How does Paul relate judgment, doing law and inward circumcision?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Paul challenges judging while doing the same, contrasts hearing with doing and conditions circumcision’s profit on lawkeeping.

Chapter breakdown

Paul addresses anyone who judges others while doing the same acts. Condemning another condemns oneself and leaves no excuse. God’s judgment against such acts accords with truth. Does the person doing what he judges think he will escape, or despise God’s goodness, patience and longsuffering, which lead to penance? A hard, impenitent heart stores wrath for the day of wrath and the revelation of just judgment. God renders to each according to works: eternal life to patient workers of good seeking glory, honour and incorruption; wrath and indignation to contentious people disobeying truth and giving credit to iniquity. Evil brings anguish, first to the Jew and then the Greek; good brings glory, honour and peace likewise. God respects no persons.

Those sinning without the law perish without it, and those sinning in the law are judged by it. Doers rather than hearers shall be justified. Gentiles without the law who do its things by nature are a law to themselves, showing its work written in their hearts. Their conscience bears witness and their thoughts accuse or defend one another. God will judge secrets through Jesus according to Paul’s gospel.

Paul addresses someone called a Jew, resting in the law, boasting of God, knowing his will and approving profitable things through instruction. Such a person may claim to guide the blind, light those in darkness, instruct the foolish and teach infants, possessing the law’s form of knowledge and truth. Paul asks whether one teaching others fails to teach himself, preaches against theft but steals, forbids adultery but commits it, or abhors idols but commits sacrilege. Transgression dishonours God despite boasting of the law, and God’s name is blasphemed among Gentiles through such conduct, as written.

Circumcision profits if the law is kept; transgression makes it uncircumcision. Paul asks whether the uncircumcised keeper of the law will be counted circumcised, and whether natural uncircumcision fulfilling the law will judge the transgressor possessing its letter and circumcision. Being a Jew and circumcision are not simply outward matters of flesh. The inward Jew and circumcision of the heart in spirit rather than letter receive praise from God rather than men.

The story inside

Conditional when-Gentiles-do and if-lawkept formulations remain. His addressed interlocutor is not generalized to every Jew; in spirit is not expanded into a new regeneration mechanism.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Goodness leads to penance.
2
Doers rather than hearers shall be justified.
3
Circumcision’s profit is conditional in Paul’s argument.

Test your recall

What does conscience bear witness to?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 127479–127491
2:1. Wherefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou dost the same things which thou judgest. 2:2. For we know that the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that do such things. 2:3. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them who do such things and dost the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? 2:4. Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and patience and longsuffering? Knowest thou not that the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance?
Lines 127497–127511
2:6. Who will render to every man according to his works. 2:7. To them indeed who, according to patience in good work, seek glory and honour and incorruption, eternal life: 2:8. But to them that are contentious and who obey not the truth but give credit to iniquity, wrath and indignation. 2:9. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil: of the Jew first, and also of the Greek. 2:10. But glory and honour and peace to every one that worketh good: to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 2:11. For there is no respect of persons with God.
Lines 127517–127529
2:13. For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. 2:14. For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. 2:15. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending one another, 2:16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
Lines 127555–127570
2:25. Circumcision profiteth indeed, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. 2:26. If then, the uncircumcised keep the justices of the law, shall not this uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? 2:27. And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law? 2:28. For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly: nor is that circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh. 2:29. But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.