Romans 2:15, commentary and pictures

God wrote His ten-commandment moral law on the human heart at creation, so that all people carry its claims within them even without the written law. When those without that written law do by nature what the law requires, they show this inward work, with conscience bearing witness and their thoughts accusing or excusing them. God will judge every person by that law as the standard of character, holding each accountable according to the light and knowledge of His will they have received. This means even those in heathen darkness who heed God's voice in nature and do kindness through His grace are recognized as His children, and Christ will present their faithful work when He comes in glory. Yet conscience alone is not a safe guide, for it may be perverted by indulged appetite and sin, so true obedience requires doing God's Word rather than merely knowing it or following one's own way.

Law Written in Hearts

The work shown as written in hearts is the moral law of the ten commandments, imprinted on humanity at creation so that Adam and Eve knew its claims, and Adam afterward taught that law to his descendants. That moral law is entirely distinct from the ceremonial ritual law, cannot be broken with impunity, and stands fast forever as firm as the throne of God. The law written in the heart existed before transgression and was not changed when man fell, but a remedial system was established to bring him back to obedience through the promise of a Saviour and sacrificial offerings pointing forward to the death of Christ as the great sin offering. Had that law never been transgressed there would have been no death and no need of a Saviour and no need of sacrifices.

Transgression made Adam and Eve sinners and brought sin and death and the curse, but redemption and pardon were provided through Christ's atonement. Adam and Eve repented, believed the promise, and were saved. After Adam failed his test and revolted against God's law, making all his descendants sinners, cherished sins dimmed and nearly effaced the writing once in the hearts of men and women, with the impressions made by sin gradually wearing away the impressions of the law. When Gentiles who do not have the written law do by nature the things contained in the law, they are a law unto themselves and show the work of the law written in their hearts, with conscience bearing witness and thoughts accusing or else excusing.

People of the heathen world with no intelligent knowledge of the Lord's law still do some of the very things the law requires because they heed the voice speaking in nature around them. The grace of God works upon their darkened minds and softens their savage nature untaught by human wisdom, and the Holy Spirit touches their hearts, so that their kindness and good deeds bear witness to this inward work and show they are recognized as God's children. When the Son of man comes in His glory with all the holy angels to sit upon the throne of His glory, Christ presents the faithful work such people have done for Him and through them displays the love of God to all who have proved true and faithful. God has written knowledge of Himself in the human heart, and this inner conviction is illuminated and explained by His word, while His created works provide living evidence of His power to those whose eyes the Holy Spirit has enlightened.

Judged by Law's Standard

Paul's teaching is that God judges people by the law, and the law is the standard of character in the judgment, so that not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers shall be justified. The Gentiles who do not have the written law but do by nature the things contained in the law are a law unto themselves, and this rebukes those who rest in the law and boast of God and know His will and approve excellent things, being confident as guides of the blind and teachers of babes with the form of knowledge, yet teach others without teaching themselves. God requires zeal according to knowledge and a people who are doers of the Word, whose outward appearance testifies to the inward working of the heart and whose received truth transforms mind and character away from idolatry and pride in apparel.

The law of God will be the standard of character in the judgment that began in 1844 and must continue until the cases of all the living and the dead are decided at the close of human probation. In the day when God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, those who have sinned in the law will be judged by the law and the doers of the law will be justified. Keeping the law is necessary to be prepared to stand in the judgment, and this requires faith, because without faith it is impossible to please God and whatever is not of faith is sin. The work of God's law is binding on all, and to fear God and give glory to Him and to worship Him as Creator of heaven and earth means to obey His law. Without obedience to His commandments no worship can be pleasing to God, for conscience bears witness and thoughts accuse or excuse in connection with that duty.

Every soul will be judged by the knowledge of God's will that has come to him, according to the light received and willingness to stand the test God gives. No sinner perishes for want of opportunities and privileges or for lack of means of knowing God's will, but for unwillingness to come out from the world and be separate from selfish practices and to deal with justice and mercy. The question whether a person will be lost for not keeping the Sabbath cannot be reduced to a bare yes or no apart from the light God has allowed to reach him. People among the Catholics who live up to their light can be saved. People standing aloof from greater light who live more in accordance with the light they have received than many with greater light live in accordance with theirs are not to be judged by those who have the greater light, and judging them exposes the foolishness of human wisdom.

Though given intellect and reason and power of speech, and though God uses nature to reveal His power and His handiwork calls them from nature to nature's God, men give idolatry to nature instead. Man, the crowning object of creation, has most greatly dishonored Him. In the judgment human beings will stand before God ashamed and condemned because they would not obey His law. Their destiny is determined in relation to that law toward which they are inclined to sin and transgress and for which they need the warning and light of truth.

