¹ Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. ² And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.

Now begins the crescendo, or build up, to the central climax of the first part of this letter. Paul comes to various logical peaks in his presentation, the first one being Romans 3:23, “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Having spent the last half of chapter one asserting God’s assessment of life when He is rejected, Paul concluded that not only those who sin are under God’s judgment but also those who approve of those who sin.

Now, he begins to show that all are sinners, by turning subsequently to the second of three groups of people. If we were to call those of chapter one “the down-and-outers,” that is, the obvious sinners, then the second group we might call “the up-and-outers.” These are the moralists, who judge that the sinners are under God’s judgment but not themselves. Paul’s argument, inspired by the Holy Spirit, focuses on the hypocrisy of morally judging others and the inherent self-condemnation.

Such moralists are “without excuse.” The underlying Greek word used here is anapologetes, from which we derive our present day word “apologetics.” Apologetics is the logical defense of a belief system. In the case of the moralist, there is logical defense of their attitude of judgment on others. Their arguments may sound good to the human ear, the proclamations may carry human weight, but before the Divine seat of God’s judgment, no excuse will hold up under the Holy Spirit’s scrutiny. There is no legitimate defense of the moralist.

The problem, of course, is that the moralist condemns himself when he points his long bony finger at the grievous sins of others—precisely because he does the same things. The moralist condemns all others who don’t agree with him in his moral perspectives and behavior. Yet he is disagreeing with them, and therefore places himself under the same censure. It’s like the penchant today for toleration as the ultimate humanitarian principle of life—that we should be tolerant of everyone—yet proponents of tolerance simply won’t tolerate those who don’t agree with them, thereby condemning themselves by their own words. Such duplicity is self-evident, but denied. The moralists just cannot be consistent; thus they place themselves under God’s judgment.

Lord, help me not to judge others in a moralistic way, because I, too, am guilty of sinning.