Romans 2:5 Storing up Rev 6:12-17
Consider the various antithesis ibn the text: 1) between ‘despising the riches of goodness,' and ‘treasuring up wrath'; 2) between “hardness' and ‘goodness'; 3) between “impenitent heart' and “repentance,' Also consider that it is against yourself that you are treasuring wrath, not against others whom you judge. Finally, the unquestionable antithesis between ‘forbearance' and ‘revelation of judgment.'
Designated Wrath because of your . . . you are . . . for yourself
It is a personal expression of wrath on all of us. We are or were by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:1-3) and this wrath remains on all those who continue in their hardness and unrepentant heart (Rom 2:5). Only those who by faith have come to Christ are excluded from the coming wrath (John 3:39).
Deserved Wrath because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart
Everyone of us deserve the wrath of God (Eph 2:1-3). Romans 1 men deserve God’s wrath because of their willful rebellion against the revealed knowledge of God and a refusal to worship him. In Romans 2 men deserve God’s wrath because of their stubborn refusal to respond to God’s goodness, forbearance and longsuffering by repenting. It is really a heart issue and there are two “heartfelt” responses to God’s goodness; 1) Contrition – a recognition of God’s goodness, forbearance and patience that leads one to a repentant heart. (Is 6), 2) Contempt – a despising of the goodness of God because of a stubborn and unrepentant heart. Thus those who already suppressed the truth about God revealed in nature now add to their evil a hardening of their hearts against the kindness that has been bestowed on them for their good. (Boice)
The heart is the center of personality the seat of sin (Mark 7:18-20). If the heart is evil then evil actions will follow. (Prov 6:14, 18) The trouble with man is not his intellect and not merely in his mind, but in his heart.(Jones) In the text two words describe the heart of the unrepentant: 1) Ametanoetos Gk combination of a meaning not and metanoeo meaning repent. Literally not repent or impenitent. Impenitent heart - A heart which is not affected with sorrow for sin, in view of the mercy and goodness of God (Barnes) Impenitent heart ... shows the wrong response to God's goodness, the purpose of which was to lead men to repent, but which had been perverted as an inferred approval of their wickedness, and with the result of hardness and impenitence in their hearts. How paradoxical that the very goodness of God which should have produced penitence, as intended, produced instead an arrogant, hard-hearted impenitent, who by such misuse of God's goodness had treasured up for himself a terrible weight of wrath in the last day. The same paradox is evident in the influence of the gospel, “For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one a savor from death unto death; and to the other a savor from life unto life” (2 Cor 2:15,16) (Coffman) 2) Sklerotes Gk hardness, stubbornness It is used to denote insensibility of mind. It properly means what is insensible to the touch, or on which no impression is made by contact, as a stone. (Ezek 11:19) Hence, it is applied to the mind, to denote a state where no motives make an impression; which is insensible to all the appeals made to it (Matt 19:8, 25:24; Acts 19:9); And here it expresses a state of mind where the goodness and forbearance of God have no effect. (Barnes) Hardness of heart is not callousness or insensibility of feeling. But entire obstinacy of their soul--not of one faculty, but of all. The same word is sometimes translated blindness and sometimes hardness. There are two
words, a stone, and blindness or hardness (Mark 3:5; Romans 11:25). This hardness, therefore is disobedience and opposition to truth, zealous opposition and hatred of it, . . . (Hodge) There is a natural "hardness" of the heart in every son and daughter of Adam; and there is an acquired habitual hardness, which is increased by sinning; and a judicial one, which God, for sin, sometimes gives persons up unto treasure up unto themselves wrath: they are the authors of their own destruction; by which is meant the wrath of God, in opposition to the riches of his goodness is in reserve for wicked men (Gill) Men become stubborn--By separating themselves from God, the Source of all life, just as a branch dries up when detached from the tree (C. Neil, M. A.)
