Paul turns next to the second spiritual blessing: adoption. Just as the word “redemption” does not occur in 2:1–10, although redemption is its theme, so now the words “adoption” and “inheritance” do not appear in this text, but those themes predominate. One of the deepest yearnings of the human soul is to belong. We instinctively draw circles that include ourselves and exclude others, giving us coveted membership in a group others wish they belonged to. There can be no “inner ring,” in C. S. Lewis’s terms, unless there are despised outsiders. The Jewish nation, God’s “inner ring” in their own view, drew the circle at the law, epitomized in marks of Jewishness. Jews stigmatized Gentiles as the “uncircumcised,” often in self-exaltation (2:11). Without the despised Gentiles, Jews would have …