To summarize the entire first three chapters of this epistle, Paul writes that there are no exceptions in God's plan. All people must begin with the same realization and pass by the same way. He goes on to say that there is no room for personal pride. At this point, Paul begins to focus on the word law in a way that anticipates his further discussion of the fact that the requirement of faith was already in place when the Law was given. He writes, literally, "So, where is the boasting? Excluded. On the basis of what law? Of works? No, but on the basis of the law of faith." Paul is confronting the reduction of God's standard of a list of actions by emphasizing a deeper "law," the requirement of faith.
There can be no boasting by Jews or Christians about their heritage, their Law, or their works. There's no room nor reason for it, either in Jews or Gentiles: not in the Jews, who were prone to boast of their being Abraham's seed; of their circumcision; of their being Israelites; of their having and keeping the Law. They further thought that God was exclusively their God. And because of how God had chosen them He gave them a superior knowledge of Him. The believed that someday He would bring the Gentiles into the commonwealth of Israel as their servants. Instead, God's Law is to be understood in terms of faith, and is opened up to a new commonwealth of both Jews and Gentiles as co-equal heirs in The Church.
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