Romans 2:12-16

12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges everyone's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.


Dig Deeper
When we go to South Africa or any other unique location my wife and I do as most travelers do. We buy up souvenirs and interesting articles from the country or location where we are at to take back to our house or to give to friends. It’s cool to get exotic items that you don’t normally see at home. On our last trip to South Africa, I particularly wanted to get a painted ostrich egg. It’s just not something you see around here and they are incredibly beautiful. I finally found one that I really liked that was painted with a black background and an incredible depiction of the “big five” animals of South Africa. We took it home and put it up on the mantle over our fireplace and I really enjoyed it. That is, until I came home a few weeks ago to find my oldest son sitting on the couch with a wry grin on his face and my youngest son whining fervently that it wasn’t his fault. For the sharp parent, these are clues that the little one has done something that the older one is going to find great satisfaction in telling me about. The little one realized that it would go better for him if he spilled the beans himself and quickly told me that he had broken the ostrich egg by playing baseball in the house. The older one sat back with the same smile on his face enjoying the show. I calmly asked our youngest why he would be playing baseball in the house at all. The eldest piped in that he knew not to play baseball in the house and had no part in this affair nor did he have any idea why the little one would have engaged in such an egregious act. As we talked, it came out that I had never specifically told our young son that he could not play baseball in the house but I pointed out that he knew better anyway as was evidenced by the facts that he never played in the house when I and his mother are there and that similar activities were banned from indoor play. I had never given him that precise rule but he should have known better given the information that he did have.

Paul is busy laying a foundation for his defense of God’s justice that has been revealed to the world through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ultimately he is setting about to answer the objection that if the gospel is true and Gentiles are streaming into the kingdom of God but the majority of Jews are not, then hasn’t God been unjust in his covenantal promises to Israel? In order to demonstrate God’s justice Paul will set about to show that God’s plan, which did involve Israel in a special way, was always intended to be for all mankind, not just Israel. Paul wants to make it clear that there is only one plan. God does not have two plans or two paths to salvation and that that one plan is absolutely faithful to the covenant that he made with Israel. If there is only one plan, though, then that would mean that everyone has a common need, but how can that be true when Israel had the law? Either they would be at an advantage in having the law, or if the law only highlighted their guilt in breaking it then those without the law would be at an advantage because they didn’t have the law accusing or defending their behavior. How could they be blamed for breaking something they didn’t have? As we will see, Paul walks this line carefully to demonstrate the point that he has made earlier. God does not show favoritism.

Again, we have to keep our minds on what Paul is talking about in this letter so that we don’t drift off into reading things into the letter that Paul is not saying. In making his defense of God’s covenant faithfulness that is demonstrated in the resurrection of the Messiah, Paul is also answering the question of who the people of God are and how they can be identified. Will there be one people or two sets of people of God and how can one tell? Paul’s answer that will become more and more clear as we progress, is that there is only one family and that was the plan from the beginning. His intent is to show how that one plan that includes Jews and Gentiles in Christ is the just fulfillment of God’s covenant promises.

This then, is what the term translated as “justify” is all about. It has to do with being declared to be in the right. “Justify” was a primarily legal word in Paul’s day. It was a word that was used when a judge would pass down a decision. His declaration of who was in the right was their justification. It was the marker that showed them to be vindicated. Thus, when Paul talks of being justified he is talking of who is declared in the present time to be in God’s one true family, a declaration that points to and anticipates the final decision and declaration at the final judgment. This declaration changes the status of the one who is being marked out so that we can see that when one is justified, their status is changed from being enslaved to sin (Paul will return to this thought in chapter 5) to being part of the family of God. And how do we receive that justification? Paul will get to that soon, but the short answer is those who live by faith in the life of Christ rather than those who think that living by the works of the law will demonstrate them to be justified as the people of God.

When Paul talks of the works of the law, he is primarily referring to the yoke of the Mosaic law, the Torah, as well as all of the rules and regulations that had grown into Jewish tradition to help them uphold the Mosaic law. Jews believed that following this law defined them and assured their status as the people of God. This meant that those who followed the law were shown to be the people of God but those who didn’t bore the evidence in their lack of following the law that they were not the people of God. This is why this issue became so important in early Christian communities that found themselves a mixture of Jewish Christians who followed the law, and Jewish and Gentile Christians who did not. We should note that the issue was not about earning salvation. This is a modern construct that does not relate to the Judaism of Paul’s day. It is just not accurate to say that Jews of Jesus’ and Paul’s day thought that by following the law they earned salvation. They knew that the salvation that came to God’s people was an act of grace but they believed that the badge of identification that showed them to be God’s family was living by the law. It separated them from the pagan sinners all around them.

Paul wants to make it clear that the law had another purpose. It served a purpose, as a he describes in Galatians 3:19, “It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.” The law kept Israel separate from the sinful pagan nations and dealt with their sin until the full plan could be unveiled in the Messiah. Paul will get to all of that, but for now his point is that the law is not the marker of justification. It was a tool that served a temporary role in preserving their status but it did not create or even demonstrate that status. The Jews might hear the law, but they don’t really do it perfectly which is what it requires. The ultimate purpose of the law was not to justify people. That was always a matter of faith as Paul will explain in chapter 4.

Those with the law and those without the law are standing on the same ground when it comes to facing God at the final judgment that Paul has been discussing. Those who sin under the law and those who sin without the law are in the same boat. In the same way, those who have and hear the law are not justified either. In fact, Paul says, Gentiles don’t have the law, but they do have the heart of the law written on their hearts, on their consciences, and sometimes they follow it, sometimes they don’t. Paul was referring to something that was an accepted belief in the Grecco-Roman world; the belief that humans had a sort of natural law written into their consciences that directed them to right and away from wrong. In chapter 1, Paul said that God had revealed himself through the creation so that humans have enough information to seek God further. Now he describes a second light that all humans have, even those that didn’t have the Mosaic law, the testimony from within. We all have a conscience that either accuses or defends us but Gentiles, said Paul, can’t find justifying solace in that anymore than the Jews could find it in the law. The Mosaic law and the conscience law accuse people of their sin and leave them without excuse but they don’t bring justification. Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Only, says Paul, those who obey the law” will be “declared righteous” or a faithful part of God’s covenant family. He doesn’t explain that statement in verse 13 yet, but again, that is coming. Here, Paul is content to simply allude to the fact that there is some way that people can be found to obey the law and faithful to the Covenant.

This even standing of the Jew and Gentile and the equal need for the gospel will come sharply into focus on the last day of judgment. This is the time when God will judge what is, including human’s hearts, not just what seems to be. He will judge humans through Jesus Christ. It is curious that he says “through Jesus” rather than “by the standard of Jesus.” Paul will make this somewhat mysterious statement clear in chapter 6 when he will remind his readers of the need to die to self and enter into the life of the Messiah. The resurrection of Christ and the availability of that resurrection life in the present age is the gospel that he declares. Everyone, both Jew and Gentile, will find themselves being judged by one simple standard. Are they covered by the life of Christ or not. It is that life, and the accompanying faith which allows one to enter into that life, that will justify someone in the present or will show them to be worthy of condemnation on that final day.


Devotional Thought
As a Christian, do you ever find yourself reverting to the mindset that you can somehow work or earn your way into favor with God? Do you fear that God will cast you out of his kingdom if you don’t perform up to some standard? Do you rely on your status as a son of God in Christ alone?