Deposited Wrath you are storing up wrath for yourself
Amassed Gk thresaurizo to amass or reserve, to store up, It is uses to express any kind of store or collection (Clarke) Treasures up - To treasure up, or to lay up treasure, commonly denotes a laying by in a place of security of property that may be of use to us at some future period. It means here to accumulate, to increase. It has the idea of hoarding up something for future times. Wrath, like wealth treasured up, is not exhausted at present, and hence, the sinner becomes bolder in sin. But it exists, for future use; it is kept in store (2 Peter 3:7) against future times; and the man who commits sin is only increasing this by every act of transgression. How foolish as well as wicked is it to lay up such a treasure for the future; to have the only inheritance in the eternal world, an inheritance of wrath and wo! (Barnes) The expression “treasures up wrath” seems to be put in opposition to “the riches of His goodness.” What an idea! Treasures of love! Heaps of wrath! And you will observe the sinner is represented as the author of his own punishment. The idea conveyed is this, that there is an accumulation continually going on as long as he sins. And then, as this proportion will be according to the sin committed, so it will be according to the mercies abused and neglected. (J. Angell James.) He who perseveres in sin is not only continuing in a dangerous state, but treasuring up unto himself wrath. As a man amasses a fortune by saving up certain sums from year to year, and more and more as he goes on, so this man goes on making the wrath that will come upon him at last heavier and heavier, by adding fresh sins day after day. God does not forget; He is ready to forgive, so entirely and freely to forgive that He calls it forgetting, but He does not let things pass by forgetfulness, and therefore our deeds are “treasured up” against the Day of Judgment, and He will then render to us according to them. Prudence would always lead us to think what we are treasuring up for ourselves, for whatever we do, we may be sure we are treasuring up something. Our daily life is adding by little and little to some kind of stock that is laid up for us. If we are honest and industrious, we lay up for ourselves a treasure of good character, which will serve us more and more as we grow older; if we are dishonest and idle, we lay up for ourselves a bad character, which will tell more and more against us. If we are kind and good-tempered, we lay up a treasure of the goodwill of others; if we are proud and quarrelsome, we lay up enmities and dislikes, which may grow even to our ruin, and which may any day show themselves, all gathered into a mass, when we should most wish to be clear of them. So it is with a man who deals thus lightly with God, and presumes on His forbearance. God warns him again and again, but yet for a while does not execute judgment upon him. But at last comes the day of reckoning, and it is found that he has been all along heaping up for himself an evil treasure, a treasure of wrath against the day of wrath (C. Marriott, B. D.) the ungodly not only accumulate for themselves daily a heavier weight of God’s judgments, as long as they live here, but that the gifts of God also, which they continually enjoy, shall increase their condemnation; for an account of them all will be required: and it will then be found, that it will be justly imputed to them as an extreme wickedness, that they had been made worse through God’s bounty, by which they ought surely to have been improved. Let us then take heed, lest by unlawful use of blessings we lay up for ourselves this cursed treasure. (Calvin) "What an awful idea is here expressed,--that the sinner himself is amassing, like hoarded treasure, an ever accumulating stock of Divine wrath, to burst upon him in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God'! Remember, if the goodness of God toward you is not leading you to repentance, then every day, every hour, you live, drops another drop into the terrible "treasure" of indignation which will burst the great dam of God's long-suffering--in the great Day of Wrath, when God shall reveal His righteous judgment! (Of course, if you flee to Calvary, you will "not come into judgment" (John 5:24): for Judgment has already struck there!) (Newell). Each little indulgence of sin is a coin of wrath stored up. Each little neglect of other is saved up. Each angry word, each selfish thought, each mean retort, each harmful act, is a piling up of wrath’s treasures. Each year of grace, each day enjoyed without the experience of God’s swift and immediate judgement, each moment of indifference to the mercy of God is wrath’s accumulation. If God has been good to you, you only increase your guilt and build a treasure of future punishment by ignoring God’s kindness. (Boice). It is related that some years ago, in a mountainous region on the continent of Europe, an avalanche of snow--i.e., an enormous mass of snow--came down from one of the overhanging rocks in such a vast body as entirely to dam up a river into which it fell. What was the effect produced? As the river could no longer flow, it went on forming itself into an extensive lake--threatening, whenever it should burst through its snowy barrier, to carry desolation and ruin upon men and villages in the country beneath. The larger the quantity of water suspended, the greater would be its violence when it obtained its liberty: and so it proved. The devastation caused was said to be terrible in the extreme. It is thus with every unconverted sinner. The longer he lives, the greater is the amount of wrath he is accumulating, or treasuring up, against his day of destruction. (C. Clayton, M. A.)
