Paul now writes that it doesn't matter whether you are a Jew or a Gentile … whether you heard and grew up with and lived under the Law or not. It isn't those who hear the Law, but those who actually ‘do’ what its original intention was will be justified … will find salvation.
The light is within each person, whether Jew or Gentile and what a person chooses to do with it tells the story. A Jew is not made righteous because God gave him the law, nor is a Gentile saved because the Law didn't apply to him. All have sinned … no one avoids sin.
Jeremiah tells the Israelites that when the New Covenant comes, the Lord will put his law “In their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Paul echoes this in Romans 2:14-15, when writing of the Gentiles who follow the commands inherent in the Law simply because it in their nature.
Paul doesn't come out and say it, but at some point we understand that the rules of right and wrong as set forth by the Law are more than just a collection of words given to Moses by the Lord God, but are as immutable as natural laws, such as gravity. We ignore that they exist at our own risk. Paul tells us that this an eternal risk. There will be a day when “God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:16).
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