Contempt for Kindness (Romans 2:4–5)
Is God's patience permission to keep sinning? See how Romans 2:4–5 warns religious hypocrites: his kindness is an invitation to repent, not presume.
Introduction
Imagine driving late at night down a familiar road. You see a lighted sign: BRIDGE OUT AHEAD. You hit the brakes. After a few days the bridge seems fine, though. Nothing happens. Eventually, you stop noticing the sign. You speed right past it—until one night the bridge really is gone. That’s how God’s kindness can work on us. What begins as a warning meant to save us becomes background noise we tune out.
We saw in chapter 1, Paul exposes the sins of our world—idolatry and immorality. Against all of it, God’s wrath is revealed. Yet everyone suppress the plain truth he’s shown since creation—he exists, he made it all, and he’s the judge of all. Thus, he’s given us up to the sins we love.
Transition: Now in chapter 2, Paul transitions from the openly rebellious to the respectable—those who sin, know it’s sin, yet condemn everyone else for theirs. Here’s Paul’s logic in vv. 1–3:
hypocrites practice what they condemn (v.1)
God’s judgment rightly falls on all who do such things (v.2)
therefore, the self-righteous hypocrite will not escape God’s judgment (v.3)
Theme
God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience with religious hypocrites isn’t permission to presume but an invitation to repent and escape the day of wrath.
The Contempt of God’s Kindness (2:4a)
Paul presses home the contempt of God’s kindness: do you presume or “show contempt” (NIV) or “think lightly” (NASB). They assumed being God’s covenant people meant they were immune from judgment; treating as trivial all God did for them.
What’s he done? Paul stacks three terms—kindness… forbearance… patience. These describe the riches of who God is:
kindness—God’s generous goodness (KJV, NKJV).
forbearance—God’s restraint (CSB, NASB) in delaying judgment.
patience—God’s longsuffering (KJV, NKJV) toward their sin.
To justify their sin, they twisted God’s revelation of himself with these terms in Exodus 34 to make a theological argument: “God is too kind, too tolerant, too patient to judge us.” They believed they were immune from judgment because of their relationship to father Abraham. As John the Baptist said, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’” (Matt. 3:8). When Jesus said the truth would set them free, they responded, “We are offspring of Abraham” (John 8:33).
Application: This needs to hit us like a ton of bricks! Contempt can arise in our hearts as we denounce others yet excuse ourselves. In moral superiority we “weaponize” God’s patience for us. Moralizing presumes on covenant privileges, making a comparison on how much better I am than “them.” Religious people are most at risk. As Tim Keller noted, religious repentance manages guilt to hide from God; gospel repentance turns to God, melted by his kindness. One hardens the heart; the other humbles it. Moralism is a form of self-justifying pride.[1]
Children: You can’t say to God, “But my dad is a pastor, but my parents are Christians, but I go to church!” For all of you members of this church or associated with us in any way, you can’t say to God, “I have a get out of jail free” card. Don’t presume on his kindness, forbearance, andpatience! Illustration: A long red light that never tickets anyone doesn’t nullify the law of running a red; it exposes whether drivers respect it.
Transition: The irony is that those who know the most about God’s kindness can be the most blind to its real purpose. God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience with religious hypocrites isn’t permission to presume.
The Purpose of God’s Kindness (2:4b)
What is the purpose of God’s kindness? God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? God’s kindness isn’t a license to sin, but lead[s] to penitence for sin. His delay does not equal his indulgence of your sin.
The verb agō (lead) shows that God’s kindness doesn’t drive but draws toward repentance, which is a head thing (a change of mind) and a heart thing (a change of life submitting to God’s goodness). The design of repentance is movement towards God, not complacency with yourself. Repentance is whole-life reorientation, not a flash of guilt. Repentance is the radical turning around of life, prompted by God’s kindness, not mere momentary conviction.
The ancient commentator, Origen, said: “God bears with everyone patiently and awaits each one’s repentance; but this should not render us negligent or make us slow to conversion, since there is a definite measure to his patience and forbearance.”[2] God’s patience is purposeful—your repentance. It’s not evidential as a proof that you’re fine.
Theology: This illustrates the difference between legal and evangelical repentance. Legal repentance is your attempt to cover up your sins. Evangelical or gospel repentance runs to the God of grace! Luther said the unrepentant doesn’t get that the goodness of God is intended to lead to repentance while the repentant gets that even the severity of God is part of his good plan for them.[3]
Application: God has been so kind, forbearing, and patient with you up to today. What should you do with this? Turn away from the idolatry and immorality of hypocritical self-justification and return to your Creator as a Father and say, “I’m a sinner. I need Jesus to be my Savior!” He is kind and withholds his justice from being totally poured out in this age; he’s forbearing and not tired of you yet; and he’s patient to put up with your sins again and again. He’s withholding from you what you justly deserve so you’ll embrace him as Justifier of the ungodly. John Calvin commented that God’s kindness is like a large sign calling you back to him; to ignore the sign is to abuse it. Like a kind road crew puts up a BRIDGE OUT AHEAD sign. Ignore it, and you drive to your demise.
