Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 2:4

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

4. the riches ] A frequent word with St Paul, in reference to Divine goodness and glory. See Rom 9:23, Rom 10:12, Rom 11:33; Eph 1:7-8; Eph 2:7; Eph 3:8; Eph 3:16; Php 4:19; Col 1:17; Col 2:2.

goodness ] Specially the goodness of kindness. So the same original is rendered 2Co 6:6; Eph 2:7; Tit 3:4.

to repentance ] See, as an illustrative parallel, 2Pe 3:9; where perhaps render “willing to receive all to repentance.” The Gr. of “ repentance,” here as elsewhere in N. T., means far more than alarm or grief; rather, a change of thought and will. See especially 2Co 7:9-10; 2Ti 2:25.

The point of this verse is specially for the (still unnamed) Jew. He thought his spiritual privilege and light, so long and lovingly continued, a mere honour, instead of a peculiar call to conscience.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Or despisest – This word properly means to contemn, or to treat with neglect. It does not mean here that they professedly treated Gods goodness with neglect or contempt; but that they perverted and abused it; they did not make a proper use of it; they did not regard it as suited to lead them to repentance; but they derived a practical impression, that because God had not come forth in judgment and cut them off, but had continued to follow them with blessings, that therefore he did not regard them as sinners, or they inferred that they were innocent and safe. This argument the Jews were accustomed to use (compare Luk 13:1-5; Joh 9:2); and thus sinners still continue to abuse the goodness and mercy of God.

The riches of his goodness – This is a Hebrew mode of speaking, for his rich goodness, that is, for his abundant or great goodness. Riches denote superfluity, or what abounds, or which exceeds a mans present desires; and hence, the word in the New Testament is used to denote abundance; or what is very great and valuable; see the note at Rom 9:23; compare Rom 11:12, Rom 11:33; 2Co 8:2; Eph 1:7, Eph 1:18; Eph 3:8, Eph 3:16; Col 1:27; Eph 2:4. The word is used here to qualify each of the words which follow it, his rich goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering.

Goodness – Kindness, benignity.

Forbearance – anoches. Literally, his holding-in or restraining his indignation; or forbearing to manifest his displeasure against sin.

Long-suffering – This word denotes his slowness to anger; or his suffering them to commit sins long without punishing them. It does not differ essentially from forbearance. This is shown by his not coming forth, at the moment that sin is committed, to punish it. He might do it justly, but he spares people from day to day, and year to year, to give them opportunity to repent, and be saved. The way in which people despise or abuse the goodness of God is to infer that He does not intend to punish sin; that they may do it safely; and instead of turning from it, to go on in committing it more constantly, as if they were safe. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil, Ecc 8:11. The same thing was true in the time of Peter; 2Pe 3:3-4. And the same thing is true of wicked people in every age; nor is there a more decisive proof of the wickedness of the human heart, than this disposition to abuse the goodness of God, and because he shows kindness and forbearance, to take occasion to plunge deeper into sin, to forget his mercy, and to provoke him to anger.

Not knowing – Not considering. The word used here, agnoon, means not merely to be ignorant of, but it denotes such a degree of inattention as to result in ignorance. Compare Hos 2:8. In this sense it denotes a voluntary, and therefore a criminal ignorance.

Leadeth thee … – Or the tendency, the design of the goodness of God is to induce people to repent of their sins, and not to lead them to deeper and more aggravated iniquity. The same sentiment is expressed in 2Pe 3:9, The Lord is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. See also Isa 30:18, And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you; Hos 5:15; Eze 18:23, Eze 18:32.

Repentance – Change of mind, and purpose, and life. The word here evidently means, not merely sorrow, but a forsaking of sin, and turning from it. The tendency of Gods goodness and forbearance to lead people to repentance, is manifest in the following ways.

(1) It shows the evil of transgression when it is seen to be committed against so kind and merciful a Being.

(2) It is suited to melt and soften the heart. Judgments often harden the sinners heart, and make him obstinate. But if while he does evil God is as constantly doing him good; if the patience of God is seen from year to year, while the man is rebellious, it is adapted to melt and subdue the heart.

(3) The great mercy of God in this often appears to people to be overwhelming; and so it would to all, if they saw it as it is. God bears with people from childhood to youth; from youth to manhood; from manhood to old age; often while they violate every law, contemn his mercy, profane his name, and disgrace their species; and still, notwithstanding all this, his anger is turned away, and the sinner lives, and riots in the beneficence of God. If there is anything that can affect the heart of man, it is this; and when he is brought to see it, and contemplate it, it rushes over the soul and overwhelms it with bitter sorrow.

(4) The mercy and forbearance of God are constant. The manifestations of his goodness come in every form; in the sun, and light, and air; in the rain, the stream, the dew-drop; in food, and raiment, and home; in friends, and liberty, and protection; in health, and peace; and in the gospel of Christ, and the offers of life; and in all these ways God is appealing to his creatures each moment. and setting before them the evils of ingratitude, and beseeching them to turn and live.

And from this passage, we cannot but remark,

1. That the most effectual preaching is what sets before people most of the goodness of God.

(2)Every man is under obligation to forsake his sins, and turn to God. There is no man who has not seen repeated proofs of his mercy and love.

(3)Sin is a stubborn and an amazing evil.

Where it can resist all the appeals of Gods mercy; where the sinner can make his way down to hell through all the proofs of Gods goodness; where he can refuse to hear God speaking to him each day, and each hour, it shows an amazing extent of depravity to resist all this, and still remain a sinner. Yet there are thousands and millions who do it; and who can be won by no exhibition of love or mercy to forsake their sins, and turn to God. Happy is the man who is melted into contrition by the goodness of God, and who sees and mourns over the evil of sinning against so good a Being as is the Creator and Parent of all.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Rom 2:4

Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness.

Earnest expostulation

I will give nothing for that preaching that is like the sheet lightning, flaming over a broad expanse, but altogether harmless. The apostle fixes his eye on a single person who had condemned others for transgressions in which he himself indulged; one who did not place his candle on his table to light his own room, but held it out at the door, to inspect therewith his neighbours who passed by. He thinks he shall escape in the future, and so despises the present goodness and long suffering of the Most High. Let me speak to thee, unregenerate man, of–

I. The goodness of God which thou hast experienced.

1. In temporal things. You have, perhaps, been prospered above your fellows. God has granted you wealth and health. You are happy in your wife and children. A thousand evils have been kept from you.

2. In spiritual things. You are in the very focus of Christian light. The Word of God is on your table; you hear the earnest preaching of the gospel. A tender conscience makes your road to perdition peculiarly hard. The Spirit has so striven with you that you were at times almost ready to drop into the Saviours arms.

3. He has been forbearing and long suffering for your sins. Forbearance has to do with the magnitude of sin; long suffering with the multiplicity of it. Many have been snatched from vice only to return to its deep ditch of filthiness. They have trembled on the brink of death, yet God has permitted them to recover strength. They slight His love, yet He perseveres in it. How many years you have been heaping up the loads of transgression! Yet here you are still, on praying ground and pleading terms with God. Think, also, who and what God is, who displays this long suffering. Think of His goodness: why should you provoke Him? Think of His omniscience: every transgression is committed in His very presence. Think of how powerful He is: your wicked heart would cease to beat if He should withdraw His power. Think of His purity: sin is much more intolerable to Him than to us.

II. The sin of which thou art suspected. Some despise Gods goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, because–

1. They never even gave a thought to it. God has given you life, and indulged you with kindness; yet it has never occurred to you that this patience is worthy of the smallest thanks. You have been of no service to your Maker, nor even thought of being of service to Him. Others have, perhaps, thought of it, but never meditated thereon.

2. Because they imagine God does not take any great account of what they do. So long as they avoid gross and open sin, they think it of light consequence not to love God.

3. They think the threatenings of God will never be fulfilled. They think, because the blow is long delayed, it never will come.

III. The knowledge of which thou art forgetful. The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance–

1. By giving opportunity to repent. All these years have been given you, that you might turn to God: yet you are spared only to multiply your transgressions.

2. By suggestions to repent. Life and death, heaven and hell, call upon you so to do. Every page of the Bible, every sermon, calls you to repent. Nature is full of voices warning you.

3. By leading to repentance. His mercies lead you. If they fail, He turns you by admonition. He leads you; hence He will help you, and will accept your repentance. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Gods goodness

The principal thoughts of these words are the wonderful things which meet our observation–the wonderful conduct of God.

I. The wonderful conduct of God. How grand is the expression! It is not merely the goodness, etc., but the riches of them all.

1. God is rich. We lay up a few thousands, or purchase a few acres and call ourselves rich; but God is the owner of all. Our world is but a speck of sand in His possessions. How stupendous, then, that He should accept the halfpence which some of you give to His cause! Then think of His spiritual wealth–the souls He owns–how much more astounding this than His material!

2. We are here directed to His wealth of goodness. Here is an ocean unfathomable. We know so little of what goodness really consists in that we can only stand and gaze on the surface. The riches of Divine goodness are more wonderful than those of Divine possession.

3. This goodness is manifested in long suffering and forbearance. God need not be long suffering. Why not end the long, sad, tale of rebellion and sin? Why not crush the blasphemous atoms? He could create another race. Surely, there is no theme for the contemplation of angels or men like the wonderful conduct of God.

II. The wonderful conduct of men. These words contain–

1. A charge. It is unnatural among men to manifest ingratitude and indifference in return for favour. To injure one who saves our life is inhuman. But men think little of the treatment they show to God. Sin is weak in some things, and man is powerless, but in this thing they both have strength. They can do what angels dare not do. Man can break down barriers which it cost the life of the Son of God to erect. He can withstand the love of God. Oh fatal power! Some have attempted to dare the power of God, but they have been crushed as a moth before the advance of a world. But they are more successful in resisting His love.

2. An appeal. It is as if it said, Can you despise such riches? etc. It is an appeal to our highest attributes of humanity. It is an appeal to our gratitude. Thanklessness is the lowest stage of inhumanity. It is an appeal to our own hearts. How should we like such a return to our beneficence? Despised! Are we not thrilled with the unnaturalness of the act? We despise that which is evil and contemptible; but the apostle speaks of despising that which is good. It is wonderful that God acts as He does; it is far more wonderful that man should treat that action with contumely and scorn. What madness for the shipwrecked sailor to despise the rope thrown to him! What folly for the inhabitants of a burning house to scorn the fire escape! But to spurn the tenderness of God is incomprehensible in the intensity of its madness.

III. Thy wonderful loss–That leadeth thee to repentance. He who despises the riches of Divine forbearance despises that which ought to lead to his eternal salvation. Earthly friendships are precious, how much more the friendship of God! Yet this is despised, and so lost, and with it happiness, peace, glory, eternal life. But the loss consists not only in what we lose, but in what we gain. It is easy to lose by a gain. A man had a splendid coat given him which had been worn by a fever patient. He gained the coat, but he lost his life. In despising God we not only lose heaven, but we involve ourselves in eternal condemnation. (J. J. S. Bird, B. A.)

Gods goodness

As the sun sends forth a benign and gentle influence on the seed of plants, that it may invite forth the active and plastic power from its recess and secrecy, that, by rising into the tallness and dimensions of a tree, it may still receive a greater and more refreshing influence from its foster father, the prince of all the bodies of light; and, in all these emanations, the sun itself receives no advantage but the honour of doing benefits: so doth the Almighty Father of all the creatures. He at first sends forth His blessings upon us, that we, by using them aright, should make ourselves capable of greater; while giving glory to God and doing homage to Him are nothing to His advantage but only to ours; our duties towards Him being vapours ascending from the earth, not at all to refresh the regions of the clouds, but to return back in a fruitful and refreshing shower; and God created us, not that we can increase His felicity, but that He might have a subject receptive of felicity from Him. (Bp. Taylor.)

