To read: Romans 2:12-16
New Revised Standard Version Bible,All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
To think about:
The
terms law and gospel stand as two poles between which much of Paul's thought plays itself out. Both words can be tricky for modern readers. Paul uses them in specific, sometimes private, ways. Here he speaks first of the law as the set of moral imperatives which God had revealed to the people of Israel. Specifically Paul would have meant the first five books of Hebrew Scripture. But he extends the reach of the law beyond these to include an innate moral sense which all people recognize, regardless of their religious knowledge or stance.
Paul is dealing with universal questions: are right and wrong simply what we make of them? Or are there moral laws written into the very texture of life? These are more than abstract matters of philosophy. In our time, questions of personal behavior - questions surrounding abortion, cohabitation, and same-sex relations, for example - all have advocates: on the one side, for the answers of our time, and on the other, for the values and practices of the centuries. Are right and wrong open to the definitions of our age, or are they "givens" of universal human experience? For Paul the answer is simple: "What the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness." For some, Paul has the final word. For others the debate continues.
To pray:
Lord God, bless us with a measure of your wisdom that we may cling to that which never changes, yet be open to how you may also speak to us today. Amen.
Northern Great Lakes Synod Council member
Christ Lutheran Parish, Ironwood, Mich.