Romans Chapter 2 Vs. 17

God's Judgment and the Law 

Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, Rom 2:17


Condemnation against unfaithful Jews

Condemnation Because Of Their Hypocrisy

thou art called... Paul now openly deals with the Jew asserting that his superior knowledge, privileges, and calling only serve to condemn him more than Gentiles who obey the law of nature.

restest in the... You trust in the law for salvation.

Paul undoubtedly had the Jews as well as moral Gentiles in mind in the group he addressed as “you who pass judgment on someone else” (Rom. 2:1). But there he did not refer to them by name as he did here — if you call yourself a Jew (lit., “if you are named a Jew”). In Greek this is a first-class conditional sentence in which the conditional statement is assumed to be true. Paul was addressing individuals who were truly called Jews and who, in fact, gloried in that name. This fact is followed by a list of eight other moral and religious details in which the Jews gloried in their sense of superiority to the Gentiles, all of these included as part of the “if” clause.