“Zeal: A Powerful Problem” – Romans 10:1-4

September 4^th, 2011  (Labor Day Weekend)

Romans 10:1-4

“Zeal: A Powerful Problem” 

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Bible Memory Verse for the Week:   It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.   — Proverbs 19:2

 

Background Information:

• Now we come to chapter 10, which presents us with the other side of the coin: human responsibility.  The fact is, the Word of God teaches both God’s elective sovereignty and man’s responsibility, though it does not show us how to reconcile this paradox. . . . God rejected Israel because Israel rejected the gospel.  If you are without Christ, it is not because you are non-elect, but because you are rejecting Christ.  You cannot place the blame on anyone else.  At least five times in this chapter (vv. 8, 11, 12, 16, and 21) the responsibility of the Jews is implicitly emphasized, concluding with the poignant plea of verse 21: “But concerning Israel he [God] says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.’”  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Romans, 183-84)
• (From  September 5^th,  2010 – message) The questions to be answered are . . . What is righteousness?  What does it look like?  How do we get it?  Why should we care?  Answer: Righteousness is living in a right relationship with everyone in your life.  Not only legally and technically, but emotionally, volitionally, and spiritually as well.  Righteousness is really . . . “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).  In and of ourselves we are totally inept to even begin to live righteously.  The only hope we have of obtaining righteousness is to have it imputed and imparted to us from the only One who lived a completely righteous life . . . even Jesus.  It is ONLY the righteous who will live with God forever in the redeemed world.
• Two righteousnesses that Paul wants to make sure that we distinguish here.  One that comes by observing the Law and the other than comes by faith.
• In the OT righteousness involves the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship, either with God or with other human beings, although the OT usually has the covenant with Yahweh in view (e.g., Isa 51:7; Ez 18:19, 21).  It does not normally indicate behavior in accordance with some norm external to a covenant, nor does it indicate an abstract legal concept of justice.  Righteousness is justice within the context of a covenant relationship.  When a person fulfils the obligation of a relationship, that person is said to be righteous.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 193)
• In its general use, it represents any conformity to a standard whether that standard has to do with the inner character of a person, or the objective standard of accepted law.  Thayer suggests the definition, “the state of him who is such as he ought to be.”  In the wide sense, it refers to that which is upright or virtuous, displaying integrity, purity of life, and correctness in feeling and action.  In a somewhat negative sense, it means faultlessness or guiltlessness; with reference to man it has to do with man’s conformity to God’s holiness.  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible–Q-Z, 104)
• Among the uses just suggested, the Biblical approach pre-eminently concerns itself with the man whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the righteousness of God.  In this sense, only Christ can be called dikaios (cf. Acts 7:52; 22:14; 1 Pt 3:18; 1 Jn 2:1).  It is not to be found in men, i.e. perfect conformity to the will of God (Rom 3:10, 26).  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible–Q-Z, 104-05)
• (v. 4) The English word “end” perfectly captures this nuance; but, if it is thought that it implies too temporal a meaning, we might also use the words “culmination,” “consummations,” or “climax.”  (Douglas Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Romans, 641)
• What is zeal?  It is nothing but a form of power, a kind of motivating force.  It is a measure of the energy with which a person does anything.  The obvious comparison is that zeal is like fire.  Fire is a form of energy and because that is what zeal is, we must never regard zeal as something in and of itself or put it into the supreme position.. . . I could illustrate this to you in many different ways.  Take, for instance, that proverb of ours which puts it so perfectly: ‘Fire is a good servant, but a bad master.’  There it is in a nutshell.  If you control your fire you can heat your house and cook your food, etc.  Fire is a most excellent servant, but let fire get in control and there is nothing but disaster.  It will burn down your house; it may ruin a whole countryside; it may burn up a prairie and destroy crops.  Fire was never meant to be master; it is only meant to be a servant.  And that is something which is true with regard to zeal or sincerity, and it is the answer to this whole argument which says that at any rate we must do something.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 17, 18)
• And, First, What is the nature of zeal in general, and of true Christian zeal in particular?

1.  The original word, in its primary signification, means heat; such as the heat of boiling water.  When it is figuratively applied to the mind, it means any warm emotion or affection. …Sometimes, it is taken for anger and indignation; sometimes, for vehement desire.  And when any of our passions are strongly moved on a religious account, whether for anything good, or against anything which we conceive to be evil, this we term, religious zeal.

2.  But it is not all that is called religious zeal which is worthy of that name. …May we not say, that true zeal is not mostly charitable, but wholly so?  That is, if we take charity, inSt. Paul’s sense, for love; the love of God and our neighbor.  For it is a certain truth, (although little understood in the world,) that Christian zeal is all love.  It is nothing else.  The love of God and man fills up its whole nature.

3.  Yet is it not every degree of that love, to which this appellation is given.  There may be some love, a small degree of it, where there is no zeal.  But it is, properly, love in a higher degree.  It isfervent love.  True Christian zeal is no other than the flame of love.  This is the nature, the inmost essence, of it.

From hence it follows, that the properties of love are the properties of zeal also.  (The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 7, pp. 58-   59)

• “Zeal” emerged as an especially commendable virtue among Jews in the intertestamental period, when the existence of the Jewish faith was threatened by both external enemies and (more seriously) by internal compromise.  Mattathias, the first leader of the most famous Jewish resistance movement, the Macabees, called followers in these words: “Let every one who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me!” (1 Macc 2:27).  Phinehas, who killed a Jewish woman and her pagan lover for their flaunting of the law (Nm 25), was the prototypical “zealot.”  The New Testament therefore uniformly praises “zeal,” and this verse is no exception.  Paul is thankful for Israel’s zeal; the problem is that it is misdirected.  (ClintonE. Arnold, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary–Volume 3, 62)

 

The question to be answered is . . . Why does Paul take the time to inform the Jewish contingency at the church in Rome that their problem was their misaligned zeal for God?

 

Answer:  Because just like everything else, what we do for God is never enough, never right, and never accurate.  That is why we are encouraged to look to Christ for everything that we cannot provide for ourselves.  Even our zeal is in need of repentance.  Even our repentance is in need of repentance!  Real zeal begins with admitting there exists two standards of righteousness:  God’s and ours.  Ours will never be enough.  God’s righteousness is more than enough.

