Romans 2:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Romans 2:15

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‘Which shew the work of the law.’ The language is careful. It does not show the law itself as given to the Jews, but it shows evidence of the same moral standards: ‘Which shew the work of the law [how the law is operating] written in their hearts.’ They have a degree of illumination in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, speaking alongside. The apostle Paul, under inspiration, distinguishes between our hearts, our mental constitution, if you like, and our consciences. Do not oversimplify the human constitution. You may think that your conscience has the standards. No, your heart, your constitution has the standards, and the conscience has them as well. So there are two faculties within you equipped with the standards of God. Your own inner awareness, as we would say today, is kind of hardwired with the standards of God, but there is also this faculty that the Bible speaks of: your conscience. The conscience is separate in this sentence from the mind. The mind has a moral consciousness, but you also have another voice alongside it challenging you. You know you shouldn't tell that lie, or make that excuse, or say those things, but as though there is a magistrate, a policeman, within you, a schoolmaster overlooking your shoulder and looking at your work, a voice comes and says, ‘That is wrong’, and you desperately try to justify or excuse it. It is almost as if a discussion is going on between the inner core of you and your conscience, the voice alongside you in your head. Sometimes a person’s moral nature approves of what they do, and excuses them. This is evidence that they know what is right, and the standard within them is aligned with God’s law.

Application

Doesn't everybody have that work going on inside them? Alas, the conscience can be disabled, and it so often is. You can disable the conscience by the simple technique of ignoring it, of steamrolling over it, and pushing it to one side. The same wrong or sin comes up minutes, hours, days later. The conscience speaks again, you ignore it again; you steamroller it down, you do the thing anyway, tell the lie anyway. The third time the conscience is enfeebled, and the fourth time it barely speaks. The fifth time, you feel nothing, you have desensitized the conscience. That's one way of getting rid of it. Another way is to argue with it. That's probably the favourite way of many. You say, ‘No, what I am doing is justified because of this, because of that. If you were in my shoes you'd do the same. I'm not doing it as badly as other people, all sorts of justifications to minimize the voice of conscience.

Failing that is yet another way you can silence the conscience. This is going on wholesale in society. You reprogram the conscience. You tell yourself, ‘No, it isn't wrong. That's just Victorian prudery, or that's just an inherited standard imposed upon us by the past generation. It's all right to be gay; it's all right to do this or that. You rewrite the conscience; you can get parliament to help you rewrite it and change laws very often. The human race is very adept at that: changing, rewriting, reprogramming the conscience. But it's always there and from time to time, no matter how much you have bludgeoned it down, no matter how many excuses you have made, however much you have rewritten it, it will shout out. John Bunyan had it perfectly in Holy War. Mr. Recorder would break out of his jail and shout, and that's what conscience does, and it may do it on your deathbed. It may just roar in your mind. Some people have awful deaths, because conscience gets loose at the last minute, and makes them terrified of God and judgment. It will certainly speak against you when you stand before God. It is there to help you. Why make an enemy of it?

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Romans 2:15 Commentary and Bible Study

The meaning of Romans 2:15 explained