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§23 Righteousness: Gift or Reward? (Rom. 9:30–10:4)

So far Paul has considered the case of Israel from God’s side. God made choices from among Abraham’s descendants to create a peculiar people for himself. The election of Jacob over Esau was independent of human merit or responsibility, since the choice was made when both were still in Rebekah’s womb. If in subsequent generations God hardened Pharaoh and blessed Israel, it was “in order that [his] purpose in election might stand” (9:11), a purpose rooted in mercy and directed toward salvation (9:16–17). And if in Paul’s generation the divine will which once hardened an Esau or Pharaoh for Israel’s benefit now hardened Israel for the benefit of the Gentiles, that was but further evidence of God’s righteous purpose.

In 9:30–10:21 Paul considers the case of Israel from the human side. Israel bears responsibility for its rejection because it trusted in righteousness by law instead of righteousness by faith. The Jews “sought to establish their own [righteousness, and] did not submit to God’s righteousness” (10:3). Thus, Israel’s demise is not the result of an arbitrary decree of God, but of its own willful resistance to the righteousness of God by faith.

9:30–33 / In 9:30–10:4 Paul relies less on OT proof texts and more on summarizing the argument, as indicated by the rhetorical question, What then shall we say? Righteousness (Gk. dikaiosynē), occurring three times in the Greek text of verse 30 and another five times through 10:4, is the theme of the section. The pursuit of righteousness, to be sure, was normally thought to be a Jewish rather than Gentile ideal, but in verses 30–31 Jews and Gentiles are set in competition over this ideal, and the outcome is dumbfounding. The Jews who pursued righteousness so intently found that it eluded them, whereas the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it. This last phrase is more startling in Greek: “Gentiles who do not pursue righteousness have obtained it,” stressing that they received the gift of righteousness not after repenting but in the midst of their unrighteousness (cf. 5:8). It was certainly a case of “salvation by surprise,” in the words of Earl Palmer. The NIV is somewhat misleading when it says the Gentiles obtained a righteousness by faith, as if all Gentiles were saved. The Greek omits the definite article, meaning simply some (i.e., believing) Gentiles (9:24). The righteousness under consideration is not moral righteousness, for Gentiles were, by their own admission, less circumspect in matters of morality than were Jews. Rather, it summarizes the argument of chapters 3–4 and means the righteousness imputed to sinners through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness is a gift—that is the surprising thing about it. As God surprised Isaac by passing over Esau to bless Jacob (9:10–13), God now surprises the Jews by passing over them in order to save Gentiles by free, unmerited grace. Both Gentiles and Jews, in other words, were taken by surprise, for what was unexpected by Gentiles was misunderstood by Jews.

Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it (v. 31). The reference to Israel probably indicates that Paul is thinking of the people’s self-understanding and not of individual Jews. He does not say “righteousness by law,” as we would expect, but law of righteousness. The implication is that Israel pursued the law rather than righteousness. Works create a barrier and distance between humanity and God, whereas faith, which casts one solely on God’s mercy, draws God near and cries, “ ‘Abba, Father’ ” (8:15). Works of law were not worthless (7:12), nor was Israel wrong to pursue them (both Jews and Christians should, 3:31), but the pursuit of morality and the gift of righteousness are two separate matters, and this Israel confused. The law is righteous (7:12), but it cannot give life (Gal. 3:21).

Israel pursued righteousness not by faith, but as if it were by works. Israel’s problem was not that it was irreligious, but if anything, that it was too religious. Confident that by works of righteousness it could establish and justify its existence before God, Israel was no longer open to what God alone could give. This resulted in pride, or as Paul would say, “boasting.” Faith, on the other hand, means coming before God with empty hands and admitting that our works, however good they are, are not good enough. Faith looks only to God’s mercy and forgiveness for having “left undone those things which we ought to have done; [and having] done those things which we ought not have done” (Book of Common Prayer). That the Gentiles could do, and their faith became their righteousness. Faith directs one’s attention to God and others and frees one from preoccupation with self and the merit of works.