Gods riches

A favourite word of Pauls, implying abundance, preciousness. It is applied to–

1. Gods wisdom and knowledge (Rom 11:33).

2. His glory (Rom 9:23).

3. His grace (Eph 1:7; Eph 2:7).

4. The glory of His inheritance (Eph 1:18).

5. The glory of this mystery (Col 1:27).

6. The full assurance of understanding (Col 2:2).

7. The unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph 3:8).

8. The liberality of the poor (2Co 8:2). Here the riches–

(1) Of goodness is goodness overflowing, multiplied, long-continued.

(2) Of forbearance is patience all but unwearied.

(3) Of long suffering is delay in punishing beyond all expectation. Corresponding aggravation of the sinners impenitence. (T. Robinson, D. D.)

Gods riches

I. In what they consist.

1. By the goodness of God! understand those providential mercies which surround us, and ought to lead us to acknowledge Him, and those which are manifested in His calling sinners out of darkness into His marvellous light: We are to bear in mind that there was no one single thing in man which could attract or merit Gods goodness, but that all sprang from Gods sovereign grace.

2. The forbearance of God is His withholding the judgments which are due to His enemies (Rom 3:24, etc.).

3. The long suffering of God is manifested–

(1) By the plenteousness of redemption. We can understand that plenteousness–

(a) By looking at the will of God. He does not desire that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

(b) By the infinite price that has been paid.

(c) By the extent to which that redemption reaches.

II. The right use of these riches.

1. The awakening of our better affections. There is a sorrow for sin which worketh death, and a sorrow which needs not to be repented of. When we realise the greatness of Gods goodness there will be a greatness of love toward God–e.g., take the history of the woman spoken of in Luk 7:1-50. When we truly understand the extent of sin which has been pardoned, the depths of misery from which we have been extricated, the heights of glory to which we are to be admitted, then, and not till then, will our hearts burn with love towards God.

2. To teach us the exceeding sinfulness of sin–that we are sinning not only against One whose eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity, but against One who is good, and to lead us therefore to repentance.

III. Their abuse. How common is it that men live and die despising the riches of Gods love! Take the case of temporal mercies. How many speak of their good fortune, their success, never considering that these things came from God! And if we turn to the subject of our gracious mercies, how many are there who presume upon the continuance of those mercies, and determine to indulge in sin, as if there were no reckoning time for them (Ecc 8:1-17). There are many who misrepresent Gods forbearance as though He were overlooking sin. Many are there who, when they learn the exceeding riches of His grace, suppose that sin can therefore be of no consequence (Jer 7:9-10). (Bp. Villiers.)

The riches of Gods goodness

God only is originally good. All created goodness is a rivulet from this fountain, but Divine goodness has no spring. God has it in and of Himself. All the goodness that is in His creatures is but the flowing of His goodness upon them, and vast is the number towards whom it flows–angels, glorified spirits, men, etc.
there is still less manifested than is left. All possible creatures are not capable of exhausting its riches. And God only is perfectly good, because infinitely good. He is good without indigence, because He has the whole nature of goodness, not only some beams that may admit of increase of degree. As nothing has an absolutely perfect being but God, so nothing has an absolutely perfect goodness but God; as the sun has a perfection of heat in it, but what is warmed by the sun is imperfectly hot, and equals not the sun in that perfection of heat wherewith it is naturally endued And then God only is immutably good. Other things may be good by supernatural power, but not in their own nature; i.e., they are not so good but they may be bad; God is so good that He cannot be bad. (S. Charnock, B. D.)

The exuberance of Gods goodness

There is not so much sin in man as there is goodness in God. There is a vaster disproportion between sin and grace than between a spark and an ocean. Who would doubt whether a spark could be quenched in an ocean? Thy thoughts of disobedience towards God have been within the compass of time; but His goodness hath been bubbling up towards thee from all eternity. (N. Culverwell.)

The riches of Gods goodness

Goodness to the innocent, or goodness to the deserving, merely displays this attribute in a state of simplicity; but the goodness which remains unequalled and unexhausted after it has been sinned against–the goodness which persists in multiplying upon the transgressor the chances of his recovery, and that in the midst of affront and opposition–the goodness which, loathe to inflict the retaliating blow, still holds out a little longer and a little longer; and, with all the means in its power of avenging the insults of disobedience, still ekes out the season for its return, and plies it with all the encouragements of a free pardon and an offered reconciliation. This is the exuberance of goodness, this is the richness of forbearance and long suffering; and it is the very display which God is now making in reference to our world. And by every year which rolls over our heads–by every morning in which we find that we have awoke to the light of a new day, instead of awaking in torment–by every hour and every minute through which she stroke of death is suspended, and you still continue a breathing man in the land of gospel calls and gospel invitations–is God now justifying His goodness towards you. And earnest as He is for your return, and heedless as you are of all this earnestness, does it call as time moves onwards for a higher and a higher exertion of forbearance on the part of the Divinity, to restrain His past and accumulating wrath from being discharged on the head of those among whom though God entreats yet no man will turn, and though He stretch out His hand yet no man regardeth. (T. Chalmers, D. D.)

Despising the riches of Gods goodness

I. What are the riches of Gods goodness? etc. The greatness, the abundance of His kindness and patience towards sinful men.

1. To understand this you must consider the greatness of the provocation that is given Him. Look around you–look within you! Can you help seeing how unspeakable the outrage that is offered to Him day by day! Think of–

(1) The amount of it. There is not a moment in which ten thousand times ten thousand lips are not uttering corrupt communications; not a moment in which as many guilty hearts are not thinking wicked thoughts; not a moment in which as many hands and feet are not hastening to acts of sin. And Gods all-seeing eye perceives at every instant, and in every quarter, one widespread scene of sin and vileness.

(2) The heinousness of it. It is the Creator, the Preserver, the Redeemer of mankind who is thus sinned against. Nor do men sin through ignorance of His requirements. He hath written His law in the consciences of men; and to a vast multitude He hath revealed it plainly in His Scriptures. Yet they only listen to His precepts that they may tread them under foot. They know that He hath sent His Son into the world to die for them; and yet they do outrage to His very mercies–neglecting such a great salvation.

2. And now behold the riches of Gods goodness, etc. How doth He act? Doth He crush every sinner? No; He sits patiently seeing and hearing all the outrage that is done to Him; yet holding back His judgments, and giving breath to all these sinners, and providing food convenient for them. True, God doth in some cases break forth and vindicate the injured honour of His name by sending instant death on the transgressor. But such instances are comparatively rare. Where is the sinner who hath not cause to say that the Lord is slow to punish.

3. But why is this?

(1) Is it because He looks upon sin with indifference and unconcern? Is it excusable–is it a trifle in His eyes? No; sin is an abomination in His holy eyes beyond what we can possibly imagine.

(2) Is it, then, a want of ability to punish them? Were God only to pronounce the word, how instantly would death be at our side! Nay, were He only to take from you His preserving hand, where would you now be?

(3) Why, then, if sin be so exceedingly sinful, why does He prolong the life of the transgressor? (2Pe 3:9; Eze 33:1-33).

II. What frame of mind they ought to lead us to. Who can meditate on the goodness of God and not feel that it calls him to repentance?

1. It does so, were it only for this reason, that it gives the sinner time and opportunity to turn to God.

2. While there is a time there is a call. So long as Gods forbearance gives you opportunity, His grace gives you invitation. The sinner may be sure that, whilst the long suffering of God waiteth, he is welcome to a Saviour, and cannot seek in vain (Job 33:27-28).

3. But Gods long suffering makes, on another ground, a strong appeal to guilty man. Suppose it were a fellow creature we had wronged, and he should return our injuries with kindness and forbearance, should we not be moved and melted by it? Then how much more ought we to be melted down by the forbearance of our God! As often as you have sinned against Him, so often hath He pitied you and spared you. How different His dealings towards you from your dealings towards Him! Ought not this amazing kindness of the Lord to make you feel the vileness of your sins?

III. What is it to despise them? In order to reply there is only need to describe the way in which men do avail themselves of Gods forbearance.

1. Multitudes draw courage from it to live on in sin (Ecc 8:11; Psa 7:21). Let not, then, a man venture after reading the text to bolster himself up in sin by making Gods long suffering his pillow. If God prolong a wicked mans life it is not because God hath a liking for that man, or because He views his conduct with indifference; it is to give him time and reason for repentance; but if the man be not led unto repentance by Gods goodness to him, that goodness will only aggravate his final ruin (Psa 92:1-15).

2. They also despise it who consider not that the goodness of God leadeth them to repentance. Alas! how vain for countless multitudes of sinners is the time in which God waits for them! The three-score years and ten are all consumed in vanity, and end as they began. (A. Roberts, M. A.)

Gods goodness despised

I. The object of Gods goodness is–

1. To exhibit His perfections and to receive His creatures praise.

2. To attach this to Himself in gratitude and love.

3. To lead them to obedience and a holy life.

II. Gods goodness is despised.

1. When not duly noticed.

2. When not followed by grateful acknowledgment.

3. When the end aimed at in it is disregarded. (T. Robinson, D. D.)

The heinousness of despising Gods goodness

To sin against law is daring, but to sin against love is dastardly. To rebel against justice is inexcusable, but to fight against mercy is abominable. He who can sting the hand which nourishes him is nothing less than a viper. When a dog bites its own master, and bites him when he is feeding him and fondling him, no one will wonder if his owner becomes his executioner. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Gods goodness, etc., not to be despised

I. The goodness, forbearance, and long suffering of God.

1. As God is good, infinitely good in Himself, so–

(1) His goodness was the cause of the universe, and is still the source of all His dispensations. It is true, all His other attributes also were concerned in creating, and are still concerned in governing the world; but it seems they are all but modifications of His goodness. What is His wisdom but goodness planning and directing? His power but goodness executing? His justice but goodness governing, etc.

(2) And if His goodness gave origin to the universe in general, so did it to man in particular, as he was first formed, that masterpiece of Divine workmanship. Although by the Fall we forfeited every blessing our Creator had bestowed upon us, His goodness continues to us (Act 14:17).

(3) His goodness is more particularly manifested in our redemption, in which especially the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared (Tit 3:4; Joh 3:16; 1Jn 4:9). The unspeakable extent of His goodness is seen in the dignity of the Person given, and the humiliation and sufferings to which He was given (Php 2:6-8); the unworthiness of those for whom He undertook; the great misery from which we are rescued; the happiness to which we are, or may be, advanced. It is manifested in the blessings consequent on our redemption; as in the information afforded by the gospel, and means of grace (Luk 1:78); the influences of the Holy Spirit; the sincere and free offer of salvation, both present and eternal.

(4) As to the influence this goodness of God ought to have upon us; ought it not to humble us, as a much less display of goodness did one of old? (Gen 32:10) to fill us with gratitude and love?

2. His forbearance–

(1) Exercised of old towards the heathen world (Act 14:15-16; Act 17:24-31). What an awful picture in chap. 1, and what a proof of Gods forbearance that He should endure those depicted! Towards the Jews (verse 1, 17-24), whose perverse and sinful manners He suffered for ages. (Act 13:18; Isa 1:5). Towards sinners still; those wilfully ignorant, neglecting the means of instruction; those living in open or secret sin, and though knowing their Masters will (Isa 65:2; Isa 1:10), such as rest contented without Christian experience and practice, such as leave their first love and backslide (Hos 11:7-9; Jer 3:12); unfruitful and slothful Christians, compared to the earth drinking in the rain which cometh oft upon it (Heb 6:7-8). He bears with them year after year.

