Romans 2:14-16
14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them) 16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
This text is probably the main text that is seized upon by Natural Law theorists to justify the Natural law project. I hope to show in what follows that the text does not support the whole Natural Law project. The reason that I am pursuing this here is due to the fact that among some Reformed Churches, Jesuit trained scholars are seeking to revive the Natural Law tradition within the Reformed Church. One would have thought that given the thorough thrashing that the presuppositionalists in the 20th century gave to Natural theology and by extension Natural Law that this would be a battle that would not need to be fought again but alas memories are even shorter than lifespans.
From the passage above the Natural Law theorist posit three truths about the text that just are not so.
1.) Natural Law theorists are convinced that the text is a universal given for all men
2.) The word Law in vs. 15 is a reference to Natural Law or Laws found in nature.
3.) The Natural Law(s) are written in the hearts of all men
The background of this passage finds the Apostle making the case that fallen men will not be able to use the excuse of a lack of revelation for their insistence that they do not know God. This is due to the reason that the Gentiles have suppressed the truth of God’s revelation in unrighteousness and chose to worship the creation over the Creator.
The basis of God’s condemnation of the wicked is that they are ungodly and unrighteous, having inherited original sin and they are condemned having been imputed with the sin of Adam. The refusal to receive the message of General Revelation which teaches that there is a God and that man is condemned only ratifies the condemnation that fallen man is born under and with.
Some of these that come under God’s condemnation are those who have never heard of God’s Law (Torah). Yet, even these are condemned for;
all who have sinned without the Torah will also perish without the Torah; and all who who have sinned under the Torah will be judged by the Torah. (Romans 2:12)
It is important to point out here that the “Torah” (Law) mentioned here is not reducible to the Decalogue. The Torah includes all of the Law in all of its detail that God gave to Israel. John Murray could comment on this text by offering,
“The law referred to is definite and can be none other than the law of God specified in the preceding verses as the laws which the Gentiles do not have, the law the Jews did have and under which they were, the law by which men will be condemned in the day of judgment.”
This is important to note because our Natural Law friends want to reduce the Law in Romans 2 to the Decalogue and they want to contend that the Gentiles did have the Law being referred to here if only as given by a different delivery system (Natural Law). The Law that the Apostle refers to here is a law that governed how one’s hair was cut, how one’s crops were planted, how sin was to be punished, etc. It was the whole Torah system. To assume that the law that is referred to in Romans 2 is only the Ten Commandments is to import something to the text that is not there. Clearly it is easier to make a case that Natural Law communicates that Murder is wrong. It is more difficult to contend that Natural Law teaches that if an animal gores and kills somebody it must be stoned. By reducing what the Torah is in Romans 2 the Natural Law aficionado makes it easier to successfully make his case.
Paul in Romans 2:14 emphatically states that some Gentiles do not have the Torah to guide them. It is important that we realize that there is no definite article in the Greek before the word “Gentiles.” This is significant because the Natural Law guys who learned from their Jesuit mentors assume, contrary to the text, that all Gentiles do have the Torah but from a different source – to wit, from Nature as read by autonomous reason.
You can imagine a bit of a conversation that might develop between a Roman Catholic Thomistic defender of Natural Law and the Presuppositionalist who reads the Scripture,
Presuppositionalist: A “Gentile” by definition is someone who does not have the Torah to guide him in all of life.
Thomist: No! The Gentiles do have Torah. They just get it from Nature, not Revelation.
Presuppositionalist: NO! Paul states twice in Romans 2:14 that Gentiles do not have the Torah. He is not saying that they have a Torah-without-God through a Nature-without-God. In Romans 2:12, Paul states that those who sin without Torah will perish without Torah. If they have the Torah, even through a Nature-without-God how can he say that Gentiles sin and perish without it?
The Apostle is stating that the “conscience” in the Gentile heathen takes the place of the Torah by sitting in judgment of what He thinks and says and does. This is key for it is this conscience that is the “work of the law written on the heart.” The work of the law is to adjudicate between right and wrong. It is the heathen Gentiles conscience that is doing that work. It is thus not the Law (Torah) that is written on the Gentile heart but the work of the Law as accomplished by the conscience that is written on the Gentile’s heart. Instead of the Torah the pagan has conscience. Meyer points out,
“their moral nature, with its voice of conscience commanding and forbidding, supplies to their own Ego the place the revealed law possessed by the Jews.”
