{"id":1217,"date":"2009-09-22T20:13:45","date_gmt":"2009-09-23T02:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2009-09-22T20:13:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-23T02:13:45","slug":"romans-214-moses-law-vs-natural-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-214-moses-law-vs-natural-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 2:14 – Moses’ Law vs. Natural Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 2:14<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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,<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even those who don\u2019t know the Law can do some good.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGentiles<\/span>\u201d is translated from the Greek word ethnos<\/span><\/em>, which generally refers to \u201ca tribe\u201d or \u201ca nation.\u201d In Jewish writing it nearly always refers to \u201cnon-Jewish people\u201d or \u201cGentiles,\u201d though it is sometimes translated as \u201cnations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The word translated \u201cby nature<\/span>\u201d is the Greek word phusis<\/span><\/em>, derived from the verb phu\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto produce from seed.\u201d Phusis<\/span><\/em> refers specifically to \u201cnatural birth\u201d and has come to mean \u201cthat which is part of a person\u2019s nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Paul is now showing the Jewish Christians in Rome that having the Law and living by it is not sufficient reason to feel confident. As he said in the previous verse, simply hearing the Law is not good enough to demonstrate a person\u2019s righteousness; instead one must be a doer of the Law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lest we get confused here, Paul is not claiming that any of us can be justified by obeying the Law. As he will point out later, there is no one who keeps the whole Law, and if we break one of the commandments, then we are guilty of all of them. The only one to keep the whole Law is Jesus Christ. For that reason, he is righteous. In the next chapter of this letter Paul will quote from Psalms 14 as he informs his readers:<\/span><\/p>\n

As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;\u201d<\/span> (Romans 3:10<\/span><\/strong>)<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, somehow the Jews believed that it was possible to keep the Law. This is precisely the notion that Paul is in the process of systematically proving false. To the Jew, and therefore to most of the early Christians, the Law was supreme and keeping the letter of the Law was paramount. That\u2019s how they gauged how good they were.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Paul is saying in today\u2019s verse is, even though the Gentiles do not have the Law (the Old Testament), they still do some good things. And by doing so they demonstrate that there is a natural law that governs man independent of the revealed Law in the Old Testament. In the next couple of verses Paul will proclaim that the Great Judge will judge the Gentiles according to that natural law, and their consciences. <\/span><\/p>\n

But salvation (being righteous) can only come by faith. Man is capable of doing good things, but not enough to satisfy a perfect, righteous, holy God. Whether it is the Law of Moses or the natural law, man is incapable of satisfying it completely. And Christians today sometimes develop a mindset that we are good Christians if we keep all the rules of the church. That really is no different from the early Christians believing that they could be saved by keeping the Law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Obeying God is good. It\u2019s what He wants us to do. It\u2019s what we ought to do, but it won\u2019t save us because we can never be good enough. That\u2019s why we need the grace of God, and that\u2019s why salvation can only come through faith. As Paul will tell us later in this letter, God does not look favorably on the Christian who lives by all the rules; He looks favorably on the Christian who lives by faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 2:14 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, Truth to Learn Even those who don\u2019t know the Law can do some good. Behind the Words \u201cGentiles\u201d is translated from the Greek word ethnos, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[509,504,510],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gentiles","tag-law","tag-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-jD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}