(2) What is the end for which He bears with them? That a reformation may be wrought, and a change take place in all the instances mentioned. If there be no alteration, still God is–

3. Long suffering, i.e., slow to punish (Num 14:18; Joe 2:12). Many instances of this are noticed in Scripture, as towards the old world in the days of Noah (1Pe 3:20; cf. Gen 6:3-7; Gen 7:4). Towards the world now (2Pe 3:7-9). Towards particular nations, as Egypt, in the days of Pharaoh (Gen 15:13-14; Rom 9:22); the Canaanites (Gen 15:16); the Israelites in all ages (Isa 5:1), especially in the time of Christ (Mat 3:7-10; Luk 13:6-9). Towards particular cities, as Sodom (Gen 18:20); Nineveh (Jon 1:2; Jon 3:10; Jon 4:11); Babylon, Tyre. Towards Churches that have left their first love (Rev 2:1-6); that are lukewarm (Rev 3:15); that are formal and dead and barren (Rev 3:1). Towards families, as that of Ahab (1Ki 21:29); the house of Stuart, in England, and of Bourbon, in France. Towards individuals innumerable of all characters, whom God is slow to punish, and even to chastise (Luk 13:7).

II. How these attributes, included under the name of the goodness of God, lead, or should lead, men to repentance.

1. Repentance is–

(1) After thought or reflection; the looking back upon our former ways, and considering them with a just conviction of our guilt, attended with humiliation, sorrow, and hatred of all our sins.

(2) A change of mind of all our powers.

(3) Evidenced by the production of the proper fruits.

2. How does the goodness of God lead men to repentance? His long suffering leaves room for it (Rev 2:21), which there would not be if punishment followed immediately on the heels of transgression. His forbearance, when considered, strongly invites, persuades, and must move an ingenuous mind. His goodness and bounty also afford every needful and useful help, as the mediation and intercession of Christ; the ministry of the Word; the chastisements and blessings of Providence; the strivings and influences of the Holy Spirit.

III. The reasons why the goodness of God does not produce that effect. These are–

1. Ignorance.

Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. Ignorance of their fallen state and exposure to Divine wrath; of the worth and necessity of holiness; of the true character of God, that He is as holy and just as He is merciful and gracious; of the dignity of the Redeemer, and of His great love and sufferings: of the end of mans creation, preservation, and redemption; of the infinite importance of this short span of human life, and how much depends on our rightly improving it, as a state of trial, for eternity.

2. Hardness, or callousness, contracted by sinning against light, and the formation of evil habits (Eph 4:18-19).

3. An impenitent heart, i.e., an inconsiderate, unreflecting, and therefore unrelenting heart. (Joseph Brown.)

Gods goodness: its abuse and its design

1. It is an instance of Divine condescension that the Lord reasons with men, and asks this question, and others like it (Isa 1:5; Isa 55:2; Jer 3:4; Eze 33:11).

2. God not only acts kindly to sinners, but when they misuse His kindness He labours to set them right (Isa 1:18; Hos 11:8).

3. It is a sad thing that any who have seen Gods judgments on others, and have escaped themselves, should draw from this special mercy a reason for adding sin to sin (Jer 3:8). From the Lords earnest question let us learn wisdom.

I. Let us honour the lords goodness and forbearance. A reverent sense of it will be a sure safeguard against despising it. It is manifested to us–

1. In a three-fold form.

(1) Goodness which has borne with past sin (Psa 78:38).

(2) Forbearance which bears with us in the present (Psa 103:10).

(3) Long suffering which, in the future as in the past and the present, is prepared to bear with the guilty (Luk 13:7-9).

2. In great abundance–riches of His goodness.

(1) Riches of mercies bestowed, temporal and spiritual (Psa 68:19).

(2) Riches of kindness seen in gracious deliverance, measured by evils averted which might have befallen us, such as sickness, poverty, insanity, death, and hell (Psa 86:13).

(3) Riches of grace promised and provided for all needs.

3. In its excellence by four considerations.

(1) The person who shows it. It is the goodness of God who is omniscient to see sin, just to hate it, powerful to punish it, yet patient towards the sinner (Psa 145:8).

(2) The being who receives it. It is dealt out to man, a guilty, insignificant, base, provoking, ungrateful being (Gen 6:6).

(3) The conduct to which it is a reply. It is loves response to sin. Often God forbears, though sins are many, wanton, aggravated, daring, repeated, etc. (Mal 3:6).

(4) The boons which it brings. Life, daily bread, health, gospel, Holy Spirit, new birth, hope of heaven, etc. (Psa 68:19).

4. It has been in a measure manifested to you. Despisest thou?

II. Let us consider how it may be despised.

1. By allowing it to remain unnoticed–ungratefully passing it over.

2. By claiming it as our due, and talking as if God were bound to bear with us.

3. By opposing its design, and refusing to repent (Pro 1:24-25).

4. By perverting it into a reason for hardness of heart, presumption, infidelity, and further sin (Zep 1:12; Ecc 8:11).

5. By urging it as an apology for procrastination (2Pe 3:3-4).

III. Let us feel the force of its leadings. The forbearance of God should lead us to repentance. For we should argue thus

1. He is not hard and unloving, or He would not have spared us.

2. His great patience deserves recognition at our hands. We are bound to respond to it in a generous spirit.

3. To go on to offend would be cruel to Him, and disgraceful to ourselves. Nothing can be baser than to make forbearance a reason for provocation.

4. It is evident from His forbearance that He will rejoice to accept us if we will turn to Him. He spares that He may save.

5. He has dealt with each one personally, and by this means He is able to put it, as in the text, God leadeth thee to repentance. He calls us individually to Himself. Let each one personally remember his own experience of sparing mercies.

6. The means are so gentle, let us yield to them cheerfully. Those who might refuse to be driven should consent to be drawn.

Conclusion–

1. Each gift of goodness draws thee to Jesus!

2. Forbearance would fain weep thee to Jesus!

3. Long suffering waits and woos thee to Jesus! Wilt thou not turn from sin and return unto thy God, or despisest thou the riches of His goodness? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

And forbearance.–

Gods forbearance

The Roman magistrates, when they gave sentence of scourging, a bundle of rods tied hard with many knots was laid before them. The reason was this: that whilst the flagellifer was untying the knots, which he was to do in a certain order, and not hastily, the magistrate might see the deportment of the delinquent, whether he was sorry for his fault, and showed hope of amendment, that he might recall his sentence or mitigate the punishment; otherwise he was to be corrected the more severely. Thus God in the punishment of sinners, how patient is He! how loath to strike! how slow to anger if there be but hopes of recovery! How many knots doth He untie! How many knots doth He make in His way to justice! He doth not try us by martial law, but pleads the ease with us, Why will ye die? And all this to see whether the poor sinner will throw himself down at His feet, make his peace and be saved. (T. Fuller, D. D.)

The patience of God

I. Its nature. It is one of those attributes which the sins of His creatures first called into exercise. We are not to suppose that it proceeds from any ignorance in God, for He has set all our misdeeds before Him. Nor is it the fruit of indifference. On the contrary, it implies that God is angry with the wicked every day. Neither must we ascribe it to a want of power to punish. We sometimes bear with provocations because we are unable to avenge them; but the Omnipotent has at all times the means of vengeance.

II. Its source. Solely Gods goodness. These attributes are mentioned together, and the one must be regarded as the origin of the other. Goodness, when exercised in withholding vengeance is patience; and when continued under repeated provocations, is long suffering. There is, however, a distinction to be made between the goodness and the patience of God. Man, as needy, is the partaker of the one, whilst man, as guilty, is the object of the other. Goodness supplies our wants, patience bears with our sins. The one will endure forever, and is inseparable from the Divine nature; the other is adapted only to the present scene of things, and may end tomorrow.

III. Its greatness, or its riches. Every blessing Christ has purchased in abundance. The mercy He has obtained is great and tender, the grace manifold and exceeding, the redemption plenteous, the joy unspeakable, the glory an exceeding great and eternal weight. In regard to Gods patience consider–

1. How long it has been exercised.

2. How many sins every man commits.

3. How aggravated and daring many of our provocations have been.

4. How many sinners there are.

IV. Its designed effect. Repentance. The forbearance of the Almighty–

1. Gives us time for repentance.

2. Shows that the penitent may obtain forgiveness.

3. Has a tendency to produce repentance in our hearts.

Experience proves that mans stubborn heart is much less likely to be subdued by the contemplation of vengeance, than by the influence of mercy.

V. The hanger of despising it. We are undoubtedly guilty of this sin–

1. When we are unmindful of the patience which bears with us, when we either think nothing at all about it, or think of it lightly.

2. When we draw encouragement from it to continue in sin.

And long suffering.—

Gods long suffering a demonstration of His almighty power

Long suffering is the greatest exhibition of power on this side the day of judgment. It is our evidence that God now possesses all that God shall then exercise.

1. When I am told that God is long suffering, and no limitations are placed on the attribute, you bring before me a picture as overwhelming in outline as stupendous in detail. I see at once that God can punish sin. Then vice may seem to carry it over virtue, and I may search in vain through all that is passing over a disordered creation for tokens that a moral government is still upheld; and the infidel may tauntingly refer to the triumph of evil, and infer that God has been compelled to abandon one world at least to the dominion of His foes; but fastening on the long suffering of the Creator, I am proof against all doubts as to His power. He could not be long suffering unless He could punish; He could not punish unless He were supreme.

2. To each of us He has been long suffering. Each of us has provoked His wrath, and yet upon none of us has that wrath come down to its fury. So that if the great demonstration of Gods power be His long suffering, then each of us may find in himself that demonstration in all its completeness. And thus it may be possible that after summoning suns and seas and mountains to give in their tribute to His night, that angels may be looking down upon myself as the crowning proof; and not because I am marvellous as the compound of matter and spirit, of mortal and immortal: and not because I inherit a nature that has been taken into union with the Divine; but because I have sinned and yet breathe; because I have defied the living God and not been consumed; because I have been long offending and God has been long suffering–therefore may they regard me as the most perfect demonstration that the power of their Lord is great; and assign me because spared in mine offences, a place amongst the witnesses to the almightiness of their Maker, which they give not to the marching of planets, nor to the gorgeousness of light, nor to their own beauty as ethereal beings, and rapid and masterful.

3. We have all heard of the infidel challenging God to prove His existence by smiting him, His denier. Now you can hardly picture to yourselves a being exercising over himself so perfect a command that, with all the apparatus of fiery reply at his disposal, he should not answer the challenge by levelling him who utters it to the ground. Can you measure to me the effort which it would be to a creature to keep the thunder silent, and to chain up the lightning? Yet the atheist is allowed to depart unscathed; and the proof of Gods existence, which would have seemed preeminently calculated to overspread a neighbourhood with terrible conviction is mysteriously withheld. But the believer learns Gods might a hundredfold more from the unbroken silence of the firmament than he would from the hoarse tones of vengeance rushing down to the destruction of the rebel. The atheist overthrown–this is as nothing to the atheist spared. It would have been as nothing that God should have launched the bolt–the prodigy whose height I cannot scale, whose depth I cannot fathom is that God should have withheld the bolt. I should have learnt God powerful over the elements had I seen the blasphemer a blackened corpse at my feet: I learn God powerful over Himself when the questioner of His deity passes on uninjured.

4. When I think on the difference between Gods creating a world and Gods pardoning a sin–the one done without effort, the other demanding an instrumentality terribly sublime; the one effected by a word, the other wrought out in agony and blood on a quaking earth and beneath a darkened heaven–the one is as nothing beside the other. That God can pardon is at the very summit of what is wonderful; and therefore then, O Lord, do I most know Thee as the Omnipotent when I behold in Thee the long suffering. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.—

Goodness leading to repentance

A distinguished minister on a journey was once stopped by a highwayman, and called on to deliver his purse, with the weapon of death presented at his breast. Wait, said the man of God, for one moment; and instantly fell on his knees and offered a fervent prayer for the unhappy man before him. The murderer stood silent, and listened. When the holy man had finished his supplication, he said to him for whom he had prayed: Do you not wish for some better employment than this; some other means of a livelihood? The answer was in the affirmative. Come, then, said the minister, to such a place, naming his own residence, and without ever divulging this act of yours while you live, such a provision shall be made for you. He confided in the assurance of one so intent on his welfare; became a member of his own family–an humble disciple of Christ: and, after a life of exemplary piety, died at the age of sixty, when, in his funeral sermon, the minister related these facts. (N. W. Taylor, D. D.)

