Romans 2

Content

The general question

Does Romans 2:12-26 say that Gentiles held to looser standards and excused due to their ignorance of the Law? Verse 12 in particular is not the simplest to explain. Compare these two interpretations:

“Perishing apart from the Law” means the Gentiles were not held responsible for following the Law.

Vs.

“Perishing apart from the Law” does not mean that Gentiles were not held to the standards of the Law, but simply that they will perish (i.e., face the second death = eternal condemnation) while never having any explicit knowledge of the words of the Law.

It’s not so much that the correct (second) interpretation is so impossible to understand once explained, as that the incorrect (first) interpretation complicates what would otherwise be a reasonably straightforward discussion.

No, Romans 2:12 does not say that ignorance is an excuse

If you were pulled over by a police officer for going 70 MPH in a 15 MPH school zone, do you think “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know the law” will really fly with the officer and get you out of consequences? Of course not.

The problem is that if you take it the wrong way, at first glance, Romans 2:12 does kind of seem to suggest something similar to that. That is, that only those who had the Law were judged by it, meaning those without it would not be responsible for following its commands. We kind of intuitively know something is wrong with that thinking, but, well… doesn’t the verse’s wording kind of inherently imply that?

This is one of those places where context is very important in interpretation. In the void, isolating verse 12 from its context, the problem can seem severe. In context, it merely becomes a matter of continuing to read to see exactly what is meant by this. The interpretive challenge here is more difficult than elsewhere mostly because the immediate context is decidedly hard to piece together too (true in the Greek just as much as the English).

Why is the immediate context hard too?

Because Paul here digresses on a tangent (verses 13-15) before getting back to his main point in verse 16. To quote Dr. Luginbill of Ichthys.com:

As the closing sentence of that quote mentions, this tendency of Paul’s to digress may end up somewhat muted in translation (given that most translators try, in whatever way, to get rid of the “problem”), but it is quite striking in the Greek.

I am focusing on this technical gee-whiz information about Paul’s writing style here because it is important in understanding verses 13-15, and verses 13-15 are essential in understanding what Paul was getting at when he penned verse 12.

If Paul were saying ignorance were an excuse in Romans 2:12, we’d expect verses 13-15 to be a digression about how morality is somehow conditioned by personal knowledge

If one remembers that the epistles were circulated throughout the Mediterranean among the churches, and read through as letters in a way that we often fail to do in the present, then the words Paul spoke about natural revelation in Romans 1:18ff. were perhaps only a minute past in the minds of those listening to the letter being read. (Most people in antiquity were illiterate, so the letters would be read out loud to the group by a single individual who could read). Those past verses already make it very clear that no humans can ever use ignorance as an excuse, and nobody reading the letter through like this would forget that those past verses were there just before this present passage.

That notwithstanding, if Paul were to be making such a point about ignorance being an excuse in verse 12, then we would expect the direction he took in verses 13-15 to focus on matters relating to such. In actuality, Paul does talk about Gentiles, but rather than arguing that Gentiles under the grip of sin are in some way excused from it due to ignorance, he discusses those Gentiles that end up doing the things required by the Law simply by following their consciences. Put simply, the points that Paul makes here (namely, that it is obeying not hearing that matters in God’s eyes, that the human conscience actually leads all humans to follow the Law implicitly if they listen to it) do not at all support taking verse 12 as saying that ignorance is some sort of excuse. Quite the opposite, actually.

OK, so what is verse 12 getting at then?

The verse is getting at something like this (this is a very interpretive/loose paraphrase on my part):

I should be clear again that this is a very interpretive/loose paraphrase. I added a lot that is simply not there in the text. But this is the essential meaning of verse 12 in how I interpret it.

It is ironic (in a darkly amusing sort of way) that so many people stumble in thinking that this verse is a fig leaf for Gentiles. In reality, the unbelieving Gentiles mentioned in this verse are essentially presupposed as being doomed: they stand condemned, under the grip of sin, and entirely apart from the Law that would help instruct them. Rather, Paul is largely targeting this verse—as well as all those that follow, as we shall see—towards his Jewish listeners who consider themselves superior simply on account of having the Law, as if merely possessing it (rather than following it) were the important part.

