NOTES for Rom 2:25
At first Paul's reflections on true and false circumcision appear to be a polemic with the Jews who did not accept Christ and opposed the preaching of the gospel. Indeed, Christ's coming and the division between those who accepted Him and those who rejected Him sharpened the question of whom one should consider a true Jew: the one who formally acknowledges the commandments of the Law, or those who fulfill it. This question became still more acute after the Christian communities were filled out by former pagans who had not gone through joining the Jewish people. But after this the question arises in another way: do the apostle's reflections not also apply to us? Do we not, like the Jews denounced by Paul, turn our baptism into a ritual formality? Do we not become, we who know the commandments of the New Covenant but do not live by them, the same as the venerators of the Old Testament laws of whom this passage speaks?
But just as even the departure of such Jews from the essence of the Law does not deprive them of their great advantage in every respect, consisting in the fact that the Word of God was proclaimed to them, so formal Christians cannot cancel the truth of the Gospel.
Paul also mentions the teaching attributed to Christians that one must do evil so that good may come. A frivolous interpretation of the saying "whatever God does is for the best" is still current today. Yes, everything He does is indeed for the best, but we have no right to pass off our own deeds as His works. Nor do we have the right irresponsibly to do evil in the hope that the Lord will correct its consequences. He will correct them, but He will also call us to account for the evil. The Lord's mercy is boundless, but we have no right to abuse it.