Romans 2 · a question people ask
"the doers of the law will be justified" (2:13). Who are they?
This question is only about 2:13. First, what the chapter says: "For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified" (2:13). The chapter says no more about who the doers are than its own verses do. Christians read 2:13 in more than one way, each reading resting on verses of Romans, and this question picks none. All agree on what the chapter says around it: "For there is no partiality with God." (2:11), and God "will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ" (2:16). These notes apply neither reading to any church or person today.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The law's standard, which the letter says no one meets
Those who read it this way read 2:13 as stating what the law requires. They set one verse of the next chapter beside it: "Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin." (3:20). On this reading, 2:13 states the law's standard, and 3:20 says that by the works of the law no flesh will be justified.
Romans 2:13 · Romans 3:20
People who truly do what the law requires
Those who read it this way read 2:13 as speaking of people who truly do what the law requires. They set beside it the verses that follow: Gentiles who "show the work of the law written in their hearts" (2:15), the one whose "uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision" (2:26), and "circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter" (2:29); and the letter's later words, "that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit" (8:4). On this reading, the doers of 2:13 are those the chapter goes on to describe.
Romans 2:13 · Romans 2:14-15 · Romans 2:26-29 · Romans 8:4
The verses
“For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified”
“For there is no partiality with God.”
“in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.”