Gods goodness leading to repentance

Let us–

I. Expound the text.

1. Repentance denotes a change of mind, inclination, and habits.

2. Leadeth describes the method in which the Lord deals with rational creatures. There is a sort of spurious repentance, to which men are sometimes driven. Thus Ahab was driven by Divine threatenings, Pharaoh by supernatural judgments, Felix by the dread of a future reckoning, and Judas by the terror of his own conscience; but to genuine repentance a man is led; allured by the discovery of hope, and the attraction of love.

3. Thee. It matters not so much what others are: the question is, What are we? The charge of the prophet is pointed: No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?

4. Observe what it is that conducts to this result. The goodness of God, Not that this is always the case. It frequently emboldens men in transgression, and hardens them in impenitence. The text, however, expresses its natural and proper tendency.

II. Illustrate the sentiment which it contains. The goodness of God–

1. Gives time for repentance. This is implied in the forbearance and long suffering. It is said of one, I gave her space to repent and she repented not. Here was the perversion of Divine goodness. Of others it is affirmed, Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Here is depravity in its most hateful form. Let us account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation.

2. Provides the means.

(1) The law, by which is the knowledge of sin.

(2) Affliction, Which, while it gives leisure for reflection, disposes to the duty.

(3) The gospel. A man may be convinced of sin; but his repentance is not unto salvation, except so far as he is persuaded of mercy, and discovers a door of hope.

3. Furnishes motives. Note–

(1) The common mercies you enjoy. Are they not all forfeited by sin? And yet do they not freely, richly, and constantly descend?

(2) Every special interposition of God in your favour. From how many dangers and sicknesses has He delivered you?

(3) Trials. Are not trials wisely appointed; mitigated by abounding comforts, and mingled with innumerable benefits?

(4) The authority which enjoins it. God hath commanded all men everywhere to repent.

(5) The love which recommends it. How tender the expostulations, how precious the promises of the gospel on this subject! Return, ye backsliding children. Let the wicked forsake his way, etc.

(6) The grace which accepts it. For repentance is accepted, not in consideration of its desert, but in virtue of the mediation of the Saviour.

(7) The examples which illustrate it. The Prodigal, Zaccheus, Peter, etc.

Conclusion:

1. Does not this subject remind you of the hardness of the human heart? The design of Divine goodness is apparent; its true tendency is most beneficial; but how is it perverted and abused!

2. Forget not the necessity of the Holy Spirit to produce this change. He it is who works repentance by impressing the heart with a sense of Divine goodness; and of the evil of sin, and to feel the attractions of heavenly love, as displayed in the gospel. (T. Kidd.)

The goodness of God a persuasive to repentance

1. There is much in the very nature of Divine goodness that is fitted to lead men to repentance. It lays them and all intelligent beings in the universe under everlasting obligations to love and serve God, the great Author of their being and of their mercies. It shows also, in a very affecting light, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as committed against the greatest and best of beings. It appeals to our reason; and the verdict is that to sin against such a Being as God is a most guilty perversion of, the noble faculties with which He has endowed us. It appeals to our sense of duty; and the verdict is that no obligation is so strong as that which binds us to the love and service of Jehovah. It appeals to our gratitude, to our hopes and fears; and the verdict is that no good can be secured so great as that which flows from repentance toward God, and no evil incurred so tremendous as that which must result from continued impenitence. There is, too, a peculiarity in the mode in which Divine goodness flows to guilty man which adds inexpressibly to its tender, persuasive power. It is not goodness flowing to innocent beings through the unobstructed channels of benevolence; but goodness flowing to lost sinners through the mediation and suffering of the Son of God. Here is goodness such as was never manifested in any world but ours, nor towards any other beings but the lost children of men.

2. The goodness of God is suited to lead men to repentance, as it secures for them a respite from punishment and gives a space for repentance.

3. The goodness of God leads to repentance, as it has opened a way in which repentance is available to secure pardon and life for even the chief of sinners.

4. The goodness of God is fitted to lead to repentance, as it furnishes the best possible means of repentance, and the most powerful motives to this duty. Consider the impressive instruction poured around you from the Word, the providence, and the works of God. All these conspire to impress on your mind the same lessons of eternal wisdom and love. Notice next the invitations of Divine goodness; they must avail to subdue every heart that is not a heart of stone.

Turn next to the promises which Divine goodness has made to those that repent–promises of pardon, grace, and eternal glory. Such, then, being the tendency of the goodness of God, let us inquire what are its actual effects.

1. All who truly love God feel the constraining power of His goodness, and by it are made penitent, believing, thankful, and obedient.

2. There is another class of persons whom the goodness of God appears to leave wholly unaffected and unmoved. Is not this to despise the riches of Gods goodness, and with singular rapidity to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath?

3. There is another class who go still farther, and take encouragement from the goodness of God to sin against Him with an increased freedom and boldness. This is eminently to despise the riches of the goodness of God, and forbearance, and longsuffering. (J. Hawes, D. D.)

The Divine goodness a motive to repentance

There is no need to insist on the necessity of repentance; for nothing would appear more impious than for anyone to say, I need no repentance. But there is a consideration of very grave importance, viz., that all men will certainly come to repentance. In this view it is a very solemn thing to look at the thoughtless, impious, hardened, self-righteous, and think, You will certainly repent! your repentance may be in vain–too late, but it will certainly come! But we would speak of reasons that should enforce it now; and surely this should be a powerful one. If ultimate repentance is inevitable, under an irresistible power, how desirable it should not be left to be caused so; but be effected under the persuasive influence of more gracious causes! And of these the chief is the goodness of God, manifested, acknowledged, and felt. Contemplate, then, that goodness.

I. As beheld in the same view with the deserts of man.

1. What is it in man that is adequately correspondent to that goodness? Is it a humble, constant sense of dependence? an affectionate admiration of His beneficence? a mighty attraction towards Him? a solicitude to be conformed to Him an aversion to all that He disapproves?

2. Look at any of the particulars of His goodness–His constant provision, His watchful protection, His compassionate care of weakness. What corresponds to these? His rays of instructive wisdom falling on man–what corresponds? Love of truth? anxiety to be taught? His shining forth on them, a sovereign pattern of sanctity, and in an economy of redemption–what does this very thing imply that there is in man to answer to it?

II. In the same view with the manifestations of Gods mind against sin. How many they are, how decisive, solemn, just! And yet the world is not made an unmingled scene of vindictive execution. His just denunciations are sent conjoined with mercies exceeding the number of the expressions that He is offended, as if He would not send His rebukes or threatenings but by the hands of friends. It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed.

III. As being contemporary with each sin in our long succession of offences. Advert to any sin in its time, there was goodness experiencing then: advert to the next, and the next; at that time there was still the goodness of God, and in various ways at once.

IV. By supposing it withdrawn. Deprivation is sometimes the most effectual way of verifying what and how much a thing was. So God might cause His bounty to recede on every side of the sphere of our interests. On one side a diminution just enough to be felt at first; but speedily more, and still more; the same operation on another side: something still departing day after day!–things we had scarcely thought of as mercies, leaving incurable pain, or want, behind; our condition becoming more and more miserable, till we sunk in a death without consolation or hope! Or, instead of this gradual process, a sudden general deprivation.

V. In its character of patience and long suffering. All His lengthened indulgence, His train of favours–what for? What, but that there might be increasing gratitude and devotedness? And when has there been such a degree of these, that it was anything but mere goodness in God to continue His favours? (J. Foster.)

The goodness of God an inducement to repentance

Adversity has its place in the salutary economy of probation, but Gods voice may be discerned in prosperity at least as much as in adversity, and much more frequently. The latter is His common way of addressing us; to the other mode He only resorts when for some reason it is necessary or expedient.

I. How may we abuse the goodness of God? We do so–

1. When we accept His gifts but ignore Him. How common a thing it is for men to enjoy the good things of this life, without thinking for one moment that they come from God! How many of us take our portion without a thought of thankfulness, as though it came from that office keeper, Nature, instead of from our Fathers hands! How does it cut us to the heart when our gifts elicit no grateful recognition! And where is there a man that would go on from year to year repeating his kindnesses where no sort of notice was taken of him? And what do men gain by this? nay, what do they not lose? Should we enjoy His gifts any the less if we took them as coming from the Giver, and found in each an occasion for fresh manifestation of grateful love? Where we receive the gifts of God, but disown the Giver, the gift loses the most precious part of its value. It ceases to be a gift at all to our higher nature.

2. When we accept His gifts, and find in them a substitute for Himself, and so many reasons why we should ignore Him. He gives us many good things, that we think we can dispense with Him, the Giver; so much gratification, that we have no need to seek a truer and deeper gratification in His love. But when His gifts thus become substitutes for Himself, and you turn away from Him because you enjoy them, surely you are making it necessary for Him to take them away. Rather than let you lose all, in your folly and blindness He may see fit to take away some of the many good things that you enjoy. Why not hear His voice in all that He gives you, and let the goodness of God lead you to repentance?

3. By counting upon the continuance of His goodness, in order that we may go on sinning against Him. This is the very worst abuse, and it is to this that St. Paul here specially refers–the abuse of Gods forbearance, who, though provoked, in the magnanimity of His nature goes on forbearing to smite when smaller natures must inevitably have lost patience long since. He waits because He loves; and yet this is the very characteristic that men count upon in order to sin against Him, as they hope, with impunity. Were it clearly understood by any that Gods long suffering would reach its term this very night, where is there one who would dare to defy the Majesty of heaven? Surely there cannot be any meanness so repulsive. Common manhood should lead us to say, I cant be at one and the same moment the pensioner of Gods bounty and the enemy of His authority. But what are the facts of the case? What is more common than to meet with utterly godless people, who have the fullest intention of turning to God some day or other, most probably in a dying hour! But if we cant be put out of conceit with this, by considering its meanness and unmanliness, it may be well to remember that Gods goodness is not weakness, that even His forbearance must have its term. Because I have called, and ye refused, etc. (Pro 1:24-28). He who attempts to mock God finds in the end that he is only mocked himself. It is not that you evade or escape the penalty of your base ingratitude and perfidy, but it is that you treasure it up (verse 5). Just think of the possibility of laying up treasure in hell!

II. Its use. The history of sin dates from the first suspicious thought of God. This thought Satan delights in cherishing, until those who yield to his influence get to think of God as if He were a pitiless tyrant, ever ready to diminish our happiness. On the other hand, a real repentance begins with the repudiation of all such false views of God, and to such a repentance the goodness of God, revealed in all His dealings with us, is intended to lead; and surely it will if we will only let it speak to our heart. How can God be stern and unsympathetic when He gives us so much to enjoy?

1. If He provides for the gratification of every sense with which He endows us, multiplying the fair sights and sweet sounds of nature, and sometimes stirring all our being with the vision of the beautiful or the sublime, how can He be the enemy of our happiness?

2. Or, if He enriches you with all that social wealth accumulated through the ages, so constituting society that man may become a source of untold gratification to his fellow man, surely His goodness in all this must needs show that He is the Friend and not the enemy of human happiness. Is it not to Him that we owe music, art, literature, science, and philosophy? and how much of enjoyment do all these add to life?

3. It is from Him that we derive both our faculties of loving and all those tender relations of home and friendship which call forth our love and which contribute so much to increase the joy of life; surely, then, we wrong Him when we shrink from Him as though He were the enemy of our happiness.