 

But one thing we should be able to understand clearly is the meaning of our text when it distinguishes sharply between our righteousness (human righteousness) and God’s.  It is saying that although we use the same word when we are talking about God’s righteousness and our righteousness, we are actually speaking about two entirely different things.  God’s righteousness is his very nature, for God is righteous, just as God is love.  It is associated with his holiness and is perhaps better discussed as that word.  Holiness is what sets God apart.  It is what makes him utterly unlike us.  Human righteousness is merely a social quality achieved by the avoidance of certain gross forms of depravity and the contrary accumulation of outwardly good deeds.  It is what enables people to live with each other in partial peace, when each person actually wants everything in life, as all other persons, to focus on himself.  (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans–Volume 3, 1159)

 

The Jews, he claims, have accused God of failing to fulfill his promise; but they are at fault, not he.  They have willfully and wantonly pursued righteousness in their own way rather than in God’s, and they have brought upon themselves the results inseparable from such perversity.  (George Arthur Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible–Volume 9, 553)

 

God declares throughout the whole of Scripture that His righteousness is not to be considered in the same category as human righteousness.  It is unfortunate that the same vocabulary had to be used to describe both the good actions of men and the holy actions of God.  As long as we understand that man’s righteousness and God’s righteousness are different, not in degree but in kind, we can come out at the right end of our discussion.  (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans: Volume 4–God’s Covenants, 60)

 

Being ignorant of God’s righteousness, they go about to establish their own righteousness.  In other words, they attempt to claim that human righteousness is good, that it is satisfactory, and that because it is satisfactory to men, God should also be satisfied with that righteousness.  When this claim is examined, it is seen to be a subtle part of the rebellion that began when man struck out on his own.  Ultimately it is also the rejection of God’s manifestation in the Lord Jesus Christ.  (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans: Volume 4–God’s Covenants, 62)

 

The Word for the Day is . . . Zealous

 

God has also clearly revealed that His perfect holiness abhors all evil and that He therefore hates even the smallest manifestation of sin.  That realization alone should drive a person to his knees in repentance, knowing what God’s divine righteousness stands in judgment of his own sinfulness.  The Jews of Paul’s day were not much different than most people of any day, including our own.  Because men think God is less holy than He is and that they are more holy than they are, they believe they can achieve acceptance with Him.  They measure both God and themselves by human standards of right and wrong and are deceived in both regards.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 62)

                                                                                               

What does Romans 10:1-4 have to say to us today about zeal?:

I.  Real zeal for God makes God’s heart our heart (Jn 14:15; Rom 12:1-2; 13:8-10; Gal 5:14; Jas 2:8)

 

Let us hence learn where our good intentions may guide us, if we yield to them.  It is commonly thought a good and a very fit excuse, when he who is reproved pretends that he meant no harm.  And this pretext is held good by many at this day, so that they apply not their minds to find out the truth of God, because they think that whatever they do amiss through ignorance, without any designed maliciousness, but with good intention, is excusable.  But no one of us would excuse the Jews for having crucified Christ, for having cruelly raged against the Apostles, and for having attempted to destroy and extinguish the gospel; and yet they had the same defense as that in which we confidently glory.  Away then with these vain evasions as to good intention; if we seek God sincerely, let us follow the way by which alone we can come to him.  For it is better, asAugustine says, even to go limping in the right way than to run with all our might out of the way.  If we would be really religious, let us remember that what Lactantius teaches is true, that true religion is alone that which is connected with the word of God.  (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries: Volume XIX, 382)

 

Jesus warned those who were neither hot nor cold but lukewarm he would vomit them out of his mouth (Rv 3:16).  He wanted his people to be filled with zeal, but a zeal according to knowledge, zeal that is informed by his Word.  The fire in our hearts is not simply heat but also light, which comes from God’s Word.  (RC Sproul, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary: Romans, 348)

 

The word translated “desire” by the NIV is a rare word that actually suggests the idea of “good pleasure” or “delight.”  So what Paul is saying is that what would really please or delight him would be the salvation of his countrymen.  Therefore, he does what he can, which is to pray for them.  (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans–Volume 3, 1150)

 

What Paul (who himself was a Pharisee) called “the burden of the law” could not possibly be borne by the ordinary man in his daily walk.  These experts, therefore, not only satisfied what they considered to be all the demands of the law, but by such exercises they satisfied themselves and finally took cold hard pride in their attainments.  Jesus’ contribution at this point on the subject of righteousness was to move man’s thinking from the form of the law to its spiritual content.  The question now became not so much a matter of action as of motive, the one great commandment being to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.  Only thus could the righteousness of Jesus’ followers exceed “that of the scribes and Pharisees.”  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus illustrated how this should be so.  It is not a question of murder so much as a question of anger in the heart.  It is not so much adultery as the eye of lust.  The framework of the law must abide insofar as it is God’s law, but one is not “righteous” in Jesus’ way of thinking unless his motives rest in love.  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible–Q-Z, 111-12)

 

Alien righteousness is Christ saying, “I am for you.”  Proper righteousness is the believer saying, “I am for you.”  Because believers are righteous in Christ–both declared righteous and made righteous by Christ’s real presence within them–they no longer need to attempt self-justification and can concentrate on the welfare of others.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 195)

 

Christian people are mistaking natural qualities, niceness, a cultural veneer or politeness, for true Christian grace.  It seems that we are no longer capable of differentiating between the two.  How often today is affability mistaken for saintliness!  “What a gracious man he is,” they say.  What they really mean is this:  he never criticizes and he agrees with everybody and everything.  I know of nothing more dangerous than that.  These so-called gracious men are, of course, altogether nicer than John the Baptist of the Apostle Paul!  I do not hesitate to go further–they are very much nicer than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who denounced the Pharisees!  Affability is not saintliness.  A mere intellectual, moral flabbiness, is not synonymous with graciousness and with the possession of grace!  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 32)

 

When the Apostle says in Rom 10:3 that the Jews were ignorant of God’s righteousness, he means that they were entirely ignorant of what God really was demanding of them.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 38)

 

You were not created to be a law follower.  You were created to love and the Law is simply a guide, a rule to assist you to know how to love and how to define love.

