Introduction - (skippable)
One day I was around a fire with some friends, and my atheist friend started making fun of me telling me how ridiculous it was to believe in a God I couldn’t see etc… so on and so forth.
I let him go on knowing he was under the influence of some liquid courage (drinking) and let him carry on for a bit.
Then I decided to respond, and I believe the Holy Spirit or Ruach Ha Kodesh gave me the words to say, because I turned to him and I said: “friend, do you have a voice inside your head that tells you the difference between right and wrong?”|
Friend: “uhh what???”
Me: “Do you have a voice inside your head that tells you right from wrong?”
Friend: “Uhh yes”
Me: “So you have a voice inside your head that makes you feel guilty whenever you do something wrong?”
Friend: “uhh yes I do”
Me: “So you just agreed to the fact that you have a voice inside your head that talks to you, do you know if you admitted this to a psychiatric unit they’d probably put you away?”
Friend: “yeah probably”.
Me: “So you have this voice that steers your actions whether your actions are wrong or right. Now that’s not evolutionary beneficial is it?”
Friend: “no its not”
Me: “If you want to meet the man who put that voice of conscience in your mind, then you better start reading the book that he gave us”.
My atheist friend sat in silence for a majority of the evening, but it brings me to a passage that the majority of modern theology just skips over, because it doesn’t fit very well in their model of understanding.
Scripture Study
Instruction - Observant believers need to know and understand that YHWH is a fair and merciful God, and he even allows those who have no knowledge of God to be judged and tried by the works of their conscience voice. Romans 2 is probably the best chapter for understanding the role of the law written on our hearts. For me it really became a “rubber hits the road moment” I was studying torah and Hebrew like crazy and then one day I read Romans 2:13 - The DOERS of the law will be justified before God. This blew my mind, because this is in the same chapter were the function of the conscience voice inside our heads is explained that it stands as a testimony against us or for us. Let’s go through the whole chapter be sure to pay attention carefully around verses 12-16
Romans 2:
Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things.
2 We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.
3 Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
verses 2 - 4 - Identify that we have to judge with goodness, forbearance, and patience because these traits God has, that led us to repentance. We should be showing these same traits with our brothers, and sisters.
5 But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
6 who “will pay back to everyone according to their works
7 to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life;
8 but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation,
9 oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
YHWH explains that he’s going to repay everyone their dues. If you were self-seeking in your ministry. He will repay evil for evil!
10 But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
11 For there is no partiality with God.
YHWH is not a respecter of persons. If you act in glory, honor, and peace then he will repay you for your honorable deeds.
12 For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.
The law leads to life, so if we “sinned without the law” we perish without the law. Meaning there is no process for reconciliation.
13 For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified
The doers of the law are justified before God. We have to be DOING his instruction.
14-15 (for when Gentiles who don’t have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them)
Let’s unpack these critical two verses (which I combined v 14 and 15)
Gentiles meaning “out of covenant” who don’t “have the law” do by nature the things of the law, these not having the [knowledge] of the law are a law to themselves in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts.
Does this remind you of another passage?
How about Jeremiah 31:31-34:
31 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Returning back to Romans 2:16-23
16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.
There is only one day when YHWH will judge the secrets of men, and that’s on the day of Judgement.
So what we just read is that if Gentiles (out of convenant) who have no knowledge of God’s law. Do the things that are written on their hearts, then in the day of judgement God will judge them as well and their actions will either approve them or excuse them showing the law written on their hearts.
17 Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God,
18 know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,
19 and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
20 a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth.
21 You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal?
22 You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
23 You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law?
24 For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.
Our brother and apostle Paul is making a comparison that the believers who know law, are not justified before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.
25 For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision?
Paul again points out that the hypocrites who break the law, will not be justified, but the justified will live by faith.
27 Won’t the uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfills the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law?
Paul points out that an uncircumcised individual who is a doer of the law (obeying his law of conscience) will actually judge those who follow the letter and are circumcised if the letter and circumcised are transgressors of the law.
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
Keeping in mind that doers of the law will be justified before YHWH, how much more so those that obeyed the law of the Father that is on their hearts?
Also keeping in mind that Yeshua is the one who will judge each man’s souls. He is the judge by which all will be tried.