Paul asks, “Then what becomes of our boasting?” (Romans 3.27)

What is Paul talking about?  What is being boasted of?

The first mention Paul makes of boasting (using the same word, anyway) is asking the Jews who “boast in God” (Romans 2.17)  if they have any reason to do so.

Boasting, by the way, is not always unjustified.  Paul later boasts (!) that we “boast in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5.2), “boast in our sufferings” (Romans 5.3), and we “boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5.11).  Paul thinks this is wonderful.

What is the boasting that is “excluded” by a “Torah of faith”? (Romans 3.27 [Note for further thought: is this related to “the obedience of faith” of Romans 1.6; 16.26]).

The only way to answer to the question is to look at how boasting arises in 1.18-3.18.

And what is plain in that part of the letter is that Paul does not accuse Jews universally of 1. being sinful when they think they are sinless or 2. being too sinful to quite make the number of moral good works they need in order to have earned standing before God (according to a false theology to which they allegedly held).

That is not remotely in view.  Read it for yourself.  Ask yourself, when you listen to a reformed preacher trying to persuade his listeners, that they are tainted with sin and that no sin can be forgiven apart from the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ, does he sound anything like Paul?

To give just one example, Consider Paul’s quotation of Psalm 14 and Palm 53.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.

They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.

Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread
and do not call upon the Lord?

There they are in great terror,
for God is with the generation of the righteous.
You would shame the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is his refuge.

Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

And Palm 53 is quite the same.  This is not a text seeking to prove to anyone who would supposedly deny it, that all human beings have sinned.  No responsible exegete would use this Psalm to argue this point.  Especially when there are passages in the OT that work perfectly well to prove that point (see Part I “Initial Considerations”).

So what is Paul telling the Jews they should stop boasting about?