The Goal of the Law

Introduction

Paul deftly switches at the beginning of chapter 10 from the weighty theology of chapter 9 to practical pastoral matters. It is here that Paul reveals his pastoral and evangelistic heart for his kinsmen in the flesh, ethnic Israel, and explains what exactly it is that he is praying for when he prays that they would repent and believe.

We will consider our text this morning verse by verse, as is our custom.

Verse 1 - Paul’s prayerful desire for Israel’s salvation

Verse 2 - Israel’s zealous ignorance

Verse 3 - Israel’s self-righteous self-establishment

Verse 4 - Christ as the goal of the Law

Let’s start in verse 1.

Verse 1 - Paul’s prayerful desire for Israel’s salvation

Romans 10:1 NASB95

Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

Paul again speaks form his heart, much as he did at the beginning of chapter 9.

Here I think it’s important to note that by using this language, Paul implicitly places him in the role of the Old Testament prophet-priest. He stands between God and Israel, calling upon the covenant promises of God to save His people.

We see Moses engaging in this type of intercessory work.

Exodus 32:10–13 NASB95

“Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.” Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? “Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people. “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”

Paul prays in the same way. Moses prays for ethnic Israel to enter their physical promised land of rest according to the covenant, Paul prays for ethnic Israel to enter their spiritual promised land of rest according to the covenant.

Thus we see that the eschatological vision of Moses and Paul is in alignment. Ultimately, they both desire Israel to believe God, as the patriarchs did, and have that faith counted to them as righteousness.

Paul also follows the pattern of the prophet Samuel in interceding for the nation. In this instance we get the perspective of the prophet’s dealings with the people, rather than dealing with God as we saw in the instance of Moses.

1 Samuel 12:12–25 NASB95

“When you saw that Nahash the king of the sons of Ammon came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ although the Lord your God was your king. “Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for, and behold, the Lord has set a king over you. “If you will fear the Lord and serve Him, and listen to His voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God. “If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it was against your fathers. “Even now, take your stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. “Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call to the Lord, that He may send thunder and rain. Then you will know and see that your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourselves a king.” So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day; and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Then all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.” Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. “You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver, because they are futile. “For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself. “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. “Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. “But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away.”

We see here a profound understanding on the part of Samuel of God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel despite their wickedness and sin. This is the same covenant faithfulness that Paul is appealing to in Romans 10. He knows he can pray to God because he knows that God is faithful to his promises and will accomplish all his good purpose to those who believe in him. Salvation will come to Israel based on God’s covenant faithfulness and Israel’s belief and trust in that covenant.

Paul, therefore, as a prophet and pastor of the new covenant, stands in solidarity with Moses and Samuel, with Jeremiah and Isaiah, with David and Asaph, and even with Jesus Himself in the heartfelt lament of Romans 9 and the heartfelt desire of Romans 10, leading inevitably to a fervent prayer for salvation.

I want to zoom out for a moment and look at how this simple sentence, in it’s context, informs our approach to prayer.

Paul believes three things here:

He believes that the desires of the heart must be subject to prayer.

He believes that prayer is an agent of God in salvation.

He believes that salvation is the greatest need of the Jewish people, both individually and collectively.

Let’s explicate these three propositions.

First, Paul believes that the desires of the heart must be subject to prayer. He pairs the desire of his own heart with his prayer to God. He does not simply leave it at a desire of the heart, but pairs it with prayer in acknowledgement that whatever it is that we desire ought to be prayed for. This does two things practically for the Christian, and I say this from my own experience: praying your desires brings peace to your heart. When you submit your desires to the Lord in prayer, you have acknowledged two things: that your desires may not be completely sanctified, they may not be completely right, and they may not be in alignment with God’s will. By praying these desires to God, you acknowledge that reality, and bear witness before God and to your own heart that His will and His decree is perfect, and yours is not, and in the acknowledgement, whether you consciously know it or not, you submit to God in trust, knowing that He will accomplish His will and He will bring your desires into alignment with that eventually as well. In addition, by praying through your desires, you acknowledge that it is God alone who has ultimate and primary power to bring the desires to pass. This prayerful humility is the mark of the genuine Christian. A second practical outcome of submitting your desires to God in prayer is that it gives you confidence to walk forward in whatever the situation is, being reminded in your soul that God is sovereign, God is in control and He will bring about all His good pleasure, for His glory and your good.

