Romans 2:12 Commentary and Bible Study

This flows from the main idea in verse 5 – ‘But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God’ – but it also picks up on the distinction between Jew and Gentile, mentioned in the intervening verses. The obvious difference between them is that the Jew has the revelation of God, and most significantly he has the law. The Gentile does not have the law, and many have lived and died without ever having read a word of Scripture. How can they be judged? By what standard are they going to be judged? If the answer is that they will be judged by the law, how can they be judged by a standard they know nothing about? Paul’s answer begins in verse 12: ‘For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.’ Following that there is a parenthesis in verse 13 to 15 which the KJV places in brackets, and then verse 16 concludes the block of verses. One can read straight from verse 12 to verse 16, but within those brackets is additional material which is of great importance.He has said in verse 11, ‘For there is no respect of persons with God,’ indicating that God makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile in judgment, or between any different classes of person in the world. He now shows how God’s impartiality in judgment operates in these two very different cases. The justice of God takes into account the differences between these two groups of men, but it never excuses sin.In verse 12 Gentiles and Jews are separated out, but in one respect the situation is the same for both of them: they will both perish. The Gentiles do not have Moses and the Ten Commandments, the books of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the books of the law, setting out the standards of God for the human race. That does not for one moment alter the fact that they will perish. The privileged, the Jews who have revelation and instruction in the law of God, will be judged by the law: their case is clear. But sin always brings death, and he is about to explain how that can be true in the case of the Gentiles, the more difficult case to understand; they are without the law, that is, the written law. Nevertheless he starts by insisting that there is no exception and that in every case sin causes men and women to perish, whether or not they have written law. Of course when he says this he is thinking of those in both classes who have not been saved by grace. He starts by considering the state of mankind without the intervention of grace.‘As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law’ – that is Jewish people, who consider themselves to be God's children. One of the main reasons for this is that they have been given the revelation of God as custodians, and have the Ten Commandments, and are familiar with the laws given at the time of Moses. But if they have sinned and they have not repented and they have not sought the mercy of God, then they will be judged by that law. That is a foundational truth in everything that follows.