Here's an email question, a pretty common question we get a lot about the role of faith and works in the Christian life. "Hello Pastor John, my name is Anthony from Spain. Romans chapter 2 verse 13 says it is the doers of the law who will be justified. How am I to understand this verse in light of Romans 5 verse 1 and other verses that speak of our justification coming by faith alone and not by works?

Why would Paul say the doers of the law are justified?" Well this is huge and wonderful. It's such a crucial, crucial question. So I hope I can tackle the verse but also state the bigger issue at stake, namely the relationship between being justified by faith apart from works of the law as any foundation for our being in God's favor on the one side and the necessity and inevitability of the fruit of good deeds or law keeping in order to show that that faith in Christ is real.

That's what's so hard for people to get a handle on these days. So let me make a go at it. Let's make the context clear if we can. Romans 2, 11 to 13, Paul is concerned to show that the Jews, even though they have the law, will not be shown any partiality at the judgment day.

So he's explaining how the judgment, the last judgment, will proceed on the last day for those who have had the law and those who have not had the law. Those who do not have any access to the law. In verse 11, chapter 2, he lays down the principle. God shows no partiality.

And then he explains how that works. Even though the Jews have the law, which seems like, "God, that's partial," and the nations don't. He says, verse 12, "For all who have sinned without the law will perish without the law," meaning God's not going to bring in the law of Moses to condemn anybody who's never heard of the law of Moses.

He won't need to. They're going to be judged on the basis of accesses that they had to law written on their heart or law written in nature or law written in conscience. But he's not going to be partial in using a standard that somebody had access to that you didn't have access to.

And then the verse continues, "And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." So we're all going to be judged by the standards, the divine standards that we have access to, and everybody has access to divine standards that we fall short of. That's the point of Romans 1 and 2.

And then he adds the verse that Anthony is asking about, verse 13, "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified." So, merely having the law and being able to hear the law because you have it will be of zero advantage at the judgment day.

It's because it's not having it, like, "Whoa, we've got the law, so we're going to pass judgment at the last day." No, it's how you respond to God's will, the law, not whether you have possession of it. That's what verse 13 is saying. And then he proceeds to show in the following verses that the nations have a form of God's law written on their hearts, and he had already said in chapter 1 that they have a form of God's will written in the skies and in nature and now in their conscience.

Now in that context, a lot of very great teachers, people that I love and admire, have argued that verse 13 describes a hypothetical situation, not a real one. So when Paul says, "Not the hearers of the law are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified," referring to the last judgment, he's not saying that anybody actually does this.

This is a hypothetical. Hypothetically, if there were doers of the law, they would be justified by the law, because if you're perfect, you're perfect. And nobody does this, and therefore it's just hypothetical, and he's stating a principle. So that's one way to understand Romans 2:13, so that it fits with Romans 3:28, for example, or 5-1, which was mentioned.

We hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. That's Romans 3:28. And this way of understanding 2:13 as hypothetical is one way to keep those texts in perfect harmony. Now, my point is that there's another way to understand Romans 2:13 that also coheres with Romans 3:28, understood that way, and the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works of the law, meaning that the only foundation of our justification is Christ, His blood and righteousness, and that the only instrument that unites us to Christ and His righteousness is faith and faith alone.

And I believe that's what the Bible teaches. Being doers of the law need not mean being perfect doers of the law with no failures at all. If being doers of the law means perfect, then clearly it has to be hypothetical. It may mean that one loves the law, trusts God for forgiveness when he stumbles or fails to measure up to God's will, leans on God's provision for perfect righteousness, and seeks to walk in a way pleasing to the Lord.

In other words, a person today—I'm thinking now 21st century—a person today may be a doer of the law who trusts Jesus as the only basis of their justification before God, who in the power of that faith by the Spirit walks in a manner worthy of the Lord, and then at the last judgment, Christ will be the basis of our acceptance—Christ alone, the basis of our acceptance with the Father—and our life of obedience, doing the law, will be brought in to confirm, just confirm, that our faith was real, because faith works through love, so doing the law will not be the basis of our being in God's favor, but the evidence that we are trusting Christ, united to Christ, and thus necessary at the last day.

Now why do I think that is in fact what the verse teaches? And here are a few reasons. First, the statement "doers of the law will be justified" does not sound in the context like a hypothetical statement. It just sounds like that's true, that happened. It sounds like a statement of fact.

So if the statement can stand, as is in Paul's thinking, then I want it to stand. Secondly, Romans 2:13 says "doers of the law will be justified." It does not say, "By doing the works of the law, you will be justified." That would be a really big problem, from my view, if it said that.

