Romans 2:13

Not the hearers. The Jews had opportunity to hear the law read regularly in the synagogues (Acts 15:21). But they had come to suppose that theoretical knowledge of the law in itself constituted righteousness. They did not seem to recognize the necessity of perfect and perpetual obedience. Jesus rebuked the Jews for this attitude toward the Word of God. “You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; … yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39, 40, RSV; cf. DA 211). “The Jews had the Scriptures in their possession, and supposed that in their mere outward knowledge of the word they had eternal life” (DA 212). This same mistaken view that knowledge alone brings righteousness and salvation is still current among Jews, and Christians, today. That God’s will must not only be known but obeyed is also taught in Matt. 7:21, 24; Luke 6:47-49; James 1:22.

Of the law. Literally, “of law.” The article “the” is absent in the Greek. Those who have a law to which they may listen and by which they may be guided should be obedient to it, if they wish to be “justified” in the judgment. The context indicates that as far as the Jews are concerned Paul is still alluding to the standard of moral conduct available to them, the standard revealed in the OT and especially in the Ten Commandments.

Justified. Or, “accounted righteous,” “declared righteous.” Paul is still contrasting the position in the judgment of those who know the will of God, and yet are unwilling to obey it, with the position of those who not only know God’s will but give it their full compliance. That such obedience can come only from faith has already been mentioned in the epistle (ch. 1:5, 17; cf. ch. 3:20). This verse gives further emphasis to the fact that men are judged, not by what they claim to know or profess to be, but by what they have actually done (ch. 2:6).