Romans 2:28,29 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For he is not a Jew In the most important sense, that is, one of God's beloved people; or a true child of Abraham, to whom the promise belongs, and one that God will own for a true member of his church; who is one outwardly Only; or one of Abraham's posterity, according to the flesh, and enjoys the outward privileges belonging to that relation. Neither is that circumcision The chief and true circumcision, acceptable to God; which is outward in the flesh Consists only in the outward ordinance, and the mark imprinted on the flesh. But he is a Jew One of Abraham's spiritual seed; who is one inwardly Who inwardly possesses the disposition of Abraham, and imitates him in his faith and obedience. In this sense, the pious Gentiles, though uncircumcised, and members of no visible church, were really Jews, or children of Abraham, entitled to the blessings of the covenant which God made with him. It is of such as these that Christ speaks, in his epistle to the church at Smyrna, Revelation 2:9; I know the blasphemy of them who say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. And circumcision is that of the heart The circumcision which renders men the sons of Abraham, and the people of God, is of the heart, made by cutting off or mortifying its lusts. That this is the true circumcision, or the thing meant by that rite, is evident from the command of Moses to the Jews, Deuteronomy 10:16, Circumcise the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiff-necked; and from the promise made to the same people, Deuteronomy 30:6, The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. In the spirit Seated in the inmost soul, renewed by the Spirit of God. Or the expression may mean, according to the spiritual sense of the law; and not in the letter Not in an external ceremony, performed only according to the letter of it. Whose praise is not of men Who look only on the outward appearance, and will probably be so far from esteeming, that they will despise and hate such; but of God Who sees in secret, and approves of what is internally holy and spiritual. It is justly observed by Macknight here, that the apostle, by distinguishing between the spirit and the letter of the law of Moses, intimates that the rites enjoined in that law were typical, and had a spiritual or moral meaning, as Moses also expressly declared to the Jews, Leviticus 26:41, and in the passages of Deuteronomy above quoted. Jeremiah, likewise, Jeremiah 4:4, represents circumcision as emblematical; consequently all the other rites of the law were so likewise.