VII.
Let’s go to a couple of things Paul wrote in other epistles.

“… even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” (Philippians 3:4-6)

“Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.” (2 Corinthians 11:22)

And here, he can write,

“For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code.” (Romans 2:28-29)

What does it take to move a person from such confidence in the “outward” to such confidence in the “inward,” the “heart.”

VIII.
Romans 2:12-24, 28-29 (NRSVue)

All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged in accordance with the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight but the doers of the law who will be justified. When gentiles, who do not possess the law, by nature do what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, as their own conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of your relation to God and know his will and determine what really matters because you are instructed in the law, and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, you, then, who teach others, will you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by your transgression of the law? For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you.”

For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.

IX.
Did you notice,

“[Gentiles] show that what the law requires is written on their hearts …” (Romans 2:15)

Is there always a witness to the Law in the conscience? Of both Jew and Gentile?

If there is perhaps a “universal” witness to the law, I wonder if there is a “universal” witness to grace, to lovingkindness, to mercy.

Has God placed within the reach of all, the opening to an understanding of grace and even how we can live into God’s grace?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}