4. But is there not one supreme manifestation of His goodness which should move us more than all the rest and bring us to repentance? God so loved the world, etc. He let His own Son suffer to spare you suffering! Let His goodness carry the day triumphantly. (W. Hay Aitken, M. A.)

Gods goodness and repentance

I. The action specified–Repentance.

1. Its nature.

2. Its necessity. Why is it necessary? Not because it earns the favour of God or claims the pity, but because–

(1) It shows a true desire to be His disciple.

(2) It manifests a breaking with the world and the evil that is therein.

(3) It brings the soul into harmony with the Divine purposes and plan.

II. The motive which prompts–The goodness of God.

1. God never drives when He can lead. The grand principle of all His dealings is to lead His people, even as He led the children of Israel, by a cloud.

2. What it is to lead us to repentance. It is goodness, and the point of this goodness is that it is–

(1) Undeserved. It is shown to rebels, enemies, and persecutors.

(2) Continuous. Good is not one thing today and another tomorrow.

(3) Unassuming. God, unlike some human patrons, does not make a mighty show of His goodness to sinners; He treats them with tenderness and gentleness.

III. The conduct enjoined. The apostle indirectly urges upon us all the duty of repentance. Not only the notoriously evil need repentance. The most humble Christian is constantly transgressing. And every act of benevolence we receive should awaken in us the sense of our deficiency and our sorrow therefore. For repentance is not a slavish, legal act. It is not degrading humiliation or desponding misery. It is a consciousness indeed of self-failure, but an expression of loved affection towards our heavenly Father. (J. J S. Bird, B. A.)

The goodness of God designed to reclaim

It has this tendency–

I. As it enforces the commandments of God. These are not merely the commands of one who governs by virtue of His power and supremacy, nor merely of one whom it is our interest or obligation to obey; they are the commands of our Benefactor. The God who, having made us of nothing, still keeps us; the God whose care and presence are ever surrounding us, who gives us friends, health, raiment, food; who provides salvation and offers heaven–it is this God who commands us to repent. Has such a God no claim on us by His mercies?

II. As it appeals to the tenderest and strongest sensibilities of our nature. There is no principle of human nature, fallen and degraded as it is, that is more obvious than that which leads us to requite kindness with kindness. Precisely on this principle does God assail the hearts of sinners. He does not rely merely on His authority over us, nor resort merely to His terrors to alarm us. He who searcheth the heart well knows that, amid all its darkness and corruptions, there is yet another and a surer spring that can be touched. God reveals Himself. God in Christ unfolds Himself in the attractive aspect of the God of mercy in order to touch sympathy, gratitude, and the secret place of tenderness and tears.

III. As it discovers to us the true character of God. God is love, and all the expressions of His kindness to us are only a manifestation, bringing that character before us. We may contemplate and admire moral excellence in another, who may never have been called to show kindness to us. But let us become the objects of that kindness, and we find a new and stronger emotion rising in our hearts, and fixing our strongest affection on Him. And if we have to such a friend been unfaithful, how will the tears of repentance flow when we come again, under a sense of his kindness! It is thus the goodness of God leadeth to repentance–it unvails in brightest manifestation the perfection of His character, directing all its cares, its solicitude, its tenderness to us.

IV. As is shown by its expressions.–

1. In their number. Would we count them? As the sands of the sea, they are without number. And for what are they bestowed? Is it that we deserve them? No. Is it that He cannot strip us of every good thing, and leave us naked before the storm of His wrath? No; it is that He may prove to us how able, how content He is to bless.

2. In their nature. Not one, nor all of them, can become a satisfying portion, but they are exactly fitted to the great end for which they are given–our probation. Every blessing comes with this inscription, Take not this for your portion, but receive it with thanksgiving, and use it with reference to your eternal well-being. Take all these gifts as the pledge of the love of the Creator to His own creature–the proof that He longs for thy love in return, and to flow forth on thee in a pure and abundant stream of good forever.

V. As is demonstrated by facts. What illustrations of this have we while the Saviour was on the earth! In how many hearts did He plant the dominion of His love by acts of kindness! And what multitudes, from Saul of Tarsus downwards, have been actually led by it to repentance! (N. W. Taylor, D. D.)

Gods goodness means salvation

The full force of the text cannot be made to appear except by reading the catalogue of crimes in chap.

1. The apostle goes on to say, substantially, that it made no difference whether these things were committed by the Jew or the Gentile. Wrong is wrong without regard to nationality or anything else. Wrong is the violation of great laws, universal, perpetual, which defend themselves by penalties. If a man drugs himself, the drug vindicates its nature; if a man is selfish, the moral law carries a penalty of selfishness. If a man is good, the law brings forth the fruit of goodness to him. The only question is a question of how shall a man be restrained from the violation of the law of the moral economy; how shall he be developed so that he shall love the good rather than the evil? The apostle here declares that the presentation of the goodness of God is that which constitutionally tends to restrain men from evil, and to develop in them all goodness. Goodness is the working force of Gods nature, and is to be made the working force of all government; but if Gods goodness does not help men, His natural law goes right on to penalties without trial or sentence; the laws execute themselves in the moral kingdom. From this general exposition of this passage I remark–

I. Gods goodness is the grand presentation of Him from which the most influence and benefit is to be expected. It has been a current idea that Gods mercies are alternative, but that His justice is primary; that fear is the primary, mercy the secondary, instrument by which men are to work. But this is in fiat contradiction of the whole tenor of Scripture. First, middle, and last, the Scripture teaches Gods goodness as first to be preached, and if that does not avail, then the alternative comes, namely, the sure penalty of transgression. For example, let us go back to that memorable passage where Moses was about to legislate. He wanted to know (Exo 33:13-15) what view of Gods nature he was to employ, and wished to be filled to overflowing with that view. Then God said to him, I will make all My goodness pass before thee, etc. Then comes the declaration in grand dramatic form, as recorded in Exo 34:6-7. There is the staple view of the character of God. But if men will not see that, and go on still in their transgressions, let them understand that this goodness does not mean the abolition of distinctions between right and wrong. The great law of the universe will go on with its penalties, yea, by heredity for generations to come. The guilty cannot be cleared except upon their repentance and reformation. It is not a goodness that will clear a man and let him do just what he pleases, treating him as if he had been righteous and just. And so Paul at Lystra (Act 14:17). It was the goodness of God that had to be preached to them first. And our text is the same thing. Coming in through the darkness of that terrific record of vices, Paul says that it was the goodness of God that should have led men to repentance. This is the doctrine not only of Scripture, but of good reason or philosophy; for–

II. Goodness and fear touch human nature on different and opposite sides. The double being, man, the animal and spiritual, is approached on the upper and on the under side of his nature. Goodness develops what is of its own nature, touches the spiritual side of man. The presentation of goodness to the affections of a mans upper life helps them. When you present beauty to a man, you tend to develop the same quality in him. But the animal man cannot see anything in beauty. Such a man has to be touched and influenced by fear. You cannot teach duty to a horse or an ass, and so you put a bit and bridle in the mouth, and spurs in their sides, or make them afraid. The training of wild animals goes on wholly on the principle of fear. Therefore fear has in it a power of restraint, but not of development. All the conversions of men that have been the result of fear are hardly worth the letters that spell the story. Whenever the character of God is presented to us as goodness, it waters, stimulates, and develops that side of human nature which is most like God. But when men do net respond to that but range in their lower instincts, then you have got to bring in a restraint, and that restraint comes from fear; but it is secondary, it is alternative. Convicts who are in insurrection, are rushing out for their liberty, rush upon serried ranks of bayonets. One step further and you are dead men, every one of you. They draw back, but they do not become law keepers on that account. They are simply restrained. So, in the great moral government of God, men may be restrained from going further into transgression, but no man is converted by abject fear. If, therefore, human nature is to be developed in the direction of spiritual excellence, you must develop it by the presentation of those excellencies in their supreme forms in God. No view, then, of God, no view of the gospel, no view of the atonement as an element in the gospel, is a right one which does not present the hopeful side, the winning and the cheerful side. God loving and saving is the doctrine of the Bible. (H. W. Beecher.)

Gods goodness in relation to man, and mans relation to it

I. Divine goodness, in its relation to man, is very extraordinary–

1. In its plentitude. The riches of His goodness. See this–

(1) In his constitution. The extent of Gods goodness to a being may be determined by the capacities which He has given for happiness, and the provision He has made to supply them. How great, then, His goodness in the constitution of man! He has a capacity for sensational, intellectual, social, and religious pleasure. Beasts have a capacity for sensational pleasure, but not for intellectual; angels have a capacity for intellectual, but not for sensational; man has a capacity for both. He has powers to draw happiness from all the wells of enjoyment.

(2) In His redemption. God so loved the world, etc. Herein is love, etc.

2. In its form. It is long suffering–forbearance. Gods goodness to brutes or angels is not long suffering. But His goodness to man is goodness holding back the arm of indignant justice.

3. In its design–to lead to repentance; to reform our souls.

II. Mans conduct, in relation to Divine goodness, is very depraved. This is seen–

1. In his inconsideration. Not knowing. Men pay no attention to the moral meaning and design of all this goodness.

2. In his insensibility of heart. Thy hardness and impenitent heart. Pharaoh a type. His heart grew stony under the rich showers of Divine goodness.

3. In his self-destructiveness. Treasurest up wrath. He is transmuting those very streams of goodness into poison. See the electric cloud on the summers sky. It was as small as a mans hand half an hour since, but it has grown wondrously. What is it doing? Treasuring up. Every fresh particle swells and blackens it. It will burst in flame and thunder soon. That cloud is an emblem of the sinner.

III. The day of judgment will be very awful in relation to such conduct. There will come such a day. There is historic, moral, and Biblical evidence enough to satisfy us of this.

1. This judgment will be a righteous judgment. The righteous judgment of God.

2. A universal judgment. Who will render to every man according to his works. How will the abuser of Divine goodness stand in this judgment? He will have tribulation and anguish. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Divine love

God is love; consciously to know this is life. He that loveth is born of God. Not knowing it, the mind despises all the manifestations of Gods goodness which are adapted to lead to repentance unto life. In what way, then, shall we get an influential conviction of the Divine love which tends to produce repentance? The love of God towards us, as spiritual beings, is manifested–

I. In the character and office of conscience. Conscience is not a guide infallible. It is empowered only by faith in God, and it is true only by belief of the truth. This fact is one of the strongest testimonies for the necessity of revelation. With revelation conscience is–

1. Moral admonition. When any sin is contemplated, it whispers, Do not that wickedness and sin against God.

2. Moral impulse. It points to the path of duty and says, That is the way, walk ye in it. You have sinned, arise and go to your Father. Now the design of God is seen in conscience as clearly as the design of the maker in the regulator of a watch. The regulator was placed in the watch to govern its movements and keep the watch right. So was conscience in the soul. God in conscience shows His goodness by placing a power in the soul to deter us from known sin, and to lead us to repentance. Despise not His goodness! The best friend, though he follow the sinful many years, will turn back if his counsel be persistently rejected: so the voice of conscience will abate in the soul if we continue to resist its admonitions.

II. In the character and design of Divine revelation. The true test of benevolence is its design. What, then, is Revelation designed to accomplish for man? The greatest–

1. Individual good. To love God and man is the souls highest good here and hereafter.

2. Social good. Suppose a family obeyed the laws of God–Husbands love your wives; Wives love and reverence your husbands; Children obey your parents in the Lord–who will doubt but that such a family would experience the greatest good?

3. Universal good. If I loved others as myself, I should rejoice in their good as much as my own; and every blessing bestowed upon them would he bestowed upon me, and my blessings upon them.

