Well, We Have the Law, Don’t We! (Rom. 2:12-29)

As we have read the words of Paul so far in this prominent book of the New Testament, two emphases stand out very clearly for us. The first is the reality of two destinies in the eternal world and the second is the necessity of inner genuineness with regard to an individual’s spirituality. While other emphases will be highlighted later in the book we can see as we move into this next section of his letter that he continues to stress those two details.

Even as we observed earlier in the series, and should remind ourselves as we work through its content, Paul is like a painter producing an outstanding portrait and who paints the dark background of sin in order to illuminate brighter the wonderful features of God’s salvation. The dark background continues until 3:20. So what strokes has the apostle brushed on?

Two Defining Principles (2:12-13)

Paul mentions two basic realities that must be understood if we are to appreciate the message contained in the gospel. The first is that ‘all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.’ And the second is that ‘it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.’ As we mentioned, Paul is concerned about future destiny (expressed in the word ‘perish’) and spiritual reality (expressed in the words ‘righteous’ and ‘doers’).

The first principle is a reminder that God is fair. Paul is looking ahead to the Day of Judgement and says that different standards will be used by God on that day. Those who did not have the law in its written form – the Gentiles – will be judged according to the awareness they possessed (which Paul will explain in 2:14-16) and those that did have the law in its written form – the Jews – will be judged according to the awareness that they possessed (which Paul will explain in 2:17-25).

The first principle is also a reminder that excuses are invalid. Often, people speculate about the fate of those who never heard the gospel as if this failure excused their behaviour. While the Christian church can be accused of failing to take the gospel across the street, never mind across the sea, we cannot deduce from their failure that regarding those who never heard the gospel we should expect God to ignore how they responded to the divine light they had received in other ways.

With regard to the second principle, that it is doers of the law that are acceptable and not only hearers of it, we are reminded that God’s standard is perfection, that he requires total conformity, inwardly as well as outwardly, to his law. Further, not only is the standard perfection, his requirement demands permanent obedience to God’s law – it is not sufficient to keep it perfectly for a short time and then break it even in a little way. This demand is also personal, in that each person who has the law has to perform it. It is not difficult to see that Paul’s principle is very extensive and disconcerting.

How would Paul’s readers in Rome, and indeed all who had heard him preach and teach because here in Romans he is explaining his gospel, react to those two principles? We can imagine Gentiles saying to Paul, ‘Taking your argument, since we don’t have the law given through Moses, how can God condemn us?’ And we can imagine Jews saying to Paul, ‘We have the law of Moses, we love the law of Moses. What do you mean that God will judge us? We are his special people and we have the sign of circumcision to prove it.’

Paul speaks to the Gentiles (2:14-16)

Paul responds to the claim that Gentiles did not receive the law through Moses by saying that they have the law of God written on their hearts. Earlier he had reminded his readers that Gentiles receive day by day what we call natural revelation, that they see evidence of the existence of God’s power in the creation in which they live. Now Paul adds another details to what Gentiles possess from God and that is that each of them has his law written on their hearts. They not only know that he is powerful, they know that he is their lawgiver.

What does Paul mean when he says that the law is written on their hearts. What is their heart? It is another word for their inner life and within each aspect of their inner life there is an awareness of what God requires. Of course, because they have rebelled against God they do not like all of his laws, but they are aware of them.

In order to help understand this, we can think of it in this way, even if the Gentiles did not have the law in written form. We know that the law of God can be divided into two sections called love for God and love for our neighbour. Each of the Ten Commandments expresses love for God and for our neighbour, and it is a good spiritual exercise to apply them to ourselves in this way. The reason why we show love to our neighbour is because we love God. No doubt, that is why the list begins with stating what we should do in order to show love for God. What happens when we take love for God out of the process? We lose the main reason for loving our neighbour and have to invent other reasons why we should do so.

The Gentile world does not love God, says Paul, in chapter one even although he speaks to them in creation. Therefore they don’t take him into account in their daily lives. But they have to live with one another and sometimes their actions with one another resemble the law of God whereas at other times their actions with one another don’t resemble the law of God. The actions that resemble the law of God are evidence that his laws are still written on their hearts and the actions that don’t resemble the law of God are evidence that they rebel against him.

