Righteousness- The End of Law
Romans 10:4 · Mike Doyle · Sep 15, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 090
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261936377372

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay I know Roger went through a lot of the verses that we read this morning. I'm gonna sit down, I hope you don't mind. But I thought to put it in context, we should read those verses down through chapter 10, verse four. And so to give you, there's one point that I'm gonna drive at most of the morning. So to give you a little background or context, 10, one through three says, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for themselves is for their salvation.

He's talking about what? He's talking about the Jews. He desires that the Jews come to Christ. You okay, Ralph? So the brethren indicates that Paul's addressing believers who came out of Judaism, and he's affirming that he has a deep love for his countrymen. The seat and center of Paul's human life, desires, affections, emotion, was for Israel's salvation. Probably you see that in all of his writings. And Paul wants them safe from whose wrath? From God's wrath. That's what he wants them safe from. So, verse two says, for I testify about them that they have a zeal for God.

That's wonderful, but not in accordance with knowledge. So zeal. is not really the issue. And we know lots of zealous people that do a lot of zealous things, but that's not what the issue is here. What's here is not according to knowledge is the problem.

They hadn't figured out what really, what God desired. They were missing the mark. They didn't have a full and complete knowledge about what God wanted. So Paul is probably the most zealous of all the Jews that ever was. I mean, this guy was amazing. I read about him, but I've never met anybody that had the kind of zeal that he had. The Jews, the Jewish Christians, or the Jews just possess some knowledge of God and his standards, and you can read Romans 9, 4, and 5 that bring you up to speed on that, however, As it related to God's righteousness, as it related to man's sin, the penalty for sin, God's solution for that penalty, a man's response to God's solution, the Israelites were not putting it all together in Paul's day, especially as it included Jesus Christ.

They didn't put that together. So the big piece of knowledge that they lacked in this area was God's righteousness and how to get it, how to obtain it. That was what was missing. So verse three says, for not knowing about God's righteousness, and I want you to notice how often this term, God's righteousness, is repeated. and seeking to establish their own, their own righteousness, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. Ignorance is not bliss. There are three ways the Israelites are described as it relates to righteousness. First is, not knowing about God's righteousness, their ignorance, it means they just didn't know about God's righteousness.

A typical Jew had been confused by the works of the law and assumed that righteousness before God consisted of their physical lineage, circumcision, and an adequate effort to serve the law. That's what they thought. They viewed these things as key to obtaining the national promise made to them regarding the entrance into the kingdom. What was salvation to a Jew? It was the kingdom.

So their ignorance of God's holy standard and the fact that they could never measure up led them to trust themselves and their own efforts. They should not have been ignorant for even the Old Testament testified of God's method of declaring people righteous. They chose to remain uninformed. It wasn't that God didn't tell them, he told them, but they chose to remain uninformed.

The second description, they sought to establish their own righteousness. Seeking means to strive. It means to find, to look for intently. And so what were they after? They were really working hard at it. They wanted to establish their own righteousness. Establish means to cause or to stand or to set in place. They wanted to be in a position where they could look to God and say, look, we're righteous. I'm righteous.

I've done all of these things. Problem is, that isn't what God said righteousness is. Because of their ignorance, God's method of declaring man righteous, the Israelites, with good intentions, did what every man on the planet does, they try to be good enough to go to heaven. Isn't that, I mean, none of you, I don't have friends that don't think this way, right? They all think this way. I come out of Catholicism, every Catholic I ever met thinks about this way, that he can do enough to go to heaven.

The Jewish version of this standard of good enough was to be a physical descendant of Abraham. to be circumcised. And because they possessed the law and had a national covenant promise, they thought they had an inside track. They didn't realize that to possess the righteousness needed to get into the kingdom, they needed the righteousness of God, which comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 3, 21 and 22. That's the only way you get it. Now, the third description, they didn't subject themselves to the righteousness of God. They were all about their own.

So they have not submitted, hupotasso, which is one of my favorite words, means they have not placed themselves under in an orderly fashion. They had not done that. Even when presented with God's method of righteousness, Israelites would not recognize their need to submit to God's solution to their righteousness issue. Israelites were not willing to give up the law.