Illustration: We’ve all gone to a doctor, tested for an illness, and been given a prescription. What if you ignore the medicine on your countertop? God’s medicine is his kindness—leave it in the bottle and you condition will worsen.
Transition: Paul now warns that refusing kindness doesn’t cancel judgment—it compounds it.
The Warning for this Contempt (v. 5)
Despite all God had done for Israel, Paul issues a warning for this contempt of God’s kindness:but because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourselfon the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience with religious hypocrites isn’t permission to presume.
But—they refused to be led by kindness, forbearance, and patience to repent of their self-righteousness. This is spiritual suicide. Think of what this says about the human heart apart from God’s grace.
Their hearts were hard and impenitent. Hard or sclerotic is a stubbornness like being dry and impenetrable. Illustration: When clay is wet, it’s malleable; but leave it in the sun for too long and it becomes hard. Impenitent is the opposite of God’s kindness leading to repentance. The impenitentheart loves its sins more than the God who made it. “But I’m a good person who does a lot of charitable work.” Just because you can’t see the hard heart underneath doesn’t mean it’s not so. The heart of man is like a cancer that grows hidden from view.
Paul speaks like an ancient prophet here! Moses said: “Circumcise…the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deut. 10:16). Uncircumcised meant unrepentant. Jeremiah called Israel to “return” to the Lord (4:1). He gave this image: “Break up your fallow [hard] ground…Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts” (4:3, 4). In Exodus, Pharaoh’s heart was hard; in Ezekiel, Israel’s was! Paul says this is the moralistic hypocrite!
Because they were unrepentant, they were storing up or treasuring (KJV, NKJV). Thēsaurizōwas used in ancient literature of a future reward for good works. Paul says those with supposed good works were ironically treasuring wrath!
Illustration: They were storing up wrath like a farmer stores grain in a silo for future date. In this case, though, the end date was the day of wrath, not reward. The prophet Zephaniah put it like this: “Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is near” (1:7). But like Paul’s audience, the people then thought, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill” (1:12). This day was near and it’s “sound [was] bitter” (1:14). It was: a day of wrath, distress and anguish, ruin and devastation, darkness and gloom, clouds and thick darkness, trumpet blast and battle cry. (1:15, 16). As Johnny Cash said:
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light.[4]
You are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath. This has to be one of the most fearful texts in all of Scripture!
On that day, God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. Every time you refuse to repent of your sins but choose to live in sin, it’s like you are shoveling another pile of coal for the fire of God’s wrath upon you.[5] The danger of delaying is a hard heart that banks up wrath. Hardness converts his kindness into a bigger bill due on the last day. Every “I’ll deal with that later” makes a deposit into wrath.
Illustration: I knew a guy in college who had a lot of unpaid parking and traffic tickets. He’d get one then toss it in a draw. It looked harmless, until a warrant was put out on him to appear in court! Spiritual presumption is a silent accumulation into the wrong account.
God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience with religious hypocrites isn’t permission to presume but an invitation to repent and escape the day of wrath.
Gospel Movement: My friend, God shows you his kindness every day—the sunshine or breath in your lungs. But his greatest display of kindness is in Christ crucified and risen. As we’re going to hear later: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us” (5:8). Kindness without the cross is mere sentimentality; the cross interprets the delay of wrath. His patience makes sense when seen from the perspective of Calvary.
God is merciful in withholding wrath, gracious in blessing you, supremely kind in delaying judgment. He displayed ultimate kindness at the cross—justice and mercy meet there; his patience today is the space to turn to Christ, not merely from sin. Call to Action: Will you repent by turning from your hypocrisy and presumption?
Conclusion: Trade Presumption for Repentance
Every BRIDGE OUT AHEAD sign God has set up in your life is an act of kindness. He’s not standing with folded arms waiting to condemn—you’ve done that yourself! He’s waving you down before disaster. His patience isn’t indifference but mercy. Don’t mistake delay for disinterest. Don’t confuse patience for permission. The bridge of presumption will not hold.
But there’s another bridge—the cross of Christ. On that bridge, God’s kindness bore the wrath we stored up. And when you cross that bridge by faith, God does more than forgive your past—he changes your heart. “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.” The hands that built the bridge are the same hands that rebuild you. He takes your heart of stone that ignored his warnings and gives you a heart of flesh that beats for him.
Stop driving toward ruin. Turn around. Trade presumption for repentance. Cross over the bridge of his kindness; you’ll find welcome not wrath. You’ll begin to live with the new heart he gives—soft, alive, and full of gratitude!
God’s kindness doesn’t just lead you to repentance; it creates repentance. Don’t leave his kindness unspent.
[1] https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/the-failure-of-religion
[2] Origen, 106.
[3] Luther, 176.
[4] From Johnny Cash, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.”
[5] Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 13; Calvin, 43.