From following the Torah Paul moves to another theme connected with the Torah: religion and religiosity. The apostle, as we can see, understands the difference between...
From following the Torah Paul moves to another theme connected with the Torah: religion and religiosity. The apostle, as we can see, understands the difference between the Torah as a properly spiritual reality and the religion it gives rise to. Judaism as a religion is indeed unthinkable without the Torah. But the Torah itself is greater than Judaism.
Moreover, observance of the religious prescriptions of Judaism does not yet guarantee what the same Jewish tradition calls "keeping the Torah": one can be a religious person and at the same time a violator of the Torah, and then religiosity in itself loses all meaning. Or one can be not religious at all, like the Gentiles, but follow the "natural" Torah, and those who follow such a "natural" Torah may turn out to be closer to God than Jews who are confident in their religious piety.
Of course, when speaking of Gentiles, Paul has in mind not worshipers of some pagan cults, but rather those whom we today would call secular people, since most of those who were called pagans in Paul's time were religiously indifferent. There were, of course, real religious pagans too, but they would hardly have been among the apostle's listeners, and certainly would not have become Christians.
What matters to Paul above all is following the inner Torah, not the external forms of the Jewish religion. He understands perfectly well, of course, that precisely the attempt to follow the inner Torah will reveal human sinfulness faster than anything else, and this process itself becomes judgment for the person. But it does not follow from this either that the Torah itself is bad, or that one needs to sin deliberately in order to reveal one's own sinfulness to the end.
The inner Torah reveals it sufficiently as it is, and to sin consciously only means increasing the measure of sinfulness in one's life. One must simply not refuse the path that presupposes following the inner Torah, even if such a path becomes judgment for the person. And in this sense Jews as the people of God have an advantage over every other people: it was precisely to the Jews as God's people that the Torah was given for reflection, understanding, and conscious following.
Without the Jewish people, there would have been not only no Judaism as a religion, but also no way of the Torah, without which full knowledge of God is impossible. And if not all Jews walk this way, the way of the Torah is a matter of a person's personal, voluntary choice. A person can be forced to fulfill religious norms and prescriptions, but he cannot be compelled to take a spiritual path, to do the spiritual work without which that path does not exist. And even if many of Paul's fellow believers turn out to be merely religious formalists, their formalism in no way devalues either the Torah or the spiritual path that it presupposes.
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2:17 But if thou art called a Jew - This highest point of Jewish glorying, after a farther description of it interposed, Rom 2:17-20, and refuted, Rom 2:21-24, is itself refuted, Rom 2:25, etc The description consists of twice five articles; of which the former five, Rom 2:17-18, show what he boasts of in himself; the other five, Rom 2:19-20, what he glories in with respect to others. The first particular of the former five answers to the first of the latter; the second, to the second, and so on.And restest in the law - Dependest on it, though it can only condemn thee. And gloriest in God - As thy God; and that, too, to the exclusion of others.
2:19 Blind, in darkness, ignorant, babes - These were the titles which the Jews generally gave the gentiles.
2:20 Having the form of knowledge and truth - That is, the most accurate knowledge of the truth.
2:21 Thou dost not teach thyself - He does not teach himself who does not practise what he teaches. Dost thou steal, commit adultery, commit sacrilege - Sin grievously against thy neighbour, thyself, God. St. Paul had shown the gentiles, first their sins against God, then against themselves, then against their neighbours. He now inverts the order: for sins against God are the most glaring in an heathen, but not in a Jew. Thou that abhorrest idols - Which all the Jews did, from the time of the Babylonish captivity. Thou committest sacrilege - Doest what is worse, robbing Him "who is God over all" of the glory which is due to him. None of these charges were rashly advanced against the Jews of that age; for, as their own historian relates, some even of the priests lived by rapine, and others in gross uncleanness.And as for sacrilegiously robbing God and his altar, it had been complained of ever since Malachi; so that the instances are given with great propriety and judgment.
2:24 Isa 52:5
2:25 Circumcision indeed profiteth - He does not say, justifies. How far it profited is shown in the third and fourth chapters. Thy circumcision is become uncircumcision - is so already in effect. Thou wilt have no more benefit by itthan if thou hadst never received it. The very same observation holds with regard to baptism.
2:26 If the uncircumcision - That is, a person uncircumcised.Keep the law - Walk agreeably to it.Shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision - In the sight of God?
2:27 Yea, the uncircumcision that is by nature - Those who are, literally speaking, uncircumcised. Fulfilling the law - As to the substance of it. Shall judge thee - Shall condemn thee in that day. Who by the letter and circumcision - Who having the bare, literal, external circumcision,transgressest the law.
2:28 For he is not a Jew - In the most important sense, that is, one of God's beloved people. Who is one in outward show only; neither is that the true, acceptable circumcision, which is apparent in the flesh.
2:29 But he is a Jew - That is, one of God's people.Who is one inwardly - In the secret recesses of his soul.And the acceptable circumcision is that of the heart - Referring to Deu 30:6; the putting away all inwardimpurity. This is seated in the spirit, the inmost soul, renewed by the Spirit of God. And not in the letter - Not in the external ceremony. Whose praise is not from men, but from God - The only searcher of the heart.