"For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? 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 that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."
This lesson, in more modern terms, indicates that being a Jew is a good thing: but if one, being a Jew, breaks God's law, that one is no longer a Jew, but rather that one has, in essence and before God, become a Gentile.
Wouldn't one being born a Gentile and obeying God's laws anyway make that one one a Jew? And wouldn't being a Gentile who obeys God's laws be in a position to judge the errant Jews by the rules of their own law?
Being a Jew, in the Godly sense, requires much more than just being born into a Jewish family and being circumcised. Being a real Jew requires a state of Godliness in the inner man which can only come from the righteousness of God instilled in him/her through Jesus Christ.
The gist of this lesson is that what people appear to be on the outside, doesn't matter to God at all, but rather it is what we are on the inside (the inner man/woman) that identifies us before God.
Paul was telling the Jews that, just being Jews, no longer guaranteed them any particular advantage over the Gentiles so far as righteousness was concerned, and that they had actually betrayed God by proving themselves to be hypocrites before the Gentiles.~
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