If you take a moment to read Romans 2:1-11, the entirety of this passage can be summarized in this sentence: Paul’s warning is meant to point every hypocrite, both then and today, away from eternal destruction and towards God whose character ought to lead us all to repentance. The Apostle Paul was setting his gaze upon hypocrites.
We must take a moment to address the elephant in the room; namely, that people so often accuse churches of being full of hypocrites. I’m not trying to defend those churches who are self-consciously abandoning Christ’s teachings in theology and practice. The Lord does warn us about the reality that there are churches that have “abandoned the love you had at first” and others that “hold the teaching of Balaam … [and] eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality” (Rev. 2:4, 14) In other words, there are churches that are no churches at all because they have forsaken the plain teaching of Christ, and this content-less Christianity has bred conscience-less Christianity. I’m not talking about those.
Instead, I am trying to say that if hypocrisy is bad, a sin, and even something that needs to be extracted from the soul of a person, then where else should they be but the church? The church is precisely where hypocrites need to be if they are looking to grow in grace. Not all of us recover from besetting sins overnight. In fact, if many of us are honest, we struggle with the very same sins we’ve had for years. However, the Christian is called to put such sins to death, not to gloat and publicize them (Romans 8:13).
Returning to Romans 2, the Apostle Paul made it very clear that although some sins are outright and obvious, there are likewise equally vicious and self-destructive sins that lurk in our hearts. Here he considers hypocrisy. Now the word is not present in the text, however, the concept is everywhere to be found. Even more, the penalty for such actions becomes all too apparent. Paul wrote, “Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” (Romans 2:3) You won’t escape the judgment of God. That’s the point.
God’s judgment against our sin, whether it be public or hidden, remains the same. There are degrees of punishment certainly, but the verdict “Guilty” remains true for everyone outside of Christ. God’s love though becomes altogether clear in that He is immensely patient with us in ways we could never imagine.
Think about the people who cut you off on the highway, or the slow drivers when you’re in a rush. Do you have a lot of patience? Not one of us loves sitting on long lines in the grocery store and at max that’s only a few minutes. God has spent millennia patiently waiting to grant people opportunities to repent. Contrary to that famous atheistic claim that God needed to provide more evidence, that fact that you can still complain rather than being sniped from heaven is evidence enough. We are intolerant of those who sully our good name, or the names of those we love. Why do we think God is indifferent about His Name and His laws and His glory when we belittle them? It turns out that we may end being hypocritical ourselves.
But the Apostle reminded us again, “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4) God’s patience towards your hypocrisy is meant to lead you to repent. If you are quick to be offended by my claim that we are all to varying degrees hypocrites, well then, you’ve proven the point. Our pride can lead us to be prickly towards any genuine rebuke because we could never imagine a world where who we are or what we are is deeply flawed. But this is the truth according to Scripture.
God’s intentions for your life are not to lead you to be a generically virtuous character who loves to speak about abstract love. He is a God who unveils love through the lens of fury. The fury that was poured on Christ at the cross was the greatest act of love every displayed in history. It is a reminder that our hypocrisy demands a price: blood.
But a hypocrite is unwilling to own their sin, bear their failures to Christ and others, or be honest in their prayers to God about their inadequacies. A hypocrite cannot be transparent or be free to be finite and needy. A hypocrite will not rest in their identity in Christ, or serve others selflessly. A hypocrite knows nothing about the mercy and free grace of Christ, and this is why they are slavish lords to others and themselves. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Gal. 5:13) Be free from your hypocrisy, and rest in Christ. Who still gives you time to repent so that you might be saved.