Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans John Calvin
John Calvin
Since then all nations, of themselves and without a monitor, are disposed to make laws for themselves, it is beyond all question evident that they have some notions of justice and rectitude, which the Greeks call preconceptions {προληψεις}, and which are implanted by nature in the hearts of men. They have then a law, though they are without law: for though they have not a written law, they are yet by no means wholly destitute of the knowledge of what is right and just; as they could not otherwise distinguish between vice and virtue; the first of which they restrain by punishment, and the latter they commend, and manifest their approbation of it by honoring it with rewards. He sets nature in opposition to a written law, meaning that the Gentiles had the natural light of righteousness, which supplied the place of that law by which the Jews were instructed, so that they were a law to themselves. 72
15. Who show the work of the law 73 written, etc.; that is, they prove that there is imprinted on their hearts a discrimination and judgment by which they distinguish between what is just and unjust, between what is honest and dishonest. He means not that it was so engraven on their will, that they sought and diligently pursued it, but that they were so mastered by the power of truth, that they could not disapprove of it. For why did they institute religious rites, except that they were convinced that God ought to be worshipped? Why were they ashamed of adultery and theft, except that they deemed them evils?
Without reason then is the power of the will deduced from this passage, as though Paul had said, that the keeping of the law is within our power; for he speaks not of the power to fulfill the law, but of the knowledge of it. Nor is the word heart to be taken for the seat of the affections, but only for the understanding, as it is found in Deuteronomy 29:4,
"The Lord hath not given thee a heart to understand;" and in Luke 24:25, "O foolish men, and slow in heart to believe." Nor can we conclude from this passage, that there is in men a full knowledge of the law, but that there are only some seeds of what is right implanted in their nature, evidenced by such acts as these — All the Gentiles alike instituted religious rites, they made laws to punish adultery, and theft, and murder, they commended good faith in bargains and contracts. They have thus indeed proved, that God ought to be worshipped, that adultery, and
72As to the phrase, "these are a law unto themselves," Venema adduces classical examples — {πᾶν} {τὸ} {βέλτιστον} {φαινόμενον} {ἔστω} {σοι} {νόμος} {ἀπαράβατος} "Whatever seems best, let it be to thee a perpetual law." — Epict. in Ench., c. 75. "{τὸ} {μὲν} {ορθὸν} {νόμος} {ἐστὶ} {βασιληκός} What is indeed right, is a royal law." — Plato in Min., page 317. The heathens themselves acknowledged a law of nature. Turrettin quotes a passage from a lost work of Cicero, retained by Lactantius, which remarkably coincides with the language of Paul here — Ed.
73By the work of the law, {τὸ} {ἔργον} {τοῦ} {νόμου}, is to be understood what the law requires. The "work of God," in John 6:29, is of the same import, that is, the work which God requires or demands; and the same word is plural in the former verse, {τὰ} {ἔργα} — "the works of God." So here, in the former verse, it is {τὰ} {τοῦ} {νόμου} — "the things of the law," where we may suppose {ἔργα}to be understood. The common expression, "the works of the law," has the same meaning, that is, such works as the law prescribes and requires. — Ed.