Romans 2:12 Study Bible: For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

◄ Romans 2:12 ►

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.

Study Bible

All who sin apart from the law
This phrase addresses the Gentiles, who were not given the Mosaic Law. The Greek word for "sin" here is "hamartanō," which means to miss the mark or err. Historically, Gentiles were seen as outside the covenant community of Israel, yet Paul emphasizes that they are still accountable for their actions. The absence of the law does not exempt them from moral responsibility, as God's moral order is evident in creation itself (Romans 1:20).

will also perish apart from the law
The term "perish" in Greek is "apollymi," which implies destruction or ruin. This is not merely physical death but a spiritual separation from God. The phrase underscores the universal nature of sin's consequences. Even without the law, there is an inherent understanding of right and wrong, and those who sin without the law face judgment based on this intrinsic moral compass.

and all who sin under the law
This refers to the Jews, who were given the Mosaic Law. The phrase "under the law" indicates those who are within the covenant community and have received God's revealed commandments. The Greek word for "under" is "en," suggesting a position of being within or under the authority of the law. This highlights the responsibility of those who have received God's direct revelation.

will be judged by the law
The Greek word for "judged" is "krinō," meaning to separate, distinguish, or decide. This judgment is based on the law itself, which serves as the standard for those who are under it. The law reveals God's holiness and the standard by which His people are to live. For the Jews, having the law means they are held to its standards, and their judgment will be according to their adherence to it.

Persons / Places / Events

1. Paul the Apostle
The author of the Book of Romans, Paul is addressing both Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome, emphasizing the universality of sin and the need for salvation through Christ.

2. Jewish Believers
Those who are "under the law," meaning they have received the Mosaic Law and are judged by it.

3. Gentile Believers
Those who are "apart from the law," meaning they have not received the Mosaic Law but are still accountable for their actions.

4. Rome
The city where the recipients of this letter reside, a diverse community of Jews and Gentiles.

5. The Law
Refers to the Mosaic Law given to the Israelites, which serves as a standard for judgment.

Teaching Points

Universality of Sin
Both Jews and Gentiles are under sin, whether they have the law or not. This highlights the need for a Savior for all humanity.

Accountability Before God
Everyone is accountable to God, whether they have the law or not. This calls for a personal examination of one's life in light of God's standards.

The Role of the Law
The law reveals sin but cannot save. It points to the need for grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Judgment and Grace
God's judgment is impartial. Understanding this should lead to humility and reliance on God's grace rather than self-righteousness.

Living by Faith
Believers are called to live by faith, trusting in Christ's righteousness rather than their own ability to keep the law.

Bible Study Questions

1. How does understanding the universality of sin affect your view of yourself and others?

2. In what ways can you ensure that you are living under grace and not trying to earn salvation through works?

3. How does the knowledge that God judges impartially influence your interactions with people from different backgrounds or beliefs?

4. What role does the law play in your life as a believer, and how can it guide you in your daily walk with Christ?

5. How can you apply the principle of living by faith in your current life circumstances, especially when facing challenges or temptations?

Connections to Other Scriptures

Romans 3:23
This verse reinforces the idea that all have sinned, both Jews and Gentiles, and fall short of the glory of God.

Galatians 3:10-11
Discusses the curse of the law and the impossibility of being justified by it, pointing to the necessity of faith in Christ.

Acts 17:30-31
Paul speaks about God's command for all people everywhere to repent, highlighting the universality of God's judgment and grace.

James 2:10
Emphasizes that breaking one part of the law makes one guilty of all, underscoring the impossibility of achieving righteousness through the law alone.

Sermons

Future of the Heathen		Romans 2:12
The Law and Sin	J. Lyth, D. D.	Romans 2:12
The Responsibility of Man	J. Burner.	Romans 2:12
Censoriousness	J. Lyth, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
Jews as Bad as Pagans	J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
Judging Others	T. Robinson, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
Judging Others	J. Lyth, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
Judgment -- Human and Divine	U. R. Thomas.	Romans 2:1-16
Man's Inexcusableness	T. Robinson, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
The Final Judgment Foreshadowed	W. Tyson.	Romans 2:1-16
The Judges Judged	C. Simeon, M. A.	Romans 2:1-16
The Judgment of God	T. G. Horton.	Romans 2:1-16
The Leading Principles Regulating the General Judgment	R.M. Edgar	Romans 2:1-16
The Self-Righteous and the Hypocrite Tried and Condemned By	J. Lyth, D. D.	Romans 2:1-16
Unconscious Hypocrisy	Prof. Jowett.	Romans 2:1-16
The Righteous Judgment of God	C.h Irwin	Romans 2:5-16
Law and Guilt	T.F. Lockyer	Romans 2:12-24