III. In the motives He presents to incline us to repent and obey. The character of any mind is known by the character of the motives that it presents to influence other minds. Now, in the New Testament, the evil of sin and its final curse are presented to our fears to arrest us in the highway to hell. The purity and glory of heaven are presented to our hopes to induce us to repentance and faith. The heart is appealed to by infinite love. From the Cross the suffering Saviour cries, Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?

IV. In the sacrifice of Christ. A revelation of law does not lead us to love the law that we have transgressed; but a revelation of love, which offers pardon, leads us to love the lawgiver, and thus to honour and obey the law. What the law could not do, etc. God could not make a law which would allow a single sin. But we are all sinners, and in our evil and helpless state Christ offers Himself a propitiation for the sins that are past, that God might be just and the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus. In this was manifested the love of God (1Jn 4:9).

V. To lead us to repentance by the mercy of the Holy Spirits operation. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, i.e., He shows them their sin, points to the true standard of righteousness, and admonishes them of judgment, in order thus to lead them to repentance. Then, in the heart of Christians, He takes of the things of Christ and shows them (Joh 16:14); and as the Christian sees, he repents, worships, and rejoices. In the conviction and indwelling of the Spirit are the love of God manifested to lead men to repentance. (J. B. Walker, M. D.)

Gods goodness to be reverenced

I remember well being taken one day to see a gorgeous palace at Venice, where every piece of furniture was made with most exquisite taste and of the richest material, where statues and pictures of enormous price abounded on all hands, and the floor of each room was paved with mosaics of marvellous art and extraordinary value. As I was shown from room to room, and allowed to roam amid the treasures by its courteous owner, I felt a considerable timidity, I was afraid to sit anywhere, nor did I hardly dare to put down my foot or rest my hand to lean. Everything seemed to be too good for ordinary mortals like myself; but when one is introduced into the gorgeous palace of infinite goodness, costlier and fairer far, one gazes wonderingly with reverential awe at the matchless vision. How excellent is Thy loving kindness, O God! I am not worthy of the least of all Thy benefits. Oh! the depths of the love and goodness of the Lord. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 4. Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness] Wilt thou render of none effect that marked benevolence of God towards thee which has given so many superior advantages, and that forbearance which has tolerated thy many miscarriages, and that long-suffering which, after repeated provocations, still continues to bear with thee?

Not knowing] , not acknowledging that this goodness of God, which has so long manifested itself in forbearance and long-suffering, leadeth thee to repentance-was designed to accomplish this blessed end; which thy want of consideration and acknowledgment has rendered, hitherto, ineffectual. This was a maxim among the Jews themselves; for, in Synopsis Sohar, it is said:-The holy blessed God delays his anger against the wicked, to the end that they may repent and be converted.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Here he taxeth such as thought God approved of their persons and courses, at least that he would not regard or punish their evil actions, because he had hitherto forborne them, and heaped up abundance of worldly blessings upon them, as he did upon the Romans especially, above other people. It is common for men to grow secure, and promise themselves impunity, when God forbears them, and gives them outward prosperity: see Psa 50:21; 55:19; Ecc 8:11; Hos 12:8.

Despisest thou? the word signifies, to think amiss; he despiseth the goodness of God, who thinks otherwise of it than he should, that it is extended to him for other ends than it is: or, to despise the goodness of God, is, to turn it into wantonness.

The riches of his goodness; i.e. The abundance of his goodness: see Rom 9:23; Eph 1:7,18; 2:4,7; 3:8.

Forbearance and long-suffering; Gods long-suffering is a further degree of his forebearance: the Scripture speaks much of this attribute of God, and of his abounding therein, Exo 34:6; Num 14:11,18; Psa 86:15; Mat 23:37; Rom 9:22; 1Ti 1:16; 1Pe 3:20.

The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance; that is one great end of Gods goodness and forbearance; see Hos 11:4; 2Pe 3:9. Gods goodness is abused when it is not used and improved to this end.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

4. the goodness of God leadeth theeto repentancethat is, is designed and adapted to do so.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness,…. The apostle anticipates an objection against what he had said, taken from the prosperity of these persons; who might conclude from thence, that they were not so wicked as he had represented them; and that they should escape the judgment of God, otherwise they would have been punished by God in this life, and not have prospered as they did; which objection is removed by observing, that it was not their innocence, but “the riches of” divine “goodness, and longsuffering and forbearance”, which were the causes of their prosperity: by “the riches of God’s goodness”, are not meant the riches of his special, spiritual, and eternal goodness, which his own people are only partakers of: but the general riches of his temporal and providential goodness, which the men of the world have commonly the greatest share of; they have it in great plenty, which is signified by “riches”: and by his “longsuffering and forbearance” are designed, not his forbearance of his chosen ones and his longsuffering to them, which issue in their salvation; but his forbearance of sinners, and longsuffering towards them, in not as yet pouring down his wrath and displeasure on them; all which are “despised” by them; the riches of his goodness, when he is not glorified for his providential mercies, and in them, and when these are abused to the lusts of men. The

forbearance of God is despised, when men on account of it harden themselves in sin; and his

longsuffering, when they deny his concern in Providence, or a future judgment, and promise themselves impunity. Moreover, the apostle obviates the above objection by asserting that God’s end in his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, was not to testify to their innocence, as they imagined, but to lead them to repentance, of which they were ignorant;

not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. This is to be understood not of a spiritual and evangelical repentance, which is a free grace gift, and which none but the Spirit of God can lead, or bring persons to; but of a natural and legal repentance, which lies in an external sorrow for sin, and in an outward cessation from it, and reformation of life and manners, which the goodness of God to the Jews should have led them to; who had a large share of the good things of life, a land flowing with milk and honey, and many outward privileges which other nations had not, as the giving of the law, the covenant and promises, the word and ordinances; and repentance here chiefly designs, as it may respect the Gentiles, a change of mind and practice in them relating to idolatry and superstition Now the providential goodness of God has a tendency to lead persons to repentance on this account; but of this end of divine goodness the Gentiles were ignorant; nor was this end answered thereby; which shows the wretched depravity of human nature; see Ac 14:15.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Or despiseth thou? ( ?). Another alternative, that of scorn of God’s kindness (, 2Co 6:6) and forbearance (, old word, holding back from , only here in N.T.) and longsuffering (, late word for which see 2Cor 6:4; 2Cor 6:6). is old verb to think down on (, ) as in Matt 6:24; 1Cor 11:22. This upstart Jew actually thinks down on God. And then “the riches” ( ) of all that comes from God.

Leadeth thee to repentance ( ). The very kindness ( , the kindly quality) of God is trying to lead (conative present ) thee to a right-about face, a change of mind and attitude () instead of a complacent self-satisfaction and pride of race and privilege.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Despisest thou [] . The indicative mood unites a declaration with the question : “Do you despise ? Aye, you do.”

Riches [] . A favorite word with Paul to describe the quality of the divine attributes and gifts. See 2Co 8:9; Eph 1:7, 18; Eph 2:4, 7; Eph 3:8, 16; Phi 4:19; Col 1:27.

Goodness [] . See on easy, Mt 11:30.

Forbearance and long – suffering [ ] . Anoch forbearance, strictly a holding back. In classical Greek mostly of a truce of arms. It implies something temporary which may pass away under new conditions. Hence used in connection with the passing by of sins before Christ (Rom 3:25). “It is that forbearance or suspense of wrath, that truce with the sinner, which by no means implies that the wrath will not be executed at the last; nay, involves that it certainly will, unless he be found under new conditions of repentance and obedience” (Trench). For makroqumia long – suffering, see on Jas 5:7. This reliance on God ‘s tolerance to suspend the rule of His administration in your case is contempt (despisest). Compare Gal 6:7.

Not knowing [] . In that thou dost not know. This very ignorance is contempt.

Leadeth [] . The continuous present : is leading all the while thou art despising.

Repentance [] . See on Mt 3:2; Mt 21:29.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, (e kataphroneis tou ploutou tes chrestotetos autou) Or dost thou despise or take it lightly; or scorn it; Enemies of truth and righteousness, alternatively, either think they will escape judgment, or they tend to despise it, Pro 13:13; Luk 10:16; 1Th 4:8; Heb 10:29; Rom 9:23; Rom 11:33; 2Co 6:2; 2Co 6:6.

2) And forbearance and longsuffering (kai tes anoches kai tes makrothumias) And the forbearance and the longsuffering, do you take or esteem it lightly, as if it were nothing? This forbearance, patience, and longsuffering of a merciful God suspends judgment, in-patient waiting for the sinner to turn to repentance, La 3:22, 23; Isa 55:6-7; Rom 3:25; Rom 10:21.

3) Not knowing that the goodness of God, (agnoon hoti to Chreston tou theou) Not knowing or recognizing that the kindness (goodness) of God; No sinner could or would ever repent, except God took the initiative to convict, prick ones heart with his Holy Spirit, and call to Salvation, Joh 6:44; Joh 16:8-11; Joh 6:63; 2Co 7:11.

4) Leadeth thee to repentance, (eis metanoian se ager); Leads thee to or toward repentance? Act 20:21; 2Co 7:11; This repentance is granted of God unto (with view to life), Act 11:18; Act 17:30-31; Act 26:30. None must deny, ignore, despise, or take lightly Gods call to salvation and offer of pardon for and redemption from personal sin and defilement against God, Isa 55:7-9. The goodness of God draws to or toward repentance, but does not drive; it impels but does not compel or force to repentance.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

4. Dost thou despise the riches? etc. It does not seem to me, as some think, that there is here an argument, conclusive on two grounds, ( dilemma ,) but an anticipation of an objection: for as hypocrites are commonly transported with prosperity, as though they had merited the Lord’s kindness by their good deeds, and become thus more hardened in their contempt of God, the Apostle anticipates their arrogance, and proves, by an argument taken from a reason of an opposite kind, that there is no ground for them to think that God, on account of their outward prosperity, is propitious to them, since the design of his benevolence is far different, and that is, to convert sinners to himself. Where then the fear of God does not rule, confidence, on account of prosperity, is a contempt and a mockery of his great goodness. It hence follows, that a heavier punishment will be inflicted on those whom God has in this life favored; because, in addition to their other wickedness, they have rejected the fatherly invitation of God. And though all the gifts of God are so many evidences of his paternal goodness, yet as he often has a different object in view, the ungodly absurdly congratulate themselves on their prosperity, as though they were dear to him, while he kindly and bountifully supports them.

Not knowing that the goodness of God, etc. For the Lord by his kindness shows to us, that it is he to whom we ought turn, if we desire to secure our wellbeing, and at the same time he strengthens our confidence in expecting mercy. If we use not God’s bounty for this end, we abuse it. But yet it is not to be viewed always in the same light; for when the Lord deals favorably with his servants and gives them earthly blessings, he makes known to them by symbols of this kind his own benevolence, and trains them up at the same time to seek the sum and substance of all good things in himself alone: when he treats the transgressors of his law with the same indulgence, his object is to soften by his kindness their perverseness; he yet does not testify that he is already propitious to them, but, on the contrary, invites them to repentance. But if any one brings this objection — that the Lord sings to the deaf as long as he does not touch inwardly their hearts; we must answer — that no fault can be found in this case except with our own depravity. But I prefer rendering the word which Paul here uses, leads, rather than invites, for it is more significant; I do not, however, take it in the sense of driving, but of leading as it were by the hand.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(4) Riches.In this metaphorical sense, with reference to the divine attributes, this word is peculiar to and characteristic of St. Paul. It is thus used twelve times in his Epistles, and not besides in the rest of the New Testament, including the Epistle to the Hebrews. This is one of those instances where the evidence of style is important. Of the twelve places where this use occurs, eight are in the Epistles of the Imprisonment, three in the Epistle to the Romans, and one in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The later and earlier Epistles are thus linked together. A similar use is not found in the Pastoral Epistles, but it should be remembered that arguments of this kind are more important on the positive side than on the negative. It is an inference of some strength that if a peculiar word or usage is found in two separate books, those books are by the same author, but the absence of such a word or usage goes a very short way towards the opposite negative conclusion if other resemblances on characteristic points are not wanting.

