Presuming or Repenting?
6/12/25 Bible Thought (Romans 2)
In Romans 2, Paul decries Jews who are merely Jews outwardly but not inwardly, those who would presume upon being people of the covenants without any indication that they are truly the people of God inwardly.
In essence, they were those who basically thought they were grandfathered in because they hit the DNA lottery as Jews; therefore, they’re good to go. To this, Paul points out that no one is automatically good to go. For God will bring about judgment based upon a person’s deeds (Rom. 2:6) not their heritage!
In essence, they presumed upon God’s grace.
They saw God as wishy-washy. He would overlook their sin. Sin didn’t matter all that much to God. Yet, we see throughout the Scripture that God is just and if God is just then He will punish sin. He’s not a wishy-washy God and He cared how they were living.
How much more is this true for us under the new covenant?
Paul criticizes them by writing,
“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?” (Rom. 2:4).
Grace isn’t ever to be a license to sin (Rom. 6:1). Yes, God is a gracious and merciful God. He is gracious far beyond what we could ever fathom and far beyond what we could ever earn or deserve. It’s in the very definition of grace!
Yet, what we do with that grace says an awful lot about who we truly are.
Many today will preach a flippant God who is all love and no justice. God is entirely gracious, and they won’t talk of holiness. The thing is, with God, He is all of these things.
Yes, He is gracious, and loving, and merciful. 100 percent, through and through, this is who He is.
But He is also holy, and just, and awesome. As such, His grace isn’t to be abused or trifled with. He knows the truths of who we are, and He cares about the lives we lead.
He wants us to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. He wants us to live our Bibles, not just read them. For us to know the right thing is actually indicting when we then go and do the wrong thing! It’d be better not to know the right way at all, than to know it and not do it (see Jas. 4:17).
Let us be incredibly careful not to abuse the grace of God.
Now, in saying this, I don’t want to downplay God’s grace. Truly, it is amazing grace, and the most wretched sinner can find atonement for their sins in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Yet, that grace is not intended to just keep picking us back up when we fall, but to also prop us up and support us so that we wouldn’t fall. If we sin, we can find forgiveness (1 Jn. 1:9) but we should never sin willy-nilly and presume upon His grace. Rather when we sin, we go to Him humbly with a contrite heart in genuine repentance knowing that He is gracious and we don’t deserve it.
Presumption is arrogant and insulting to God’s grace.
Repentance is humble, undeservingly acceptant, and thankful for God’s grace.
Presuming or repenting, what’s your response to God’s grace today?