like to stand before God on that great day, that judgment day ?�

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Luther said there�s two days in his calendar, today and that day, judgment day, that awful day. Well, I better get going.

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I�m going to use this verse as a pastor to get the people to obey and to do more and to serve more and every member of ministry and everything else.

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Not really, not categorically against every member of ministry, but that has interesting background.

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I think every Christian should serve and use their spiritual gifts as good stewards, 1 Peter 4.

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Here, it says, �The doers of the law will be justified.� And that�s exactly what

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Paul means. If you perfectly do, if you perfectly obey, if you perfectly love

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God and love neighbor, you�re going to be justified. There�s a legal way of getting to heaven, perfect obedience.

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Why would God say no? You didn�t break any laws, why would He kick you out? Why would He condemn you?

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That�s not fair, that�s not right, that�s not just. And if you obey God, you get to heaven. If Adam would have obeyed

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God, I�m certain he would have been glorified. But in that probationary period, he did not.

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God still expects obedience, that�s true. And of course, since this is impossible, we have to look by faith now.

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There�s another wonderful way, there�s a wonderful way, rather, of salvation, and that is justification by faith alone, trusting in the perfect lawkeeper who also died for our law -breaking and was raised from the dead, this eternal

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Son who takes on human flesh. Paul says, �The doers of the law shall be justified.�

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So if anybody says all this stuff about how holy they are and they�re just one step above the

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Pharisees and two steps above Mother Teresa, I want to know if you�ve completely, totally, perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually, and personally obeyed the law.

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That�s what it requires. Now, this is only a theory now, it�s impossible, because Adam�s sin.

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He was our federal head, his sin was credited to our account, his first sin, and therefore, this is impossible.

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I mean, consequently, because of Adam�s sin, we now are sinners, right, and we�re born that way.

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But theoretically, if you could perfectly obey God, why would he ever kick you out? So Paul is using this to condemn the people, saying, �There�s no possible way you could obey, because you�d have to be perfectly obeying.

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How are you doing, really? I mean, ask your wife.� So, Haldane has a section here, commentary, small print, by the way,

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Romans 2 .13, �The doers of the law shall be justified.� And I�d like to begin to read some of Haldane, to encourage you to get

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Haldane, and then to put an exclamation point on what I�ve said. �The doers of the law shall be justified� section.

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�By this we must understand an exact obedience to the law to be intended, which can defend itself against that declaration, cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.�

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How are you going to defend yourself against, you know what, if you don�t perfectly obey, you�re cursed? What�s going to be your defense?

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Think judicial here, think courtroom. �For it is not the same with the judgment of the law as with that of grace.

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The gospel indeed requires of us a perfect obedience to its commands, yet it not only provides for believers� pardon of the sins committed before their calling, but of those also which they afterwards commit.

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But the judgment of the law admits of no indulgence to those who are under it.

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It demands a full and perfect personal observance of all its requirements, a patient continuance in well -doing, without the least deviation, or the smallest speck of sin.

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And when it does not find the state of perfection, condemns the man.

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But did not the law itself contain expiations for sins? And consequently shall not the judgment which will be passed according to the law be accompanied with grace and indulgence through the benefit of these expiations?

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The legal expiations had no virtue in themselves, but inasmuch as they were figures of the expiation made by Jesus Christ, they directed men to his sacrifice.

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But, as they belonged to the temporal or carnal covenant, they neither expiated nor could expiate any but typical sins, that is to say, the uncleanness of flesh�Hebrews 9 .13�which

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were not real sins, but only external pollutions. Haldane Thus, as far as regarded the legal sacrifices, all sins remained on the conscience�Hebrews 10 .1�for

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from these the law did not in the smallest degree discharge. Whence it follows that the judgment according to the law to those who are under it, it will be a strict judgment according to the law, which pardons nothing.

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The word �justified� occurs here for the first time in this epistle, and being introduced in connection with the general judgment means being declared just or righteous by a judicial sentence.

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Thus ends Haldane. Okay, lots of comments and thoughts.

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First of all, if you think of expiation and propitiation, both are true.

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The liberal is only one expiation, and certainly Haldane is not a liberal. Propitiation is the assuagement of God�s wrath, propitiation for our sins.

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In the old days, you knew you sinned against a false god. You thought it was a true god, but you would offer up a baby, a virgin, some fruit or something to assuage the wrath.

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Well, of course, in this particular case, it�s God Himself, the Son, who assuages

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God the Father�s wrath in our place, on our behalf. Not because the Lord Jesus committed any sin, because He didn�t.