People

Paul, Romans

Places

Rome

Topics

Apart, Destruction, Judged, Law, Perish, Punishment, Sin, Sinned, Whilst, Wrong

Dictionary of Bible Themes

Romans 2:12

6026 sin, judgment on
9240 last judgment

Romans 2:11-12

9210 judgment, God's

Romans 2:12-15

5375 law

Library

September the Tenth Criticism and Piety
"Thinkest thou, that judgest them that do such things, that thou shalt escape?" --ROMANS ii. 1-11. That is always my peril, to assume that by being severe with others I exculpate myself. I go on to the bench, and deliver sentence upon my brother, when my proper place is in the dock. And this is the subtlety of the snare, that I regard my criticisms and condemnations of other people as signs of my own innocence. This is the last refinement in temptation, and multitudes fall before its power. The …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

The Circumcision of the Heart
"Circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." Romans 2:29. 1. It is the melancholy remark of an excellent man, that he who now preaches the most essential duties of Christianity, runs the hazard of being esteemed, by a great part of his hearers, "a setter forth of new doctrines." Most men have so lived away the substance of that religion, the profession whereof they still retain, that no sooner are any of those truths proposed which difference the Spirit of Christ from …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Earnest Expostulation
Observe that the apostle singled out an individual who had condemned others for transgressions, in which he himself indulged. This man owned so much spiritual light that he knew right from wrong, and he diligently used his knowledge to judge others, condemning them for their transgressions. As for himself, he preferred the shade, where no fierce light might beat on his own conscience and disturb his unholy peace. His judgment was spared the pain of dealing with his home offenses by being set to work …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 29: 1883

Coming Judgment of the Secrets of Men
"Should all the forms that men devise Assult my faith with treacherous art, I'd call them vanity and lies, And bind the gospel to my heart." Is not this word "my gospel" the voice of love? Does he not by this word embrace the gospel as the only love of his soul--for the sake of which he had suffered the loss of all things, and did count them but dung--for the sake of which he was willing to stand before Nero, and proclaim, even in Caesar's palace, the message from heaven? Though each word should …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 31: 1885

"Hear the Word of the Lord, Ye Rulers of Sodom, Give Ear unto the Law of Our God, Ye People of Gomorrah,"
Isaiah i. 10, 11, &c.--"Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom, give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah," &c. It is strange to think what mercy is mixed with the most wrath like strokes and threatenings. There is no prophet whose office and commission is only for judgment, nay, to speak the truth, it is mercy that premises threatenings. The entering of the law, both in the commands and curses, is to make sin abound, that grace may superabound, so that both rods and threatenings …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750.
THE thirty years of peace which succeeded the Peace of Utrecht (1714), was the most prosperous season that England had ever experienced; and the progression, though slow, being uniform, the reign of George II. might not disadvantageously be compared for the real happiness of the community with that more brilliant, but uncertain and oscillatory condition which has ensued. A labourer's wages have never for many ages commanded so large a portion of subsistence as in this part of the 18th century.' (Hallam, …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World

The Same Necessary and Eternal Different Relations
that different things bear one to another, and the same consequent fitness or unfitness of the application of different things or different relations one to another, with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does determine itself, to choose to act only what is agreeable to justice, equity, goodness, and truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe, ought likewise constantly to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the same …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia.
Part I. History of the Councils. Reason why two Councils were called. Inconsistency and folly of calling any; and of the style of the Arian formularies; occasion of the Nicene Council; proceedings at Ariminum; Letter of the Council to Constantius; its decree. Proceedings at Seleucia; reflections on the conduct of the Arians. 1. Perhaps news has reached even yourselves concerning the Council, which is at this time the subject of general conversation; for letters both from the Emperor and the Prefects …
Athanasius—Select Works and Letters or Athanasius

Epistle xvi. From Felix Bishop of Messana to St. Gregory.
From Felix Bishop of Messana [243] to St. Gregory. To the most blessed and honourable lord, the holy father Pope Gregory, Felix lover of your Weal and Holiness. The claims under God of your most blessed Weal and Holiness are manifest. For, though the whole earth was filled with observance of the true faith by the preaching and doctrine of the apostles, yet the orthodox Church of Christ, having been founded by apostolical institution and most firmly established by the faithful fathers, is further …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Entire Sanctification in Type.
The Mosaic dispensation was legal, ceremonial and typical. "The law having a shadow of the good things to come," says the author of the Hebrews. But a shadow always points to a substance; and so far as holiness is commanded, and so far as it is shadowed forth in the ceremonial law, we shall find that there is a corresponding substance and reality in the gospel of Christ. In the first place, if we study carefully the provisions of the Mosaic law, we shall be struck with the many forms of ceremonial …
Dougan Clark—The Theology of Holiness

