Today's Meditation
Read Romans 2:12-24
12All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. 15They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them 16on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
17But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God 18and know his will and determine what is best because you are instructed in the law, 19and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, 21you, then, that teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22You that forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You that abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23You that boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
This passage is probably one of the most controversial passages in all of Romans and might be difficult to fully grasp. But here in verse 15,16 Paul seems to imply that if a person acts as if the law of good and righteousness were written on their hearts, they will be judged by Christ on that final day of judgment according to those acts and by the goodness and righteousness of their hearts.
This understanding goes against the belief that only those who have accepted Christ into their hearts, as their personal Savior and Lord, can you go to heaven. What do you think?
Do you think this verse implies the concept that if you are a good person, you can "gain heaven"?
Read verses 13, 15 and 16 again.
Ponder and think on this over the weekend. Perhaps we'll have a deeper conversation about this in the future.
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