God has given His holy law to be recognized and obeyed as the standard of character approved by God and the standard to judge every person in the last great day of reckoning. The holy law of ten commandments, written on tables of stone by the finger of God and placed in the ark, is the standard of righteousness. Young men must examine what course they pursue, what influence they exercise, whether they are uplifting, whether they are building character with chaff or sowing pure seed in the soil of the heart, and whether their associations lead to purity and obedience to that law, and must make a decided change at once where they fail rather than trusting in natural moral nature. Departure from right principles blinds the understanding to truth, but in the last great day the law will appear before the obedient and the disobedient and all the wicked will be convicted. They will see that their actions came from a depraved character, that the part they acted carried on the rebellion begun in the heavenly courts, and that all cruelty and wickedness dishonored their Creator and brought the wretchedness that fills the world. The law they disobeyed was their life, and obedience to it would have made their characters as fine gold and their principles as the golden wedge of Ophir, would have kept them in happiness and peace and borne fruit in sanctified love and beauty of character, and would have filled the world with holiness and purity.

Being a law unto themselves does not mean human beings can set aside Christ's authority and obey no law but their own. Christ is over all His creation, and His commandments are to be reverenced and cherished and obeyed as the controlling power in the lives of His people. The claim that Christ has removed His seat of honor and power and that men need no longer exalt His character and obey His law is a sophistry of the tempter to discount and make nothing of God. Destroying restraint and moral control weakens restraint upon vice, and those who do not love and fear God soon lose all sense of obligation to one another, leaving them without God and without hope in the world. Those who trust in their own righteousness, refuse to submit to God's will, and think they can be a law to themselves will have their lives examined in the light of God's law. In the day of final accounts they will meet a plain Thus saith the Lord and be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary and found wanting, because God calls all to meet His standard of righteousness and bow to His authority. Those who turn from the presentation of truth and righteousness, refusing to follow God's way for their own way, will reap as they have sown, and those who profess to be Christians yet do not the works of a Christian will have no excuse to offer when every case stands out as it is, with the line of demarcation between the obedient and the disobedient clear and distinct.

Conscience and Daily Obedience

The work of God's law is present in human hearts, with conscience bearing witness to that law and to personal conduct, commending or accusing before God while thoughts accuse or else excuse. An enlightened conscience dictates right conduct in agreement with God's requirements and serves as an inner moral restraint upon society. If men acknowledged and obeyed God's requirements and the dictates of that conscience, the general breakdown of moral restraints would be healed. Then the complicated and expensive human arrangements to restrain and punish crime would be unnecessary, for true reform is bringing men to that obedience.

Conscience, however, is not always safe to follow, for there is a good conscience and a bad conscience. A good conscience is pure and elevating and ennobling, while a bad conscience is perverted by hereditary and cultivated taste. One who follows perverted taste in indulgence of appetite and follows human impulse may plead conscientiousness, yet that claim is not of heavenly birth. It is not safe to become a law unto oneself contrary to given light. Indulgence of depraved appetite excites and strengthens animal passions, and what is placed in the stomach for food builds up the body and educates the propensities, so animal propensities must not be strengthened to rule the whole being, and no one should by precept and example encourage others in such indulgence.

In daily practice this witness is felt in giving and in health. In the weekly practice of giving, reviewing income and spending brings this judgment to mind, impressing self-denial and economy for God's work upon the heart while exposing indulgence. A person must use food, drink, and clothing for God's glory to retain peace of mind and favor. In matters of eating and dress, obeying conscience means following principle rather than inclination, fashion, or appetite, since violating the laws of life and health brings effects that God has not removed by changing the human body.

The verse rebukes those who are called Jews and rest in the law and boast of God and know His will and approve excellent things, being confident as guides of the blind and teachers of babes with the form of knowledge in the law, yet teach others without teaching themselves. For not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers shall be justified, and when Gentiles who have not the written law do by nature the things contained in the law they are a law unto themselves. God requires zeal according to knowledge and a people who are doers of the Word, whose outward appearance testifies to the inward working of the heart. Truth received in the heart transforms mind and heart and character away from idolatry and pride in apparel. Humanity without the law of God in the heart does not obey its principles, because the human heart is corrupt and utterly unreliable, and the trying of fraudulent, guilty actions awakens people to see this truth, exposing that even lawyers do not obey God's law that Christ came from heaven to make known precept after precept.