Romans 2:27 Commentary and Bible Study

This takes the argument one stage further, and places the obedient Gentile in such a position of superiority over the disobedient Jew that he may actually exercise judgment over him. Given the attitude that all Jews had towards Gentiles, and how they looked down on them as beneath them and inferior to them, this was a most galling truth, but it cannot be gainsaid. Paul’s logic is flawless. God’s view of the Gentile convert and the Jewish unbeliever, reverses the status of the two as it stands in the mind of the average Jew. All his life he has thought of the Gentile as outside the covenant, far off from God, lacking in knowledge, corrupted by sin. To have God view things entirely the other way round is deeply disagreeable to him, and a bitter pill to swallow. But what has the Jew been depending on in thinking like this, and what game is every self-righteous person playing when they reason in this way? They are only able to convince themselves of their good standing by concentrating on things that are of little importance to God: petty things, things which they should know to not count towards their spiritual health. They fast every week; they give tithes of all manner of things; they wear the right clothing, and they eat the correct foods. None of these things are of the essence of the kingdom of heaven. Of course, to have had a physical operation in the flesh will count for nothing. The body will perish and the sign in the flesh will perish with it. What will be raised up is a new glorified body about which we know very little. Paul’s appeal to that day is a further effort to bring some realism to the thinking of the unbelieving Jew.