Let's start with your
Romans 2:7 verse.
It should not be read apart from [/disconnected from] the overall
CONTEXT... Paul, in chpts 1-3 is going back and forth [I've posted before where the "back and forth" is] between talking about
the Jews and talking about
the Gentiles, and CONCLUDING that
"all" are under sin [
3:9] (
even though the Gentiles didn't have "the Law" like
the Jews were given. THAT'S the point)…
So, you gotta read it
as part of what
Rom3:9-12 is saying (re: both [both "the Jews" and "the Gentiles" that the preceding sections were covering, back and forth, about]). Read there now (
3:9-12).
Then, I would point you to Gaebelein's words regarding same:
[quoting Gaebelein]
"
Romans 2:7-16
"God is righteous and He will render every man according to his deeds. Then two classes are mentioned. The first are those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, and to that class God will give eternal life. (Eternal life is here not, as in John’s Gospel a present possession. but is that to be entered in after death.) How is this to be applied? Does this answer the question how man is to be saved? it does not, but it is the question of God’s moral government. Man in his unconverted state cannot obtain eternal life by patient continuance in well doing, for we read later that God’s Word declares “there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Man cannot seek for glory for it is written, “there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God” (3:11). On these terms no human being can obtain eternal life. Man is a sinner and all the wages he can earn is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (6:23). If eternal life is received by faith in Jesus Christ then man is able to do right and live the life that pleases God. Then there is the other class; those who obey not the truth, who live in unrighteousness, who reject His Word. Indignation and wrath is in store for such and this is the condition in which Jews and Gentiles are by nature “Among whom also we (Jews) all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others (Gentiles)” (
Ephesians 2:3). God states in these verses the principles on which He judges according to man’s works, and as man is a sinner and cannot do good works, man is therefore under condemnation.
"And likewise there is no respect of persons with God. The Jew may boast of a higher place than the Gentile, but God deals with all alike. The Gentiles had not the law and therefore sinned without law and they cannot escape the righteous judgment of God. They had the witness in Creation, as seen from the first chapter, and besides this there is conscience and that witnesses of what is sin; they have the knowledge of good and evil and are therefore morally responsible. They turned from God and they will be judged apart from the law; but it is more than that “they shall perish without the law.” That completely answers the teaching that the mercy of God covers in some way the heathen world and that the heathen are not lost. And the Jews had the law and did not keep it. Could the possession of the Law make them just before God? Certainly not, “for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the law to do them” (
Galatians 3:10). And theirs will be the greater judgment, for they knew His will and did not according to His will and shall be beaten with many stripes (
Luke 12:47). The entire passage deals with the judgment of a righteous God and that neither the Gentile without the law nor the Jew with the law is righteous before God, but that both classes must fall under the judgment of God. And there is a day appointed when this righteous judgment will be executed by the Son of Man, our Lord. And that none can be just by doing is seen in Paul’s defense of the Gospel."
--Gaebelein, Commentary on Romans 2 [source: BibleHub]
[end quoting]
So, no, Rom2:7 is not a verse "proving" we're to earn our salvation, work FOR [to obtain] our salvation, or any such-like thing.