If an interpreter of Romans does not see its threefold structure and/or does not understand Romans 2:13 to be an expression of the law (as distinct from the gospel) or should she reject the law/gospel distinction in principle, then that interpreter is not a reliable guide to the meaning of the epistle to the Romans. As Luther said, “Therefore whoever knows well how to distinguish the Gospel from the Law should give thanks to God and know that he is a real theologian.” Whoever, however, does not know how to distinguish law from gospel, is not a theologian and not to be trusted with God’s Word.

I had the privilege of talking with my friend Pat Abendroth last night. He is the senior pastor of Omaha Bible Church. He is a gospel preacher. We were recording an episode of his excellent podcast, The Pactum and we discussed what the bible means when it says, “do this and live” (Lev 18:5; Luke 10:28). During our discussion Pat turned our attention to Romans 2:13. Regular readers of this space will know that this passage is of special interest (see the resources below). The Reformation era Protestants generally were clear about how they understood this passage but the Reformed have been consistently clear about how they understood Romans 2:13 until the last 40 years or so. Then, for a variety of reasons that we discussed last night—you will have to wait for the episode—we became muddled.

Scripture says: “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13; ESV). Remarkably, implausibly even (if the Reformation reading of Romans is to be believed) some have proposed that here Paul is making a promise to the Christian, who is united to Christ, about the outcome of his “Spirit-wrought sanctity.” They take this as a promise that the Christian, by grace and cooperation with grace, will be those “doers of the law” who will stand before God justified, at least in part, because of or through their doing.

There could hardly be a more wrong-headed interpretation of Romans 2:13 but that a significant number of people have found such a reading plausible says a great deal about the state of the Reformed understanding of Romans in recent decades. Why is this interpretation incorrect?

First, it ignores the entire structure of the epistle. Romans is in three parts:

1. Guilt/Law (Rom 1:18–3:20)
2. Grace/Gospel (Rom 3:21–11:36)
3. Gratitude/Sanctification (Rom 12:1–16:27

Paul’s brief in the first section of Romans is to prosecute Jew and Gentile alike for our original transgression in Adam and our own actual sins and sinfulness. He is preaching the law in its first use to convict sinners so that we might know, as we say in Heidelberg 2, “the greatness of our sin and misery.” In the second major section of Romans Paul is preaching the gospel, that we might know (again in the words of Heidelberg 2), how we are “redeemed from all” our “sins and misery.” The third section of Romans is devoted to the Christian lived by grace alone, through faith alone, in union with Christ and in communion with the visible church, in God’s world. The three parts of the Heidelberg Catechism, guilt, grace, and gratitude (or sin, salvation, and service) were patterned after the book of Romans. This is basic, essential, Reformation Christianity. It recognizes that there are two different kinds of words in Scripture, the law and the gospel and that Paul speaks those two words in Romans—indeed, he structures the whole book with them.

Second, such a reading, that Paul is making a promise to Christians that they will finally be justified or saved because or through their Spirit-wrought sanctity, ignores the immediate context of Romans 2. In Romans 1:18–32 Paul has been indicting humanity for sin and illustrating the wickedness, blindness, and foolishness of human depravity.

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