Bible Study: Romans 2:6-16 "the work of the law is written on their hearts"

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 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. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, a according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

This is a big section so lets just break it down into what Paul is basically saying:

(1) God is going to judge every single person according to what they have done in their life.

(2) The Jewish understanding of this judgment would be that every person will be judged by the Old Testament Law.

(3) Those who are judged to be righteous (completely 100% perfect) will be granted eternal life.

(4) Those who are judged to be self seeking and evil will be punished in the wrath of God.

(5) The majority of this section deals with the fact that there are Gentiles who have no knowledge of the Old Testament Law that is assumed to be the basis of their judgment. Paul's argument is that all men have some understanding of the Law of God even if they don't know it in its written form. For example:

Imagine a young child who has never had to clean his room in his life. His mom tells him, "Tommy, I need you to clean up your room." So Tommy, though he has never been taught how to clean his room, runs and does the best job he knows how. His mom walks in and sees that, though the room looks far from perfect, little Tommy obeyed her. She is pleased with little Tommy.

Now fast forward two months. The mom tells the child again, "Tommy, I need you to clean up your room." But the child doesn't want to clean up his room this time so he ignores his mom. Later, the mom walks in and sees that Tommy didn't do anything this time. She asks him why he disobeyed her and Tommy replies, "you never showed me how to clean my room so I don't think you should punish me for not doing it." Should the mother punish Tommy for his disobedience? Or has she proven to be unjust for asking her child to do something without showing him how to do it?

Little Tommy is a law to himself.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen