Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
via Passage: Romans 3.27 ESV Bible Online.
If you read the commentaries it is pretty obvious many think that what Paul really meant to say is perfectly clear is you simply drop out the bold face type.
Now I have seen debates over whether nomos could mean something other than Torah or even “law” in any behavior code sense and simply mean a “principle.”
(Though if Paul had dropped all of the bold-face passages except the middle underlined one, then Torah or “moral law” would work just fine for many readers.)
But we really need another discussion. If Paul could so easily have written what he really meant to say so much more simply, then why did he complicate his argument with “law”?
Why confuse people? Why even bring it up?
It’s a play on words. Had it been anything more, Paul would have come back to it. He knows his rhetoric; this sort of usage would not have surprised his audience.
“What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.”