Forbearance and longsuffering.We may compare with this the Sinaitic revelation given in Exo. 34:6-7, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering. The moral character and relation to His people thus attributed to the Deity was a feature which specially distinguished the religion of the Old Testament from that of the surrounding heathen nations.

We may observe that the fallacy against which the Apostle is protesting in these verses is not yet extinct. The goodness of Godi.e., His disposition to promote the happiness of His creaturesis insisted upon as if it were unconditional, as if it were a disposition to promote their happiness simply and without any reference to what they were in themselves. We do not find that this is the case; but rather the constitution of nature, as well as revelation, tells us that happiness is annexed to certain acts and a certain frame of mind, and that it is withheld from all that is not consonant with this. The bliss of the Christian is reserved for the Christian, and is not showered promiscuously upon all men. Otherwise free-will would have no office, and righteous dealing no reward.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

(4, 5) Another alternative is put forward, which has less to do with the distinction of Jew and Gentile, and in which the Apostle keeps more closely to the general form that his argument has assumed: Or do you think to take refuge in the goodness, the benevolence and long-suffering of God? True it is that He is good, and willeth not the death of a sinner, but His goodness is not absolute and unconditional. Its object is not to interfere with the just punishment of sin, but to lead men to repent of their sins, and so to obtain remission.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. Riches of his goodness These men abase the goodness of God by holding that it will not condemn such goodness as they possess. Paul admits the copious affluence of God’s goodness. But that goodness is amply displayed, and will be fully exhausted, in the exercise of God’s forbearance and long-suffering with their persistent decent sinfulness.

Goodness and forbearance and long-suffering Form a beautiful climax.

Leadeth Not drags, but attracts. (See note on Joh 6:44.) Leads those who follow with willing steps.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?’

These men themselves do what they condemn in others, and yet somehow they feel that God will do nothing about it. They even argue that God is good and forbearing and longsuffering and will therefore condone their sins, the consequence being that they continue sinning without abatement, thus ‘despising’ His compassion. So he now calls on them not to treat casually ‘the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering’, by taking them for granted and assuming that they will go on for ever. They should recognise rather that God is like this, not because He is willing to allow them to carry on freely, but in order to give them a chance to repent. Indeed they should recognise that because they are themselves also guilty of things of which they accuse others, they will all the more be called to account.

In consequence, as a result of recognising and acknowledging the goodness of God which is giving them a second opportunity, they should be led to repentance. At present God in His rich goodness and longsuffering is being forbearing. Let them then look at His goodness and see that for them it is a call to repentance before it is too late. For one day that forbearance will cease.

The thought is not that they openly and consciously despise God’s goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, but that they despise it in their hearts by neglect, not allowing it to count as important in such a way that it alters the way they live.

Paul is bringing out an important principle here. Men tend to think of the goodness and forbearance of God as something which indicates that they can carry on as they are because God does nothing about it. They see the goodness of God in showing forbearance and longsuffering as guaranteeing that they will not be called to account. Paul is now pointing out that their viewpoint is wrong. The reason for God’s delay is not because He does not care, but because He wants to give man time to repent. For there is an appointed day coming when God will call all men into judgment (Act 17:31). When God will call into account the secrets of men through Christ Jesus (Rom 2:16). One would have thought that the Jews at least would have recognised this from their history. The prophets constantly warned of what would come. Lamentations and the destruction of the Temple was the proof that it did come.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Rom 2:4. Goodness and forbearance, &c. Taylor observes, that goodness is here to be understood of the mercy and goodness of God, which bestowed superior light and advantages upon the Jews. Goodness is used in the same sense with regard to the Gentiles, chap. Rom 11:22. We may observe, that the Apostle uses general terms, that the Jew may not too plainly see that he is speaking to him. When he says, leadeth thee to repentance, the meaning is, ought to lead thee: for it should be carefully noted, that it is very common in the sacred writings, to express not only our Christian privileges, but also the duties to which they oblige, in the present or preterperfect sense; or to speak of that as done which only ought to be done; and which, in fact, may possibly never be done. See Mat 5:13. 1Pe 1:6. Heb 13:14; Heb 13:25.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Rom 2:4 . Or in case thou hast not this illusion despisest thou , etc. The draws away the attention from the case first put as a question, and proposes another; Rom 6:3 ; 1Co 9:6 , and often elsewhere, Baeumlein, Partikell . p. 132.

The despising the divine goodness is the contemptuous unconcern as to its holy purpose , which produces as a natural consequence security in sinning ( Sir 5:5 f.).

.] , as designation of the “abundantia et magnitude” (Estius), is a very current expression with the Apostle (Rom 9:23 , Rom 11:35 ; Eph 1:7 ; Eph 2:4 ; Eph 2:7 ; Eph 3:16 , Col 1:27 ), but is not a Hebraism (Psa 5:8 ; Psa 69:17 al [592] ), being used also by Greek authors; Plat. Euth. p. 12 A, and see Loesner, p. 245.

] is the goodness of God, in accordance with which He is inclined to benefit (and not to punish). Comp Tittmann’s Synon . p. 195.

and ., patience and long-suffering the two terms exhausting the one idea denote the disposition of God, in accordance with which he indulgently tolerates the sins and delays the punishments. See Wetstein, and the passages from the Fathers in Suicer, Thes. II. p. 294. Comp Tittmann, Synon. p. 194.

] inasmuch as it is unknown to thee , that etc. By this accompanying definition of the the (guilty) folly of the despiser is laid bare as its tragic source. Bengel says aptly: “ miratur Paulus hanc ignorantiam.” The literal sense is arbitrarily altered by Pareus, Reiche, de Wette, Maier, and others, who make it denote the not being willing to know, which it does not denote even in Act 17:23 ; Rom 10:3 ; by Kollner, who, following Grotius, Koppe, and many others, holds it to mean non considerans; and also by Hofmann: “to perceive, as one ought.” Comp 1Co 15:34 .

] of ethical incitement by influencing the will. Plat. Rep. p. 572 D, al [596] See Kypke and Reisig, a [597] Soph. O. C. 253. Comp Rom 8:14 . But it is not to be taken of the conatus ( desires to urge ), but of the standing relation of the goodness of God to the moral condition of man. [599] This relation is an impelling to repentance, in which the failure of result on the part of man does not cancel the act of the itself. Comp Wis 11:23 ; Appian. ii. 63.

[592] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

[596] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

[597] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[599] Therefore no predestination to damnation can be supposed.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Ver. 4. The goodness of God ] Gr. , his native goodness, ready to be employed to the behoof and benefit of the creature, Tit 3:4 . Now as the beam of the sun shining on fire doth discourage the burning of that; so the shining of God’s mercies on us should dishearten and extinguish lust in us. This is so equal and needful a duty, that Peter picks this flower out of Paul’s garden, as one of the choicest, and urgeth it upon those to whom he writes, 2Pe 3:15 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

4. ] , or (introducing a new error or objection, see ch. Rom 3:29 ; Rom 6:3 ; Rom 11:2 ), ‘ inasmuch as God spares thee day by day (see Ecc 8:11 ), dost thou set light by His long-suffering, ignorant that His intent in it is to lead thee to repentance ?’

, a favourite word with the Apostle (see reff.), the fulness, ‘abundance.’

., as shewn by His and . (reff.)

, not knowing , being blind to the truth, that Grot., Thol., al. would render it ‘ not considering :’ but as De Wette remarks, it is a wilful and guilty ignorance , not merely an inconsiderateness, which is blamed in the question.

, is leading thee : this is its intent and legitimate course, which thy blindness will frustrate, ‘Malo deducit quam invitat ; quia illud plus quiddam significat. Neque tamen pro adigere accipio, sed pro manu ducere.’ Calvin.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Rom 2:4 . states the alternative. Either he thinks he will escape, or he despises, etc. is the kindliness which disposes one to do good; (in N.T. only here and in Rom 3:26 ) is the forbearance which suspends punishment; is patience, which waits long before it actively interposes. summarises all three in the concrete. It amounts to contempt of God’s goodness if a man does not know (rather, ignores: cf. Act 13:27 , 1Co 14:38 , Rom 10:3 ) that its end is, not to approve of his sins, but to lead him to repentance.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

riches. Compare Rom 9:23; Rom 11:33. Eph 1:7, Eph 1:18; Eph 2:7; Eph 3:8, Eph 3:16. Php 1:4, Php 1:19. Col 1:27; Col 2:2.

goodness. Greek. chrestotes. App-184. (a).

forbearance. Greek. anoche. Only here and Rom 3:25.

not knowing. Greek. agnoeo. See Rom 1:13.

goodness. Greek. chrestos. App-184. Neut. adjective used as noun.

repentance. Greek. metanoia. App-111.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

4.] , or (introducing a new error or objection, see ch. Rom 3:29; Rom 6:3; Rom 11:2), inasmuch as God spares thee day by day (see Ecc 8:11), dost thou set light by His long-suffering, ignorant that His intent in it is to lead thee to repentance?

,-a favourite word with the Apostle (see reff.),-the fulness, abundance.

., as shewn by His and . (reff.)

, not knowing,-being blind to the truth, that Grot., Thol., al. would render it not considering: but as De Wette remarks, it is a wilful and guilty ignorance, not merely an inconsiderateness, which is blamed in the question.

, is leading thee: this is its intent and legitimate course, which thy blindness will frustrate, Malo deducit quam invitat; quia illud plus quiddam significat. Neque tamen pro adigere accipio, sed pro manu ducere. Calvin.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Rom 2:4. , or). Men easily become despisers of goodness, while they are not sensible of the judgment of God. The particle , or, properly acts as a disjunctive between the vain thought [on their part] of escape, and the palpable treasuring up of wrath in consequence of their abuse of goodness itself.-, , , goodness, forbearance, long-suffering) since thou hast both sinned, and art now sinning, and wilt sin. [By goodness, GOD restrains His wrath, Rom 2:5 : by forbearance, He as it were, keeps Himself unknown, until He is revealed, Rom 2:5 : by long-suffering He delays His righteous judgment, ibid.-V. g.] Presently after, , the goodness of God, implies all these three. Even those, who shall be condemned hereafter, had the power, and it was their duty, to have repented.-, ignorant). Paul wonders at this ignorance.-) leads pleasantly; does not compel by necessity.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Rom 2:4

Rom 2:4

Or despisest thou-Does the Jew imagine, without any pretense of reason, that he shall escape Gods judgment? Or in case he does not have this conceit, does he base his hope of escape from future retribution on the forbearance of God in delaying the punishment as a sign that the judgment will never come? If so, this is a flagrant abuse of that forbearance, which is in effect despising it, looking upon it with a feeling of contempt under pretense of honoring it.

the riches of his goodness-The abundance and greatness of his kindness expressed in bestowing favors and withholding punishment.

and forbearance and longsuffering,-[The difference between forbearance and longsuffering is, the former denotes the disposition to bear long, while the latter denotes the outward manifestation of the disposition in patience.] God holds back his vengeance for a while. He suffers long. He who thinks he can continue to live in sin with impunity, because he has gone so long unpunished, may fancy that he is magnifying Gods goodness; but in reality he is abusing his forbearance and despising his long-suffering by his contemptuous unconcern as to the righteous purpose of it.

not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?-An ignorance resulting either from willful disinclination to know or willful neglect of the means of knowing, possibly both. Gods patiently bearing the ill use which the Jews made of the privileges they enjoyed as his people was designed to bring them to repentance. Jesus was long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Long-suffering is another name for patient forbearance. Jesus did not wink at or cease to condemn the wrong; he constantly in precept and in his life held up the truth, but gave them time and opportunity to learn and turn. He did not speedily execute the law on them for their errors of failures to learn the whole truth. This is the course we should pursue toward our fellow men, especially toward those trying to serve the Lord, yet failing to see the full truth. [The same thought is expressed by Peter: The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is long-suffering to youward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2Pe 3:9).]

