The Objector Answered

Paul contrasts two groups who claim to be the covenant people; that is, those who were chosen and saved by God’s grace. Paul here and elsewhere refers to the circumcision, meaning the covenant people of the old era, but his eyes are on the baptized, the covenant people of the Christian era. The covenant people in Paul’s day also spoke of themselves as the people of the law, and of the Gentiles as those outside the law, so that the terminology that Paul uses is the language of his day, and Paul corrects the thinking so prevalent that the mere rite was sufficient to mark one as belonging to the covenant.