Chiasm in Romans 3:27-30

There looks to be some chiastic action going on in Romans 3:27-30:

A. Where is boasting? Excluded
B. By law of works?
C. No: Law of faith
C. justification is by faith
B. not by works of law (reversing word order of previous verse)
A. God is God of Jews and Gentiles

The value of this is to highlight the nature of the “boasting” in v 27. It is no doubt boasting about one’s performance of the law, confidence that one’s performance will pass muster before God’s judgment seat (cf. Gathercole). But it is also, perhaps centrally, the boasting of the Jew over the Gentile, the boasting in Jewish privilege. Paul has been at pains in the early part of Romans to demonstrate that the Jews stand with Gentiles under the condemnation of God and under the threat of wrath. Turn that around in a soteriological direction, and Paul is at pains to demonstrate that Jews and Gentiles are both vindicated, reconciled, delivered, what have you through the faith of Jesus that comes to us through faith. Jews are no better than Gentiles when it comes to sin; Jews have no unique and special pathway to God different from that of Gentiles. Boasting on both scores is excluded by the “law of faith.”

Another point, not based on the above structural analysis: What does Paul mean by “law of faith”? Doubtless, Paul is having his bit of fun, punning on NOMOS as he puns on works in Galatians (“faith WORKING through love”). At the same time, there is doubtless a serious point, and I think that point can be clarified by looking at what Paul says in the following verse, v 28. If we take “we” as “we Jews” in v 28, things fall into place rather nicely. Here’s the argument:

1) Boasting is excluded.
2) Boasting would NOT be excluded if justification were accomplished by the works of the law. If one’s performance made one acceptable before God, then he could boast in his position. If one’s possession of the law made one acceptable before GOd, then he could boast.
3) Rather, what excludes boasting is faith.
4) But faith is precisely what the Torah, rightly understood, enjoined. The Torah is not a “law of works” in the sense that it promotes and encourages boasting. Torah is a “law of faith” in that it promotes and encourages trust in God’s deliverance.
5) After all, we Jews know FROM THE TORAH ITSELF that justification is through faith apart from the works of the law. I’ll show this at length from the example of Abraham in just a moment.
6) Even before we get to Abraham, we can go back to our basic confession, the Shema. God is one, and that means there has to be ONE pathway to right standing and life with Him.
7) To say that justification is through the works of Torah, through the specific things that Torah enjoins or through our performance of Torah, would be to say that Gentiles without Torah could not be justified. But this would imply that God is not one.
8) Therefore, monotheism implies justification by grace through faith.
9) As I’ve already intimated, this is not an attack on Torah, but drawn from Torah itself. We Jews don’t undermine Torah when we talk about faith, because the Torah itself talks about faith.
10) Let’s take Abraham as our example . . . .