Romans 2:13

“ For not the hearers of the law are just before God; but the doers of the law, they shall be justified. ” Why hearers rather than possessors or readers? To describe the position of the Jews who heard the reading of the law in the synagogue every Sabbath, and who for the most part knew it only in this way (Luke 4:16 et seq.; Acts 13:15; Acts 15:21).

Before God, says Paul; for before men it was otherwise, the Jews ascribing righteousness to one another on account of their common possession of the law. If such a claim were well founded, the impartiality of God would be destroyed, for the fact of knowing the law is a hereditary advantage, and not the fruit of moral action. The judicial force of the term δικαιωθῆναι, to be justified, in Paul's writings, comes out forcibly in this passage, since in the day of judgment no one is made righteous morally speaking, and can only be recognized and declared such. This declarative sense appears likewise in the use of the preposition παρά (before God), which necessarily refers to an act of God as judge (see on Romans 1:17). The article τοῦ before νόμου, law, in the two propositions, is found only in the Byz. Mjj.; it ought to be expunged: the hearers, the doers of a law. No doubt it is the Mosaic law which is referred to, but as law, and not as Mosaic. Some think that this idea of justification by the fulfilment of the law is enunciated here in a purely hypothetical manner, and can never be realized (Romans 3:19-20). Paul, it is said, is indicating the abstract standard of judgment, which, in consequence of man's sin, will never admit of rigorous application. But how in this case explain the future “ shall be justified”? Comp. also the phrase of Romans 2:27: “uncircumcision when it fulfils the law,” words which certainly refer to concrete cases, and the passage Romans 8:4, in which the apostle asserts that the δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου, what the law declares righteous, is fulfilled in the believer's life. It will certainly, therefore, be required of us that we be righteous in the day of judgment if God is to recognize and declare us to be such; imputed righteousness is the beginning of the work of salvation, the means of entrance into the state of grace. But this initial justification, by restoring communion between God and man, should guide the latter to the actual possession of righteousness that is to say, to the fulfilment of the law; otherwise, this first justification would not stand in the judgment (see on Romans 2:6). And hence it is in keeping with Paul's views, whatever may be said by an antinomian and unsound tendency, to distinguish two justifications, the one initial, founded exclusively on faith, the other final, founded on faith and its fruits. Divine imputation beforehand, in order to be true, must necessarily become true that is to say, be converted into the recognition of a real righteousness. But if the maxim of Romans 2:13 is the rule of the divine judgment, this rule threatens again to overturn the principle of divine impartiality; for how can the Gentiles fulfil the law which they do not possess? Vv.14 and 15 contain the answer to this objection.