#49. Romans 2:11 – A Brief Interlude for the Nerds – Is God a “Respecter of Persons?” (Judgment Series, Part X)

Part II: The Conduct of Humanity

For there is no partiality with God…

KJV: For there is no respecter of persons with God…

*sigh*

Short answer, yes, God is a “respecter of persons.” I am extraordinarily unhappily with man’s faulty translation, here, and I’ve stabbed my KJV with Twizzlers more than once because of it.

I mean, come on. God? God?? Like, the Supreme Elohim that guides people with flames?? The God that’s fundamentally obsessed with ensuring that the Israelites learn Who He is? The God that talks about how much He dislikes certain conduct under the law we’ve been discussing?? The God that said, “You are of more consequence to Me than sparrows”?

That God?

Right, I don’t buy it, either. Something definitely smelled off when I saw this in the KJV for the first time (yes, I had to go to the bathroom, but that’s beside the point.) The phrase “respecter of persons” is one word in Greek: prosopolemptes. No, I can’t pronounce it, either. Believe it or not, my concern is not that it took the KJV writers “three different words” to translate one Greek word, for, I believe, such a concern would be shallow criticism. The language of inspiration is more dense; some English words simply need surrounding words to clarify, okay? Greek can accomplish more with less, so it should be no issue when the inflection of the Greek is clarified with additional English words.

No, my problem is the fact that respect has nothing to do with the word. The verb “respect” in Greek is entrepo, which does not even have the same elements as prosopolemptes.

So! What does prosopolemptes actually mean?

The Root Words

There are two steps I took in considering my goal. The first was… well, I’m almost ashamed to say it, but it was using the blue letter bible.

I know, I know. What have I become?

No, I didn’t use the blue letter to actually learn the definition. It’s a very handy resource in many regards, especially when you seek to find the root words associated with longer words like this one. In the case of prosopolemptes, I found two different Greek words – the first was prosopon, and the other was lambano.

We’ll tackle prosopon first. Let’s take a look at each definition of the term on the blue letter bible. I don’t seek to prove the actual definition of the term doing this, but to show the “ballpark” that we’re in:

I.     The face

a.     The front of the human head

b.    Countenance, look

                                              i.     the face so far forth as it is the organ of sight, and (by it various movements and changes) the index of the inward thoughts and feelings

c.     The appearance one presents by his wealth or property, his rank or low condition

                                              i.     Outward circumstances, external condition

                                            ii.     Used in expressions which denote to regard the person in one’s judgment or treatment of men

II.   The outward appearance of inanimate things

What we see here undoubtedly concerns us with externality, and, though we can’t pin the actual definition yet, we can understand that appearances have something to do with this term. And, sure enough, when we observe the word in the concordance, we find that its elements are “TOWARD-VIEW.” Knoch and co more accurately define it as the “surface of things,” or the “aspect” of something.

Our other word, lambano, has already been seen in Romans 1:5 (see how, as we progress, it will become less and less important to stress the definition of a term? We’ve already covered lambano, so we don’t need to worry for its meaning!) The element of the word is “GET.” This can mean either to take or receive something, depending on the relational context.

When we do pair these two words together, we find their elements joined into “TOWARD-VIEW-GETter.” Before we continue, let’s put a pin in this point and consider the word respect.

Well, no, I’m not going to do a whole “word study” on respect at this point. I don’t mean consider it in each use in God’s word (that wouldn’t be a “brief interlude.”) I mean considering it in relation to societal norms today (particularly in the U.S.) The word respect, in the word today, does indeed have external aspects to it! We find “respect” from different angles; an actor won’t be respected as a lawyer, but an actor will be respected in a movie when they act well as a lawyer. One with power is often respected. Brilliant physicists are respected. Many who suffer greatly are respected. And so on, and so forth.

See, in today’s society, there’s an underlying correlation between respect and value. We see this most clearly in the systems which conflate likes on a post (and thus, attention) with respect. We see it in the fact that some try to “cancel” others when they don’t like what they say. It’s a brutal social manipulation, but this is how general society has come to see “respect.”

