Romans 2:14 Commentary and Bible Study

Is it fair that the Gentiles are judged by the same standard as the Jews, even though they do not have the written law? The apostle will argue that it is certainly just and right and fair, because even though they may never have read the published law of the Ten Commandments in the Pentateuch, the books of Moses, they still have the law deeply etched in their constitution as human beings. They have moral consciousness; they have the standards within them. Man created in the image of God has a moral nature which the animals do not have. The evidence that they have the law written on their hearts is that, even without the written law, they still manage to do the very same things that the law commands. They know God’s standards; they know the Ten Commandments; they keep them even without being told. How do they do this? They do it by nature; it is part of the human constitution to know what is right and what is wrong: that is the very essence of man who is made in the image of God. The apostle Paul argues this by asking us to note that the Gentiles very frequently do right things by nature. The human race is far from being as sinful as it could possibly be. Men and women, being evil, still know how to give good gifts to their children, and they look after their needy and they do good things, because the same law is in their consciences. The most godless Gentile nations with all their idolatry and their unbelief still have some compassion and some concern for law and order and right things. Where does that come from? Why do they have a police force? Why do they have laws at all? They are pagans, they are sinners, they have never heard the Ten Commandments. Where does this idea that you have got to have some standards come from? Even though they pick and choose, even though they may do terrible things, yet they betray in their government and in their standards that they have standards. So the Jew will be judged by his greater light that he had the published word, but the Gentile will be judged by the testimony of his conscience. Even without instruction from parents in the Christian religion, he knows many things. If he is also taught these moral standards from Scripture, then the Scripture echoes something that is already within him. Paul is not talking about perfect obedience to the law within, nor is he saying that an unconverted man can do anything truly acceptable to God. He is simply proving that all men know the law. It is enough for him to prove his case that there are some occasions in which man obviously is following a standard within that agrees with the moral law. This not random behaviour, for people vigorously defends what they have done on the basis that it is right. ‘They are a law unto themselves’, and what the apostle is saying is this: ‘Yes, they have standards. They have them etched on their constitution, Certainly, they pick and choose, and they decide which ones they will follow, and which ones they will reject, but they have them, and they betray that by the remarkable number of God’s commandments they have in their own law codes, expressed in their own words. They demonstrate that the law of God is upon their hearts.