The gist of the verse is that the Jews with the Law who try to work their way into heaven through Law-keeping are actually hopeless too (just like those Gentiles without the Law they are so quick to look down upon), since no human can actually keep the Law properly. They too will die under sin, judged and condemned by the words of their precious Law.

Back to verses 12-16 as a whole

Putting it all together now, these verses fit together in this way:

• In verse 12, Paul informs his listeners that they are just as hopeless as the sinful Gentiles who don’t have the Law if they try to trust in the Law for salvation, for in that case, they too will be judged by this Law of theirs—the Law that they say is so dear to them—and justly condemned by it. Compare Romans 3:20. It is impossible for the works of the Law to justify us before God.

He then digresses a bit:

• In verse 13, Paul explains that this is because God does not care about who hears the words of the Law, but instead cares about who actually acts righteously and does what it says.
• In verse 14, Paul likely blows their minds by informing them that Gentiles can “keep the Law” too, by acting in accordance with their consciences, thus becoming a law unto themselves. This implicitly means that the Gentiles that are mentioned negatively in verse 12 are not all Gentiles, but only those who do not obey the Law. (Inasmuch as by “obey the Law” we mean in the real sense, rather than seeking salvation by means of legalistic Law-keeping).
• In verse 15, Paul explains the mechanics of this a bit more, outlining how the words of the Law written upon the human heart, alongside the human conscience, accuse or excuse us as we go through life, making it possible to determine right from wrong, if only we care to listen.

And then finally he returns to the main point:

• In verse 16, Paul says that the perishing of the unbelieving Gentiles apart from the Law and the judgement under the Law of those Jews who trusted only in the Law for salvation (i.e., both the things that were mentioned in verse 12) will take place on the Great Day of Judgement. It is also then that, by way of contrast to these two groups, those who are doers of the Law will be declared righteous (verse 13)—be they believing Jews who saw the real message behind the Law (rather than trying work their way into heaven), or Gentiles who followed their consciences (in the way that verses 14-15 describe).

As a closing thought, I’ve always found the way other translations and interpretations deal with the prepositional phrase in verse 16 more than a bit confusing. A lot of translators and interpreters follow what would be “normal grammar” and try to force it to go with the accusing/excusing of the human heart and conscience in verse 15. I submit that trying to force that leads to all sorts of nonsense. Because rather than hearts or consciences accusing or excusing people on the Day of Judgement (what would that even mean, exactly?), on that Great Day of Days:

• People who lived lives of sinful unbelief without hearing or knowing of the Law will face the second death (the unbelieving Gentiles of verse 12).
• People who did hear and know of the Law but tried to work their way into heaven through Law-keeping will be judged—and justly condemned—by the Law (the unbelieving Jews of verse 12; these people are not facing the second death without ever hearing or knowing of the Law like the first group—quite to the contrary, the very reason why these people too will be facing condemnation and the second death is because despite having the mirror of the Law to show them their own need for a savior, they did not care to truly comprehend it or understand it, instead trying to claim a hollow righteousness of their own works).
• People who obeyed the Law—whether because they actually had it and truly comprehended what it represented, or instead did not have it but merely obeyed their consciences—will be declared righteous (Jew and Gentile alike; those mentioned in verse 13).

In short, the prepositional phrase of verse 16 has nothing to do with verse 15, the verse that immediately precedes it.

And this is again why I focused so much on explaining the digression present in this passage. The grammar is a bit weird when you take things this way (i.e., why is there this random prepositional phrase chilling 4 verses after the things it goes with?), but that doesn’t make it the wrong interpretation. It need not dent our faith in inspiration to have some passages that are hard to parse out grammatically. And I should note that to native Greek speakers, what Paul did would have been completely intelligible, if perhaps still a bit hard to follow. As Dr. Luginbill put it, this sort of digression is simply a distinguishing quirk of Paul’s Greek writing style.