Therefore, we would do well to submit every desire to the Lord in prayer. Searching for a new job? Pray. Searching for a Godly spouse? Pray. Raising children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Pray. Submit your desires to the Lord, and He will grant them or change them, according to His will.

Secondly, Paul believes that prayer is an agent of God in salvation. Paul wouldn’t pray for Israel if he didn’t believe that his prayers were effective in accomplishing that which he was praying for. Many people have trouble with prayer in this sense. When we consider the absolute sovereignty of God over all things, and we consider the eternality of His decrees as concern all things, the question is often raised: if God has decreed all things from eternity past, my prayers can’t change anything, so why should I pray? Many people will offer a frail and emaciated answer to that question: prayer doesn’t change God but it does change you! And that sounds nice and would go great on a Hallmark card, but that leaves the thoughtful Christian wanting, I think. I would submit this to you this morning: In God’s good pleasure, prayer is the means by which He has seen fit to accomplish His will in the world. To return to some terminology we have used before, God’s sovereign decree is a remote cause of salvation, while prayer is a proximate cause. Therefore, when it comes to the salvation of another, the prayers of faithful Christians avail much. The Psalmist tells us that the Lord hears the prayers of the righteous, and James tells us that the effective prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much.

Do you have friends or family members who don’t know the Lord? Do you have children who don’t know the Lord? Perhaps coworkers or neighbors? The most powerful thing you can do for them is pray. I am so thankful for the example of our Godly brothers and sisters who come together to pray on Thursday nights. They are faithful, each and every time, to pray for salvation for those who we know are not saved or are unsure of their state before the Lord. This is the most powerful and effective thing we can do to bring about salvation in someone’s life, because this is the means by which God has ordained that His will would be done in the world. Martin Luther famous, and perhaps apocryphally, said that the more laden he was with tasks and things to do and people to proclaim the gospel to, the more he prayed. Yet so often prayer is where we end when we’ve exhausted all our other options, rather than where we begin before we’ve even considered another option. May we, like Paul, be people who first and foremost pray for the salvation of our loved ones, and only once we have thoroughly submitted them to the Lord in prayer, do we seek to proclaim truth to them and love them and call them to believe Christ.

Third, Paul believes that salvation is the greatest need of the Jewish people, both individually and collectively. I must be frank here. Many Christians pray as if physical health were the primary need of their loved ones. Many Christians pray as if financial prosperity was the primary need of their loved ones. But such a notion is foreign to Paul’s theology of prayer, at least as it is expressed here. Paul doesn’t first desire for the Jews to be freed from Roman oppression. He doesn’t first desire for the Jews to be returned to their land. He prays first and foremost, and here exclusively, for their salvation. We must therefore affirm that salvation, in all three of it’s phases, justification, sanctification, and glorification, is the primary need not only of the Jews but of all people. I would challenge you this morning: in your prayer life, assuming that you pray regularly, compare the number of prayers you pray for physical healing against the number of prayers you pray for salvation, for growth in Godliness, for the holy and fearful and disciplined conduct of your brothers and sisters? I would encourage you to take special note of the way Paul prays for his brothers and sisters in the churches he writes to. Paul prays that the Romans would be encouraged, established, and built up by his ministry to them. He prays that the Philippians would abound in love, approve the things that are excellent, be sincere and blameless, and be filled with the fruit of righteousness. He prays that the Colossians would be filled with knowledge and wisdom from above, that they would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, that they would please him, that they would be strengthened and steadfast. Do we pray like this? I daresay that if we limit our prayers to just the physical health needs of our brothers and sisters, we miss the heart of the apostle and indeed the heart of God Himself in prayer, and sell short the power of prayer to accomplish much spiritual good in the lives of our brothers and sisters and in the life of the church. Now this is not to say that we should not pray for healing. This is a good and acceptable thing to pray for, according to James and to many of the Psalms of the Old Testament. But our prayers ought to be directed toward so much more than just those things, as they were for Paul.

