Romans 2_12-13： The Inescapable condemnation of God’s Law
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Summary
In this episode of Real Christianity, we continue our journey through Romans 2 and confront the reality of the moral law of God. What is the purpose of the law? And if Jesus fulfilled the law, does the law still have jurisdiction today?
Transcript
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and confront the reality of the moral law of God.
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Today's episode is titled Romans 2, 12-13, The Inescapable Condemnation of God's Law.
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Now, as you know, this show is an audio and video ministry of relearn.org.
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If you're watching the video recording of this episode, please be sure to subscribe
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If you're listening from Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify,
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and we would love to have you guys on the journey.
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biblical and theological literacy in the church,
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to support these efforts? If so, you can just go to relearn.org forward slash donate. Now,
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speaking of resources, have you used our new gospel service, mailthegospel.org? You can now
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mail the gospel, a theologically accurate, beautiful, and bold presentation of the gospel
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to anyone in the world. What friend or family member needs to hear the gospel? What coworker
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or neighbor needs to hear the gospel? Get their mailing address and go to mailthegospel.org and
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send it to them today. All right, guys, we're going to go ahead and dive in. As we know,
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Romans is Paul's magnum opus. It's the greatest exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we
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have in print. It's something that we can learn from every time I read Romans. It just continues
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to go deeper and deeper and deeper. In chapter one, we learned about the evidence of God in
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creation, leaving no excuse for atheism. In chapter two, we learned for those who still
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deny God and worship idols. They turn that intrinsic desire to worship toward things that
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were created. God hands these individuals over to a variety of self-inflicted judgments where he's
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drawing away from the individuals, leading to a life and eternity of pain and misery.
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Earlier in chapter two, we learned that God's justice is individualized. Paul levels the
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playing field between the Jews and the Greeks and the universality of the judgment and jurisdiction
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of the gospel. Ultimately, what I'm saying here is that both Jew and Greek are going to stand
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equally before the judgment seat of Christ on the day of judgment. There will be no partiality. We
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know this in 2 Corinthians 5.10 that says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ
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so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
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Now, when we say that word all, this includes Christians, non-Christians, both Jews and Greeks.
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the reality is that for Christians, we get to lean on Romans 8.1 that says,
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there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that is that our final
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verdict during that judgment is not resting upon our works, but upon the work of Christ,
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because we have our faith in Christ alone, where he imputes his righteousness to us,
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making us justified before the law because of his righteousness, not our own. And so while
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Christians will stand before judgment and we will have a reward for the way that we behave.
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Our final verdict is not going to be resting upon our own works, but upon the works of Christ. And
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this is a place for Christians to have peace and rest. But for those who are not believers,
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it should absolutely terrify you. Paul's essential point is that judgment is coming for all people.
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It's coming. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
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Both Jew and Greek and the religious moralism of Israel was not sufficient to make people
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Namely, outside of Christ, all people are condemned.
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This is what we need to really settle our hearts on.
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There's only one righteous one who can atone, Jesus Christ.
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There's only one Savior who can redeem, again, the man, Jesus Christ.
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So in today's passage, Paul's going to shift his focus from the universal judgment, and
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he's going to move on to the condemning power of the law.
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And so it's from the actual judgment to really the underlying structure of that judgment,
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If the last sermon that I gave, the episode before this, was the action, then this sermon
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In other words, if the judgment of God is just, it's because the law is authorized or operative
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or enforceable. It's available for us to see. It has jurisdiction over how we live and how we're
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supposed to obey and that we've violated it as sinners born into sin and also sinners who commit
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sin. So we're going to read Romans 2, 12 through 13, just a short passage of scripture. We're
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going to dive in after that verse by verse. So Romans 2, 12 to 13 in the ESV, it says,
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for all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned
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under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous
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before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Okay. The main idea of this sermon,
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of this passage of scripture is this. The law of God is intended to damn men, not deliver them.
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Okay, you need to grasp this. I'm going to say it one more time. The law of God is intended and
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designed to damn men, not deliver them. So I've broken today's sermon into two sections, and we're
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going to be breaking in verse 12 and verse 13. So verse 12 is the condemning power of the law,
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and verse 13 is the unbearable demand of the law. Okay, so we have two sections. Again,
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one more time, the condemning power of the law and the unbearable demand of the law.