But Israel’s guilt was more than misdirected zealousness, as though Israel were a schoolchild so engrossed in its work that it missed the recess bell. Above all, Israel failed in righteousness because it refused to recognize the meaning and goal of the law, which is Jesus Christ. To make this point Paul cites an OT passage about a stone that causes men to stumble (v. 33). The quotation is either a loose paraphrase of Isaiah 28:16 or a combination of that passage and Isaiah 8:14. Neither passage is quoted often in rabbinic literature, although there is evidence from the Talmud (b. Sanh. 38a) and the Targum to Isaiah 28:16 that even within Judaism the passages were believed to refer to the messianic king.

It was the early church, however, which cemented this stone into the edifice of Christology, thereby demonstrating that Jesus Christ is either a stumbling block or a cornerstone. The image of the stumbling block was often used as a proof text to explain the Jewish rejection of Jesus (11:11; 1 Cor. 3:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:4–6). At no point was Christ more of a stumbling block than at the cross. The idea of a crucified Messiah was an offense to the Jewish ideal of a messianic king, as Paul himself admitted: “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:18–25). To Jews who pursued a law of righteousness … by works Christ was an offense, a “stumbling stone.” But for Gentiles Christ was a cornerstone of faith, “and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

10:1–4 / Paul begins chapter 10 as he began chapter 9, lamenting the disbelief of Jews. The opening address, Brothers, is spoken not to his Jewish kinsfolk, but to his fellow Christians in Rome who understood the problem of Israel’s unbelief. The first three verses are solemnly confessional. On the one hand, Paul betrays an emotional bond with his fellow Jews, attesting to my heart’s desire for their salvation. That phrase is emphatically reinforced in Greek: my is emphatic, the reference to heart denotes Paul’s innermost sincerity, and the word for desire, which is practically unknown outside the Bible, means in this instance God’s will or good pleasure. The solemn tone continues in verse 2 with I can testify (Gk. martyrein), which bonds Paul to his Jewish kinsfolk.

But there is also a measured distance between Paul and his fellow Jews. He is no longer testifying to “my brothers” and “my own race” (9:3), but testifying about them in the third person. This is more evident in Greek than in the NIV. Nevertheless, through prayer Paul takes the place of an advocate, and not a prosecutor, of Israel. His prayer and advocacy are sure evidence that he did not consider the Jews foreordained to damnation or beyond being reconciled to Christ.

Israel’s rejection of the gospel was more than a puzzling quirk of history; it was for Paul a cause of remorse and affliction. They are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge (v. 2). “Zeal,” said Paul Billerbeck, the great rabbinic scholar, “characterizes every page of rabbinic literature” (Str-B, vol. 3, pp. 276–77). Had not Paul once described himself as “extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14)? But such zeal also masked a pride and subtle rebellion (Phil. 3:4–9), leading Paul to the persecution not only of Christians (Acts 7:58; 8:3), but also of Christ (Acts 9:4). It also led his fellow Jews to reject the Messiah. Religious zeal is not necessarily a sign of trust and commitment; it may betray a doubt and insecurity that faith depends on believers rather than on God, and that whatever is lacking in God’s grace must be compensated for by their virtue. How desperately humans want to be something, to prove their worth to God, to take (and deserve) at least some credit for their salvation. How humbling and offensive to confess that grace must do it all!

That Israel’s zeal is not based on knowledge (v. 2) is, on the face of it, a preposterous assertion. The literature of Judaism is immense. The OT is a big book which in turn is followed by the larger Mishnah, and the Mishnah by the larger Talmud, which, in its Babylonian version, rivals the Encyclopedia Britannica in length. It was not uncommon for rabbis to know the better part of the Torah by heart, as well as significant portions of the oral tradition upon which it evolved. In religious knowledge Jews dwarfed their contemporaries, including many Christians. Their rigorous observance of the law, down to minute details in many cases, exposed the superficiality of the other religions of the day. Only one who himself had been a Pharisee and knew firsthand the achievement of Judaism (Gal. 1:14; Phil. 3:4–9) could accuse the Jews of ignorance.

