Romans 2:12

For as many as have sinned The equality of Jew and Gentile is here pursued, not (as might have been expected from Romans 2:11) in the direction of privilege, but in that of responsibility and judgment. The reason for this direction is, no doubt, that the main subject of the Epistle here is sin and its results. "Have sinned" is literally in the Greek sinned; an aorist, not a perfect. It is not safe to press farthe distinction of these tenses in N. T. Greek. (See on Romans 1:19.) But the aorist, if taken strictly, would here point to the time when earthly life is closed, and judgment is come; to the sinner's actions as looked back upon from that point.

sinned without law Lit. lawlessly. The context here shews that the word means "in the absence of a law;" and that this means "in the absence of an explicit, revealed law;" other law than the law of conscience. Similarly, the context proves that to "perishwithout law" means to perish not "arbitrarily," but "without an explicit codeas the standard of guilt." This verse no doubt implies the truth, elsewhere so clear, that no man shall be condemned for ignorance of what was in no wise revealed to him; but its main purpose is to teach the awful truth that even without the revealed lawthere is yet real sin and real doom.

perish "Be doomed to death;" lose the soul. The Gr. word, which some have held to imply annihilation of being, by no means does so. Its true import is rather ruin and loss in regard of condition. The Latin perditioexactly renders the idea.

in the law Where it is revealed; within range of its explicit precepts.

judged by the law To "judge" here means practically, as so often when the context is clear, to "condemn:" so e.g. Hebrews 13:4. "Bythe law," as the instrumentof the doom; as used in determination of the doom.

The whole argument of this passage sufficiently decides what is meant by the Law. It is the Moral Law, the revealed Divine Will concerning right and wrong in respect both of God and man. That it is not specially the Ceremonial Law (which was a divinely-given but temporary and special code) is plain from Romans 2:14 of this chapter, where the witness of conscience must, of course, concern not the legal ceremonies but the principles of duty.