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So this section is to start a larger section or a larger argument. So when we read this passage
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of scripture, we have to realize that Paul is not saying this statement in an isolated moment.
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No, this is a piece of a larger correspondence on a specific issue, on a coordinated argument
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that he's making regarding the law and its role in the gospel. So we have to understand that.
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And so from verses 2, 12 through 3, 31, this is one consistent argument. So we have to take it
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in context. We can't just take this passage of scripture, strip it out and read it without the
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other sentences and paragraphs surrounding it. It's essential that we keep it in context because
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if we read this passage and we go, oh, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before
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God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. We're going to think, oh, we just have
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to do the law and that's how we get justified. No, this is Paul actually starting out this
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conversation. He's leading to a point later in this passage that's going to clarify what he means
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by what he says, but none of us are going to be justified by the law because we can't keep the law
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perfectly. And that's what he's essentially saying here. So if we looked at the section 2.12 through
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331, in my ESV Bible, just the headings will give you kind of a key understanding of what's being
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said here in the narrative of his argument here. Number one, he says, I should say the headings say
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in the ESV Bible, God's judgment and the law. Number two is God's righteousness upheld. Number
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three is no one is righteous. And number four is the righteousness of God through faith. So if you
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read chapter two and chapter three, those are the headings. So you start to see that thematic
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narrative that Paul is trying to take us on. So verses 12 and 13, which we're talking about,
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really act as a thesis for this section where Paul demonstrates the power of the moral law of
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God. He talks about the just condemnation of the law of God, our guilt because of the law of God,
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and our only path to be found righteous before the law of God. So this is, again, a larger
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narrative and discourse on the gospel presentation that occurs in the early half of the book of
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Romans. I often say that Christians really need to have a bad news, good news gospel. If you just
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have a good news gospel without the bad news, nobody's really going to appreciate the good
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news. The good news is good because the bad news is so bad. But if we preach just the good news
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without the sting of the bad news, the condemnation of our sin, the power the law has over our
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behavior, the condemning power that we stand before the law of God, then we're not going to be
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thankful and grateful for the rescue that the Savior has taken by fulfilling that law for us.
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And so it's essential that we have this bad news, good news gospel. And in this section, Paul is
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establishing the bad news. This is what we're in, this section, for the next several passages of
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scripture that we're going to be teaching. That's what he's talking about, the bad news. The question
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you need to ask yourself, is this how you share the gospel? Do you start with the bad news? If you
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don't, you're preaching the gospel inconsistent with the apostle Paul, and that should raise some
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red flags. So verse 12, we'll break this down verse by verse here. For all who have sinned
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without the law will also perish without the law. Just stop right there and just listen to what he's
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saying. For all who have sinned without the law, they've never even heard of the law, will also
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perish, meaning that they're going to die physically and spiritually. They're going to
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perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. So this
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is, again, a universality of the condemnation of the law. Now, Paul opens up this paragraph with
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the word for. And the word for is a causal clause. And you want to pay attention to this, people,
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just so you can get better at interpreting scripture on your own. It's this reoccurring
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theme, even from chapter one into chapter two, Paul is again, showing the interconnectedness
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of his argument. It's a line of reasoning. Ultimately, if you could rephrase this,
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it would be saying, this occurs because this is true. And this occurs because this is true.