 

II.  Real zeal for God is careful to accurately and intimately know God and what He reveals.  (Ps 95:10; Prv 19:2; Is 1:2-4; 5:13; Hos 4:6; Mt 22:29; Mk 7:13; Jn 8:19, 32, 54-55; 16:13; 17:17; Rom 2:8; Gal; Phil 3:4-9; Col 1:6; 2 Thes 2:10-13; 1 Tm 1:12-13; 2:4; 3:15; 2 Tm2:17-18, 25; 3:7; Ti 1:1-3; Jas 5:19-20)

 

Paul has no doubt of their religious sincerity.  He can testify about them from his own experiencethat they are zealous for God.  And he knows what he is talking about, because he himself in his pre-conversion life was ‘extremely zealous’ in his religion (Gal 1:14), as seen in his persecution of the church (Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6).  Indeed he was ‘just as zealous for God’ as any of his contemporaries (Acts 22:3), and could even describe his zeal at that time as an ‘obsession’ (Acts 26:9ff).  So he is obliged to say of the Israelites that their zeal is not based on knowledge (2) Yet Scripture says that ‘it is not good to have zeal without knowledge’ (Pr 19:2).  Sincerity is not enough, for we may be sincerely mistaken.  The proper word for zeal without knowledge, commitment without reflection, or enthusiasm without understanding, is fanaticism.  And fanaticism is a horrid and dangerous state to be in.  (John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 279-80)

 

In their zeal they were so preoccupied with thoughts of all the works of righteousness which they themselves would offer that they could not see that God now offered them a wholly new righteousness.  (Anders Nygren, Commentary on Romans, 378-79)

 

This–(to have zeal not according to knowledge)–is a terrible thing, which properly and alone resists faith, opposes obedience to God’s Word, and makes men stiff-necked and incorrigible, as we perceive this in heretics and schismatics.  For they insist upon their “good intentions” with stiff-necked and obstinate opposition, just as though they could not be mistaken; they believe that their salvation is altogether based upon the fact that they have good intentions and zeal of God.  Such persons the Bible describes most properly as perverse in heart and corrupt in mind.  Therefore we must note that to have a zeal of God according to knowledge means to regard nothing else as greater than always to be ready with fear and trembling to be guided, led and instructed (by God) in all that is good, no matter how insignificant it may be.  (Martin Luther,Commentary on Romans, 146)

 

When we do not see God as He really is, we cannot see man as he really is.  When Isaiah came face-to-face with the holy God, he cried, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!  Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Is 6:5).  When Peter witnessed Jesus’ miraculous filling of their nets with fish, “he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” (Lk 5:8).  When he saw Jesus’ awesome deity manifested, Peter became terrified of his own sinfulness.  When a sinner comes into the presence of a holy God, he becomes fearfully aware of his own unholiness.  In fact, man can never be aware of his own unholiness apart from an awareness of God’s perfect holiness.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 63)

 

But all of his zeal could not save him.  And, in fact, his zeal was so misdirected that for a long time it actually kept him from Christ.  It was only when Jesus revealed himself to him on the road to Damascusthat Paul realized what he had been doing and committed himself to follow Christ from that time forward.  In itself, zeal is a neutral thing.  (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans–Volume 3, 1153)

 

As commendable as their zeal may be, he is obliged to point out their one great weakness.  The Jews had no true spiritual acquaintance with God.  That is, they knew ABOUT Him, but they didn’tknow Him personally.  This made their zeal dangerous.  Zeal which is not guided by correct knowledge is always dangerous.  Zeal is like gunpowder.  You know how it drives a bullet toward a target.  Knowledge is like the gun which aims the bullet.  Without proper knowledge, zeal can take a person in any direction.  Since the Jews didn’t know God, they failed to recognize the Son of God when he offered them righteousness as a gift.  In their misguided zeal, they killed the very One God sent to save them.  However, knowledge with zeal doesn’t please God either.  Zeal according to knowledge is necessary to make the Christian program go.  Cold Christians are apt to be sterile in their faith.  (C.S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Romans, 261)

 

In religious knowledge Jews dwarfed their contemporaries, including many Christians.  Their rigorous observance of the law, down to minute details in many cases, exposed the superficiality of the other religions of the day.  Only one who himself had been a Pharisee and knew firsthand the achievement of Judaism (Gal 1:14; Phil 3:4-9) could accuse the Jews of ignorance.  (James R. Edwards, New International Biblical Commentary: Romans, 248-49)

 

What is the effect of all this upon you?  Is it that you are so afraid of a false zeal that you do nothing at all?  If it is, I have spoken in vain.  If you are so afraid of a false zeal that it paralyzes you, you are the very antithesis of Paul.  You have not understood the truth.  A knowledge of the truth always moves the heart and moves the will.  If it is only in your mind, examine yourself; there is something wrong with you.  If the knowledge of the truth has not moved you, has not engaged your emotions, has not made you do something, then you have not known the truth properly.  When men and women really know this truth they say, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 26)

 

I am of the opinion that the greatest danger confronting the Christian church and every individual Christian at this moment is to fail to understand and appreciate the absolute necessity of a precise, clear knowledge of the truth.  I say this because we are living in days when there is a powerful reaction against all this.

We are living in an age that dislikes precision and definitions.  It is an age that is anti-theological, anti-doctrinal and which dislikes propositions and exact knowledge.  It is a lazy age in every respect, a sentimental, sloppy age, an age that wants entertainment and dislikes effort.  In the whole of life today the principle is “something for nothing.”  We are ready to take but we are not ready to work; we are not ready to give ourselves.  It is true all round and it accounts for most of our problems.  It is particularly true in the realm of the Christian church.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones,Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 28-9)

 

A feeling for the seriousness of the issue can be seen from Charles Hodge’s observation on Rom 10:3.  He wrote that the Jews’ “ignorance on this point implied ignorance of the character of God, of the requirements of the law, and of themselves,” obviously three important matters.  He added rightly, “Those who err essentially here, err fatally; and those who are right here, cannot be wrong as to other necessary truths.”(Charles Hodge, A Commentary on Romans, 334) (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans–Volume 3, 1161)

 

The Jews, he says, are lost and they need to be saved.  Why?  Because they are lacking in exact knowledge of the truth.  This is the reason for their condemnation.  So we must never put anything before exact knowledge.  It is the most important thing of all.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones,Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 32)

 

What is preaching?  Preaching is a proclamation of the truth.  And it is an exact proclamation.  Preaching is not talking about a vague feeling, but is the presentation of a message, of a case.  Preaching is something that is reasoned and argued from the Scriptures.  It is truth, and therefore it must always be in the first position.

The Apostle says this clearly and specifically in 1 Tm 2:3-5; “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved”–he means all types and kinds of men–“and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  That is salvation, this exact knowledge of the truth.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 32-33)

 

If you consider yourself righteous, and God says you are not; you have a conflict.  And, if you consider yourself a Christian, this conflict therefore demands that you either consider God to be ignorant of your status, or that you begin to constantly be hungering and thirsting to know God’s true righteousness as well as an awareness of  your ability to deceive yourself of your own unrighteous status.

