Romans 2:14-16

Mankind is without excuse for his universal failure to glorify and thank God.  Thus God will properly hold him accountable.  And His judgment is said to be impartial because the same standards are equally applied to all.

Some people question this impartiality because of an obvious but misunderstood issue.  The issue concerns access to God’s law or His standards.  In Rom. 2:12 God speaks of those without law and those in the law.  This refers to Jews who have the written Mosaic Law given by God.  Gentiles, or non-Jews, did not have ready access to that law.  For some that introduces a certain bias.  Gentiles may claim they didn’t know the standards of the Creator and are thus to be given a pass.

Non-Jews have created many codes that are admirable in many ways.  The Code of Hammurabi is roughly concurrent with Moses and has a rather elevated ethic.  Various religions have produces systems, such as the 8-fold Path, the 5 Pillars, and so forth.  According to the Bible, however, the Creator gave His moral standards (law) to the people of Israel, through Moses, embodied in the 10 Commandments.  If this is true, then one wonders how God can be considered impartial.

In one sense, of course, it seems harder for the Jew if he has God’s law and knows he has failed.  But for the Gentile it is hard if he doesn’t even know God’s law.  How can he do the law he has not heard or known (2:13)?

The answer to all this is in our passage.  It tells us that Gentiles do have the law.  They have the law of God written on their hearts.  God has places His law within all mankind in the form of their conscience.  A conscience is not some organ like the brain or liver.  The terms means with knowledge.  It refers to the way that people instinctively know that some things are right and other things are wrong.

This conscience is confirmed by the existence of those ethical codes.  The 10 Commandments are generally accepted worldwide, even by those who have never seen these commands in written form or who may follow a religion other than Judaism.  Even the laws of fidelity to God and worship of the Creator are generally accepted.

The conscience is such a real entity that Paul himself, who was an expert in the Mosaic Law, still sought to live consistently with his heart-law (2 Tim. 1:3).  He knew as well what we all know: that a person can muddle or redirect his conscience so our violations of it become less felt (e.g. 1 Tim. 4:2; Titus 1:15).  But rather than render the idea of conscience invalid this face only serves to further indict the sinner.

Thus, Paul can conclude that a day is coming when all men will be fairly judged by Jesus Christ, the Man who lived a sin-free life, as we shall see later in Romans.  God will judge you and me, and His judgment will be fair.