Their heritage, their own efforts, and simply trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That last part comes from a man named John Clark in Georgia. So we get to this verse. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The word end just means termination or limit. A thing ceases to be. Christ is the termination, or he's the limit, at which the law ceases to be. Law, as a means of attaining righteousness, is over. It's not any good anymore. Never was, really. The way to righteousness is not the observance of statutes, even if they had been promulgated by God himself, the Mosaic system.

It is faith. the abandonment of the soul to the redeeming judgment and mercy of God, his son. So Romans 7, one through four, I'll go through a few verses of Romans 7 here, says in essence the same thing. Paul says, do you not know, brethren, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, obviously speaking to Jews, that the law has jurisdiction over a Jewish person as long as he lives. Okay? Then he gives an example.

For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he's living. But if her husband dies, she's released from the law concerning the husband. So then if while her husband is living, she's joined to another man, she'd be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she's free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she's joined to another man.

Therefore, brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that you might bear fruit unto God. You died to the law. It didn't die, you died to it.

Galatians 3.24 says, therefore the law has become a Jewish tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. I found something really interesting in spending some time in this verse about the word tutor.

It means a boy leader, a servant whose office it was to take the children to school. By implication, a tutor, a pedagogue, a child conductor. The word referred to a slave who was responsible to get the kids ages six to 16 to school. That was his job. One of the major function was to see that the children got to school. It was not his job to teach them anything. It was his job to get them there.

So when you take a look at that, there's a marginal note that translated children as a child conductor. I remember when I was a kid, real little, kindergarten, I was living in Chicago and this lady would come by and pick my brother and I up and walk us six blocks to nursery school. She was a pedagogue. She didn't go into school with us, she dropped us off and then at three o'clock she'd come back and pick us up and take us home. What's interesting about this is that the word referred to a slave who was responsible for the children between the ages of six and 16.

I said that. Even Plato, in some of his writings, makes the meaning clear. Do your parents allow you to do this as you please? Who has charge of you? The reply is, my pedagogue. The response then runs, what, even though he is a slave, what does he do?

Answer, he takes me to school. So, the figure Paul uses here is appropriate for two reasons. One, it shows there's a harmony between the promise and the law. The child conductor cooperated with the teacher but he did not and could not do the teacher's job. That's the law. Second, the child conductor functioned only for a designated period of time.

Now, the context disregarding the intrusion of the chapter and the divisions begins with Romans 9.30, and that's why Jim read from 9.30 this morning.

What shall we say then that Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith? But Israel pursuing the law of righteousness didn't arrive at that law or that principle. Here what Paul introduces are two methods of gaining righteousness. One is Israel by self-effort, which the law prescribed, and by ignoring faith, has not reached the goal of righteousness. Their law works were, as always, a miserable failure. On the other hand, the Gentiles, who focused not on the law, since it was never given to them, but who did exercise faith, they reached the goal of perfect righteousness.

We love to look at our salvation. We love to look at all that we are as believers as we want something that we do. But why would God say, in order for you to be acceptable to me, you must have my righteousness? I think it goes all the way back to Genesis when God said, let's make man in our own image and after our own likeness.

Why did he do it that way? Because he wanted man, he wanted a creature who we talked about in Sunday school this morning, who had free will, who would willingly believe God, and therefore God could say, oh, I can have fellowship with this person, this man, this race of men, Solely on the basis that they believe me and if they do believe me here's what I'm going to give them I'm going to give them my righteousness They don't have to earn it They can't earn it. I'm just gonna give it to them. Why?

Because that's what we operate on in the Godhead, the righteousness of God. So he gives it to humanity, even when after Adam sinned, he gives it to us by faith. The deep truth respecting the divine purpose and giving the law to Israel here is unveiled. God gave the law and called it a stumbling block a rock of offense, so he could emphasize the truth, namely, whosoever believes on him shall not be disappointed. You will not be disappointed.

Abraham, who believed Jehovah, and his faith was counted for him for righteousness, was before Israel. You realize, of course, Abraham wasn't a Jew. He was before the Jews. His grandson was a Jew. And David, another Jewish hero, had described the blessedness of a man to whom God imputes righteousness without works. Yet Israel stumbled over the stone of human merit, as humanity is ever prone to do, even Many who thought through faith are already in possession of infinite righteousness. It's interesting. There are legions of born-again Christians who stumble over this issue of righteousness. They still think, I gotta do something.