 

According to scripture every person sins and needs to make atonement, but lacks the power and resources for doing so.  We have offended our Creator, whose nature it is to hate sin (Jer 44:4; Hb 1:13) and to punish it (Ps 5:4-6; Rom 1:18; 2:5-9).  Those who have sinned cannot be accepted by and do not have fellowship with God unless atonement is made.  Since there is sin in even the best actions of sinful creatures, anything we do in the hope of making amends can only increase our guilt or worsen our situation, for the “sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD” (Prv 15:8).  There is no way to establish one’s own righteousness before God (Job 15:46-16; Is 64:6; Rom 10:2, 3); it simply cannot be done.

But against this background of human hopelessness, Scripture reveals the grace and mercy of God, who Himself provides the atonement that sin has made necessary.  God’s amazing grace is the focus of Biblical faith; from Genesis to Revelation it shines out with breathtaking glory.  (Luder Whitlock, Jr., New Geneva Study Bible, 1772)

 

Paul’s argument is irrefutable.  By the works of the law no one can ever be justified in God’s sight.  Why not?  Consider, for a moment, what the law demands.  Nothing less than this, that a person love God “with all” his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that he love his neighbor as he loves himself (Mt 22:37-40; Mk 12:29-31; Lk 10:27).  The apostle has shown that it is exactly this love that was lacking on the part of both Gentile (not: “neither gave thanks,” Rom 1:21) and Jew (note: “hard and unconverted heart,” 2:5).  He has made clear that every person stands condemned before God (3:19).  He stands condemned because of his sins of omission (1:21, 28; 2:21; 3:11; cf. Mt 25:41-43); not only because of his sins open and public, but also because of the evil he commits in secret (Rom 2:16).  He is damnable in God’s sight not only because of what he says and does (Rom 3:13-17), but even because of what he is (3:9, 10); that is, because of this sinful state.  Only one conclusion is possible therefore.  Man is doomed, doomed, doomed.  His condition is one of thorough hopelessness and despair.  And the law, with its demand of nothing less than moral and spiritual perfection (cf. Lv 19:2), a state to which man, in his own power, can never attain, creates in him a dreadful, mortifying sense of sin; hence, a presentiment of doom, total and everlasting.  (William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary–Romans, 125)

 

The law was not meant to become something the Jews boasted about; rather, it was given to eliminate anyone’s boasting and to make all people aware of sin and their constant need for God’s grace.  The law shows us where we do wrong, but it doesn’t enable us to do it right.  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary – Romans, 70)

 

III.  Real zeal for God looks not to self but only to God for righteousness (Gen 15:6;  Prv 23:17; Is 61:10-11; Rom 1:17; 4:3-6; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:6, 11, 21;   Phil 1:12-19; 3:8-10; Jas 2:23)

 

Rather than living by faith in God, the Jews established customs and traditions (in addition to God’s law) to try to make themselves acceptable in God’s sight.  Regardless of our sincerity, no human effort can ever substitute for the righteousness that God offers us by faith.  The only way to earn salvation is to be perfect–and that is impossible.  We can only hold out our empty hands and receive salvation as a gift.  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary – Romans, 195)

 

Whenever human righteousness is mentioned, the NT assumes that God is its source.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 194)

 

A fanatic is somebody who loses sight of where he is going but redoubles his effort to get there.  He is full of zeal, but he has no knowledge or understanding of that for which he is zealous.  (RC Sproul, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary: Romans, 346)

 

We may notice in passing both the importance of zeal and its insufficiency.  Where it is lacking, all religious effort grows ineffective and subsides into flabby ineptitude.  As a rule, we do not suffer from the effects of excessive enthusiasm.  Our danger rather is a tepid Laodiceanism.  But we know how easily undirected zeal degenerates into fanaticism.  Paul is here concerned with a particular application of this general law.  It is good to be full of zeal for God; but when we begin to assume that we must do it for him, by being zealous for his cause, what only he can do for us, then indeed zeal defeats itself and turns into an irreligious solicitude about him, quite incompatible with humble trust and grateful dependence.  (George Arthur Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible–Vol 9, 554)

 

Paul’s consistent claim is that the Jews had all the knowledge that was necessary; in the law and the prophets they had had a preparation that should have trained them to recognize what God was doing for them in Christ.  The key to the whole situation lies in the phrase seeking to establish their own righteousness.  They were determined, in Denney’s words, to “be good men without becoming God’s debtors.”  This proves that they have refused to admit the essential character of the relationship in which men stand to God.  When we ignore fundamental laws of the spiritual world, the inevitable result is a fatal disruption of our whole life.  Moreover, this stubborn preference of our own way to God’s amounts to a refusal of God’s offer of salvation.  He can give us his greatest gift only in a way that corresponds to its essential nature.  The refusal to perceive what that true nature is consequently involves a refusal to accept the gift itself.  The particular case with which Paul is dealing is that of Israel’s failure; the gospel challenged their cherished prejudices, and they repudiated it.  The historical example illuminates a persistent human problem.  Man’s pride is always prompting him to substitute for God’s method some alternative of his own devising.  The results are always the same.  History is the impartial expositor of man’s willfulness.  (George Arthur Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible–Volume 9, 555)

 

Like Luther, many centuries later, they thought that the righteousness God requires of us is human righteousness, that is, a development of character or a collection of good works of which we ourselves are capable.  What they did not understand is that the righteousness God requires is divine righteousness.  And since it is divine and not human, the only way it can be obtained is from God himself as a free gift.  (James Montgomery Boice, An Expositional Commentary: Romans–Volume 3, 1154)

 

Religious zeal is not necessarily a sign of trust and commitment; it may betray a doubt and insecurity that faith depends on believers rather than on God, and that whatever is lacking in God’s grace must be compensated for by their virtue.  How desperately humans want to be something, to prove their worth to God, to take (and deserve) at least some credit for their salvation.  How humbling and offensive to confess that grace must do it all!  (James R. Edwards,New International Biblical Commentary: Romans, 248)

 

The reason the nation rejected the Lord Jesus at the time of His appearance on earth was their ignorance of the method by which God makes men righteous.  Being ignorant of this fact implies ignorance of the character of God, ignorance of the requirement of the law, and ignorance of our own sinful nature.  (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans: Volume 4–God’s Covenants, 63)

 

To the degree that one thinks or proclaims that they possess their own righteousness, is to the degree that they demonstrate to those who are “In Christ” either their own ignorance, or worse yet, their blatant dishonestly in their understanding of God’s righteous requirements and /or the insufficiency of their own righteous performance.