So we have considered the prophetic and pastoral and prayerful desire of Paul that Israel be saved. Let us now turn to the ground of his prayer, the reason he offers it: Israel’s zealous ignorance.

Verse 2 - Israel’s zealous ignorance

Romans 10:2 NASB95

For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.

A cursory reading of this verse would suggest that Paul is saying something like this: The Jews have good hearts, but they’re just a little off-base. That is a dangerous reading of the text, however. I would assert that when Paul speaks of a zeal for God here, he is actually speaking self-referentially.

Philippians 3:4–6 NASB95

although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

Saul, as he is hunting down Christians as a terrorist, does so with the mind that he is serving God. As we saw a few weeks ago, Paul sees his own testimony in that of Israel as they doggedly and aggressively pursue righteousness in the same way that he doggedly and aggressively pursued righteousness by doggedly and aggressively pursuing Christians. This is the zeal that Paul speaks of. It is a misplaced, misguided, self-focused, syncretistic zeal that is not in accordance with what God has prescribed. To put it simply, the Jews were zealous for righteousness on their own terms, rather than on God’s terms. RC Sproul says that the problem with their zeal is that it was based on bad theology.

Zeal coupled with bad theology, as it would turn out, is not unique to Israel nor is it unique to Paul’s day. We are surrounded by so-called churches and professing Christians who are full of zeal. They are fervent. Their emotions are heightened. They sing the chorus of a Chris Tomlin song 19 times until they have a spiritual experience. They devote themselves to all kinds of worthy causes and they truly believe that their zeal is an indicator of the genuineness of the their profession. But their zeal is without knowledge. We need look no further than the annual State of Theology survey conducted by Ligonier Ministries, which revealed that vast swaths of those who claim to be Bible-believing Christians have no idea what the Bible actually teaches on key concepts such as whether or not God can change, whether or not Jesus was created, whether or not Jesus was God, whether or not human beings are born fundamentally good or evil. The American church is a place full of zeal without knowledge.

We would do well to take Paul’s statement here applied to Israel as an apt warning for ourselves. Do we have zeal for God that is not in accordance with knowledge? I pray that the answer is no. Our commitment must be equal parts zeal and knowledge. Equal parts doxology and theology. Equal parts heart and head. Because at best, we will be good-hearted but foolish churchgoers, and at worst we will do all kinds of perceived good in our zeal for God, only to have Him say at the last day, away from me, I never knew you, as He says to the ones who rested in the fact that they had preached and done many miracles in His name.

What do we do then? How can we ensure that our zeal is in accordance with knowledge?

Commit ourselves to the regular and systematic ingestion of Scripture. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If you want to know God, you must hear Him speak and take Him at His Word. The way to hear God speak is to encounter Him in the Bible in your own language. Commit yourself to consistent immersion in God’s Word. Seek to know Him through it.

Commit ourselves to Biblical teaching and preaching. This class exists for this purpose, that our zeal with be in accordance with knowledge. The reason we go slow, the reason we go deep, is so that we might not be guilty of the sin of Israel: an overzealous, underinformed, and misdirected pursuit of God and His righteousness. I thank God for Pastor Scott and for the elders who have placed this commitment at the center of our church and the center of it’s ministry.