Ascribed The punishment shall be proportioned to the mercy you have abused. (Clarke) The wrath of God is proportionate to human sin, in the sense that those who sin much will be punished much and those who sin less will be punished less (Luke 12:47) (Boice) This proves that sins will be punished according to their accumulation. A man is rich according to his treasures. The wicked will be punished according to the number and aggravation of their sins. There are two treasures, --that of goodness, of forbearance, and long suffering--and that of wrath; and the one may be compared to the other. The one provides and amasses blessings for the creature, the other punishments; the one invites to heaven, the other hastens to hell; the one looks on sin to pardon it on repentance, the other regards obstinate continuance to punish it, and avenge favors that are despised, God alone prepares the first, but man himself the second. (R. Haldane.) One thing to consider is that wrath of God is not only poured out because of ones adamant refusal to “accept” Jesus (even though the only way to have peace with God and a place in heaven is through a personal relationship with Jesus ). The reason is because not everyone has a chance to hear of Jesus therefore not all will be punished for refusing to believe in Him. God doesn’t condemn people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel, but rather for failing to follow the revelation that they have. The native is condemned, not for failing to believe in Jesus, about whom he has never heard, but for failing to seek God on the basis of the revelation of God they have in nature. This also follows that some people are more guilty then others and must be punished accordingly. The person who has heard of Jesus but has refused to come to God through faith in Jesus Christ is more guilty then others. He has reject not one source of revelation, but two: nature and the special revelation of Jesus. (Boice)
Determined Wrath in the day of wrath
A unique day of God’s wrath is surely coming, the final punishment of the wicked is future. It is not exhausted in this life. It is treasured up for a future day, and that day is a day of wrath. (Rev 6:12- 17 the great day of wrath has come, Matt 3:7). (Barnes) But rather than repenting their hearts are hard and impenitent. They ignore God’s pleadings and carry on in their old ways. As a result they are treasuring up for themselves wrath, a wrath which will be applied to them in the day of wrath and righteous judgment of God when God will render to every man according to his works (Rom 2:6-10). There is something very sad about the thought of a man hoarding up God’s wrath, like a squirrel hoards up nuts, without realizing it. Every day he adds to his sins. And every day the burden of responsibility grows larger, and God’s opposition towards him increases. It is man who is hard, not God. But he needs to remember that a day is coming on which every man will have to give account, a day of wrath and of the righteous judgment of God (1 Thes 1:8; Acts 17:31; Heb 9:27). Then man will be faced up with his sins. Then the wrath that has been hoarded up will be applied. Then God’s righteous judgment will be exacted, and He will render to each according to their works, according to how they have behaved, according to what they have done. What has been done in the dark will be brought to the light, and what has been done in secret will be made known to all. (Pett) That the punishment of the wicked will be just. It will not be a judgment of caprice or tyranny, but a righteous judgment, that is, such a judgment as it will be right to render, or as ought to be rendered, and therefore such as God will render, for he will do right; (2 Thess 1:6).
Displaced Wrath
For the believer the wrath of God has been placed on Christ (Rom 5:9) Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thess 1:9-10, 5:9, Eph 5:3-7). On a winter evening, when the frost is setting in with growing intensity, and when the sun is now far past the meridian, and gradually sinking in the western sky, there is a double reason why the ground grows every moment harder and more impenetrable to the plough. On the one hand, the frost of evening, with ever increasing intensity, is indurating the stiffening clods: on the other hand, the genial rays which alone can soften them are every moment withdrawing and losing their enlivening power. Take heed that it be not so with you. As long as you are unconverted, you are under a double process of hardening. The frosts of an eternal night are settling down upon your souls; and the Sun of Righteousness, with westering wheel, is hastening to set upon you for evermore. If, then, the plough of grace cannot force its way into your ice-bound heart today, what likelihood is there that it will enter tomorrow? (R. M. McCheyne, M. A.)
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