Romans 2:13

‘For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law will be justified,'

And this is because the question is not whether men have been willing to hear and listen to the Law being read out, thus being ‘hearers of the Law', and have nodded their approval. That makes no man in the right before God. (Many Jews foolishly thought that it did, as indeed do some nominal Christians with regards to the Bible). What matters is whether they are ‘doers of the Law' in other words are those who have done what the Law says. In mind here may be Leviticus 18:5, ‘you will keep my statutes and my judgments, which of a man DO he will live in them', and Deuteronomy 27:26, ‘cursed be he who confirms not the words of this Law to DO them'. So it will only be the ‘doers of the Law' who will be seen as ‘in the right'. They alone can and will be judged as righteous. The phrase ‘doers of the Law' is also found at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The principle of needing to ‘do the Law' was therefore acknowledged by many contemporary Jews. But they still failed to do it.

So Paul points out that having the Law and hearing it read does not put people right in the sight of God. Many Jews assumed that it did. They thought that somehow it put them in a better position. Surely God would take into account the fact that they trusted in His Law? Paul rather, therefore, underlines the fact that what is important is actually being a DOER of the Law. He is saying, ‘What is the use of trusting in it if you do not obey it?'

Of course, as Paul will bring out later, that is the problem. No one has ever actually succeeded in a full ‘doing' of the Law. He had made the attempt himself and had failed. Thus these words condemn all men and women as sinners. All are exposed as coming short of being ‘doers of the Law'. For as James would elsewhere remind us, we only have to come short on one point in order to be deemed a Law-breaker and therefore as guilty of breaking the whole Law (James 2:10).