Romans 2:8

Contentious. Gr. eritheia, “a mercenary, self-seeking spirit.” Eritheia also had the meaning “labor for wages.” Later the term came to mean “selfish or factious ambition,” “intrigue,” “rivalry.” Elsewhere in the NT the same word is used to refer to intrigue and partisanship (2 Cor. 12:20; Gal. 5:20; Phil. 1:16; 2:3; James 3:14, 16). In most of these instances the KJV translates eritheia as “strife,” evidently on the assumption that the word was derived from another root of somewhat similar sound, eris, which means “contention,” “quarrel” (see on Rom. 1:29).

In contrast with the righteous, who persevere in well-doing, the unrighteous are here described as self-seeking and factious in their attitude toward God and the truth. It was a similar spirit that led so many of the Jews to oppose the gospel (see Acts 13:45; etc.). Their legalistic, mercenary attitude toward religion and their self-centered view of salvation led them to reject God’s way of righteousness by faith in Christ, and thus to reject God Himself.

Obey the truth. Compare the experience of those who “hold the truth in unrighteousness” (ch. 1:18). Those who are factious and self-seeking do not care to be loyal to the truth. Being “lovers of their own selves” (2 Tim. 3:2), they have not received “the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). They prefer to have “pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:10, 12).

Indignation and wrath. Grammatically these words are not connected with the clause “who will render” as are the words “eternal life” (see on v. 7). It is necessary to supply some such words as “there shall be.” Paul may have intended this change of construction to express the nice distinction that, while God is the source and giver of eternal life, He is not strictly and primarily the author of eternal punishment. Destruction is the necessary result of the sinner’s own conduct (see on ch. 1:18). A similar distinction may have been intended by the construction change in ch. 9:22, 23 from the passive “fitted to destruction” to the active “prepared unto glory.” God Himself prepared the vessels of mercy for glory, but the vessels of wrath are fitted, or have fitted themselves, for destruction (see GC 543).

The word order in the Greek is “wrath and indignation.” The Greek word translated “wrath” (orge) is understood as expressing the settled feeling and disposition. Compare “the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). The word for “indignation” (thumos) expresses the momentary impulse or outbreak of the feeling of wrath, as in the day of final destruction (Rev. 14:10). For the meaning of divine wrath see on Rom. 1:18.