Romans 10:4-8 – Christ; The End of the Law for Righteousness

Romans 10:4 is not just a random statement about law and grace.
Paul’s explaining something very specific about Israel and their salvation. He’s answering a question that runs all through Romans chapters 9-11:
Why didn’t Israel receive the promises God gave them?
Why aren’t they experiencing the kingdom God promised? Why are they not saved as a nation?
Paul’s answer is not that God failed. His answer is that Israel missed something.
They missed what the law was really teaching. They missed what Moses was really saying. Most importantly, they missed Christ and all because of this, missing the main point of the whole of God’s Word. They couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
Sadly, that’s still the case today, not only for Israel, but for the entire world, even many claiming to be believers, Christians.

As we saw in depth last episode, Israel’s problem was not lack of zeal.
They had plenty of zeal. What can be more zealous than crucifying someone who believes differently from you? That’s seriously zealous!

Let’s quickly recap Romans 10:1-4 from the last episode so we can keep the context in place and hopefully gain the insight that I believe God wants us to have.
Romans 10:1
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”

Paul loved his people.
He wasn’t celebrating their unbelief. His heart was broken over it. He wanted them saved.
Then he says in Romans 10:2:
“For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t accuse them of being uninterested in God or turning their back on God. Their problem wasn’t indifference. Their problem was ignorance.
They had zeal, and they were devoted, religious and passionate.
But their zeal wasn’t according to knowledge. And that’s still the same today.
Many people are sincere and claim to love God, and they’re very active in religious things. But sincerity isn’t enough, and zeal isn’t enough.
The real question to every man is: Do we believe what God has actually said? Not what we think He said, or what someone else says He said, but what He actually said.
Right here is where we see the root cause of almost every problem within mankind.
The key issue in God’s word is Righteousness.
Are we, as humans, righteous, or can we attain or earn the righteousness that’s required for salvation? Israel believed they could, and they tried hard to establish their own righteousness.

Romans 10:3 says:
“For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”

Israel wanted righteousness alright. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the source of that righteousness.
They wanted a righteousness they could point to, a righteousness they could claim and a righteousness they could perform.
But Paul says they never submitted themselves to God’s righteousness.
That’s an important word: submitted.
Submission means accepting God’s verdict even when it hurts our pride.
God said they were sinners and they needed mercy and grace. He said they could only receive that mercy and grace one way.
He said they needed Christ. They needed to believe in that Christ who God provided as the one and only source of righteousness. His sacrifice, which the entire law pointed to, would and could be the only payment for the sin that prevents that all-important righteousness.
But instead of submitting to that righteousness, they continued trying to establish their own.
We see this from Romans 10:4,
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

This statement has been debated for centuries.
What does it mean? Does it mean Christ abolished the law? Does it mean the law has no value and that every commandment disappeared? Or does it mean Christ fulfilled the law?
People have always looked for a deep or hidden meaning within the statement rather than just looking at the statement’s every word.
To understand this verse, we have to understand Christ’s relationship to the law and the law’s relationship to righteousness.
Christ did not come to destroy the law.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

Jesus didn’t come attacking the law. He taught the law. He obeyed the law, and he fulfilled the law.
In fact, throughout His earthly ministry He upheld the law, and he taught people to obey it. He taught its true meaning.
So whatever Romans 10:4 means, it can’t mean that Jesus simply came to destroy the law.
Jesus Himself said He didn’t come to do that.
The law was pointing to Christ. After His resurrection, Jesus explained something remarkable.
In Luke 24:27, He began:
“…at Moses and all the prophets” and showed His disciples the things concerning Himself. Imagine that.
Jesus opened the Old Testament Scriptures and showed that they were talking about Him all along.
Then later, in Luke 24:44, He said:
“All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.”

