Romans 2:28,29

“ For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, and not by the letter; its praise is not of men, but of God. ”

The double principle laid down here by Paul was the sum of prophetic theology; comp. Leviticus 26:41; Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:14; Ezekiel 44:9. And hence it is that the apostle can make it the basis of his argument. Romans 2:28 justifies the degradation of the Jew to the state of a Gentile, proclaimed in Romans 2:25; and Romans 2:29 the elevation of the Gentile to the rank of a Jew, proclaimed in Romans 2:26-27. The two words which justify this double transformation are ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ, in secret, inwardly, and καρδίας, ἐν πνεύματι, of the heart, by the spirit. For if there is a principle to be derived from the whole of the Old Testament, it is that God has regard to the heart (1Sa 16:7). Paul himself referred in Romans 2:16 to the fact that in the day of judgment by Jesus Christ, it would be the hidden things of men which would form the essential ground of His sentence. There is only one way of explaining naturally the grammatical construction of these two verses. In Romans 2:28, we must borrow the two subjects ᾿Ιουδαῖος and περιτομή from the predicate; and in Romans 2:29, the two predicates ᾿Ιουδαῖός (ἐστι) and περιτομή (ἐστι) from the subject.

The complement καρδίας, of the heart, is the gen. object.: the circumcision which cleanses the heart; the clause ἐν πνεύματι, in spirit, denotes the means: by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the superior force which, by transforming the feelings of the heart, produces true inward purification. The letter, on the contrary, is an outward rule which does not change either the heart or the will; comp. Romans 7:6. Meyer thinks we should take οὗ, of which, as a neuter, referring to Judaism in general. But to what purpose would it be to say that the praise of Judaism comes not from men, but from God? That was sufficiently obvious of itself, since it was God who had established it, and all the nations detested it; we must therefore connect this pronoun with the Jew which precedes, and even with the feminine term circumcision, which is used throughout this whole piece for the person circumcised.

The word praise is again an allusion to the etymological meaning of the word ᾿Ιουδαῖος, Jew (see on Romans 2:17); comp. Genesis 49:8. God, who reads the heart, is alone able to allot with certainty the title Jew in the true sense of the word that is to say, one praised. The idea of praise coming from God is opposed to all that Jewish vainglory which is detailed Romans 2:17-20.

What a remarkable parallelism is there between this whole passage and the declaration of Jesus, Matthew 8:11-12: “Many shall come from the east and from the west, and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven,” etc....And yet there is nothing to indicate imitation on Paul's part. The same truth creates an original form for itself in the two cases.

Yet the apostle anticipates an objection to the truth which he has just developed. If the sinful Jew finds himself in the same situation in regard to the wrath of God as the sinful Gentile, what remains of the prerogative which divine election seemed to assure to him? Before going further, and drawing the general conclusion following from the two preceding passages, Romans 1:18-32 and Romans 2:1-29, Paul feels the need of obviating this objection; and such is the aim of the following passage.