Martin Bucer (1491–1551) on Romans 2:4

Don’t Presume on God’s Patience. Martin Bucer: As we said before, this creates a dilemma. You know that God will punish sins, but despite this, as long as God is putting off exacting punishment from you on account of his leniency, you continue in every respect to live sinfully. Therefore, either you must think that you will escape God’s judgment, or you despise the goodness of God. The former is impossible, while the latter renders you liable to even more serious punishments. They were able to reason along these lines: “Since God treats us so indulgently and blesses us so abundantly, why should we have such a great fear of his judging us? Why should we not trust that we will escape it? For the things that he confers on us are not evidence of a wrathful Being or of One about to exact punishment.” The apostle therefore answers, “On account of this very thing—that while God shows you so much leniency and directs you to himself by such profuse goodness, you, hardened in your ungodliness, will not allow yourselves to be moved by these things to repentance for your perversities—there hangs over you a more severe judgment, and the wrath of God will make up for this slowness of punishment with an intolerable severity. Therefore, while you continue to despise the goodness and leniency of God that is, as it were, urging you to come to your senses out of your sins, you are doing nothing else than depositing something more everyday to the cumulative weight of your punishment, which will be unleashed on you all at once when the determined time for this judgment arrives.” Therefore we have this proposition: the more amply you enjoy the benefits of God while living in an ungodly way, and the less you feel sorry for evil, the more severe will be the punishments for your ungodliness that will be meted out to you. But, in case you may be entertaining doubts, let it be far from any of you to conclude that when that time comes you will escape the judgment of God. Commentary on Romans (1562).¹²
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12 Bucer, Metaphrasis et Enarratio, 92 (this is a reprint of the 1536 edition).

Gwenfair Walters Adams, Timothy George, and Scott M. Manetsch, eds., Romans 1–8: New Testament, vol. VII of Reformation Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), 85–86.

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