The Law Written On Hearts

The point here is that the Jews have no advantage over the Gentiles by having the law, because the Gentiles have their own form of it written on their hearts.

This means that even though the Gentiles did not have the Law of Moses, they did have an internal law, and it is evident by the way they lived.

They may not know God, but they have that inner sense that tells them when they are doing something wrong. Because of this internal sense of right and wrong, the Gentiles became a law unto themselves.

The Jews had laws written on stone tablets, but the Gentiles had the law written on a tablet made of flesh. They did not know the law that God had given to Moses. Yet they had knowledge of right and wrong.

And in spite of that knowledge, they rebelled against that which was right, and in so doing, they also rebelled against the law of God. And disobedience to the law of nature is still rebellion in the eyes of the Lord, and it will bring judgment on whoever breaks that law.

And if those who are ignorant of God’s law break even one of those laws that are known, then they are guilty of the sin of rebellion.

Ignorance of the law of God is not an acceptable excuse in the courtroom of Heaven. By nature, through a natural knowledge of good and evil that is given by God, we all have that innate understanding of what is right and what is not.

Most people in our culture who have no relationship with God whatsoever still at least occasionally, and sometimes quite frequently, do things that are consistent with God’s written Law.

They honor their parents, they care for their family, they feed the hungry, they tell the truth, they seek to do justice, and they pay their debts.

And even in very primitive cultures, almost everyone believes it is wrong to commit murder and those who do that are punished in some way.

Not only is that law written on our hearts, our conscience bears witness that we understand that some things are wrong and some things are good.

Remember how Jiminy Cricket responded in the 1940 classic, when Pinocchio asked, “What’s a conscience?” Jiminy Cricket said, “What’s a conscience!? I'll tell ya! A conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to. That's just the trouble with the world today...”

To paraphrase the Blue Fairy’s follow-up, your conscience is what allows you to differentiate between right and wrong, good and evil, moral and immoral.

The problem is the conscience doesn’t work like a “thermometer” it works like a “thermostat.” And while the two are related to one another, there’s a huge difference between the two!

Thermostats don’t define “hot” and “cold” they only set the temperature. And in the case of our actions, “good” and “bad”, our conscience just sets the level that we believe is appropriate.

Our conscience doesn’t tell us we’re violating God’s standards, it tells us we’re violating our own. And our conscience isn’t static, it resets over time, and is influenced by our family, education, worldview, and for Christians the church, and the Word of God.