 

There is no greater sin than the sin of the Pharisee, the sin of self-righteousness.  It is, of everything, the thing that most blinds a man to the glory of the gospel.  It sounds as if the gospel puts a premium on sin, but it does not.  What the gospel does is to show the horrible, terrible danger of self-reliance, self-justification, self-righteousness.  “The publicans and the harlots”–the complete outsiders, the most hopeless in society–actually did go into the kingdom before the others.  Why?  Because they were more ready to admit their need; they were more ready to acknowledge their own utter helplessness and hopelessness.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 47)

 

What, then, is the function of law in a covenant relationship of grace?  It is to set the norm, establish the right, speak a word of judgment on anything less than the best, and lead one to the almighty God who can enable one increasingly to fulfill the requirements of holiness.  The law has no power in itself to make a good life.  It establishes what the good life ought to be and may be by the power of God.  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible–Q-Z, 109)

 

The Israelites did not understand the extent of God’s righteousness, how it would be achieved, and how it would be made available to all people (the point Paul explained in chapters 3-6).  Instead, they sought to establish their own.  They were not creating some new kind of righteousness; rather, they wanted to achieve God’s righteousness by observing the law and their rituals.  Once their minds were set, they could no longer submit to God’s righteousness, the righteousness that God provided for them through faith in Jesus Christ.  We are made righteous by humbly submitting to God.  The Israelites had understood the need for obedience, but they had become so zealous in carrying out their duties and rituals without love that they had actually become disobedient.  And when they tried to make God’s righteousness exclusively theirs, they were putting themselves out of its reach.  They misunderstood their own Scriptures:  they saw righteousness in terms of outward actions, rituals, and customs; they did not see that their Scriptures pointed to Jesus as the Messiah.  When Israel rejected Christ, they rejected their own Scriptures with the promises and blessings in them.  According to Phil 3:1-9, Paul remembered being stuck on the treadmill of effort.  By human standards he had been quite successful in what he later realized was actually a self-styled, self-approved, and self-justified religion.  In order to believe in Christ, Paul had “lost” all those things, only to discover that what he had gained was of immeasurable value.  “What is more,” he said, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Philippians 3:8 NIV).  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary – Romans, 194-95)

 

We don’t keep the Law and are therefore not righteous (Ex 32:1-9; 33:3-5; 34:9; Dt 9:1-13; 10:16; 31:27; 2 Kgs 17;14; 22:8-13; 2 Chr 30:8; Neh 8:1-9:33; Job 4:17; 9:2; 15:14; 25:4; Ps 143:1-2; Eccl 7:20; Is 64:6; Jer 7:26; 17:23; 19:15; Ez 33:12-13, 18; Gal 2:21)

 

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.  If we were to apply the rules of logic to this text (Rom 3:20), we would recognize immediately the presence of what is called a ‘universal negative’.  This is a negative that encompasses every individual.  God says that no-one shall be justified by observing the law.  This is what the Protestant Reformation was all about.  Anyone who is trusting in his own merit is committing the ultimate folly.  What does Paul mean by the word ‘justified’?  It is very simple.  The problem of mankind is this:  God is just, fallen human beings are not just.  How can those of us who are unjust ever be justified?  Excuses for real sin never justify the sin.  If I sin once, I cannot undo the transgression.  I may try to compensate for it, make retribution for it, apologize for it; I can do all of those things, but I cannot undo it.  I cannot make the imperfect, perfect.  The ‘universal negative’ of the preceding verse is counterbalanced by this significant positive assertion of what the law can do: rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.  While the law cannot save, it does serve to spotlight how far short of God’s standard of perfection we all fall.  As this manifestation of God’s standard it points us to Christ, who alone saves.  The knowledge it brings is at least intellectual cognition, and more.  The law has the capacity to bring inward conviction, dread, guilt, and shame.  Its power is linked to its sure ability to persuade in a convincing manner that trusting in one’s own righteousness will only lead to condemnation; as such the law functions as the forerunner of Christ, preparing for the reception of the good news of the gospel.  (R.C. Sproul, The Gospel of God – Romans, 72)

 

The law by itself kills off any hope of rightness and righteousness through human ability and effort, but it kindles hope in God ever brighter as we walk in the law through Christ in us the hope of glory (Col 1:27).  (DallasWillard, Renovation of the Heart, 214-15)

 

Here is a spiritual principle regarding the grace of God:  To the extent you are clinging to any vestiges of self-righteousness or are putting any confidence in your own spiritual attainments, to that degree you are not living by the grace of God in your life.  (Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace; Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love, 33)

 

What is the essence of all this?  Where is the difference between it and the old way of the law?  The basic difference is this–the way of obedience to the law is concerned with what a man can do for himself; the way of grace is concerned with what God can do, and has done, for him.  Paul is insisting that nothing we can ever do can win for us the forgiveness of God; only what God has done for us can win that; therefore the way to a right relationship with God lies, not in a frenzied, desperate, doomed attempt to win acquittal by our performance; it lies in the humble, penitent acceptance of the love and the grace which God offers us in Jesus Christ.  (William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans, 59)

 

Christ did for man what he could not do for himself.  With His perfections He offered up a perfect humanity.  He died in man’s stead.  Whatever was accomplished satisfied the infinite demands of the holiness of God.  There are those for whom this description satisfied; as Paul says in Romans, “Christ was a propitiation” for man’s sin.  In other words, the death of Christ “satisfied” God.  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible–Q-Z, 114)

 

Our enthusiasm can easily become a mask for the source of our zeal.  It is easy to allow our zeal to become the source of our security, rather than Christ.  This is not making Christ the object of our faith; but rather our faith as the object of our faith.

 

IV.  Real zeal for God comes as a result of knowing that “Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Dt 6:25; Mt 3:15; 5:17; Rom 3:21-26; 5:17; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 2:21; 1 Cor 1:30)

The law which itself reveals the pattern of good works should drive us to Christ.  Christ is the point of the law; Christ is the goal of the law; Christ is the meaning of the law.  So if you try to follow and obey the law, but avoid Christ, you have missed the whole point of the law.  (R.C. Sproul, The Gospel of God – Romans, 178)

 

Does one wish to understand the goal, the meaning and substance, of the OT law?  Then study Christ.  Is not the very purpose of the law the establishment of love?  See Dt 6:5; Lv 19:18 (in thatorder); cf. Mt 22:37-39.  Is not Christ the very embodiment of that love, both in his life and in his death?  And is it not true that because of this love which caused him to suffer and die in his people’s stead, there now is right standing with God for everyone who reposes his trust in the Savior?  (William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary–Romans, 342)

 