The law wasn’t an end in itself. It pointed somewhere. It pointed to Someone.
It pointed to Christ.
The sacrifices pointed to Christ.
The priesthood pointed to Christ.
The Passover lamb pointed to Christ.
The Day of Atonement pointed to Christ.
The law was moving toward Him all along.
Christ was the goal, the fulfilment, and the destination of the law.

Romans 10:4 says something very specific. It says:
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.”
Christ put an end to the law as the means of gaining righteousness.
Notice the phrase: for righteousness. That’s so important.
Paul isn’t discussing every possible use of the law. He’s talking about obtaining righteousness through it.
The law promised righteousness to those who did it.
Leviticus 18:5 said:
“The man which doeth those things shall live by them.”

Of course, the big problem that Israel missed was that God also said in Deuteronomy 28:15,
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:”
And then God lists terrifying curse after terrifying curse that would result in failure to keep the law.
The thing that Israel should have realised, each and every one of them, was that those curses must come because no man could keep the law.
That should have been so disturbing to them that it forced them to ask, “How then can a man be saved from his unrighteousness?”
If they’d realised their own inability to keep the law and sought God’s solution, which was always there, they would’ve found that their answer to that question would be exactly the same as it is today: to simply believe that God had a solution that did not involve them obtaining righteousness themselves, even though, before the cross, they didn’t see that ultimate solution clearly.
Throughout the law, God made provision in the sacrificial system for the certainty that every person would break it. Israel chose to reject God’s word that showed their failings and trust in themselves.
Oh, there were many prophecies pointing to the coming King and Messiah, and also that He must die, but it wasn’t the understanding of it all that would bring their salvation from unrighteousness, but faith in the fact that God had promised a way.
That’s what our study of Hosea showed in great detail.
They simply had to believe God about both their true condition and their future salvation that was of God, not their own goodness.

When Christ came, He changed everything.
Now righteousness was no longer found through law-keeping or its sacrificial system; righteousness was found through Him, the ultimate sacrifice.
Jesus forced a decision!
During His earthly ministry, He repeatedly declared:”Believe on me.”
That created a crisis. A person could no longer simply claim law-keeping while rejecting Christ.
John 3:18 says:
“He that believeth not is condemned already.”

Imagine an Israelite saying, “I keep the law.” Then Jesus says to him, “Do you believe in Me?”
The answer suddenly becomes decisive, absolute. Without faith in Christ, all their law-keeping became meaningless. This is exactly what Paul’s explaining.
Israel stumbled over Christ. That was their problem.
Galatians 3 helps explain how faith came into focus through Christ.
Paul says in Galatians 3:23,
“Before faith came, we were kept under the law.”

Now, obviously, people believed God before Christ came. Abraham believed. Moses believed, and David believed.
They believed in what God said, that He had a way to righteousness, without a specific focus on what that way was. But Christ came and now here, at last, was the specific object of faith. God’s Son manifested in the flesh.
He came saying: “Believe on me.”

The law had been the schoolmaster.
The law was leading somewhere and to Someone. It was leading to Christ.
When Christ came, the schoolmaster had brought Israel exactly where it was intended to bring them, yet tragically, many refused Him.
Sometimes people mistakenly think Israel was saved by law, while we today are saved by Christ. That’s not true.
Israel needed Christ. Israel needed faith. Israel needed God’s mercy. Just as we do today.
Romans 4 already taught this.
When Paul discussed Abraham, he showed that inheritance of the promises of God was never ultimately through law. It was through faith.
The law could never replace God’s promise and could never replace faith and could never replace Christ.
One of the great truths of Paul’s teaching is that the old covenant never had the power to provide salvation.
It condemned sinners.
It exposed sin.
It revealed guilt.
It showed people their need.
But it could not save.
That’s why Hebrews speaks about Christ mediating a better covenant.
Hebrews 9:15 says:
“For this cause he is the mediator of the new testament.”

How did that happen? Through His death.
Christ’s death ended the law as the means of obtaining righteousness. The old covenant reached its goal. It pointed to Christ.
Christ came. Christ died, and Christ rose again.
The law’s purpose was fulfilled.