The simple reality is that this is necessary, to some degree. You gain respect as an actor by being a good actor. You gain respect as a man with power when you utilize that power for the relative welfare of the race. You gain respect as a physicist when you can properly teach or effectively utilize the concepts in view.

However, there’s a scary downside to this, and it’s when you’re dealing with belief (yes, I’ll take it back to Romans, now. Thank you for your patience.) God is in a very tricky situation, right now. He has to show you that He’s judging righteously, but He also has to show that He’s building to an “evangel” worthy of the name. He cannot impose upon His own sense of justice, but He is also light, and goodness, and love, and cannot impose on any of those qualities either. Moreover, He’s dealing with arguably the most sensitive subject for us, which is our pride.

So, sure enough, when you come along to the KJV your grandma told you to pick up, or your pastor is forcing you to read, and you hear that God is “no respecter of persons,” you may be inclined to think, “Well, shoot, God’s just like any other person on the planet, who doesn’t respect me for who I am because I haven’t measured up to something.” From here, a subconscious “standard” is created, based on personal metric, where you must “do” something to earn this One’s respect (an ideal which varies from person to person.) This leads to strange and backward phrases, like “God helps those who help themselves.”

Do you see the problem? Since God is the largest and heaviest consideration of all, the idea that He has no respect for you, on top of the lack of respect we all receive from each other, can actually be more psychologically damaging to us than cancel culture. The notion that even God, your Creator, doesn’t give a shit about your condition is far too much for most sane minds to handle. I find that many atheists see “God” as religious manipulation, and this is one of the reasons why that is the case.

However…

We have been studying these verses in context, and we have been dwelling on each clause from a concordant lens. Thus, we may detach this false idea of “respect” (which may have meant something different back in the 1600s, but now needs reformation to reach the masses.) In truth, the word is aptly translated “no partiality,” which, while imperfect, is far better than “respect,” and fits the judicial context of its six occurrences, which always relate to acts.

And shouldn’t this make perfect sense? God would be unbiased toward flesh. Why set about “correcting” us miscreants if He doesn’t respect us to begin with? What would He have to gain in doing so? Why would He make the provision in verses 6-8 for any potentially righteous (i.e. why play fair if you don’t care?) On a larger level, why would He send His Son to die for us? How can one not respect you whilst making priceless sacrifices for you?? How can He love us and not respect the individuals that we are at the same time?

When this is given even a few moments’ meditation, within the context of a loving Deity, the concept doesn’t make much sense, does it? Seriously! How can God say, “You are of more consequence than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7,) and then simultaneously claim that He has no respect for you?

While there is no false intimation in the language of inspiration, religious reasoning has indeed imposed on the text. It has perverted humility from making us low to making us worthless. The argument from this crowd is that “God often doesn’t give us what we want at a given time, and will do whatever He wants regardless of what we think.”

But we must consider His sovereignty in all things, not just some things, and realize that what we think is entirely planned by Him! What we think is not in spite of His plan, or to foil it, but a fulfillment of His intention. In truth, God has written an entire book to us. He has carefully crafted each word, in which He actively demonstrates His loving heart, even in the midst of great judgment. He is impartial, yes, to the externality, which He imposed death upon thousands of years ago. But He is not impartial to the breath which He Himself provides (Acts 17:25,) for companionship (cf Gen. 2:18-24, Rom. 8:12, 1 Cor. 15:22-28, Col. 1:20, 1 Thess. 4:17.)

May we, then, learn to grasp that God does value us – we are priceless to Him, purchased with the richest blood, of the One at the Head of the universe, through Whom all is. He sacrificed everything, for everything, not some for some. He has every practical reason not to respect these meat suits, which are mired in sin (Rom. 1:29-32,) which are the relative reason He needs to correct mankind to begin with – not because of some disdain toward us personally, or He wouldn’t even be writing us to begin with. Only through this realization of His love can we fully exult in His real, unconditional love. Man disrespects, but we are often the anti-type to God’s ways. Even as we disrespect, His love superexceeds.

- GerudoKing