timfost
Puritan Board Senior
25 For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26 Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? 27 And will not the physically uncircumcised, if he fulfills the law, judge you who, even with your written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law? 28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; 29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.
I'm needing some help on this one. Does the expression "if you keep the law" speak to perfect law keeping, or the imperfect obedience of the faithful? In other words, does this passage fall under a realistic scenario of imperfect obedience or a hypothetical scenario as Paul sets up Ch. 3's "none righteous" theme? Or something else?
Thanks!