Tentative Response - The New Testament

1. There are many references to fulfilling the spirit rather than the letter of the law. What laws are they referring to? What is ‘circumcision of the heart’?

Simply hearing the law does not suffice as an indication of virtue - “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Romans 2:13). Although the Gentiles do not have written law as such to guide their action, they can be justified in naturally performing with the ideals that their hypothetical law would require (Romans 2:14). This allow them to become a “law to themselves” (Romans 2:14). In the same sense, although Jewish people are bound by written law, they will be condemned if they do not act in accordance with it (Romans 2:27). In other words, the letter of the law in itself cannot guarantee one’s righteousness - one must possess something else, the “circumcision of the heart” (Romans 2:29). Physical circumcision can be considered to symbolize the outward expression of Judaism, but a Jewish person who breaks the law undoes his circumcision in that he cannot bear the symbol of Judaism without following its law. In the sense then that literal circumcision cannot guarantee righteousness, we must consider circumcision of the heart as a metaphorical expression of a virtuous spirit. Only Jews are physically circumcised, but circumcision of the heart and its lack thereof manifest both in the Jews and the Gentiles. Therefore, the notion of fulfilling the spirit rather than the letter of the law serves the dual function of allowing one to examine Jews and Gentiles through the same standard of righteous action and transitioning from the idea of physical and literal symbols of righteousness (physical circumcision, hearing of the law) to metaphorical symbols (circumcision of the heart, acting with the spirit of the law).