Romans 2:13

Romans 2:13. For. This introduces the proof of the latter part of Romans 2:12. The parenthesis of the E. V. is not only unnecessary, but misleading; for it improperly connects Romans 2:16 (which see) with Romans 2:12, and places the important proof of this verse in a subordinate position. The Jewish mistake was that the possession of the law of itself gave them an advantage in the judgment. They practically denied that those who sinned under the law would be judged by the law. Now the Apostle's object is to prove the Jews guilty before God and in need of righteousness by faith; this verse, therefore, is an important link in the chain of his reasoning, and not a parenthetical statement.

The hearers of the law. The best authorities omit the article before ‘law' in both clauses; but the phrases are equivalent to ‘law-hearers' and ‘law-doers,' evidently referring here to the Mosaic law, however correct the more general application may be.

Are righteous before God. That God's verdict is meant, so that ‘the righteous before God' are those who are ‘justified,' is perfectly clear from the whole sweep of the argument.

But the doers, etc. This form of the general principle of Romans 2:6 opposes the Jewish error, and it is not at all in opposition to the principle of justification by faith (see in Romans 2:6). ‘How in the event of its being impossible for a man to be a true “doer of the law” (Romans 3:9 ff.) faith comes in and furnishes a “righteousness by faith,” and then how man, by means of the “newness of life” (Romans 6:4) attained through faith, must and can fulfil (Romans 8:4) the law fulfilled by Christ (“the law of the Spirit of life,” Romans 8:2), were topics not belonging to the present discussion' (Meyer).

Shall be justified. Hence this phrase means, ‘shall be accounted righteous.' (See Excursus on Galatians, chap. 2, and below, under chap. 3. It is especially unfortunate here, where the adjective ‘righteous' occurs, that we have no corresponding verb, of the same derivation, to express the sense of ‘justify.') This is the theoretical effect of law, and is the practical effect when by faith one is made, as the result of justification, a doer of the law. (Comp. note on Romans 2:6.)