No, you don't. You can't do anything to get God's righteousness with your own effort. They didn't know the truth that faith in God would, as witnessed by Abraham and David, the prophets would bring about through divine grace an adjustment that's totally satisfying to God, even a righteousness as perfect as Himself.

His righteousness is just like Him. It's perfect. So what is God's righteousness? It's character or quality of being right or just. Fine says it used to be spelled right-wiseness. I thought that's kind of neat. It's used to denote attributes of God. The context which shows the righteousness of God means essentially it's the same as his faithfulness, his truthfulness, That is consistent with His own nature and promise. It's who He is.

Romans 3.25, who God displayed publicly as a propitiation or satisfaction in His blood through faith. That was to demonstrate His righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. For the demonstration, I say, of his righteousness. He was showing his righteousness at present time so that he would be just and also the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

His righteousness is exhibited in the death of Christ, which is sufficient to show man that God is neither indifferent about sin or does he regard it lightly. His righteousness demanded the death of Christ. Demanded it. It wasn't an option. On the contrary, it demonstrates that the quality of holiness in him, which must find expression in his condemnation of sin. He cannot allow sin to exist.

If we had to look at it from our perspective, I don't know if we could even explain what is the righteousness of God. What does it really mean? Men know what it doesn't mean better than what it does mean, better than what God intended us to gather from the phrase throughout his word. Believers in such a condition experience real difficulty, I think, in explaining what divine righteousness is to other people. And they have little clarity about righteousness and evaluation of its positive, proper character in your own words.

How do you explain to somebody that in order for you to be saved, you must have God's righteousness? And they're gonna say, well, what is that? Can you explain it? Can you show them? There's no doubt among believers that without Christ and without a work on his part which vindicates God in showing his infinite mercy that there could be no such thing as justification of the ungodly. If God didn't do the work, nobody gets justified. So, what do we have in these verses? We have the clarity of the righteousness of God contrasted with law.

In 519, he says, what things the law says, it says to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world will become guilty before God. All the world become guilty. God wants everybody to stop talking and just to listen. The law, instead of justifying those who are under it, it brings them, if possible, more guilt. We can understand. I think that man being a sinner, the law never, wherever it operates, cannot improve his case. Can't improve my case. So it can only prove guilt.

That's what it's designed to do. It can only pronounce upon it, for it measures each violation of God's commands. And God's first command, be holy as I'm holy. So the law of God is holy, it's just, and it's good. And it's impossible that a good law could save or acquit a bad man. The law of God has for its only effect in dealing with the evil to condemn them without hope to death. God doesn't grade on the curve. Not, of course, that this is all that God can do, but it is the only conceivable direct effect of God's law upon the guilty. A law which an evil man might escape could not be the law of God.

Let's say I get arrested for speeding, and the municipal law says, well, it's going to be a $100 fine. And so I go hire a good lawyer for $200, and I don't have to pay the $100. I got out of it. You don't get out of God's law. If you're under it, It's regretted that a criminal could escape man's law, but you can never, never escape God's law. So it brings in another question of another kind, of righteousness altogether. And this is kind of a difficult subject to explain, at least for me it was.

Man is all wrong. There's no righteousness in him. And I think we've proved that already. The only righteousness, therefore, is God's, only one. But the first great truth asserted is that man is a whole, man in every grade and variety being put down as destitute of righteousness. According to God, it becomes a question of God showing his righteousness if he wants to, if it pleases him to do so. This he does. and most worthily of himself.

We know that if God were simply to act in his righteousness without Christ, what effect would it have on man? There you go. The whole race gets swept into hell. So what does he do then? What does a righteous, loving, holy God do? He has acted in another way, and most righteously that he may not send the guiltiest to hell. How can this be? There's no doubt that man deserves judgment.

Romans 3.20, therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law never pretended to put away or to pardon sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested.

