True Jewishness

We can easily imagine a devout Jew, upon hearing Paul’s devastating teaching of the previous few verses, beginning to sputter in anger and confusion: “How can you say such a thing? I am a Jew—one of God’s people. Surely my circumcision, this covenantal sign in my flesh, counts for something?” And Paul, surprisingly, agrees—but with one big condition.

Circumcision was the divinely ordained sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 17:7, 10–11). When the mark of circumcision was placed in an infant boy’s flesh, he was signified as a member of the covenant community, the people of God, heirs of His great promises. But while obedience to God in circumcision was important (Gen. 17:14), God was clear that mere circumcision could not save the Israelites any more than water baptism can save a person today. He told His people that not just their foreskins but their hearts must be circumcised (Deut. 10:16; 30:6). But the Jews somehow concluded that the physical sign of inclusion in the covenant was enough to render them exempt from judgment. Paul is addressing this misconception when he writes, “Circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law.” Later, he specifically adds that circumcision must affect the heart, not just the outer body. Inner circumcision is so key, Paul adds, that non-Jews who keep God’s law will be reckoned as God’s own—and will judge the Jews who violate the law. “Paul does not say … that one does not have to be a Jew to be saved,” Dr. James M. Boice explains, “but rather that one has to be a true Jew, which, as he points out, is not a matter of external criteria—such as possession of the law, descent from Abraham, or circumcision—but of conduct, which flows from spiritual changes within.”

Boice’s mention of prior “spiritual changes” reminds us that Paul’s emphasis on keeping the law assumes divine grace. The apostle is not saying that anyone can obey God’s law fully, but simply that there must be a proper heart attitude, a willingness to fight sin and strive to obey the righteous commands of God. People who do so have undergone the Spirit’s heart surgery and are justified; thanks to God’s grace, they have been enabled to obey. But those who habitually violate the law are lost and dead in sin, unable and unwilling to obey.