Kolb’s Basement, July 16, 2008
5 For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on Law shall live by that righteousness.
6 But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down),
7 or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).”
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”-that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:5-9
Review of Romans 9:30-10:4
Romans is about the salvation of Gentiles. When you are working with that heading, you have to discuss many issues below it. Issues like the character and means of justification, the function of the Law, and the covenant commitment of God toward Israel. This is exactly what Paul does throughout the book.
Romans 9:30 through 10:4 is a sort of microcosm of the book as a whole. Paul hits on the means of justification, the function of the Law, and he even refers to God’s covenant with the Jews. And he does so in order to put forward the main idea. Many gentiles are attaining salvation while many Jews are not.
You can get to the core of this passage and almost the whole book of Romans by thinking through two related ideas-the righteousness of God and the righteousness of man.
Generally, the word righteousness in both cases means something like “blamelessness” or “in-the-right-ness.” Several times in Romans, however, the “righteousness of God” seems to bring with it something more specific-God’s blamelessness in relationship to Israel, His covenant people. God must save them and justify them in order to be righteous.
Coming down from the top, God must and will be righteous to justify His people. But coming up from the bottom, there is a major difficulty. God’s people are not righteousness. God has to declare His people righteous and save them (which is righteous) but He cannot righteously declare them righteous when they are not. Unless something changes, He would have to be unrighteous to be righteous.
So the Jews sought to attain righteousness through which (they thought) God would display His righteousness. But Paul says that they sought it the wrong way. They did not understand the way God was revealing His righteousness from the top-through Christ and faith “apart from the Law” (3:21)-and from the bottom they sought get their own righteousness through the works of the Law. And because it is impossible to ever gain true righteousness that way, they missed salvation.
The Gentiles, on the other hand, saw it and attained it by faith in the atoning death of the Messiah. Thus God is righteous to justify His people (the new Israel) and He is righteous in justifying them because of Christ.
Christ Is the End of the Law
It is important that we understand verse 4 more thoroughly because of the connection between it and verses 5-9. The “for” at the beginning of verse 5 signals this connection clearly.
“Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes . . .” (v. 4-5
The word “end” (telos) can have a broad range of meanings, anything from termination, to goal, to result, to culmination or fulfillment. I suggest that the meaning here has the feeling of termination and culmination.
Christ came to terminate the Law. When He came, its era ended. But He did not come with a baseball bat. He did not come to terminate the Law by beating it to death. He came to terminate the Law as a culminator and fulfiller, ushering in a new era of free righteousness for all believers.
A clear example of this can be seen in the sacrificial system. It was propelling toward Christ for thousands of years. And when Jesus did come, He brought the Law’s system to an end. But it was not an end by death, it was an end by fulfillment and culmination. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice and now there was no need for the old way.
This happened with the whole Old Covenant. It’s like a train that stops because it has finally arrived at its destination. Jesus is the end of the Law resulting in righteousness for everyone who believes.
The Righteousness Based on Law: Doing
Verse 5 sets up the first part of a contrast between the “righteousness based on Law” and the “righteousness based on faith.” The connection with verse 4 has mainly to do with “righteousness for everyone who believes.” All that Paul has in mind is to answer the question: what are these two kinds of righteousness like?
A description of the righteousness based on Law comes in verse 5. “For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on Law shall live by that righteousness.” This is a reference to Leviticus 18:5 in which God tells Israel that “a man may live if he does [the commandments].”
What is Paul getting at here? He is getting at the nature of Law-righteousness. It is about doing things. “A man may live if he does them.” “The man who practices the righteousness based on Law shall live . . .” In Galatians 3:12 Paul makes a similar point: “the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, ‘He who practices them shall live by them.’” This is the contrast. The righteousness based on Law has nothing to do with faith. It is about doing.
The Righteousness Based on Faith: Believing and Proclaiming
The second side of the contrast comes in verses 6-9. What is the righteousness that is based on faith like? Paul says that it speaks like this:
“Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”-that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. “
The point here is actually very simple. The righteousness based on faith is not about doing. We should not try to go up into heaven and bring down an incarnate messiah. And we should not try to go into the grave and pull him up from the dead. Rather, we should confess that Jesus is the Lord come from heaven and believe that God raised him from the dead for our justification. Just as its name suggests, the righteousness based on faith is all about faith.
Speculation on verses 6-9
In some ways verses 6-9 are confusing. Paul is using a quote from Deuteronomy 30:11-14. It goes like this:
“For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in heaven that you should say, ‘Who will go up into heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”
Somehow, Paul sees Christ in that statement from Moses. I am not sure exactly how, but there are few reasons that make me think that he understands this in a future, New Covenant way.
First of all, Deuteronomy chapter 30 has New Covenant, future overtones. For instance, verse 6 speaks of a time when God will circumcise the heart of the Israel. That sounds very much like what the New Testament authors write about. Second, Moses is saying something very strange if taken only in the Old Testament context. He says that the Law “is not too difficult” for Israel. But everything the New Testaments says indicates that it was too difficult for Israel.
I think Paul understood what Moses in the context of a coming Messiah. The Law is not too difficult, and it is not far off through Jesus and because of what He did. You can have all of the blessing and life promised to those who keep the commandments because Christ died and was raised for your justification.
Regardless, we can certainly get the main thrust what Paul has written. The righteousness based on Law is a righteousness based on your own efforts. True righteous is based on believing in and proclaiming the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Bryan Elliff © 2008 www.bryanelliff.wordpress.com