Commit yourself to historic orthodoxy. If our zeal for God is to be in accordance with knowledge, we must immerse ourselves in the sound doctrine and Biblical teaching preserved for us through the great confessions of church history. As modern Christians we stand on the shoulders of giants, and we are fools if we disregard the teaching of those who came before us and wrestled with these issues centuries and even millennia before we were born. It is intellectual arrogance to believe that somehow you’ve discovered an interpretation of God’s Word that is completely different from the church has believed and confessed historically. So look to historic confessions. Look to old books of theology. Use them for what they are: gifts from the Lord to His church to support the ministry of the Word and to clarify and categorize the doctrines therein. If you’re new to this and don’t know where to start, I urge you to begin with the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. These are what are called ecumenical confessions, and for thousands of years have helped Christians discern those essential things, those first order doctrines, which are necessary for the Christian to affirm in order to be truly called “a Christian.” If you’re feeling a little bit more ambitious, you can study the 3 Forms of Unity, which form the confessional backbone of the Dutch Further Reformation. The 3 Forms of Unity is comprised of the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism. These are particularly near and dear to my heart for their pastoral simplicity and their focus on Christian hope and assurance. Finally, if you’re feeling extra dangerous, you can study the Westminster Standards, prepared by Puritan scholars and pastors in England in the 1600s, over the course of 10 years and hundreds of sessions, and consisting of the Confession, the Larger Catechism, the Shorter Catechism, and the Directory for Public Worship. RC Sproul said this about the Westminster Standards: “The Westminster Confession is the most precise and accurate summary of the content of Biblical Christianity ever set forth in a creedal form. Creeds such as the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Scots Confession should be highly regarded, but no historic confession surpasses in eloquence, grandeur, and theological accuracy the Westminster Confession of Faith.” If our zeal is to be in accordance with knowledge, we must rely on these precious statements of Christian truth from our history.

Zeal alone cannot save. Paul witnessed this firsthand. His zeal was the very thing that condemned him. Zeal must be in accordance with truth and righteousness if it is to be efficacious for salvation.

Verse 3 - Israel’s self-righteous self-establishment

In verse 3 Paul further cements his proposition of the plight of Israel. He expands the idea of zeal apart from knowledge by specifying that they specifically did not have knowledge of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own.

We can break this down into a two part negation and affirmation statement.

First, they did not know about God’s righteousness. This is an interesting statement, and many people have offered many different interpretations. It is tricky because we would affirm with Paul that God’s righteousness is expressly and clearly revealed both in nature to all men and in the Law and the Prophets specifically to Israel. So what is meant here? If we consider some different translations, we may find our answer. In my study of the passage, I found that the Lexham English Bible was the most faithful to the original Greek. They translate this simply “ignoring.” For, ignoring God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own. I think this best captures Paul’s sense as well as abides within the larger theology of the book of Romans. This issue for Israel was less a lack of knowledge of the truth, or passive ignorance, but rather rejecting the knowledge of the truth, or what we would call active ignorance. They had the truth and chose actively to reject it. This speaks further to the truth of the parable of the vineyard and vinegrower that we looked at over the last few weeks. The blessing of the vine and vineyard had been given to them and time and time again they rejected, abused, and otherwise opposed the blessing, as well as those who were sent to warn them, culminating in their crucifixion of the Son of the vinegrower Himself.

But not only do they ignore God’s righteousness on the negative side, on the positive side they sought to establish their own.

What Paul is saying is that from the outset, Israel had God’s righteousness readily available to them by faith. They needed only look to the example of their first father Abraham to understand what God expected of them: believe Him, and it will be counted to them as righteousness. Yet they always sought righteousness on their own terms rather than on God’s terms. Whether a golden calf or Ashteroth poles or high places or pagan altars in the temple of God or the teachings of the scribes and the Pharisees, the history of the nation is rife with examples of Israel looking, quite literally, everywhere else for righteousness other than the one place it can be found: in the life, death, and resurrection of the Promised Messiah.

The culmination of these two realities is expressed g Paul in his third clause in verse 3: they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. In their active and willful ignorance, they did not subject or submit themselves to God’s righteousness. Implicit in this statement is this: true righteousness can only be received by humble submission to God. This humble submission is the essence of faith. It is the acknowledgement that nothing you have done, are doing, will do or can do can obtain the righteousness that God requires. The righteousness must be given by God and received in faith, through humble submission to His will for salvation, namely that it come through Christ alone, which leads Paul to his final point:

Verse 4- Christ as the goal of the law

By not subjecting themselves to God’s righteousness, Israel did not subject themselves to Christ. Paul calls back to Romans 3 here, where you may recall that he said that apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, namely, the righteousness which comes by faith in Christ.

