The End of the Law. Romans 10:1-5 V.1. This chapter begins with Paul’s sincere prayer of desire for the salvation of his Jewish brothers and sisters by nature’s ties. He knew of their zeal for God, but it wasn’t according to the true knowledge of the word of God. Righteousness must be on God’s terms, not ours. Our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law's purpose and consequently made it possible for those who accept Him to have a right relationship with God.
Those who believe in the Lord Jesus are not condemned by the law but are enabled to fulfill the moral intent of the law. Human efforts can never meet the standard of righteousness God offers us by faith in Him. In faith, we openly receive what God offers as a gift. Christ is “the end of the law” in that He fulfilled its objective as a Perfect Man when He was here and offers us salvation through Him. He also concluded our need for the law, which had no power to save us, by saving us Himself by His sacrifice for us on the cross and forgiving our sins.
He obeyed perfectly every demand of the law that pointed out our guilt and need for Him. In His obedience to His Father, He met and fulfilled the prophecies and types in the scriptures that pointed to Him bearing the curse of the broken law on our behalf. New life brings the blessings of the new covenant to all who come to God by faith in Jesus Christ. Christians are not under the curse of spiritual death and are not condemned eternally because of the curse of the law.
V.2. Israel has been disobedient to the law of God throughout its history in spite of many calls to repentance by the prophets. They rejected the prophets, and even Paul did before he met Jesus on the Damascus Road. The curses on Israel because of willfully rejecting the law, the prophets, and the Lord Jesus Christ have, for the most part, been in the form of oppression by other nations.
Zealous Jews have fought and died defending the Torah and the law. The apostle Paul declared that Christ fulfilled the law’s demands. Faith, not the law with its rituals, makes a person acceptable to God. The goal of the law has been attained by the substitutionary sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Faith in Him is necessary for acceptance by a just and holy God. Believers are righteously accepted in Christ.
V.3. Two things hinder people from committing themselves to God’s plan of salvation. The first is ignorance of the righteous character of God, and the second is our pride. We will not be saved until we admit we cannot do anything to save ourselves.
God knows all things and knows all human beings can and will do. His knowledge includes what will happen in the real world through His free, sovereign choice. He also knows what humans would choose to do in certain circumstances. Applying what He knows will happen, in His sovereign will, He leaves room for people to make choices.
Therefore, God can exercise control over those who are free to make choices without taking away their personal responsibility to do what is right. He knows what will happen due to people's free will choices. He has created us to make the right decisions for living now and for eternity.
Since the time of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, Israelites have been seeking to justify themselves by trying to keep those demands to establish their own righteousness before God. They misused it by claiming their efforts to make it a rule of life were enough, missing the whole point of the law. It was given to reveal sin plainly. In the zeal of many then and some today, they have missed its real purpose. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." People then and now are way underestimating the holiness and righteousness of God. They have a faint grasp of what righteousness is in their own eyes and miss the perfection and absolute holiness of God that the law demands. If we could even conceive in our minds what the unsullied light of Divine Persons is, we would never raise our heads or open our eyes.
V.4. Jews were very zealous in the past of fulfilling their own conception of the law's demands, even to the point of dying for their convictions. That which was given to them was a temporary means of making them face, as a people, the problem of their own sin, which their privileged position did not deal with. It condemned them to death so that the honest seeker would turn to God alone for righteousness and acceptance. They needed the new birth the Holy Spirit gives when they would learn "it is God that justifies."
When Christ came, "born under the law to redeem us (Jews) who were under the law," He himself took the place of the law. The law made its statements, but the Lord Jesus Christ clarified them when He said, "But I say unto you..." as He told the nation of His people when He fulfilled the demands of the law. Christ is our righteousness, not the law nor our efforts to keep it. He brought the law to its conclusion, even for the Jews to whom it was given. The law has no more meaning or purpose now that Christ has died, been buried, and risen again. The law revealed sin.
V.5. Now, Christ reveals the true reality of sin but the terrible consequences of sin in His death. The law warned of consequences; the death of Christ put those consequences right out in plain sight so the people could see that God "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all." "The flames of hell" got hold of Him. Many other descriptions are given as to the results of sin. However, when a repentant sinner sees what Christ has done, and as a guilty sinner appreciates that "Christ died for our sins," the fullness of Christ's sacrifice makes the law seem pale and of no value - which is true.
The Law is finished. People knew they were sinners before the law was given. There were many generations of Abraham's seed who lived and died before the law was given and who knew the consequences of sin, let alone what sin is. The giving of the law in the wilderness didn't make the law come into being. That was given so the nation would see that God was gracious and merciful toward them as a chosen people. Once Christ came and died on the cross for sin, the law of commandments and ordinances was finished, even for the Jews.
His death, burial, and resurrection marked the end of the law for righteousness. The standard now is the perfections of Christ Himself, which we can never attain in the flesh. But because "Christ died for our sins," He can, and wants to, bless us with His own righteousness as a gift of His grace. The law that came alongside has no living, vital life like we have been given in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit within and guiding us makes the law-principle of no value to guide the Jews, much less we Gentiles who were outside the law.