Wednesday, 1 April 2020 Romans 10:1-21
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” -Romans 10:4
In Romans, Paul makes a distinction between justification and salvation. Justification is what takes place at the moment a person put his faith in Christ whereas Salvation is the work of God in the believer which continues even after justification. It was clear that Israel was under God’s wrath (Romans 9:23) for their unbelief. Paul’s deep desire and prayer was that Israel may be justified and saved from His wrath. In Verse 2, we see that Israel had a zeal for God; outwardly, they were religious. But their effort was not according to knowledge. They lacked a correct understanding of the kind of worship God wanted from them. Paul explains Israel’s ignorance in Vs. 3 to 13. Here is a question even a lot of church-going religious people can have: How does a person get salvation and go to heaven? On this topic, one doesn’t want to be ignorant or in error! The seriousness is that there is no second chance. The Bible plainly says that we die once and then face judgment (Heb. 9:27). It’s a pass or fail, and to pass we must score 100 % perfect righteousness. The larger context of Romans 9-11 is Paul’s response to the question, “If God is faithful to His promises to His chosen people, then why are most Jews rejecting Christ?” In chapter 9, Paul’s emphasis was on God’s sovereignty. In His sovereign plan to save Jews, He accomplishes His purpose by saving a remnant which He chose according to grace. The rest is left in their sins for the Judgment day. Thus if we’re saved, it is totally due to God’s gracious election. In chapter 10, Paul shifts the emphasis to man’s responsibility. He shows that the Jews who were lost had no basis to blame God. Their spiritual pride made them think that their religious practices and good works would qualify them for heaven. But people who think that they are good enough for God get offended if you tell them that they are sinners and need a Saviour. And so they took offence at Christ and stumbled over Him (Romans 9:33). They were lost because of their spiritual blindness, sin, and unbelief. Paul is showing us why religious people often miss salvation. Back to our key verses: either you are seeking to be right with God by establishing your own righteousness through good deeds and morality you will miss God’s salvation, as all such attempts fall short; OR you will recognize that you need perfect righteousness to stand before God. Thus, you will abandon your own efforts to establish your righteousness and trust in Christ alone to be your righteousness. Israel was ignorant of God’s righteousness because they failed to comprehend what the law was intended to do so. “Christ is the end of the law” means Christ fulfilled all the conditions of the law. Christ came and fulfilled it and then offered us His righteousness through faith in Him! God’s way of salvation is to trust in Jesus Christ so that the righteousness of God is imputed to our account.
Think on:
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:21