Robert Haldane chimes in,
“We have here a distinction between the law itself, and the work of the law. the work of the law is the thing that that the law doeth, – that is, what it teaches about actions, as good or bad. This work, or business, or office of the law, is to teach what is right or wrong.”
A proper understanding of Romans 2:14-16 requires us to distinguish between what the text says (the work of the law written on their hearts) and what is passed off as the text saying (the law written on their hearts).
This error of rearranging the text is seen by reputed scholars like David VanDrunen
“God has inscribed the natural law on the hearts of every person (Romans 2:14-15), and all people know the basic requirements of God’s law, even if they suppress that knowledge (Rom. 1:19, 21, 32).”
Michael Horton has likewise made this common error,
“Gentiles have the moral law indelibly written on their conscience (Rom. 2:15). Not only do they know the second table (duties to neighbors); they know the first table as well (duties to God).”
These incidents could be many times repeated by many Thomistic authors and in this habit we see theologians not only deleting the words “the work of” but adding the words “on the hearts of all men.”
The problem here is that Paul did not say that, “the law was written on the hearts of all men.” Indeed, given the context of Romans 2 Paul most assuredly does not have in view all men but only those Gentile pagans who do not have the written Torah. If our Natural law lovers were consistent with their misreading of the text they would have to admit that Jews do not have Natural Law because they have Torah.
Lenski explains,
“Jews cannot be included, for they are under the Mosaic code. The Greeks are also excluded … because the Greek is a pagan he is not necessarily included … Also those who sin and perish ‘without any law’ (vs. 12) are excluded… This interpretation will not be accepted by those who think that all Gentiles are here referred to. But Paul had looked around in this wicked world a bit. It still contains men who have no conscience at all, who in no way respond even to an inner law … Yes, ethne (Greek for Gentile) without the article is correct.”
So clearly the interpretation of Natural Law advocates is inaccurate here. The passage does not support the interpolation that “the law is written on the hearts of all men.” The Holy Spirit is not speaking universally of all mankind. Natural law theorizing fails on this account.
Now add to this that the word “Gentiles” does not have the definite article in Romans 2:14 because not only is Paul not making a universal statement about all mankind, he is also not even making a universal statement about all Gentiles. Some Gentiles of course had heard of Torah and thus those Gentiles who had heard of Torah cannot be grouped with the Gentiles who had not heard of Torah. John Murray offers on this score,
… there are some Gentiles who did have the law and on that account did not belong to the category of which he (Paul) is speaking.”
H. A. W. Meyer reinforce Murray’s observation by offering that what Paul was saying must,
“not be understood of the Gentiles collectively … for this must have been expressed by the (definite) article … and the putting of the case otan … poin with respect to the heathen generally would be in itself untrue – but Paul means rather Gentiles among whom the supposed case concerns.”
The next observation that seriously mitigates against the Natural law case is the reality that in Romans 2:15 the Greek verb for “work” and the Greek verb for “written” agree (accusative neuter singular). The case, gender, and number of the two words grammatically mean that the “work” of the Torah is what is “written” in the hearts of the Gentiles who do not have the Torah. This bolsters the case that is being made that it is not the case that the Torah itself is written on the heart. What the Apostle is referring to here is something else that is in the hearts of the heathen that functions in the place of Torah.
Next, in order to overturn Natural law eisegesis of Romans 2:14-16 we turn to the meaning of the phrase, “the law” in the text. In the context of the passage the meaning can only be a reference to the revealed Torah that the Jews possessed. The attempt by Natural Law theologians to interpret “the law” in Romans 2:14-16 as some kind of ethereal nebulous Natural law is just laughable and violates basic hermeneutics 101. John Murray again reinforces the point that we are laboring at here by saying,
“Paul does not say that the law is written upon their (Gentiles) hearts.”
Now I will seek to set forth what Paul is getting at with the idea that the “work of the law written in their hearts”
CONSCIENCE
This “work of the law written in their hearts” The Apostle suggests is the conscience.
15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)
It is the conscience that does the work that the Torah does for those who do not have Torah. For those who have Torah, the work of Torah is to determine what is acceptable and what is not. For those who do not have Torah, the work of Torah written in the heart is the work of the conscience determining what is acceptable and what is not.
