Paul exposes the person who condemns others while remaining unrepentant, showing that God's kindness should lead to repentance.
Romans 2:1-16
1 Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things.
2 We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.
3 Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
5 But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
God's judgment is based on truth and marked by impartiality, rewarding perseverance in good and condemning self-seeking disobedience.
6 who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:”
7 to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life;
8 but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation,
9 oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
10 But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
11 For there is no partiality with God.
Those who sin without the law perish without the law, and those who sin under the law are judged by it; conscience also bears witness.
12 For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
13 For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified
14 (for when Gentiles who don’t have the law do by nature 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 testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them)
16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.
Paul confronts the Jew who boasts in the law but dishonors God by breaking it.
Romans 2:17-29
17 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God,
18 know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,
19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.
21 You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal?
22 You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
23 You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law?
24 For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.
True covenant identity is inward and spiritual, marked by heart circumcision rather than outward sign alone.
25 For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision?
27 Won’t the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.