Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
Read Chapter 3
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul tells those who live under the law that they have no reason to boast basing themselves on the law and claiming to be of the race of Abraham, seeing that no one is justified before God except by faith. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
For who will glory, or for what, when everyone has become worthless and gone out of the right way, and nobody does good works anymore? Therefore he says that all glorying is excluded…. How? We have acquired the forgiveness of our former sins and have been justified freely by the mercy and grace of Christ. .
Paul is at great pains to show that faith is powerful to a degree which no one ever imagined the law could be. For after saying that God justifies man by faith, he takes up the question of the law again. He does not say: “Where are the good works of the Jews?” but: “Where is their boasting?” Thus he takes every opportunity to demonstrate that it was all talk and that they had no deeds to back them up. What is “the principle of faith”? This is salvation by grace. Here Paul shows God’s power in that he has not only saved, he has also justified and led them to boast in a different way—not relying on works but glorying only in their faith. In saying this Paul is trying to get believing Jews to behave with moderation and to reassure unbelieving Jews so that they might be persuaded to accept his point of view. For if the one who has been saved is proud because he abides by the law, he will be told that he has stopped his own mouth, that he has accused himself, that he has renounced any claim...
After showing that Jews have no advantage over the Gentiles either in regard to sin or to righteousness,19 he now presents the intended conclusion, by rejecting the boasts whereby they preferred themselves to the Gentiles. He does three things. First, he proposes that this boasting be excluded; secondly, the reason for this exclusion, there [v. 27b; n. 315] at by what law?; thirdly, the way it is excluded, there [v. 28; n. 317] at For we judge. 160 20 RSV Ps 68:30. The Hebrew text of this verse is obscure. 314. In regard to the first he does two things. First, he raises a question: Inasmuch as you, 0 Jew, are under sin just as the Gentile, and the Gentile is made just by faith just as you are, then what becomes of your boasting, whereby you take glory in the Law, as stated above, and on this ground wish to prefer yourself to the Gentile? "Your boasting is not good" (1 Cor 5:6); "Let us have no self-conceit, envying one another," (Gal 5:26). Secondly, he answers this, saying, it is excl...