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That�s propitiation. Wrath exhausting, wrath assuaging, satisfaction. Well, expiation means just to go away, to have forgiveness.

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That�s all that means. So both expiation and propitiation are true. The liberals say only expiation.

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I�m sure when we get to chapter 3, Haldane will talk properly about propitiation.

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He says, �We must understand exact obedience to the law to be intended, which can defend itself from that declaration.

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Cursed is everyone who doesn�t obey the law, essentially.� Now, I know what you might be thinking.

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The gospel indeed requires of us a perfect obedience to its commands. That�s probably the one, if you know no compromise radio, it�s probably stuck in your craw.

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And certainly, I understand what you�re after. So, there�s two ways to think about the word �gospel� theologically.

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The first is strict gospel, and that is, it�s what God has done. Specifically, what

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God the Son has done. Of course, sent by the Father, empowered by the Spirit of God, it�s what

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God has done. You think about what the Son has done. When you think of gospel, you start talking about, �This is the

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Lord Jesus and what He�s done.� Death, burial, resurrection, life, ascension, session, something about the

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Lord Jesus. And that�s the word �gospel� in a strict sense. And that�s why when we�re preaching the gospel, we want to talk about the

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Lord Jesus. But gospel is also used, remember, in a more general sense, right?

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And so you say something like, �The gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew.�

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It�s a more general sense of what the gospel is. So, we don�t need to say, �Haldane�s wrong, and throw him out ,� or anything like that, when it says what�s going on.

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But I do like it when he says, �The judgment of the law admits of no indulgences to those who are under it.

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It demands a full and perfect personal obedience of all its requirements.�

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And it is not found here, but I think elsewhere, I think by Haldane himself, that he says, �This passage is basically to make you, when you work through it and finish your interpretation, you�ll either be a

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Protestant, that�s the view I just gave you, or a Catholic.� Now a lot of evangelicals stumble here, and I won�t even tell you every evangelical that stumbled here, because it�s not too fun.

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And even a long time ago, in 1980, S. Lewis Johnson�s Romans 2 .13 could have been much better.

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If I could have found something later in his life that he said exactly, I would have corrected his error of 2 .13.

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But that�s just kind of the way people interpret it. You know what? If you forget the context of Romans 1, 2, and 3a about condemning people that don�t have perfect righteousness, and how they need a righteousness, not self -righteousness, not just getting rid of unrighteousness, but they need a perfect earned righteousness, obedience to the law.

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That�s why they need the representative. Certainly Jesus is a substitute, but he�s a representative. He�s a federal head where he, the last

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Adam, earning, obeying, meriting righteousness. That�s the language we use, because that�s the biblical concept.

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And I�m using it on purpose, because I know certain people don�t like that language, and so I want to make sure

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I hammer it home, over and over and over and over. Laws, there�s a positive aspect to it when you keep them, and there�s a negative aspect to it when you disobey.

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Positive and penalty. And that�s why we talk about Jesus� active and passive obedience, because it�s related to the positive and penalty side of the law.

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It�s not just life and then death, somehow that he was passively suffering only at Calvary.

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No, no, we don�t want to think about it that way. Anyway, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and we�re talking a little bit today about Romans 2 .13.

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This is not really any different than the Good Samaritan parable, right? Or the

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Rich Young Ruler. What do I need to do to be saved? Well, if you want to do something to be saved, perfectly obey.

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Love your neighbor. And if you want to do something to obey, just, what�s the law say?

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Oh, Rich Young Man says, this is what it says. Jesus said, okay, go do it. And the guy should have said, there�s no possible way.

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Could you help me? I�ve heard there�s a Messiah from the Old Testament. I heard there�s going to be one to come who�s bruised for our transgressions.

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I heard there�s one who is a great suffering servant in Isaiah 42 through 53.

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I�m looking forward to that one. Do you know who he is? I mean, you�re a great teacher.

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You�re a great rabbi. You�ve done great miracles. You certainly must know. Since I can�t keep the law, and I can�t obey like I should, money rules my life, is there any hope for me?

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Can God save a covetor? Can God save a miser? Can God save greedy people?

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Do you think the love of God could extend to me? Do you think I could have mercy from God?

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How could I receive mercy from God? That�s what should have happened, but of course it never did. And that�s why

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I don�t think the Rich Young Ruler ever was saved. Mark says he looked at him with love.

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And Jesus loves sinners, and therefore he was going to die for people just like that Rich Young Ruler.

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I don�t know if he died for him or not, but that�s another show. Romans 2 .13, a litmus test for evangelicalism.