The Responsibility of a Failure of Recognition or Attention...

For the past two weeks, we have been examining the strong emotions and questions that come from the timeless truth that the sovereign God is free to choose some and reject others. This week, we will look at the next section of a letter that is recorded in our Bibles called the book of Romans. And it is in this section of this letter that we see Paul respond to these questions by once again looking at the history of the Jewish people. And as Paul continues to give us a history lesson from the lives of the Jewish people, we will discover a timeless truth that will help provide clarity and enable us to balance these two truths of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. So let’s begin by looking together at Romans 10:1:

Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Paul begins this section of his letter to the church at Rome by expressing that his heart’s desire and prayer was for the Jewish people and their salvation. From the core of his being, Paul desired that the Jewish people of his day would be rescued from selfishness and sin and would experience the relationship with God that they were created for by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader. Now the reason that Paul’s desire and prayer was for their rescue and for them to experience the relationship with God that they were created for was because while they had a zeal for God, that zeal was not based on a true knowledge of God. While the Jewish people of Paul’s day were intensely interested in the idea of God and having a relationship with God, they did not have a true knowledge of God. While the Jewish people thought that they knew God, they really did not know God. And Paul had been a witness to this reality as a fellow Jew.

Paul provides the reason why the Jewish people of his day were passionate about God, but really did not know God in verse three: “For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.”? The word not knowing here conveys the sense of not paying attention to or failing to recognize something. What the Jewish people of Paul’s day failed to recognize was God’s righteousness. As we have talked about previously, a simple and accurate definition of this 50 cent word righteousness is the quality or state of being right. In other words, the Jewish people of Paul’s day did not recognize or pay attention to the fact that God was right.

Instead of recognizing the fact that God was right and coming under His leadership, the Jewish people sought to establish their own righteousness. The Jewish people devoted serious effort to show that they were right based on what they did for God by keeping the requirements of the Law. The Law refers to the first five books recorded in our Bibles today, which the Jewish people referred to as the Law or Torah.

In verse 4, we see Paul explain why the Jewish people were still separated from God and in desperate need of rescue, in spite of their attempts to be right with God based on what they did for God by keeping the commandments of the Law: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” But what does that mean? When Paul uses the word end, here, he is not simply referring to the termination of something. The word end here also refers to a goal toward which a movement is directed.

Paul’s point here is that Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, was the goal and resulted in the termination of the Law. As we discovered in the trial series, the Law was never given to provide our justification. In other words, the Law was not given so that we could be declared not guilty of having a problem with God based on what we do for God. Instead, the Law was given to reveal our condemnation as being guilty of having a huge problem with God. The Law was given to reveal our need for rescue and to point us to our rescuer, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the goal of the Law. The Law is designed to move humanity toward the goal of rescue and a relationship with God as we respond to what God has done for us through Jesus Christ by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader.

However, the Jewish people of Paul’s day did not recognize Jesus as the goal and the end that the Law pointed to. Instead of recognizing and responding to what God had done for them through Christ in order to be right with God, they devoted themselves to attempting to do things for God in order to be right with God. And what they attempted to do for God left them separated from God in selfishness and sin. And to prove that the Jewish people had failed to recognize and respond to Jesus as being the goal and termination of the Law, Paul then points the readers of this letter to the message and teachings of the Old Testament itself, which we will look at tomorrow...