The righteousness of God, notice the strength, without the law, that the Savior came, came down from heaven and accomplished or ended the law is a certain truth of God. Where is there a word about Christ keeping the law for us in order that we should be accepted in lieu of man's favor? This is a question that brings up the idea, is there? In the word of God, the idea that Christ and keeping the law meant that God was going to accept Christ keeping the law for you and your failure. In truth, the Jews are only meant as those under the law, so that leaves us Gentiles out. But waving this for a moment, here are the places to explain the importance of God's completing the law for man, or the end of the law, is that's what God's righteousness really means. Why is it that there is no trace of this thought in the word of God? There's no trace about Christ filling your law problem.

If we're to believe, this is from Kelly and he can be kind of aggressive sometimes. He says, are we to believe the scriptures, directly or indirectly, shall we presume to amend them? Are we to supplant the written word as if God did not know the truth better than we? Pretty aggressive.

Has it not come to a strange authorization that men now, instead of seeking to understand what the righteousness of God means, They turn from the plain truth that the Holy Spirit insists on and they interpolate a doctrine not found here and very hard to find anywhere in the Bible. The question is, has his accomplishment or the end of the law of God the place which certain schools give it? The certain schools is reformed theology. Answer, it's not a question of pardon only, but of justification.

Romans 3.21, now he said, the righteousness of God without the law.

No language can be more absolute or precise than that one. What the Holy Spirit employs is an expression which puts the law entirely aside as far as divine righteousness is concerned. He had been speaking about the law and the law condemning man. He had shown that the law required and searched for righteousness, but it couldn't find it. It couldn't get it.

So this is another order of righteousness, not man's, but God's. And that is too exclusive of any type of law. God's righteousness has nothing to do with law. Had it been the good news of God that Jesus came to obey the law for us, that God substitutes this as his righteousness for every man to stand in, why is it not said then? You can't find this in the word. Because it's not the ground, nor the character, nor the nature of the righteousness of God.

That righteousness is wholly apart from the law. Unfortunately, this devastating, ignorant, respected, imputed righteousness which has so injured Israel has characterized the Church of Christ today. Great multitudes of those who belong to the Church as its members have never conceded of any relationship to God beyond law works. They've never thought of it. There's gotta be another way. their reprehensibleness is far greater than that of Israel. Why? Because Israel, they had the witness of Abraham and David, but the church has the example of Israel's failure. And we have the New Testament, the grace gospel of the glory of Christ.

The notion that people will not live righteous lives unless placed under a works basis of relationship to God has permeated the church to a large degree, Lewis Barry Chafer. So, for Christ is the end of the law, for righteousness to everyone who believes, it will be seen that there is some difference of opinion respecting the sense in which Christ is said to be the end of the law. Some see only that he, by his suffering and death, paid the penalty, imposed and thus discharged the indictment against the sinner. We talked this morning about ransom, which is comprehended in forgiveness. And others see that Christ fulfills the law by supplying the merit which the holy creator God demands, which is comprehended in justification.

Both concepts are in this passage, but it will be observed that whatever is done is done by those who believe with no other requirement added, and that belief results in the bestowing of God's righteousness. The bestowing of God's righteousness. altogether works are wholly excluded from the ground upon which righteousness is received. This plan secures the most serious concern on the part of the one who receives that righteousness that the daily life may be in harmony with the position and the standing which he has been attained by faith alone. And whether this superior incentive for a holy life is valued or not, it remains the unquestionable plan of God for those who are saved by grace through faith.

You just can't grab a little bit of law and sneak it into grace. It doesn't belong there. So, in conclusion. The merit system has no termination. You can work and work and work and work and it never ends. While the faith system seals its objective the moment the individual believes. The merit system represents the best that man can do. While the faith system represents the best that God can do. The merit system has never been, nor could it ever be, anything but disgraceful failure, ending in eternal perdition. While the faith system never has been, nor could it ever be, anything but infinite perfection, ending in eternal glory.

So today we're thankful that God did it the way he did it. when you and I believed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, because we were crucified, united with Christ in his death, his burial, and resurrected to newness of life, in that newness of life, the resurrected life of the Lord Jesus is his righteousness, and we all have it.

And we just rest by faith in the righteousness of God. So let's close. Father, how thankful we are for your word and how careful you are to tell us and to teach us. about grace and about our position before you. And there's nothing other than just believing you that we ever need to do to be totally pleasing to you because we do have the very righteousness of your son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name, amen.