Moreover, Paul says that each of them has a conscience that informs them that what they are doing is right or wrong. The conscience functions like a spokesperson for God. It functions differently according to circumstances. Sometimes the Bible speaks about conscious being overruled by one’s fears or by one’s background and so prevents some Christians from enjoying the liberty of the gospel and at other times it describes some Christians who misuse the voice of conscience and imagine they are enjoying the liberty of the gospel. This is a reminder that we need more than conscience and we have that ‘more’ in the Bible.

But what if we don’t have the Bible and only have a conscience? Paul reminds us here that normally the conscience has an opinion on all that we do and it is determined to let us know what that opinion is. He says that it will speak throughout our lives and that it will speak on the Day of Judgement. Today, the reasons why people do things are secret from everyone else. On that day, they will be public and one of the witnesses will be the conscience. I suppose we can imagine a situation in a courtroom where a witness has been battered and bruised by the accused throughout life. That may be a picture of how many a conscience will appear on the Day of Judgement, but the point is that it will appear. And it will tell its owner that he or she deserves the verdict pronounced by the Judge.

Paul here identifies who will be the Judge on that great day. The Judge will be Jesus the Messiah, a reminder that this future role is part of his activity as the Servant of the Father. On that day, he will know and pronounce sentence on what each person has done.

Paul speaks to the Jews (2:16-29)

It is clear from Paul’s description that the Jews in the main assumed that mere possession of the written law and the ritual of circumcision was sufficient to give them a standing before God and before other humans as well. How did the Jews relate to the law?

They relied upon it and used it as the way to get to know God and his will. Further, they communicated it to others as the best way to live. Initially we might respond and say that this was a good way to proceed with using the law.

But they did not seem to realise that a failure to keep it perfectly invalidated their claims as to what it could do. Instead of leading people to praise God, it confirmed them in their own behaviour and caused them not to want to have anything to do with God and his law. So instead of being influential for God, the Jews were the opposite. Of course, Paul is speaking here as an eyewitness. He had seen the numerous failures of the Jews to keep God’s law and provides several examples of where they failed.

What is striking is not their failures, but their response to them. Instead of repenting, they persevered in attempting to live by the law and to get others to live by it as well. And the way in which they revealed this response was to stress the importance of circumcision.

The Jews believed that circumcision provided them with security and marked them out as authentic in God’s sight. After all, did God not give this sign to Abraham in order to distinguish them as a people from all others? Yet it was also the case that those who had been circumcised had to keep the law. If they failed to keep it, they would just be the same as the uncircumcised as far as God was concerned. Both groups were disobeying his law.

Paul even mentions the hypothetical example of a Gentile perfectly keeping the law written on his heart. Would such an uncircumcised person not be as true to God as a circumcised person who kept the law? That uncircumcised person could easily condemn any circumcised person who failed to keep the law totally. The point is what a person is within, in his heart, and not what religious rites he engages in.

In contrast to the Jew described in verses 17-24, a real Jew, says Paul, is the person who has experienced inner renewal, described here as circumcision of the heart, which is another way of saying that such a person has a new heart created within him by the Holy Spirit. With that inner renewal, there will be outward obedience and the individual will then please God. Paul here is dropping hints about the Christian life that he will develop later in Romans. But the point at present being stressed is that mere possession of the law or participation in a religious rite such as circumcision proves anything.

Some applications

First, we must understand the framework of life that Paul has described here and be able to explain it to others. What do we say to our neighbour who is trying his best in the community? He is showing aspects of having the law of God written on his heart, but he is not doing it for the most important reason, which is love for God. He is doing it for the second most important reason, which is love for his neighbour. But because he does not do it for God, he sins. And this is how the Bible describes all good works that are not done for God’s glory.

Second, we can turn the previous paragraph round and ask what God thinks of the person who tries to keep the commandments connected to God but not the ones about loving his neighbour. The conscience of such should speak to them when they fail to keep those commandments about involvement with other people. Of course, loving our neighbour includes acts of kindness, but it also includes communicating the love of Christ to them.

Third, we can see the necessity of regarding everything about how it will appear on the Day of Judgement. If God will not approve of it then, it means he does not approve of it now. Imagine standing before Jesus the Judge and what he will say then, and we will know what he would say now if we were to meet him.

Fourth, we have to keep in mind the gospel that Paul is explaining to his readers. Both type of people here described – Gentiles who ignore the law on their hearts and their consciences and Jews who ignore the law given through Moses and their consciences – can experience the blessings offered in the gospel once they repent and turn to Jesus.