Romans - Lesson 10

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

The tendency of the Jews in Paul’s day would be to make a strong claim to exclusivity; to say - we of all the nations of the world have been given Torah. We have a revelation from God; we know His Law and no other nation has that opportunity. Whereas Paul would be saying here that in a sense they are right in that only Jews have Torah, but Gentiles also, as Paul says, are a Law to themselves. They do things required by the Law. The requirements of the Law are written on their hearts. Here would be a passage then that argues that Gentiles as well as Jews have access to God’s moral will, not just Jews but Gentiles also. 

One of the things that Paul is clearly trying to do in this chapter, is to level the playing field between Jew and Gentile. He is saying to the Jews that they do have certain privileges: God has chosen you, gave you His Law and brought you into this Land and God has done many good things for you. But you have taken those privileges too far; you have distanced yourself too far from the Gentiles who also have some of these things, like the Law. 

Comment:
Say you have somebody who has never encountered the Gospel, for no reason or problem of their own. In the last days conceivably could this passage give you warrant to say they will be judged according to their consciences, and their consciences will excuse or accuse them, and conceivably they will be saved on the day when God judges everyone’s heart. Have you ever heard of that idea? What do you think of that?

Dr. Moo:
Yes, it is a fairly popular view, particularly when you look at verse 15. You can see how people could say if this is talking about non-Christian Gentiles, then Paul says that their consciences might defend them, not just accuse them. And so, you have this idea that God will judge people according to how well they have lived up to the light they have received. This is the way you sometimes hear it. There are people who have received different degrees of the knowledge of God or different light in terms of what God expects of them, and God’s judgment will be tailored to how well they have lived up to that light, as it were. 

This is a popular view; it is certainly held by some evangelicals in some form and is particularly popular in terms of what we might call the preparatory stage of the Gospel. This is where people respond to the light they have been given and so seek out God or Christ and find the Gospel in that way. 

Comment:
I taught Bible college, and we had African students who would ask this question all the time – what about our ancestors? This was the only passage I had that would even suggest anything. It was a pretty good question.

On this verse though, it seems to me that there is little basis - I don’t see it at least - as providing the basis of the idea of persons being saved by living up to whatever light they have received. I think the way Paul puts things in verse 15 rather suggests that human beings, in the judgment of God, when faced with judgment, will examine their consciences, and find some of their thoughts accusing and some excusing. 

The question then becomes, what is the standard for God’s salvation? If eighty percent of our thoughts accuse us and twenty percent defend us, is twenty percent enough? Is thirty percent enough? Is fifty percent enough, whatever percentage we try to set it at. 

Unless the obedience is one hundred percent, thoughts will never defend us in such a way as to present us acceptable before God in Christ. That is precisely why it requires a special operation of God’s grace in the Gospel to bring human beings into that situation. 

Now what I would say is that I don’t think Scripture clearly rules out (I want to be very cautious because at this point we have to acknowledge we are moving beyond clear, plain teaching of the Scriptures) that Scripture does not rule out, it seems to me, the ability of God to manifest himself and the Gospel to human beings, apart from a written or proclaimed word. In other words, could God appear to a human being through a dream, through a vision, or manifest Himself to an individual, in a sense, proclaim Christ to the individual through the vision to the extent that the person could respond and be saved.  I don’t see anything in Scripture that would rule that out. 

But for me, again, I am more of an exclusivist, to put myself into a category that we typically use, that wants to say no human being is saved apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what Paul is driving at in these chapters of Romans ultimately in talking about all human beings, Jew and Gentile alike, being under sin’s power, unable to be saved by what they do. Therefore, Paul goes on and talks about the Gospel, the righteousness of God, Jesus Christ as the response God has made to that situation human beings find themselves in. 

Comment:
Can we revisit the consciousness piece?  It sounds more vocational: that which you know, you do, rather than, am I thinking that either the grace of God is absent, or it’s eliminated by not doing what you know. 

(Dr Moo requested to rephrase)

Consciousness has to do with the idea of being conscious in the heart or in the head. If you’re conscious in the head alone, is your response to that consciousness, to do something about that, and to try to attain that head-knowledge as such?  And what effect does that attainment, or the fruition of that full consciousness, to me in a vocational sense, what effect does that have on the grace of God, or even the salvation that God provides?  

Dr. Moo:
Paul doesn’t use the word consciousness here; he uses the word, conscience.  For Paul, the conscience is sort of the monitor that God has built into humans. It is sort of like a gauge that says how well you are doing in terms of what is morally right and wrong. You can look at yourself in regards to an action you have performed or a thought that you have had; where does that fall on the scale, is that a good one or bad one? It is a kind of monitor that God has put into all human beings’ hearts. I think when he talks about Gentiles here, he is saying that even though these Gentiles don’t have the Law, they don’t have God’s Torah to measure themselves against; they do have a conscience. They have an inbuilt monitor that God puts in all humans that tells us whether something was good or bad. 

So, you can look around the world and find that it is almost universal that cultures condemn murder, condemn stealing. There are certain things that are sort of built into human beings by God, whether they have had exposure to the biblical God or not. I think that is the sort of thing that Paul is talking about.  

Comment:
It is not a fault as much as it is a barometer? 

Dr. Moo:
It is that which God builds into us that enables humans to gauge how well they are doing; whether they have transgressed or whether they have done well that God uses to evaluate humans and enables humans to evaluate themselves. 

Comment:
How does the culture dynamic fit all of this?