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And this occurs because this is true. That's what's happening here. And we have to take note
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of that so that we're not just reading the scripture without the greater narrative of
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what Paul is trying to get across to us. And so this is, again, a coordinated argument that we
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need to pay attention to. So again, first, Paul is demonstrating the universal condemning power
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of the law. He's leveling the playing field. He says, we're all condemned, whether you have the
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law, whether you don't have the law, you're all going to perish, regardless if you have possession
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of the law. And so to the Gentiles, he's saying, you're a sinner. Therefore, your ignorance of the
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law does not change your guilt before the law, you're going to perish. He's saying to the Jews,
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you're a sinner, therefore your possession of the law does not change your guilt before the law,
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you're going to perish. Both people are going to perish with the law outside of Christ. And so we
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know that the wages of sin is death. And because all have sinned against the law, ignorantly or
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knowingly, all people will perish, all people will die. And it's not just talking about a physical
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death, it's also talking about a spiritual death. A physical death is the separation of the body
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and the soul. A spiritual death is the separation of soul from God, or I should say soul from the
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grace and the mercy and the love of God. You will have the wrath of God upon you, but you will not
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have the love of God on you. So for example, if I was driving 45 miles per hour down a street here
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in Arizona, and I was unaware that the law said on that street that I could only drive 25 miles
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per hour, I would still be guilty of that law despite my understanding or awareness of that
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law. So whether I know it or not, I'm still responsible and I'm guilty of that law. That
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law has jurisdiction regardless of my awareness or ignorance of that law. That's essentially what
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Paul is teaching here. So when you break the law, you're guilty of the law, regardless of your
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relationship with the law, whether you know about it, whether you don't know about it, every single
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one of us is guilty of disobeying and breaking God's law. Romans 3, 9 through 12 says,
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For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written,
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None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.
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Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So why was this so essential
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for Paul to communicate to the Jews? What was his point? Why was he so careful to make sure that the
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Jews understood what he meant by the judgment of God and the condemnation of the law? First,
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we know that the Jews had underestimated the power of the law and overestimated their ability
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to keep it. Absolutely something that happens even today with the Mormons and the Jehovah's
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Witness and people in the Church of Christ and people in the Amish community, people in the
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Seventh-day Adventist community. There are people, definitely in the Roman Catholic, people that
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believe in a works-based salvation or a faith plus work salvation. They underestimate the power of
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law and they overestimate their ability to keep it they don't turn to christ alone to be their
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alien righteousness the one who can keep the law and impute his righteousness to you through faith
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they don't understand that but the jews specifically really struggled with this reality
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one historian said that a common jewish response to christian evangelists was quote we have our law
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we don't need your gospel. We have our law. We don't need your gospel. This is a grave example
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of foolishness. They're literally hanging on to the very thing that is going to kill them,
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that is going to kill them, not just in body, but also in soul. We don't need your gospel.
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We have our law. Romans 3.20 says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified.
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Okay. I'm just going to say that again. Romans 3.20, for by works of the law, no human being
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will be justified. James 2.10 tells us, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point
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has become guilty of all of it. So if you kept the law absolutely perfectly from birth, which
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you can't, but from birth to 10 years old, you steal a pencil and then you keep it perfect until
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death. It doesn't matter. You broke the entire law. You break one piece of it. You're guilty of
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all of it, you're condemned universally by the law. And so the site of our moral state
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is the start of our salvation. I'm going to say that one more time. The site of our moral state
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before the law is the start of our salvation. When we finally see that law following
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for the law breaker is a hopeless pursuit for justification, we finally look out to mercy for
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the Savior. We have to realize that law following for justification purposes is not, it's a hopeless
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endeavor. We will never be justified by works of the law. Now, we are to obey the law out of
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gratitude because of what Christ has done for us, but we're not obeying the law to keep ourselves
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saved or to get ourselves saved. And so this is essential that we understand the purpose of the
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law here. Now, this is not only instructive, again, for the Jews, but for every moralist and
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every legalist and every peddler of that faith plus works gospel message. This is, again, it's
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instructive for all those Christian groups that I named earlier who believe obedience contributes
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to their salvation, or the maintaining of their salvation, or the actual catalyst to their
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salvation. William Farley once wrote, quote, we enter the world in love with legalism. We are
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convinced that we can merit God's favor. The flesh loves duty, but it resists the gospel.
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As a result, we become moralists, and we believe we merit God's favor by being good.
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This is a deadly enemy of the Christian. The moralist trusts in his own goodness,
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virtue, and principled intentions to get a, quote, not guilty verdict from God on the day
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of judgment. It is a rejection of the Savior. It is a cloak over an unregenerate heart and can make
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it difficult to see one's true spiritual condition, end quote. So let's move now to section two. So
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section two is Paul illustrating the unbearable demand of the law. Again, section one is this
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idea of the condemning power of the law. No man is going to be justified by the works of the law.