Love of Religion, a New Nature.
"If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him."--Romans vi. 8. To be dead with Christ, is to hate and turn from sin; and to live with Him, is to have our hearts and minds turned towards God and Heaven. To be dead to sin, is to feel a disgust at it. We know what is meant by disgust. Take, for instance, the case of a sick man, when food of a certain kind is presented to him,--and there is no doubt what is meant by disgust. Consider how certain scents, which are too …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"If we Say that we have not Sinned, we Make Him a Liar, and his Word is not in Us. "
1 John i. 10.--"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." There is nothing in which religion more consists than in the true and unfeigned knowledge of ourselves. The heathens supposed that sentence, {GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER NU}{GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA} {GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON}{GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA}{GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU}{GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON}{GREEK …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Though in Order to Establish this Suitable Difference Between the Fruits or Effects of virtue and vice,
so reasonable in itself, and so absolutely necessary for the vindication of the honour of God, the nature of things, and the constitution and order of God's creation, was originally such, that the observance of the eternal rules of justice, equity, and goodness, does indeed of itself tend by direct and natural consequence to make all creatures happy, and the contrary practice to make them miserable; yet since, through some great and general corruption and depravation, (whencesoever that may have …
Samuel Clarke—A Discourse Concerning the Being and Attributes of God

But Now, that as Bearing with the Infirmity of Men He did This...
12. But now, that as bearing with the infirmity of men he did this, let us hear what follows: "For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. To them that are under the law, I became as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law." [2505] Which thing he did, not with craftiness …
St. Augustine—Of the Work of Monks.

Note to the Following Treatise 1. The Following Letter
NOTE TO THE FOLLOWING TREATISE 1. The following Letter, which is the 190th of S. Bernard, was ranked by Horst among the Treatises, on account of its length and importance. It was written on the occasion of the condemnation of the errors of Abaelard by the Council of Sens, in 1140, in the presence of a great number of French Bishops, and of King Louis the Younger, as has been described in the notes to Letter 187. In the Synodical Epistle, which is No. 191 of S. Bernard, and in another, which is No. …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Seances Historiques De Geneve --The National Church.
IN the city of Geneva, once the stronghold of the severest creed of the Reformation, Christianity itself has of late years received some very rude shocks. But special attempts have been recently made to counteract their effects and to re-organize the Christian congregations upon Evangelical principles. In pursuance of this design, there have been delivered and published during the last few years a series of addresses by distinguished persons holding Evangelical sentiments, entitled Séances …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World

Neither do they Confess that they are Awed by those Citations from the Old...
7. Neither do they confess that they are awed by those citations from the Old Testament which are alleged as examples of lies: for there, every incident may possibly be taken figuratively, although it really did take place: and when a thing is either done or said figuratively, it is no lie. For every utterance is to be referred to that which it utters. But when any thing is either done or said figuratively, it utters that which it signifies to those for whose understanding it was put forth. Whence …
St. Augustine—On Lying

Man.
THE IMAGE OF GOD. MAN is God's image, and to curse wickedly the image of God, is to curse God himself. Suppose that a man should say with his mouth, I wish that the king's picture were burned; would not this man's so saying render him as an enemy to the person of the king? Even so it is with them that by cursing wish evil to their neighbors or themselves; they contemn the image of God himself. This world, as it dropped from the fingers of God, was far more glorious than it is now. VALUE OF THE SOUL. …
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan

The Hindrances to Mourning
What shall we do to get our heart into this mourning frame? Do two things. Take heed of those things which will stop these channels of mourning; put yourselves upon the use of all means that will help forward holy mourning. Take heed of those things which will stop the current of tears. There are nine hindrances of mourning. 1 The love of sin. The love of sin is like a stone in the pipe which hinders the current of water. The love of sin makes sin taste sweet and this sweetness in sin bewitches the …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity the Christian Calling and Unity.
Text: Ephesians 4, 1-6. 1 I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, 2 with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

All Mankind Guilty; Or, Every Man Knows More than He Practises.
ROMANS i. 24.--"When they knew God, they glorified him not as God." The idea of God is the most important and comprehensive of all the ideas of which the human mind is possessed. It is the foundation of religion; of all right doctrine, and all right conduct. A correct intuition of it leads to correct religious theories and practice; while any erroneous or defective view of the Supreme Being will pervade the whole province of religion, and exert a most pernicious influence upon the entire character …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

Saurin -- Paul Before Felix and Drusilla
Jacques Saurin, the famous French Protestant preacher of the seventeenth century, was born at Nismes in 1677. He studied at Geneva and was appointed to the Walloon Church in London in 1701. The scene of his great life work was, however, the Hague, where he settled in 1705. He has been compared with Bossuet, tho he never attained the graceful style and subtilty which characterize the "Eagle of Meaux." The story is told of the famous scholar Le Clerc that he long refused to hear Saurin preach, on the …
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

Links

Romans 2:12 NIV
Romans 2:12 NLT
Romans 2:12 ESV
Romans 2:12 NASB
Romans 2:12 KJV

Romans 2:12 Commentaries

Bible Hub