“Did Christ finish His work?  How dangerous it is to join anything of our own to the righteousness of Christ, in pursuit of justification before God!   Jesus Christ will never endure this; it reflects upon His work dishonorably.  He will be all, or none, in our justification.  If He has finished the work, what need is there of our additions?  And if not, to what purpose are they?  Can we finish that which Christ Himself could not complete?   Did He finish the work, and will he ever divide the glory and praise of it with us?  No, no; Christ is no half Savior.  It is a hard thing to bring proud hearts to rest upon Christ for righteousness.  God humbles the proud by calling sinners wholly from their own righteousness to Christ for their justification.  — John Flavel

 

In words so clear that explanation is hardly necessary, Paul points out thatIsrael’s basic fault consisted in this:

a.  It failed to acknowledge, that is, to accept and welcome, the righteousness that has God as its Author (3:21-24; 8:1; 9:30), is based on Christ’s substitutionary atonement (3:24; 5:8, 17, 18; 8:3, 4, 32; cf. Is 53:4-8; Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; II Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; I Tm 2:4, 6), and is appropriated by faith (some of these same passages and also Rom 1:17; 4:3-5, 16, 23-25; 5:1; cf. Hb 2:4; Gal 3:11).

b.  It substituted its own work-righteousness for God’s grace-righteousness.  For the sad results, as pointed out by Paul, see Rom 2:17 f.; 3:20; 9:31, 32.  (William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary–Romans, 342)

 

For Paul the center of any concept of righteousness had to be the cross of Jesus Christ.  It is in the cross and Resurrection that God reveals and accomplishes His righteousness, and that human righteousness finds its source.  Thus righteousness cannot be a mere property, ethical attribute, or quality.  The righteousness of God in the cross is the saving link between God and sinful humanity; no ethical attribute can ever endure the stress of being such a connection.  In Pauline thought the righteousness of God is the whole of His salvation of people in Christ.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 194)

 

There are at least three possible explanations for what Paul meant by Christ being the end of the law.  In Jesus, the law was:

(1) Terminated.  Instead of seeking justification through the law, we receive justification by faith and use the law to guide our obedience to God.  Through Christ, the offer of grace is universal.

(2) Replaced.  The law literally pointed to Christ.  The law was only the teacher, or mentor, until Christ came (see Gal 3:24).  Now we follow his lead.

(3) Fulfilled.  Christ was the law in human form.  He met every criteria of the law, completing it and transcending it (see Mt 5:17-20).  He spoke with authority to divide the unchangeable law from the human additions and twisted interpretations.

While each of these is a valid explanation of part of the relationship of Christ to the law, Paul seems to have had the first in mind at this point in Romans.  The law, however, is terminated only in the sense of 7:6–that is, we have been released from the law to serve in the newness of the Spirit.  We no longer seek justification by keeping the law.  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Romans, 195)

 

Thus in Christ the dominion of the law is brought to an end.  Yet that does not mean that the way is thereby opened for lawlessness and unrighteousness; it means that he who believes in Christ has passed from one kind of righteousness to another, from a worthless righteousness to one that is true, from righteousness by law to the righteousness of God, which is the same as righteousness through faith.  With full confidence Paul can tell how through Christ there is really an end to the law, because the inner intention of the law–which it is not able to effect–is realized through faith.  In 3:31 Paul asks, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?”  And his answer says, “By no means!  On the contrary, we uphold the law” (cf. p. 166).  (Anders Nygren,Commentary on Romans, 379-80)

 

The Law is ended as far as Christians are concerned.  The righteousness of the Law is being fulfilled in the life of the believer through the power of the Spirit (Rom 8:4); but the reign of the Law has ended.  (See Eph 2:15 and Col2:14.)  “For ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14).  (Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Right: Romans, 115)

 

Not only is God Himself perfect, but He demands perfection of all men.  Jesus said, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).  Quoting from Leviticus, Peter wrote, “It is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pt 1:16; cf. Lv 11:44).  Only the most arrogant fool would claim to be perfectly holy.  Yet perfect holiness is the only standard acceptable to God.  For that reason it becomes obvious that, apart from God’s graciously granting that holiness, no man can hope to achieve it.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 63)

 

Paul cannot be speaking of Christ’s historical fulfillment of the law, as important as that truth is.  Christ did indeed historically fulfill the law and the entire Old Covenant by His perfect, sinless life–whether anyone believed Him or not.  But that accomplishment does not provide anyone else with saving righteousness.  Rather, as indicated at the end of verse 4, Paul is saying that belief in Christ as Savior and Lord brings to an end the sinner’s futile quest for righteousness through his own imperfect attempts to fulfill the law.  When a sinner receives Christ, he also receives the gift of Christ’s own righteousness.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 67)

 

Because Israelwas ignorant of God’s holiness and of His provision for salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ, she was also ignorant of the place of faith in God’s plan of salvation.  Because they relied on their own works-righteousness, Jews saw no need for faith.  As Paul already pointed out, “Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law.  Why?  Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone,” Jesus Christ (Rom 9:31-32).  Consequently, they cut themselves off from Christ and thereby also cut themselves off from the righteousness that He imparts to everyone who believes in Him.  To reject Christ is to forfeit the perfect righteousness that only He can provide.  (John MacArthur,The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 68)

 

Both ideas of completion and termination are present in this passage: the law “leads us to Christ” (=completion), but is superceded by Christ (=termination).  And in perhaps the closest parallel to 10:4, Paul says in 3:21 that the righteousness of God is “apart from the law,” and yet “testified to by the Law and Prophets.”  By exposing sin the law leads us, indeed drives us, to seek salvation in a savior who has been foretold by the prophets; but the law is not the savior.  Jesus Christ is the savior, and Jesus fulfills his ministry of reconciliation apart from the law.  The law, as we noted earlier, is the diagnosis of sin, but only Christ is its cure.  Christ is both completion and termination of the law: he confirms the law as the just expression of God’s moral purpose for humanity, and he supercedes the law by offering forgiveness and salvation when that moral purpose is transgressed.  The law is like a father who escorts his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day.  At the altar the father must give the bride over to her husband, who is Christ.  (James R. Edwards, New International Biblical Commentary: Romans, 250)

 

Christ put a stop to the law as a means of salvation (6:14; 9:31; Eph 2:15; Col2:14) as in Lk 16:16.  Christ is the goal or aim of the law (Gal 3:24).  Christ is the fulfillment of the law (Mt 5:17; Rom 13:10; 1 Tm 1:5).  But here (Denney) Paul’s main idea is that Christ ended the law as a method of salvation for “every one that believeth” whether Jew or Gentile.  Christ wrote finis on law as a means of grace.  (Archibald Thomas Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament: Volume 4, 387-88)

 

