Romans 2:14

When the Gentiles. Literally, “whenever Gentiles.” The absence of the article “the” calls attention to their character as non-Jews.

Have not the law. Literally, “have no law,” or “have not law,” that is, no specifically revealed code of moral conduct such as the Jews possessed. Paul is about to explain that the Gentiles do have a law, but of another kind.

Do by nature. That is, do spontaneously, not consciously acting according to the requirements of an external law, but according to the promptings of conscience (v. 15). “As through Christ every human being has life, so also through Him every soul receives some ray of divine light. Not only intellectual but spiritual power, a perception of right, a desire for goodness, exists in every heart” (Ed 29). Those among the Gentiles who have recognized the revelation of God in the works of creation (ch. 1:19, 20) and have responded to the divinely implanted impulse to do good have done “by nature” the things contained in the law (see COL 385).

In the law. In this case “the law” is the literal translation. The article is present in the Greek (see on v. 12). Paul is quite evidently referring to the principles of the moral law as especially revealed in the Ten Commandments. The Gentiles could not possibly perform “by nature” the many activities and ceremonies prescribed in the whole Mosaic law, but they could fulfill “by nature” the requirements of the moral law. Paul later explains that “love is the fulfilling of the law” (ch. 13:10). See DA 638.

All this is in comment on v. 13, that only “the doers of the law” will be accounted righteous. Ignorant Gentiles who have shown by their spirit of love that they are real “doers of the law” “are just before God,” while informed, privileged Jews and Christians who show by their lack of love that they are only “hearers of the law” are not justified.

A law unto themselves. The need and the impulse to do good that exist in the reason and conscience are, in a sense, a standard and law to each man, as further explained in v. 15 (cf. James 4:17).