Paul wrote chapter one from the point of view of a Jew. As someone who knows God's laws off by heart, any Jew would endorse Paul's assessment of the Roman world as brazen sinners. He would agree those unrepentant Gentiles richly deserve God's judgments. But now the apostle turns his spotlight onto the Jew himself.
Before we criticise others, Paul says, we should examine our own lives. As Jesus insisted, we need to remove the plank from our own eye before we try to help our brother with the speck of dust in his. When they brought to Jesus the woman taken in adultery, he suggested only those without sin should throw stones at her. They all went home, condemned by their own consciences.
The fact is, God is quick to forgive sins, once we confess them and repent. Even Gentile sinners can find God's grace. But if a Jew has not repented of his Jewish sins, how can he escape the Day of Judgment that is coming on the world?
In a familiar Bible warning, we are reminded that we will be judged by what we did during our time on earth. Compare Proverbs 24:12 and Matthew 16:27. Proverbs 24:12 and Matthew 16:27
The scales of judgement God will use when he examines our lives will be weighted by the extent to which we were exposed to his laws. British law states that when you break one of its rules you are guilty, even if you were ignorant of it. That seems unfair. Paul says that people who never knew God’s law, and millions through history have lived in this situation, will not be condemned for breaking it. When they die, he says they perish, that is, they go into the grave and stay there. But if during our lifetime we lived under God's law, we will be raised from the grave to be judged by it.
Just knowing about God's law and being able to recite it will not save us. We have to demonstrate that we have obeyed it. This is the principle behind Jesus' parable of the two builders in Matthew 7:24-27
. Both men heard Jesus’ sayings, but only one obeyed them. It was his house that survived the storm. So, it is no good the Jew boasting that his people were given the Law of Moses. He has to keep it.
The Gentiles, by contrast, know nothing of the Law of Moses. But they still have a conscience when they do bad things. Murder and adultery and cheating are regarded as unacceptable in most cultures. When the Day of Judgement comes, we will be judged by the extent to which we knew God’s laws. The more we know, the more guilty we become if we break the rules. Jesus makes this plain in Luke 12:47-48
