After speaking of ‘they’ and ‘them’ Paul is definitely turning his attention to ‘you’. The ‘you’ is definitely the Jew, in verse 17 we will read, “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God …”
Some of what Paul says can be applied to the religious superiority of certain ‘Christians’ who look out of their church windows at a sinful lost world and carry on singing their hymns of worship thankful that they’re not like them. Paul says you are.
But not everything Paul says can be applied to know-it-all ‘Christians’ and we have to remember the fact that he was speaking to the ‘Jews’.
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? (Romans 2 v 1-3)
To those who have the law of God, the Torah, the moralists, the covenant people of God, Paul has you in mind. Paul will give 3 chapters specifically to the Jew later in this letter (9-11).
He says you people do the same things as the horrible list that he has ended with in chapter 1. But it must be hidden because Paul is convinced they are doing the same thing. I wonder, what are the same sins that God’s people have committed behind their doors as the world has done in the open? Whilst that is not unsurprising, the fact that those same people pass judgment on the world is. Hypocrisy is the sin. The religious superior are experts at accusing what they are weak in because they can easily spot the sin. It takes one to know one. Everyone thinks they are right and have the truth. But only one has it and He is truth. He is the true truth.
Judgment is coming to those who judge from a place of hypocrisy.
Missions Paul 