Romans 2:7

To them that by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life: but unto them that are factions, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation.

Here is another unequivocal declaration of a master principle underlying God's judgment, the fifth in this passage:

V. God will reward well-doing and punish disobedience.

These verses connect closely with Romans 2:6 and show the manner of God's judging people according to their works. Together, these verses declare dogmatically that well-doers shall inherit eternal life and that the disobedient shall receive wrath and tribulation. Whiteside saw a definition of eternal life in Romans 2:7.

So far as this text shows, eternal life consists of glory, honor, and incorruption - a happy existence in the heavenly kingdom. ... Eternal life is conditional, for eternal life must be sought by patience and well-doing. In the 8th and 9th verses, Paul affirms that tribulation and anguish will be visited upon those who do evil. If damnation is conditional, then salvation also must be conditional. One cannot be conditional and the other unconditional, if doing wrong causes a person to be lost, then to be saved, he must leave off the wrong and do right. If being lost is conditional, so is being saved.[9]

"Doing" and "obeying" are made to be the basis of being saved, and "obeying not" is established as the basis of being lost; and such was no new concept with the apostle Paul. It invariably entered into all his letters. For example, he wrote the Thessalonians:

Rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus, who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might (2 Thessalonians 1:7,8).

It should be noticed in the above reference that Paul did not set up a special category for "disobedient believers," who through faith and nothing but faith would be saved anyway! Nor yet was there provision made for another class of disobedient who had had God's forensic righteousness transferred to them through faith only.