Romans 2:14,15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For when the Gentiles That is, any of them who have not the law Not a written revelation of the divine will; do by nature That is, by the light of nature, without an outward rule, or by the untaught dictates of their own minds, influenced, however, by the preventing grace of God, which hath appeared to all men, Titus 2:11; or, the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world: the things contained in the law The moral duties required by the precepts of the law, the ten commandments being only the substance of the law of nature. These, not having the written law, are a law unto themselves That is, what the law was to the Jews, they are by the light and grace of God to themselves, namely, a rule of life. All the ancient Greek commentators, as Whitby has shown, interpreted this passage not of the Gentiles who had been converted to Christianity, but of those Gentiles who had not been favoured with a revealed law, and therefore were neither proselytes to Judaism nor Christianity. Who show To themselves and others, and, in a sense, to God himself, the work of the law In its most important moral precepts, in the substance, though not in the letter of them; written in their hearts By the same divine hand which wrote the commandments on the tables of stone; their conscience also bearing witness For or against them, or testifying how far they have complied with their light or law. There is not one of all its faculties which the soul has less in its power than this. And their thoughts Or their reasonings or reflections upon their own conduct; the meanwhile Or, as the expression, μεταξυ αλληλων, is translated in the margin, between themselves, or by turns, according as they do well or ill; accusing Checking and condemning them when they have acted contrary to their light; or else excusing Approving and justifying them when they have conformed to it. Hence the apostle meant it to be inferred, that it was not the having, or knowing the law, (Romans 2:13,) nor the condemning others for the transgression of it, could avail a man, but the doing of it, or walking according to it. We may observe further on this verse, that, as the law in this context signifies divine revelation, the work of the law must be men's duty, which revelation discovers by its precepts, which is also in part discovered by men's natural reason and conscience, influenced by the light and grace of God; on which account it is said to be written on their hearts. Thus, in the compass of two verses, the apostle hath explained what the light of nature is, and demonstrated that there is such a light existing. It is a revelation from God written originally on the heart or mind of man; consequently is a revelation common to all nations; and, so far as it goes, it agrees with the things written in the external revelation which God hath made to some nations. We are compelled, however, when we come to consider matters of fact, to acknowledge that this light of nature has been dreadfully obscured and corrupted, even in the most learned and civilized heathen nations upon earth, as the apostle has proved at large in the latter part of the preceding chapter. And long before the ages referred to by him, All flesh had corrupted its way, Genesis 6:5; Genesis 6:11; darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people, Isaiah 60:2; there was none that understood, (Romans 3:11;) and all were alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that was in them, Ephesians 4:18, &c.