Law Unites Us All

Romans 2:12-16

Law
Law is that which is assigned. In Scripture it usually refers to God’s law as given through Moses in the first five books of the Bible. It is the standard of right and wrong given by God to all of us.

Instinct
The Jewish Christians in Rome probably considered themselves lawful since they had the Old Testament and all the lawish traditions. They likely looked down on the Gentile Christians as lawless since they didn’t. But the two groups were more connected than they realized, because both had the law.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

Even those who don’t have the law in ink, have the law in instinct.

ABC has an show devoted to this phenomenon: What Would You Do? In the show, actors stage scenarios in which (usually) someone is doing something wrong, like cheating on a spouse or serving food that has been dropped on the floor. The cameras then capture bystander responses and, interestingly enough, they all immediately know something is wrong. These aren’t all highly educated Christians who know the Bible. These are just people who instinctively know when they see something wrong.

Written on Our Hearts

They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts…

All people have God’s law written on their hearts. Therefore, all people have some sensation of right and wrong, even though many don’t know who authored the rules. So while many are aware of the what of morality; many are unaware of the why.

Randy Cohen was NY Times’ Ethicist for 12 years. In his farewell column, he says this about the inquiries he received over the years: …I came to see that what readers often sought was not a ruling on what to do – they seemed to know – but an argument for why to do it.”

On Trial Every Day

… while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.

Because all people have the law written on their hearts, we have a constant inner courtroom buzzing with activity. Our conscience is on the witness stand and we are alternately accused and defended in our minds. This creates a great deal of guilt and moral fatigue. With only our conscience and our own thoughts, we are left without interaction with the Judge (God the Father) or our Advocate (Jesus), leaving us guilty.

Back to Randy Cohen’s final The Ethicist column, read what he has to say after writing roughly 1228 responses to moral dilemmas:

I say with some shame, there has been no such gradual change in my own behavior. Writing the column has not made me even slightly more virtuous. And I didn’t have to be: it was in my contract. O.K., it wasn’t. But it should have been. I wasn’t hired to personify virtue, to be a role model for the kids, but to write about virtue in a way readers might find engaging. Consider sports writers: not 2 in 20 can hit the curveball, and why should they? They’re meant to report on athletes, not be athletes. And that’s the self-serving rationalization I’d have clung to had the cops hauled me off in handcuffs. What spending my workday thinking about ethics did do was make me acutely conscious of my own transgressions, of the times I fell short. It is deeply demoralizing. I presume it qualifies me for some sort of workers’ comp. This was a particular hazard of my job, but it is also something every adult endures — every self-aware adult — as was noted by my great hero, Samuel Johnson, the person I most quoted in the column: “He that in the latter part of his life too strictly inquires what he has done, can very seldom receive from his own heart such an account as will give him satisfaction.” To grow old is to grow remorseful, both on and off duty.

Conclusion
We are united by the what of the law and our failure to conform to it. Let us now be united by the why and the how of the law through Jesus Christ.

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Discussion Starters
1. Describe the difference between hearing and doing the law. How are both part of life in Dulins Grove? Your family? As an individual?
2. Work together to articulate a Biblically based reason why the following scenarios are wrong (taken from What Would You Do?): A) A mom blatantly favoring one child over another; B) A man stealing clothes from dryers in a laundromat; C) A mom verbally abusing her daughter because of her looks.
3. What does it mean in verse 16 that God will judge the secrets of men?
4. How can we use the common ground of the law to share the gospel with non-Christians?
5. How can we love those around us in light of this passage?
6. How can your group pray for you this week?