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Now we're going to talk about the unbearable demand of the law. And so verse 13, Paul says,
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again, he uses that word for, for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God,
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but this contrast clause, but the doers of the law who will be justified. Again, remember this
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portion of scripture isn't some isolated statement, but it's a piece of a larger presentation
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of the good news or the gospel or the, I should even say the bad news before he presents the good
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news. So Paul is not explaining the way of salvation through law keeping. That's not what
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he's doing, but he's talking about the need for salvation because nobody can keep the law.
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Again, we know that nobody can keep the law perfectly.
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We know that just a few paragraphs later, he says,
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for by works of the law, no man will be justified.
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who's having a conversation about saying one thing
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of the power of the law and the unbearable demand of the law.
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He's not saying that be doers of the law to save yourself.
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he's demonstrating an absolute universal condemning power of the law to both Jew and Gentile.
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Doesn't matter who you are, you will absolutely be condemned by the law. You cannot carry it.
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Imagine the law is kind of like a thousand pound boulder. It will smash you. You cannot keep the
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entire thing. It is designed too large for human beings to withstand. And this is again why Paul
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is saying, that by works of the law, no man will be justified. He's saying that you have to keep
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the whole thing if you're going to want to be saved and you can't do it. So Galatians 3.10
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explains this a little bit further, where Paul writes, for all who rely on works of the law
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are under a curse. For it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things
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written in the book of the law and do them. This is a kind of a cross reference to the Old Testament
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of Deuteronomy 27 through 26. The emphasis is all things. You can't do all of it. It's a statement
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of impossibility. It's intended to discourage you. You can't keep the law. You're not going to be
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able to sustain your obedience. It's not going to be able to, you're never going to be righteous
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by what you do. You're only going to be righteous by what Christ has done. And so it's a weight that
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no man can carry. Essentially, Paul is saying, Jews, it's not enough to hear the law. You actually
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have to keep it perfectly if you're going to be saved, and you can't. You can't do it. It's just
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impossible. And so he's helping them to see their own unrighteousness, their own inability, their
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own condemnation before the law. It's essential that we help people see this too. I can't tell
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you how many people think that they're a good person. They think that they're a good person.
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They think that by some measurement of some moral law, they're measuring themselves against other
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individuals. I'm better than that guy. I'm better than that individual over there. I'm not a murderer.
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I'm not a rapist. I'm not a pedophile. I don't steal. Therefore, I'm good. No, the reality is
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the standard for goodness is God himself. The standard for goodness is the moral law of God,
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and nobody can keep it. Therefore, if anybody breaks even one point of it, nobody can say
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they're good. So anybody out there who thinks they're a good person, you need to break them
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and wound them with the law, because that is the only time that they're going to want
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the ointment of the gospel. And so this is essential that we understand what Paul is doing
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here. He's cutting off any route for escape to believe that there's some sort of self-righteous
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possibility available to humanity. He's forcing them to see their own doom. He's showing them
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that there's no refuge in the law and that they have to run to Christ. This is what he's pushing.
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And it's essential that we do the exact same thing when we're presenting the gospel. Again,
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the purpose of the law is not to save men, but to point men to the Savior. Okay, the purpose of the
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law is not to save men, but to point men to a Savior. And this is why we teach our children
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the Ten Commandments. We want them to memorize the Ten Commandments so that they can realize
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that they can't keep them and that they need a Savior. It's a tutor or an educator or a training
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up. It's shepherding us toward our own inability so that we would turn to the Savior, Jesus Christ.