It simply says that the one who will be justified is the one who is a doer of the law. There's no causal connection asserted between the two at all. So the verse is not a contradiction of Romans 3:20 that says, "By the works of the law, no flesh will be justified." There is nothing in Romans 2:13 that keeps us from believing in justification by faith alone.

Faith is required by the law. Faith is the sole means of union with Christ, whose righteousness vindicates us at the judgment. All the other obedience that comes from that faith is fruit, fruit of that union, not the means of that union. That's so crucial. Let me say that again.

All the obedience that a Christian performs, all that obedience is fruit that comes from a faith-established union, not a works-established union, a faith-established union with Christ. And so that fruit is not a means of being a good tree. It's the result of being a good tree, and you get to be a good tree by faith alone in union with Jesus and then the Holy Spirit moving.

So Romans 2:13 is not a contradiction on my reading either of Paul's teaching of justification by faith alone. Third observation. There are real examples in the New Testament of real people who are doers of the law. This is not hypothetical. For example, Luke 1, 5, and 6. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth, and they were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.

Period. Not hypothetical. That's the way they were described. And of course they were sinners. Of course they needed to be justified by faith. But they were so in tune with the heart and mind of God that they were described as righteous. They were described as walking blamelessly. They were described as keeping the commandments because every time they stumbled, they took the laws and the gospels opportunity to repent, to apply themselves to the sacrifices in the Old Testament and now the Christ in the New Testament to cover their sins so that they could be described in their path of general obedience as blameless and righteous.

So it's a real couple, not a hypothetical couple, who would be described as doers of the law. Here's another one. 1 Corinthians 7, 19. Paul says, "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is keeping the commandments of God." And he's saying that to Christians. And he had just said in Galatians 5, 6, "In Christ, circumcision doesn't matter, uncircumcision doesn't matter.

What matters is faith working through love." So if you lay those two texts on top of each other, faith working through love is described as keeping the commandments of God because in Paul's understanding in Romans 13, love is a fulfillment of the law. Love does the commandments of God that the law requires.

And so the works of love that come through Christian faith is a keeping of the commandments, and the person who does them can be described as a doer of the law. Here's a third example, Romans 8, 3 and 4. "What the law could not do, weak as it was to the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and forced sin.

He condemned sin in the flesh." So that's substitutionary penal atonement. So that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Now that's who we are as Christians. When we walk according to the Spirit, we fulfill the just requirement of the law.

That is, we keep the commandments. That is, we love. We are doers of the law, not sinlessly perfect law keepers. Nobody is, nobody ever has been except Jesus, which is why we depend on Him. But rather, radically transform people through faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, leaning on the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ.

So Romans 2, 13 does not have to be hypothetical. There are doers of the law in the New Testament as we've just seen in those three examples. And here's the last thing that I would say in favor of taking this verse this way rather than as a hypothetical statement.

In Romans, it fits the context in Romans 2, in the verses just gone before. It fits the context. So here's what Paul says in Romans 2, 6 and 7. "God will render to each one according to his works, to those who by patience in well-doing." Now that's, I think, the same as saying those who are doers of the law.

Those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life, which is just another way of saying they will be justified at the last day. So in the very context where we find 2, 13, Paul has already been teaching that eternal life, which is essentially the same as final justification, Paul is essentially teaching that we must be so transformed by our faith in Jesus Christ and through His atonement and blood that we persevere in doing good, and that becomes the narrow way then that leads to life, and that will be brought in at the last day, not as the ground of our acceptance, not as the ground of being in God's favor, but as evidence that we have trusted God.

So my answer to Anthony is that he is right to be jealous, to safeguard the doctrine of justification by faith alone, apart from works of the law, as the basis of our acceptance, and he is also right—I hope he will be right—that he is jealous to preserve the biblical truth that saving faith always bears the fruit of doing the will of God, just like we saw, say, in 1 John 1, 9, where we repent and then he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, provided that we are walking in the light, as verse 7 says.

Man, this is an incredible judicious balance here on the controversial discussion of faith and obedience, and very much needed today, Pastor John, thank you. This is one of those episodes that I would commend that you listen to and read the transcript at the same time to really grasp all the nuances that have been said here.

And we release a transcript of each episode simultaneously, along with the audio recordings, and you can find those transcripts at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, as well as, of course, you can find the audio for all 825+ episodes that we've released to date. I know a lot of users out there use the site and the APJ app as a sort of FAQ for pastoral questions, so please make use of it in whatever ways, personally, and to care for others in your church and family.

Well, tomorrow we talk about social justice and acts of kindness, and ask, "What is the ultimate aim of our works anyways?" I'm your host, Tony Reinke. I'll see you tomorrow on the Ask Pastor John podcast. 1 1 1 1 1