The goal and purpose of the law is Christ.  God did not give the law as a way for us to attain status in his family.  The law was given to show us the righteousness of God.  It was given so that we can see the perfect righteousness of God and by comparison see ourselves, warts and all, and despair of our own righteousness.  The law sends us rushing to the cross and running for grace.  The law exposes our sin, and anything that exposes our sin screams to our need for the Savior, whose righteousness alone can justify.  (RC Sproul, St. Andrew’s Expositional Commentary: Romans, 347)

 

It is Christ, this better hope, who is the end of the law, the end of its methods, the end of its priesthood, and the end of its purpose.  He is made unto us righteousness and He brings us to this better hope.  (Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans: Volume 4–God’s Covenants, 67)

 

That is how He is the end of the law: not by doing away with it but by giving a complete answer and satisfaction to it.  That is what He meant by saying on the cross, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30).  That is the meaning of the word.  He has satisfied every single demand.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones,Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 58)

 

CONCLUSION/APPLICATION: Questions to assist you in evaluating the sincerity of your zeal for God: (I am indebted to the message “Saving Faith” by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones for this list of tests of our zeal: {D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 20-25})

 

You can see, therefore, from the apostle’s teaching and experience, that you can even have a zeal for God, and yet be altogether wrong.  From this there is only one conclusion to draw:  zeal must always be tested and examined.  You do not say, ‘What a wonderfully zealous man that is!  He must be right because he is so zealous.  How sincere he is.  Who am I to question him?’  That is a most dangerous thing to say.  All the teaching of our Lord and the Apostles in the NT urges us to be careful, to be warned.  The whole case of the Jews is a standing warning against trusting in ‘a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.’  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 20)

 

A-  Do you have to be manipulated, or do you need some sort of emotional charge or experience to have zeal for God?

 

B-  Do you feel you have to “DO” something rather than BE?  Do you see activity as essential rather than truth?  True zeal comes from accurately knowing the truth.

 

That is always the danger of activism.  It does not know what it is doing, it is not even interested in what it is doing.  Doing, that is the thing!  And it rushes on in its headlong, blind manner.  The right order is–the mind, the heart, the will.  The man who has the true zeal knows what he is doing, and he knows why he is doing it; his zeal is ‘according to knowledge.’  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 24)

 

What is the motive that animates true zeal?  It is certainly not just to be busy, and to do things, and to get results.  It is the glory of God!  “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor 5:14).  That is it!  Paul has true zeal, not because he is an active fellow, and full of enthusiasm and energy, no, not that, but because of the glory of God!  The love of Christ !  His concern is about the condition of the lost; he sees their destiny, he sees them as hell-bound sinners.  He does not talk glibly, lightly, about souls being saved.  He realizes the condition of the lost and he is desperate.  It is serious; it is alarming; it is terrifying.  And that is why he is engaged as he is.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 25)

 

The following is a concise list of characteristics found in true disciples.  If you were to rate each of them in order of importance, in what order would you place them?

 

• Careful student of the Scriptures
• Zealous and active for God
• Consistent in worship attendance
• Memorizes Scripture
• Unafraid to pray publicly
• Active in the affairs of the local congregation
• Fasts regularly
• Stands against unrighteousness
• Understands foundational theological truths

What does your list look like?  By the way, I suppose I should tell you I forgot to mention that all these items have one factor in common.  They are all traits and behaviors characteristic not of Jesus’ disciples, but of the Pharisees!

…Real and growing faith has little to do with a laundry list of religious activities.  (Floyd McClung Jr., God’s Man in the Family, 203-04)

 

 

C-  Do you look to methods, organization, and execution as the most important aspect of your devotion to Christ?

 

They had knowledge of God and so were superior to the Gentiles in privilege (2:9-11), but they sought God in an external way by rules and rites and missed him (9:30-33).  They became zealous for the letter and the form instead of for God himself.  (Archibald Thomas Robertson,Word Pictures in the New Testament: Volume 4, 387)

 

Paradoxically, it is Israel’s zeal for God that constitutes their greatest barrier (v. 2).  The apostle knows whereof he speaks, for his zeal on behalf of Judaism had been notorious (Acts 22:3; Gal 1:14).  That very zeal so preoccupied him that he felt bound to consider Jesus and his followers as traitors to the faith of his fathers.  But he persecuted in ignorance (1 Tm 1:13).  So here he diagnoses the zeal of Israelas lacking in “knowledge.”  His people have ignored “the righteousness that comes from God” (cf. 1:17).  In trying to establish their own righteous standing before God, they have refused submission to God’s righteousness.  (Frank E. Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary–Volume 10, 110)

 

D-  Do you associate feeling “good” or “happy” or “fulfilled” or “satisfied” or “pleased” with your possessing zeal?  True zeal is much deeper than our emotions.

 

E-  Does your zeal allow for accountability and questioning of your motives, orthodoxy or accuracy? (Mt 5:20)

 

The people Paul loved (the Jews) were so busy trying to keep the law that their zeal was actually keeping them from understanding God’s way of salvation.  This was exactly Paul’s state of mind before Christ confronted him.  He was so zealous for God and for his religion that he persecuted Christians (see Acts 9:1-2; 22:3-5; 26:4-11).  His zeal was based on a misunderstanding of God’s Word, and so was the zeal of his fellow Jews (see chapter 9).  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Romans, 193)

 

F-  Does your zeal include a love for being taught the things of God?

 

The Jews had a certain degree or kind of knowledge (gnosis), an intellectual awareness of the outward demands of God’s law.  But they did not have the discerning spiritual knowledge(epignosis) that comes only from a saving relationship to God.  They had the kind of superficial religious knowledge that causes pride and arrogance (1 Cor 8:1), but not the godly knowledgethat both comes from and produces humility and holiness.  In behalf of the Ephesian church, Paul prayed “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge [epignosis] of Him.  I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know [another term is used here for mature, full knowledge] what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph 1:17-18).  True salvation brings with it a true “knowledge of Him” that opens the door to spiritual wisdom and enlightenment.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 59-60)

 

G-  Is your zeal more concerned with the truth or with looking good?

 

H-  Are you concerned with the WHOLE COUNSEL of God or with one pet doctrine? (Ps 119:160)

 

I-  What is the basis of your peace?  Is it activity, energy, enthusiasm or is it your assurance in the promises of God in Christ?

 

It is not your sin that will keep you out of heaven . . .  It is your thinking that you are righteous . ..  That you don’t need Jesus.

