NOTES for Rom 2:11
Paul's words that God shows no partiality would seem to be understandable to every believer. And, as a rule, when we speak of this, we have in mind above all God's incorruptibility and His justice. Our expectations of God's judgment are connected first of all with the fact that at His judgment everyone will receive according to his deserts, including the one who for some reason managed to avoid just judgment on earth, as well as the one who sought justice from earthly judges and could not find it. In other words, we see in God a guardian of justice as we understand it, a guardian who can do what we are unable to do because the fallen world, in the Savior's word, "lies in evil."
God's goals, however, appear to be completely different. And His understanding of justice too. His task is not the restoration of justice, but the salvation of everyone who can be saved. Of course, a person's spiritual and moral choice is unconditionally important here. It is very hard to save someone who in principle does not consider it necessary to observe the commandments given by God. And not because God is angry at such people, but because the commandments were never given by God to His people as an exclusively moral code.
They were always, first of all, a description of the spiritual path that led a person to God, deepening and strengthening his relationship with God. Or a path that, on the contrary, led a person away from God if the person chose the path of violating the commandment.
And it is not easy to save someone who is running away from you. The matter here is not that God has no means of acting on those who violate the commandments He gave, but that He respects the freedom of each of us too much to save us by force, without our consent. But if a person is ready to leave his sin and his opposition to God in the past, if he is ready to turn and repent, God accepts him as if there were no sins behind him.
God is not a guardian of morality and justice; He is the God of love and salvation. It is not important to Him who a person was when he sinned; it is important who the person is when he turns to Him here and now. And all the more, it is not important to God what views and convictions the person who turns to Him holds. It is not even so important to Him whether the one turning to Him is religious or not. One thing is important: how this person is going to build his life from now on, according to the will of God or contrary to it. For only this determines whether the one who turns will be able to enter the Kingdom or remain outside it, in the outer darkness.