Paul effectively chastises Israel for failing to grasp the point of the Law and by extension the entire Old Testament. Notice the word here translated end. This is the Greek word telos, and I’ve referenced it before in this and other series. It is translated in a variety of ways, but Paul’s use of it here seems to indicate that he intends us to understand it in reference to completion, perfection, or fulfillment. In other words, Christ is the completion of the law, the perfection of the law, and the fulfillment of the law. Sometimes it’s easy to read this and say “If Jesus is the end of the law, then now that He is here, the Law is over and done with and irrelevant,” and that’s the type of teaching that leads us, at best, to misread the Old Testament and at worst to unhitch from it. Rather, Paul actually magnifies the Law by making this statement. The Law and the Prophets and the whole Old Testament become crucial for a sound and orthodox Christology. To put it another way, with a tip of the hat to the young Puritan William McEwen, without the Old Testament you do not understand the fullness and glory of Jesus Christ.

But we must not misunderstand Paul here. For Christ to be the goal of the Law means that He was always the ultimate intention of the Law. In other words, everything God ordained and decreed in the moral and civil and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament is intended to find it’s culmination in Christ. Let me illustrate this.

I live in Santa Clarita. Santa Clarita has rightly been described as nothing more than a parking lot for Six Flags Magic Mountain. As you drive north on the 5 through Santa Clarita, once you come over the hill at McBean Parkway you can see a large sign off to the left announcing that this is where Six Flags Magic Mountain is. You get off on the appropriately named Magic Mountain Parkway exit, turn left, and go about a half mile and you get to Six Flags. In so doing, you go right past that sign, which actually rises up next to the freeway out of the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant. Now this sign illustrates an important truth for us about the Old Testament. The massive sign is important, even essential for you to arrive at the park. If you don’t follow the arrows on the sign, you won’t arrive at the park. The sign is not the park, and the park is not the sign, but you can’t have the park if you don’t have and understand the sign. This is the relationship that the Law has to Christ. It is an important and essential part of arriving at Christ and fully understanding Christ. It is not Christ, but you cannot get to Christ without understanding the Law.

Here’s a funny addendum to the illustration. As I am known to do, I was enjoying a Baconator at the Wendy’s where this massive sign is located. I was sitting there, enjoying the Baconator, when a rather loud family walks in, marches right up to the counter, and asks the kid taking the orders if this is Six Flags. Based on the accent, these folks were not from California. Perhaps Texas if I had to guess. The kid, looking a bit stunned, says “No? This is Wendy’s? Six Flags is down the street.” And the woman goes, I kid you not, “This is where the sign is! This should be Six Flags!” After a few moments of this back and forth the kid was finally able to explain to these people that just because the sign is here doesn’t mean that the park is here. Confused and disgruntled, they left the restaurant and I can only assume they found their way to the park. This story further illustrates, rather humorously, a tragic truth about Israel: they were so fixated on the sign that they missed the park. They were so fixated on their own righteousness through the Law that they missed the whole point of the Law: Christ Himself.

This is the heart of Paul’s lament for Israel. The reason that he prophetically and pastorally prays for Israel, desiring that they be saved, is because they missed the point of all the blessings they received in 9:1-5. They failed to arrive at the intended goal of the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the temple service, the promises, and the fathers. They failed to arrive at Christ, both before the incarnation and after.

Paul weeps and Paul prays, but Paul does not lose heart. He knows better than anyone else that even the most ignorantly zealous Israelite can be saved, for such was he. He knows better than anyone else that if Israel simply believes upon Christ they will be saved. And Paul is confident that this will take place in fulfillment of all of God’s good promises to Israel.

Paul will now turn his attention to the mechanics of saving faith, as he teaches us how this righteousness is accomplished and applied in the life of the believer.