Matthew Henry in his commentary offers in support of this
“They had the work of the law. He (Paul) does not mean that work which the law commands, as if they could produce a perfect obedience; but that work which the law does.”
Hendrickson & Kistemaker in their commentary offers,
“It is that individual’s inner sense of right and wrong; his (to a certain extent divinely imparted) moral consciousness viewed in the act of pronouncing judgment upon himself, that is, upon his thoughts, attitudes, words, and deeds, whether past, present, or contemplated. As the passage states, the resulting thoughts or judgments are either condemnatory or, in certain instances even commendatory.”
And just one more … this from a chap named Mounce in his commentary on Romans
“Paul was not saying that God’s specific revelation to Israel through Moses was intuitively known by pagan peoples. He was saying that in a broad sense what was expected of all peoples was not hidden from those who did not have the revelation given to Israel. Their own conscience acknowledged the existence of such a law. Thrall suggests that Paul was saying that in the pagan world the conscience performed roughly the same function as the law preformed in the Jewish world.”
Now as we consider the Biblical concept of conscience closer we learn that like all words the meaning of this word depends upon which worldview matrix that we drop it in.
Brief Explanatory Story – The meaning of the word “Cool.”
Conscience is one of those words that has been made to carry a great deal of foreign freight. In the philosophy of Stoicism “conscience” was made to mean the place where resides the infallible “sense of oughtness” resident in human nature.
The Biblical concept of conscience is different from the pagan notion of Stoicism.
Interestingly enough the Hebrew OT never refers to the “conscience.” There isn’t even a Hebrew word for it, though there are times where the KJV will translate the Hebrew word “Heart” as “conscience” but this is an example where people were interpreting instead of translating. No one who had the Law ever appealed to “conscience” as an inner judge for right and wrong. It was the Torah that served as judge for right and wrong. Since Jews had the Torah they did not need a conscience.
When we come to the NT, the word “conscience” does not appear in the Gospels and is never referenced by Jesus or His disciples. In the Epistles the Greek word we use for “conscience” can simply mean to be sincere in what one says and does.
Romans 9:1 I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit,
Barclay and Nida in their commentary on Romans point out
“conscience may be variously translated depending upon the particular set of associations connected w/ certain terms or phrases – for example, “my heart,” “my innermost,” “that which speaks within me,” or “the voice of my heart.”
The conscience does not have any ontological reality. It seems often to serve as a kind of “Deus ex machina” to communicate the source of ones convictions.
Vincent’s word studies give us insight into the meaning of conscience
“In Scripture we are to view the conscience as Bishop Ellicott remarks, not in its abstract nature, but in its practical manifestations. Hence it may be weak (I Cor. 8:7, 12), unauthoritative and awakening only the feeblest emotion. It may be evil or defiled (Heb. 10:22, Tit. 1:15), through consciousness of evil practice. It may be seared (I Tim. 4:2), branded by its own testimony to evil practice, hardened and insensible to the appeal of good. OTOH, it may be pure (II Tim. 1:3), unveiled, and giving honest and clear testimony. It may be void of offense (Acts 24:16), unconscious of evil intent or act: good as here, or honorable (Heb. 13:18). the expression and the idea, in the full Christian sense, are foreign to the OT, where the testimony to the character of moral action and character is born by external revelation rather than by the inward moral consciousness.”
So we see that those who teach that conscience is the place in human nature where there resides the infallible “sense of oughtness” are those who are teaching the meaning according to the ancient pagan philosophy of stoicism and not Christianity.
REGENERATION
As we seek to wrest Romans 2 away from those who teach, by way of pagan Natural Law theories, that God’s Law is written on the hearts of all men, we would point to the idea of the work of Regeneration.
In all other references in Scripture to the law being written in the heart what we find is a reference to the work of regeneration.
Jer. 31:33″But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, ” I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
It would be odd if in Romans 2 Paul began to use the language of the promise of the New Covenant to teach that the pagans – those who were strangers and aliens to the covenant – had written on their heart that law written on the heart which was to be the blessing of the new covenant.
So, to say, as the Natural Law theologians are want to say that all men of the law written in their hearts is to take what was to be the privileged blessing of the new covenant people and extend it indiscriminately to regenerate and unregenerate alike. I would say the position of Natural Law advocates proves to much.
Based on what has been teased out in these two message on Natural law, I must conclude that Romans 2:15 does not teach Natural law as it is commonly taught by many in the Reformed camp.