Now here’s something fascinating.
After saying Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, Paul immediately starts quoting Moses.
Romans 10:5
“For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.”

Why does Paul start quoting Moses, namely Leviticus 18:5,
“Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.”

Because Moses taught more than commandments. Moses also understood grace, and he understood mercy.

In Romans 9:15, Paul already quoted God’s words to Moses:
“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.”

Moses knew firsthand that Israel survived because of God’s mercy.
If God had dealt strictly according to law, Israel would’ve been destroyed many times.
Moses understood something deeper than merely doing commandments.
He understood faith. Moses was a man of faith.

Think about Moses’ life.
Before he ever received the law, he was already learning faith.
At the burning bush, he believed God.
Before Pharaoh, he believed God.
At Passover, he believed God.
At the Red Sea, he believed God.
In the wilderness, he trusted God.
Moses wasn’t just a lawgiver; he was a believer.
He knew that faith mattered.
And that’s exactly why Paul begins quoting Moses to teach faith.

Romans 10:6 says:
“But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise…”

Then Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30, and this’s one of the most important passages in understanding what happened to Israel.
Moses had said:
“Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven?”

What was he saying?
Don’t ask who will go up to heaven and bring God’s message down.
God already revealed it.
Moses had already brought God’s words down.
Now, Paul applies this to Christ.
Who’s gone to heaven and come down? Christ has.
He came from heaven.

So to keep asking for somebody to come down and reveal God’s truth is really a rejection of Christ. Israel rejected the One who was sent from heaven.
Again and again Jesus told them He came from heaven, yet they kept asking for signs. They kept demanding more proof even though the proof was plain to see. They kept questioning, and they kept refusing the answer to those questions.
They were asking the very questions Moses told them not to ask.
Christ stood before them, the Word made flesh, the Son of God from heaven.
And they rejected Him.
Paul continues:
“Who shall descend into the deep?”
Then he explains:
“that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.”

Just as Christ came down from heaven, Christ also rose from the dead.
The resurrection settled everything. It proved who He was beyond any doubt.
It proved His authority.
It proved His victory.
It proved He was God’s chosen Messiah.
Yet many still refused to believe.

Then Paul reaches the heart of the issue.
Romans 10:8, we read:
“The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”

Moses had already said that in Deuteronomy 30:14:
“But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

The word wasn’t far away. It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t unreachable. It was right before them.
The same was true when Christ came.
Israel couldn’t say they lacked information.
They heard Him.
They saw Him.
They listened to Him.
They discussed Him.
They argued about Him.

The word was in their mouths.
The tragedy is that it never reached believing hearts.

So what happened to Israel?
Paul’s answer is remarkably simple.
They stumbled over Christ.
They had the law.
They had the prophets.
They had the promises.
They had Moses.
But they missed the One Moses was talking about.
Christ came from heaven.
They refused Him.
Christ rose from the dead.
They refused Him.
Christ fulfilled the law.
They refused Him.

That is why Romans 10:4 says,
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

The issue was never merely law-keeping.
The issue was faith, and the issue was always faith.
The law pointed to Christ.
Moses pointed to Christ.
The prophets pointed to Christ.
The Scriptures pointed to Christ.
And when Christ arrived, Israel had to decide what they’d do with Him.
The same question remains for every one of us today.
It’s not “Have you kept enough laws?” And it’s not “Are you religious enough?” Or not “Are you sincere enough?”
The question is:
What will you do with Christ?
Because righteousness has never ultimately been found in what we do, our good works, our good intentions or our own opinion of our own righteousness.
It’s found in the One who came from heaven, died for sins, rose from the dead, and is now offered as the righteousness that guarantees salvation to all who believe.
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”

May God guide us into the realisation of the difference between the law and our own goodness and the perfect righteousness that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, His death according to Scripture, His burial and His resurrection according to Scripture.