Romans 2:11–16
For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. 14 For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, 15 in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, 16 on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.
Piper had two goals in this message. He spends the message explaining how a divinely inspired Paul writes about a impartial God and a imparted man.
The Truth about God is that he is not partial. And what God’s impartiality means is that he judges not on the assumption that we all have access to the same amount of truth, but that we all have the truth we need to be held accountable, and that we will be judged by our response to what we do have, not what we don’t have. God is so committed to this dimension of his justice that he secures it by creating every human soul with the imprint of his moral law and with the capacity to know his glory revealed in nature. He is impartial not merely with what he finds in the world; rather he sees to it that what he finds in the world conforms to his impartiality.
So the second great truth (about man) is built on the first one (about God), namely, all human beings have the moral law of God stamped on their heart. Every human soul, as it comes to consciousness, knows that it is created by God, and dependent on God, and should honor and thank God (1:20–21), and should do the things that are written on the heart (2:14–15), and that failing to do them is worthy of death (1:32).
And then Dr. Piper gives three great implications on how this affects our life, that we would see ourself with this divine handprint of knowing God, our children and then the everday people. We need to understand our lives and others in light of this amazing truth that God is impartial to everyone because he has put His handprint in everyone. We need to see His creation and His images that reflect His creation, and evangelize and love them as they are His.
Impact of These Two Great Truths
Now these are great truths to know and will have an impact in your life if you will embrace them for what they really are. Here are three examples of the kind of difference it could make in your life—if you know yourself this way and your children this way and others this way.
1. An Implication of Knowing Yourself this Way
Consider one implication of knowing yourself this way. If God is impartial and judges by fixed standards that he has revealed, and if you, in the depths of your human nature as the image of God, have the moral law of God stamped on your being, then to know this and embrace this will give a tremendous gravity and solidity and stability to your convictions about God and about truth and right and wrong. Because you will see clearly that there are fixed truths and fixed moral standards that you do not make up. They are not mere human opinion, but come from God, outside of us. Life is not a cafeteria of equal options from which you can choose. Life comes with profound givens. God exists. God is impartial. God is and knows the truth. God has imprinted it on human hearts. It is knowable. We will be judged by it. Therefore life is not trivial. And our convictions about God and morality gain gravity and solidity and stability.
2. An Implication of Knowing Your Children this Way
Consider one implication of knowing your children this way. Look upon your children as beings whose souls God himself created in his own image and inscribed with the law of God. Look upon them as beings who are endowed, like no other creature, with the capacity to know God and, in fact, will know God—enough to perish by or live by. Ponder, as you look at your child, that here is a person who has been prepared specially to live according to goodness and truth. Here is a being not to be taken for granted, or trifled with, or neglected—a being whose main purpose in the universe has been set by God: that he or she know God and do God’s will. To know your children in this way will make you more serious about your parenting and the glorious privilege and responsibility of joining God’s inner work to bring these children up into Christ and make God known and loved.
3. Implications of Knowing Others this Way
Finally, consider two implications of knowing others this way. Everyone you know at work or school or in the neighborhood has the law of God written on his or her heart. Everyone you know, knows the impartial God. Whether they suppress this knowledge or not, they have it. They know their Creator at a profound level, and they know their duty at a profound level. God has dealt with them deeply before you ever came on the scene. God has gone before you in preparing them for himself and his will.
So here’s the first implication: therefore, be hopeful in 1999 as you do evangelism, not minimizing the blinding effects of sin, but also not despairing that there is no point of connection in the person you care about. There are points of connection, deeper than you ever dreamed. Speak the truth in love and God may be pleased to make the connection between what they know by nature, and what you tell them from the Word of God.
And the last implication is this: beware of despising anyone. Every time you disapprove of someone—a politician, a colleague, a church member or leader, a person of another culture or race—remember that God has written his law on that person’s heart and given him or her the knowledge of himself. This is to be marveled and wondered at, not despised. Human nature in the image of God, fallen and depraved as it is, should nevertheless spread the aroma of sanctity and reverence over all our repugnance or disagreement. There is an honor that belongs to man as man in the image of God, who wrote his law on all our hearts.
Steve Allen
ACTION Zambia
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