The unrighteousness of religious Jews
It is evident from Paul’s argument that there is no inherent righteousness that comes from having the law, and, as Paul now adds, external observance of the rite of circumcision isn’t of any help either.
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
Circumcision was the sign and seal of God’s covenant with Abraham and Abraham’s descendants, the Jewish nation. For a Jewish male, to accept circumcision was to enter into a covenantal relationship with God. That covenant relationship entailed two things: God’s promise to be Israel’s God, and Israel’s promise to be God’s devoted people, committed to doing his will and obeying his commands.
For a Jew to claim the promises of God through the covenant sealed with circumcision but then to ignore the will of God in his life and conduct was a contradiction in terms. This inconsistency leads Paul to make the observation, “Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.”
It will be evident, therefore, that circumcision in itself was not the essential feature of a proper relationship with God. The essential feature rather was the attitude of the heart reflecting itself in a life of love and trust in the Lord. Where the heart is right (and that, of course, can come about only through faith in the promised Savior), there circumcision really becomes a nonfactor. Paul alludes to this when he poses the hypothetical question, “If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?”
The answer to Paul’s question is that such people will indeed be regarded as true children of God. In fact, because of their faith-born obedience to God, they will become the judges of circumcised but disobedient Jews. Paul declares, “The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.”
The Jews were inclined to put their confidence in having the law and being circumcised. But these things were merely outward and formal; they did not provide the righteousness God looks for. They did not succeed in bringing about a right relationship between the sinner and God. Such a relationship can’t come through “the written code.” It has to come by faith in the heart, worked by the Holy Spirit.