Of what then was Israel ignorant? They did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, says Paul (v. 3). This recalls 9:31–32 above. There was a rivalry between the righteousness that comes from God and their own righteousness, something Paul had known in his own experience (Phil. 3:9). The critical words are, sought to establish their own righteousness. That is a revealing phrase, for it signifies an attempt to establish their status before God and their zeal for God. But that is the righteousness of works. The righteousness of faith knows only one thing, that God is for us. Human goodness is often rooted in a stubborn determination to excel even in humility and self-sacrifice. It can be a refusal to allow oneself—and others—to be human and to be saved by God. True righteousness is not a possession or our righteousness; it is only God’s righteousness, alien righteousness. Righteousness comes as a gift of grace and is received by faith in the One who b(r)ought it. Righteousness by works, no matter how zealous, competes with grace; righteousness by faith submits to grace.

God’s righteousness is a gift in Christ, not a reward for works. Therefore, Christ is the end of the law (v. 4). This statement is deceptively simple, for the word end can mean either the completion or culmination of a process (e.g., the end of the birth process), or the termination or annulment of something. The first idea means that Jesus Christ is the goal or completion of the law (so Matt. 5:17); the second that he dispenses with the law (so 2 Cor. 3:13–14; Heb. 8:13). Reference to the Greek only complicates the matter, for telos (NIV, end) carries at least four different meanings in the NT. The meaning of the phrase in 10:4 has been the subject of long debates and monographs (Gaugler, for example, devotes twenty-four pages to these seven words).

The dogmatic distinction in theology between law (OT) and grace (NT), which is particularly common to Protestantism and Orthodoxy, normally interprets verse 4 in the second sense, i.e., that Christ annuls the law. “When God revealed His righteousness in Christ, He put a definite end to the law as a way of salvation,” said Bishop Nygren (Romans, p. 379). But if our understanding of chapter 4 was correct, Paul argued that from Abraham onward righteousness had always been by faith, even if Judaism mistakenly thought otherwise (e.g., 10:5–6). In reaction to this position, and in a desire to avoid anti-Semitic overtones, recent scholarship usually favors the first view that Christ is the goal and fulfillment of the law, i.e., the law still stands, but “apart from [Christ] it cannot be properly understood at all” (Cranfield, Romans, vol. 2, pp. 516–20). This interpretation is supported by the fact that in Romans end (Gk. telos) normally signifies the completion of a process rather than its termination (e.g., 2:27; 6:21–22). Nevertheless, the latter interpretation is vulnerable to passages like 6:14 and 7:6, which imply a supersession of law by grace.

Neither side can claim high ground in the debate because Paul’s understanding appears to combine both ideas, although favoring the latter. Two passages, above all, reveal his understanding. “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of law” (Gal. 3:24–25). Both ideas of completion and termination are present in this passage: the law “leads us to Christ” (= completion), but is superseded by Christ (= termination). And in perhaps the closest parallel to 10:4, Paul says in 3:21 that the righteousness of God is “apart from the law,” and yet “testified to by the Law and Prophets.” By exposing sin the law leads us, indeed drives us, to seek salvation in a savior who has been foretold by the prophets; but the law is not the savior. Jesus Christ is the savior, and Jesus fulfills his ministry of reconciliation apart from the law. The law, as we noted earlier, is the diagnosis of sin, but only Christ is its cure. Christ is both completion and termination of the law: he confirms the law as the just expression of God’s moral purpose for humanity, and he supersedes the law by offering forgiveness and salvation when that moral purpose is transgressed. The law is like a father who escorts his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. At the altar the father must give the bride over to her husband, who is Christ.