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

despisest: Rom 6:1, Rom 6:15, Psa 10:11, Ecc 8:11, Jer 7:10, Eze 12:22, Eze 12:23, Mat 24:48, Mat 24:49, 2Pe 3:3

riches: Rom 9:23, Rom 10:12, Rom 11:33, Psa 86:5, Psa 104:24, Eph 1:7, Eph 1:18, Eph 2:4, Eph 2:7, Eph 3:8, Eph 3:16, Phi 4:19, Col 1:27, Col 2:2, 1Ti 6:17, Tit 3:4-6

forbearance: Rom 3:25, Rom 9:22, Exo 34:6, Num 14:18, Psa 78:38, Psa 86:15, Isa 30:18, Isa 63:7-10, Jon 4:2, 1Ti 1:16, 1Pe 3:20

goodness: Job 33:27-30, Psa 130:3, Psa 130:4, Isa 30:18, Jer 3:12, Jer 3:13, Jer 3:22, Jer 3:23, Eze 16:63, Hos 3:5, Luk 15:17-19, Luk 19:5-8, 2Pe 3:9, 2Pe 3:15, Rev 3:20

Reciprocal: Exo 9:34 – and hardened Exo 10:3 – humble Exo 11:10 – the Lord Exo 32:34 – the day Exo 33:19 – all my goodness Exo 34:7 – that will by no means clear the guilty Num 19:20 – shall not Deu 32:15 – waxen fat 2Sa 12:10 – because 1Ki 21:29 – I will not 2Ki 17:14 – but hardened 2Ki 22:19 – thine heart 2Ch 19:11 – the Lord 2Ch 36:13 – hardened Neh 9:25 – delighted Neh 9:30 – many years Job 24:12 – yet God Job 33:18 – keepeth Job 37:24 – fear Psa 18:26 – froward Psa 21:3 – blessings Psa 50:21 – I kept Pro 14:2 – but Pro 28:14 – but Isa 26:10 – favour Jer 2:25 – after Jer 5:3 – they have made Jer 31:12 – and shall Jer 34:11 – General Jer 44:22 – could Eze 11:19 – I will take Joe 2:13 – for Mat 3:8 – forth Mat 9:13 – but Mat 22:5 – they Luk 8:6 – General Luk 9:41 – and suffer Luk 13:7 – three Luk 15:21 – Father Luk 19:23 – Wherefore Joh 8:11 – go Act 8:22 – Repent Act 17:27 – they Act 17:30 – but Act 20:21 – repentance Act 26:20 – repent Rom 11:22 – therefore Rom 12:1 – by the Eph 5:9 – goodness Jam 5:11 – the Lord is Rev 2:21 – space

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

GODS GOODNESS

The riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering.

Rom 2:4

What is that in God which is most fitted to affect and to subdue us? The greatness of His power? The infinitude of His nature? The severity of His holiness? Nay, the riches of His forbearance and longsuffering; the wealth of that goodness which shows itself in bearing so patiently with us.

I. Forbearance magnified by power.We hesitate to punish because we doubt whether we can afford to do so. But God is not restrained by such considerations as these (Psa 73:19-20). There is nothing to hinder Him from putting forth His retributive powers and making us suffer the full penal consequences of our sin. Yet He does not deal with us after our sin, nor reward us according to our iniquities. Why not? Because of the riches of His forbearance.

II. Forbearance magnified by holiness.We feel bound to correct the undutiful child, to punish the guilty citizen or the criminal community. We feel thus because we have accepted the idea, which we believe we have gained from God, that righteousness, integrity, purity, is the supreme thing; that any amount of mere present happiness should be sacrificed to secure it. But what is our sense of the supremacy of moral goodness compared with Gods? How is it then that He suffers long and endures our wrongdoing? It can only be because He is so inexhaustibly rich in holiness.

III. Forbearance magnified by sensibility.Some men are good, sound, estimable, but they are men of small sensibility. They do not feel keenly. Others are men of great sensibility, and they feel acutely both the good and the evil which touches and tries them. Our Divine Father feels, with a keenness and exquisite sensibility of which we can form no conception, a Divine pleasure when He witnesses in us that which He loves, a Divine pain when He sees ingratitude, selfishness, cruelty, impurity, iniquity, in any of its forms. We know it is so. God has told us this both in Old and New Testament Scripture.

(a) Why was leprosy singled out by Him as the peculiar type of sin? Why, but that it expressed the exceeding hideousness of sin in His sight, as a thing which He could not look upon.

(b) There was One Who came to be to us the very Word of God, His perfect expression: and we know how He felt toward sin; how He hated it with fervent indignation; how evil it was in His pure sight. Sin is something which excites in the Holy God a feeling of infinite abhorrence.

How is it then that He bears so long with uswith us in whom and in whose lives is so much that is evil? Only one thing accounts for it, the exceeding riches of His grace.

IV. He endures and blesses in the boundless wealth of His forbearance!

(a) Take the broad view: the view of humanity, created for the glory of God, to live a life of holy service, of spiritual beauty, of mutual helpfulness, and yet for long centuries living a life of idolatry, ungodliness, and cruelty, and God looked down in mercy, forbearing to destroy, sending down His sunshine and His rains!

(b) Take the personal view. How great have been our personal privileges; how God has encompassed us with opportunities, and laid upon us the hand of His gentleness and His power! And still, it may be, we are failing to respond, still keeping that patient One waiting and knocking outside the home of our heart! How wonderful the riches of His forbearance to ourselves. Let us not despise these riches, lest we pay the sad penalty of presumption; let us, without delay, change our attitude toward the pleading Saviour, and instead of the look and the tone of indifference or indecision, let us rise with eagerness and earnestness to admit and to enthrone Him.

Illustration

It was a precept of John Wesleys to his evangelists, in unfolding their message, to speak first in general of the love of God to man; then, with all possible energy, and so as to search conscience to its depths, to preach the law of holiness; and then, and not till then, to uplift the glories of the gospel of pardon, and of life.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

2:4

Rom 2:4. Despisest means to belittle or disregard, and the Jew did that with reference to the goodness of God. It was the quality of goodness and longsuffering of God that caused him to put up with the unrighteousness of both Gentile and Jew. The goodness of God would lead the self-righteous Jew to repentance if he did not “despise” or overlook it.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Rom 2:4. Or despisest thou, etc. A new error. The despising of the divine goodness is the contemptuous unconcern as to its holy purpose, which produces as a natural consequence security in sinning (Ecc 5:5 f.). Meyer.

Riches; referring to abundance or magnitude; a favorite expression with the Apostle, especially in the Epistle to the Ephesians (see reff.).

Goodness: the general and positive term (taken up again), which is further explained by forbearance and long suffering; the negative terms referring to Gods tolerating sin and withholding punishment. To the present hour in each life, the series of the Divine Goodness may be counted by the succession of a mans sins (John Foster).

Not knowing. Inasmuch as you do not know. Not the same word as Rom 2:2. Culpable ignorance; ignoring the fact that might be known, is perhaps implied.

Is leading thee to repentance, This is its purpose, and its tendency, but it is thwarted by mans wilful ignorance. This verse is a question; but in the next verse, which is so closely joined with it, this interrogative form is gradually lost.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The indulgent carriage of Almighty God towards poor sinners, discovered in the vast expence of the riches of his goodness and bounty upon them, and in the patient exercise of his forbearance and long-suffering towards them.

Observe, 2. The gracious end and design of God in his expense of his goodness, and in the exercise of his patience and forbearance; namely, To lead sinners to repentance. The end of goodness is to oblige and engage persons to love and serve their benefactor; this is the most natural and unconstrained consequence that the mind of man can infer from God’s bounty and sparing mercy; The goodness of God leadeth to repentance.

Observe, 3. The unanswerable and undue returns, which sinners make to God for the exercise of so much goodness and forbearance towards them: They despise the riches of his goodness and long-suffering. They despise it by being unthankful for it, by not improving it, and by misimproving or sinning against it: They melt the mercies of God into bullets, and shoot them at the breast of the Almighty.

Observe, 4. The sad and fatal consequence of these undue returns made to God by sinners: Hereby they treasure up wrath, against the day of wrath. As if the apostle had said, “The more patience God expends upon thee, if perverted and abused by thee, the greater wrath is treasured up for thee; which the longer it has been treasured up, will break forth the more fiercely and violently to consume thee.”

Observe, 5. The description given by the apostle of the day of judgment; he calls it, A revelation of the righteous judgment of God. The judgment of God is righteous now; but it is not always revealed and openly made manifest now: therefore a time shall come, when there shall be a revelation of his righteous judgment fully.

From the whole, note, 1. That the goodness of God is a natural and genuine motive to repentance.

2. That not to be persuaded by, is in God’s account to despise, his goodness.

Note, 3. That this despising of goodness, by delaying our repentance, is a treasuring up of wrath against the day of wrath: As sinners have teasures of sin, so God has treasures of wrath for sinners.

Note, lastly, that the day of judgment will be a day of revelation, a day in which the righteousness of God’s proceedings shall be universally manifested and magnified; then will all the divine attributes be conspiciously glorified; his wonderful clemency sweetly displayed; his exact justice terribyly demonstrated; his perfect wisdom clearly unfolded; all the knotty intrigues of providence wisely resolved; all the mysterious depth of divine counsels fully discovered, and to the dreadful consternation and confusion of the wicked and impenitent world: Oh how well might the apostle call this day, The revelation of the righteous judgment of God!

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Vv. 4, 5. Or despisest thou the rches of His goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But, according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath for the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. , or even. The meaning is: is there something even worse than an illusion; is there contempt? The case then would be more than foolish, it would be impious! The riches of goodness, of which the apostle speaks, embrace all God’s benefits to Israel in the past: that special election, those consecutive revelations, that constant care, finally, the sending of the Messiah, all that constituted the privileged position which Israel had enjoyed for so many ages. The second term, , patience (from to restrain oneself), denotes the feeling awakened in the benefactor when his goodness is put to the proof by ingratitude. Paul has in view no doubt the murder of the Messiah, which divine justice might have met with the immediate destruction of the nation. The third term, , long-suffering, refers to the incomprehensible prolongation of Israel’s existence, in spite of the thirty consecutive years of resistance to the appeals of God, and to the preaching of the apostles which had elapsed, and in spite of such crimes as the murder of Stephen and James (Acts 7, 12). The three words form an admirable climax. The last (long-suffering) characterizes this treasure of grace as exhausted, and that of wrath as ready to discharge itself. The notion of contempt is explained by the fact that the more God shows Himself good, patient, and meek, the more does the pride of Israel seem to grow, and the more does the nation show itself hostile to the gospel. may be translated: ignoring, or mistaking; the first meaning is simpler and may suffice, for there is a voluntary ignorance, the result of bad faith, in consequence of which we do not see what we do not care so see; it is this ignorance which is referred to here.

The phrase is touching: what is good, sweet, gentle in God (, strictly: that may be handled, what one may make use of, from ). The form: what good there is…leaves it to be inferred that there is something else in God, and that He will not let Himself be always treated thus with impunity. The time will come when He will act with rigor.

The word , to lead, implies the power possessed by man of yielding to or resisting the attraction exercised over him. If he could not resist it, how could the Jews be accused of committing this offence at this very time? , repentance, is the act whereby man goes back on his former views, and changes his standpoint and feeling.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

Verse 4

The riches of his goodness, &c. The Jews always regarded themselves as the special objects of the divine compassion and favor.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

2:4 {2} Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

(2) A vehement and grievous crying out against those that please themselves because they see more than others do, and yet are in no way better than others are.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes