Romans 2:14

Romans 2:14. For. The principle of Romans 2:13 is now applied, so far as it can be, to the Gentiles, and this thought is parenthetical (Romans 2:14-15); Romans 2:16 being connected with the close of Romans 2:13. It is not necessary to insist upon the insertion of marks of a parenthesis in the translation, but the two verses should not be separated by a period. Here, as in the previous discussion, the theoretical effect of law is set forth. The Gentiles have a law within themselves, which is, so to speak, a substitute for the Mosaic law, and by this law they are judged, by the doing of it, not by the hearing of it. It is not asserted that any do thus attain to justification; the word we render whenever having a conditional force.

Gentiles. The article is wanting; the expression refers to those Gentiles among whom the supposed case occurs.

That have not the law, lit, or, ‘having not a law;' the state of the Gentiles as a whole, they have not a revealed law. Hence this description makes ‘Gentiles' = ‘the Gentiles.'

Do by nature the things of the law. ‘ By nature,' independently of express enactment; on this the emphasis rests. The paraphrase of the E. V: ‘the things' contained ‘in the law,' is quite near the meaning. This form points to individual requirements, rather than to the keeping of the whole law. The explanation: ‘do what the law does,' command, convince, condemn, etc., is opposed by the phrase ‘doers of the law' (Romans 2:13).

Not having the law, etc. Since they do not have, or though they do not have. The former is preferable, in view of the connection of thought. Their moral nature supplies for them the place of the revealed law, in the case supposed. It is not implied that the place of the Mosaic law is thus fully supplied.