Romans 2
23 You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?
It is my study all the day. Learning God's Law can have import in your life. Even when I am not engaged in Torah study (I can't say I do every day) I am thinking about the right thing to do. Mostly or usually I am sharing the gospel.
To boast in the Law is different than talking about or discussing the Law. Not everyone spends time studying the Law. Anyone can. But salvation is not in the Law, it is in Jesus. The Law came from God to the nation of Israel. The world is accountable to God because of God's Law.
You may be observing it without trying to. There may be something you have to work at. But the point is not to make people obedient to the Law, but that we would obey God in faith. That is, salvation is by faith, not the works of the Law.
If a person baosts in the Law it makes sense that they would observe it. A person who observes the Law should not be penalized when they do or in that they do. Note, as Romans 8:1-4 NASB reveals that there is something the Law cannot do. It cannot save a person. What it could not do, weak as it was in the flesh, God did sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin He condemned sin the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
It is my belief that those who walk according to the Spirit do obey God's commands. This may mean, and likely in most or maybe all cases, that there is a command they don't observe (for example, circumcision) or one they struggle with or find difficulty with (remember Jesus taught the true intent of the Law, and no one is perfect). But what we cannot do in the flesh either Jesus did (He did) or if God wants us to observe it we can in the Spirit. I don't know that I totally understand this, but I do know that an uncircumcised man may be one who rightly judges a circumcised man who observes the Law, maybe through his own obedience to God's commands. If an uncircumcised man observes the Law, that will help the circumcised man who does not, to know what it is that God really wants him to do in any given area. This may be in our life here and now, and I don't know about in the judgment to come.
The following verses have the word uncircumcised in them, in Romans.
Romans 2:26 NASB - So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
Romans 2:27 NASB - And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?
Romans 3:30 NASB - since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
Romans 4:9 NASB - Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, "FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
Romans 4:10 NASB - How then was it credited? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised;
Romans 4:11 NASB - and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be credited to them,
Romans 4:12 NASB - and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham which he had while uncircumcised.
This is just an example of how it is not true that only those who are circumcised keep the Law, even if sometimes a person might be found to have not done so.
None of us should break God's Law. This includes those who are circumcised who you would think either keep the Law or want to keep the Law, and those who are uncircumcised whether they obey God's commands found in the Law or not. If a person is circumcised and has chosen to not keep the Law, that does not make sense. But salvation is not found in the Law it is found in faith in God through Jesus Christ. It may be that this person is saved. It may also be that an uncircumcised man, not expected to keep the Law, either does or does not. And he may be saved either way, by faith in God in Jesus. Salvation is only found in Jesus. It is not found in the Law, whether a person observes the Law or not.