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This is why Galatians 3.11 through 13 says, quote, now it is evident that no one is justified before
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God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. Namely, what
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he's saying there is that the law and faith are two separate systems. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us
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from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone
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who is hanged on a tree. So the curse of the law is death. We know that, right? The wages of sin
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is death. The curse of the law is death. If you eat of the tree that Adam and Eve were instructed
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not to, you will surely die. That is the curse of God's law. We know that if we sin, that we will
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perish because the wages of sin is death. Now, the curse of the law is death. And as we know,
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Christ took on this curse for us, where he died to essentially make us uncursed, or if we use
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biblical language, blessed. And so you and I were covenantally cursed in Adam. We were born of Adam,
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Adam sinned, we were essentially in Adam. So I want you to just to, for a second, just kind of
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do a little divergence here. If you think about this for a second, in Adam, all humanity existed
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in Adam. Everybody came from Adam. Even Eve came from Adam. So all people came from Adam. Every
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individual person was somehow genetically stored up in Adam. Every person born who eventually had
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another person born, had another person born, was all stored up in Adam. So when Adam sinned,
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we all sinned in him, in Adam. And so we were a part of that covenantal curse on mankind,
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the fall of mankind. So when Adam fell, we all fell. And so when Adam sinned, we all sinned.
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This is the whole reality of Romans chapter five. And it's why we have to understand that sin is
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not just an act, it's also a condition. And it's a condition that we are born with a sinful nature
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because we were born in Adam. Adam became a sinner. He was cursed by God and everybody born
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of him was cursed by God. Covenantally, we were going to die unless we were born again in Christ.
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And so you just have to understand the systematic theology of what's happening here. So again,
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we are covenantally cursed when we're born doomed and damned, but now those who trust in Christ
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we're covenantally blessed and we're atoned for and we're redeemed. And so the idea that Paul
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has to extract from the moralist and the legalist and the Jew is that the law was never intended to
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save. Obedience was never intended to be the focus of our relationship, of our justification.
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Yes, we obey, but we obey from gratitude and love for what has been done for us. We don't obey so
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that we can be saved or maintain our salvation. So the law was to instruct and reveal to humanity
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God's desire for human behavior. This is good. We want to know God's desire for human righteousness,
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but it's to point us to our inability to keep it and illuminate our need for Christ.
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That's essentially what's being said here. The 17th century Puritan preacher Samuel Bolton
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once said, when you see that men have been wounded by the law, then it is time to pour in the gospel
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oil. Very similar to what I was saying. We have to afflict people with the law so that we can
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heal them with the gospel. That's exactly what Paul does. And it's unfortunate that so many
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Christians skip out on the bad news and they just give the good news. And therefore many people
0.98
00:26:31.000
never repent. They never understand the true gospel. And as a result, they're actually not
00:26:35.380
born again and never saved. And so this is Paul's intention with this section of scripture. He's
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afflicting them with the lethality of the law. Okay. It's essential that we grasp this. And as
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I said earlier, the main idea of this passage is to what? It's to show that the law of God is
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intended to damn men, not deliver them. That's what's going on here. So the application, what
00:26:56.920
does this mean for us? How are we to do, or how are we to live as a result of this passage of
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scripture. So three things, maybe four. First, we cannot lean on the law for any redemptive results
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in the sense of it's not going to make us justified. It will sanctify us. It will make
00:27:17.920
us more like Christ. God wants us to follow his law, but we're following his law through the
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conviction of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he gets the credit for our obedience and not us.
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but it's not a redemptive reality to obey the law. Christ obeyed the law and imputed his
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righteousness to us, and that's why we're righteous, not because of our own law following.
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Second, we must inflict this truth to those who believe that they are good people or a good
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person. We absolutely need to tell people that the law has condemned them, and they will stand
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before God guilty of it if they don't trust in Christ alone. Third, as Christians, we must love
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the law because we are free from the power of the law. Now we're free from the power of the law,
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the condemning power of the law, because we are in Christ. And so we have to obey from a place
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of gratitude and love, not fear or duty. And lastly, we have to use the law as the Lord and
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as the apostles use the law, which is again, kind of a weapon of sobriety. It's to let people see
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the weight, the inescapable inability of the law for human behavior so that they would turn
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to the Savior. It's a tool to take men's false peace away, to show them a mirror of really of
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their condemnation before God. And ultimately it should produce repentance and redemption.
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It's such an important message for the church today
00:29:05.120
If you're a regular listener to Real Christianity,
00:29:19.760
Those reviews really do help the exposure of this show
00:29:26.700
On that note, thank you guys for listening to this episode.