Paul thus emphasizes the incongruity of God’s intervention in his life. His transformation was neither occasioned by his own action nor conditioned by his previous worth: it resulted from the unconditioned gift of God in the revelation of Christ. Paul does not criticize his former life for being blasphemously reliant on “good works,” nor does he evoke negative stereotypes of Judaism as intolerant or exclusive.
This works well with Dunn understanding "works of the law" to be things that were national signifiers.
Dunn pioneered an interpretation of Paul’s phrase “works of the Law” that stressed that these were not works in general but works of the Mosaic Law, and in particular, he argued, the “boundary markers,” such as circumcision, Sabbath regulations, and food laws, by which Jews were distinguished from gentiles. On Dunn’s reading, Paul was not criticizing “salvation by works” but an overly “narrow” or “restricted” view of God’s purposes, by which gentiles were being excluded or required to adopt ethnically specific, Jewish markers of identity.
Barclay, John M. G.. Paul and the Power of Grace (pp. 43-44). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