 

Lack of knowledge is tied to lack of faith.  Paul has already made clear that Israel’s failure in righteousness was due to failure in faith.  “Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness,” he had said earlier, “did not arrive at that law.  Why?  Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone” (Rom 9:31-32).  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 60)

 

Until a person acknowledges his own unrighteousness in light of divine and perfect righteousness, he will see no need for a Savior to liberate him from sin and provide him with God’s own righteousness.  No preacher, teacher, or evangelist can faithfully or effectively present the gospel if he does not first convince his hearers of their damning unrighteousness apart from Christ.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 66)

 

Worship point:  When you finally realize that God has taken all the pressure off of you and your performance; you will not only be able to rest and relax, but you will worship when you realize that Christ has done it all for you.  Sacrifice, atonement, righteousness, justification, sanctification, Christ has accomplished it all for you, because He loves you.  That should spark worship in our hearts.

 

Spiritual Challenge:  Carefully discern the motivation for your zeal.  Do you even possess zeal for God?  Are you doing what you do for God or for yourself?  Can you truly say with the Apostle Paul it really doesn’t matter what happens to me or what others think of me?  That Christ is promoted is all that matters (Phil 1:12-18).  If you can’t . . . join the club and rejoice that whatever we lack, Christ has already accomplished it for you. In the end we need to always remember that there are two righteousnesses: 1- Yours by your effort.  Or 2- Christ’s and His effort imputed to us by faith (Gen 15:6; Is 61:10-11; Rom 1:17; 4:3-6; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:6, 11; Phl 3:8-10; Jas 2:23) . Which one are you going to count on to save you?  Which one can really change you?

 

In 1519 Luther introduced the terms “alien righteousness” and “proper righteousness” in order to clarify his thinking on the matter.  Alien righteousness is the righteousness of Christ by which He justifies sinners through faith.  In faith Christ’s people have community with Him; i.e., all that He has, His people have as a gift of grace.  As Christ Himself becomes theirs by faith, His righteousness becomes theirs and swallows up their sin.  It is instilled in them by grace daily as Christ wars against the old Adam.  This alien righteousness is the basis of all other Christian righteousness.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 194-95)

 

That this reckoning, or imputation, of righteousness to the believer lies at the heart of the Biblical doctrine of salvation is corroborated by other Scripture.  The Apostle Paul uses the phrase “righteousness of God” nine times (Rom 1:17; 3:5, 21ff.; 10:3, 2 Cor 5:21), and in most of these instances it is mentioned in order to teach that God grants the sinner a new legal standing; i.e., he is counted righteous even while a sinner.  A righteousness of God “apart from the law” has been manifested, says Paul, although both law and prophets bear witness to it.  It is a righteousness of God “effective through faith in Christ for all who have such faith” (Rom 3:22 NEB).  This righteousness is seen in Christ who brought redemption.  In Him God proves that He is righteous when He justifies the sinful believer (3:25f.).  Law is not overthrown but upheld in this redemption of lost man (v. 31).  (Merrill C. Tenney, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible: Vol. Three, 266)

 

Believers are made righteous by their faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross on their behalf.  Righteousness is God’s gift to us; it cannot be earned.  God secured the gift and then offered it to us.  Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, God can exchange our sin and shortcomings for his complete righteousness.  In a way we humans will never understand, “God made him [Christ] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).  Believers are offered a gift; all we have to do is accept it.  We are considered righteous at the moment we believe, and we gradually work out the fruit of our righteous life on a day-to-day basis as we live in Christ and he lives through us.  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary – Philippians, Colossians, & Philemon, 94-95)

 

All human beings, who know that God is righteous and they are not (since ‘there is no-one righteous, not even one’, 3:10), naturally look around for a righteousness which might fit them to stand in God’s presence.  There are only two possible options before us.  The first is to attempt to build or establish our own righteousness, by our good works and religious observances.  But this is doomed to failure, since in God’s sight even ‘all our righteous acts are like filthy rags’ (Is 64:6).  The other way is to submit to God’s righteousness by receiving it from him as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ (Phil 3:9).  In verses 5-6 Paul calls the first the righteousness that is by the law and the second the righteousness that is by faith.  (John Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, 281)

 

Any man who talks about his goodness and his righteousness has completely misunderstood the whole of the biblical teaching.  His words are abomination in the sight of God, who does not see as man sees nor judge as man judges.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans, Exposition of Chapter 10, 45)

 

That heinous misjudgment and ignorance about God’s righteousness and their own unrighteousness was the basis for their whole system of legalistic self-righteousness.  Through their rabbinical traditions they had brought the infinitely holy standards of God, which no man can achieve by his own efforts, down to a man-made level which they could achieve without divine grace.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 61)

 

They are deeply sincere but sincerely wrong.  Their zeal for God has the momentum of a freight train, but because it is “not according to knowledge,” it is the momentum of a freight train that has come off the tracks.  Contrary to popular thought, both then and now, it does matter what one believes and to what one commits oneself because fervency of belief and depth of commitment of oneself may lead to untold tragedy and unmitigated disaster.  (D. Stuart Briscoe, Mastering the New Testament: Romans, 195)

 

“The real difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not their attitude toward sin… . the difference is their attitude toward their good deeds.  The Pharisee repents of sin, but the Christian repents of his or her ‘righteousness’ as well, seeing it not only as insufficient, but sinful itself, since it was done in order to save ourselves without Christ.”  (Tim Keller, The Content of the Gospel, 27)

 

Many unbelievers have seen the truth in the lives of their Christian friends.  Because divine wisdom has been “proved right by her children,” men and women must abandon any delusions of self-sufficiency or innate goodness.  They must stop looking for a god small enough to allow them to pretend that their imperfect righteousness is okay.  They must stop looking for a salvation that is small enough to be earned.  (R. Kent Hughes, Preaching the Word: Luke, Vol. One, 274)

 

It is not that any man can begin to fully understand God’s holiness or His righteousness.  Yet that very inability to comprehend God’s perfection should be reason enough to fall down at His feet in awe and praise.  (John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 9-16, 62)

 

True righteousness, whether divine or human, must be understood as the righteousness of God in Christ.  (Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia–Volume Four: Q-Z, 194)

 

 

Quotes to Note:

With the coming of Christ, the puzzle that looked like it was going to be a picture of human righteousness suddenly turned out to be a picture of God’s grace.  Jesus did not change the law–he changed our way of seeing the law.  Paul has amply explained this in such verses as 3:31 and 8:4.  What ended was the view that the law was the way to achieve righteousness and the belief that Israelwas the only recipient of that righteousness.  (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Romans, 195-6)

 

“Their own righteousness” can be understood in two different ways.  If we give “their own” a distributive sense–“each of their own”–Paul will be referring to the attempt of individual Jews to establish a relationship with God through their own efforts.  However, if we give “their own” a corporate sense–“Israel’s own”–Paul would presumably be referring to Israel’s misunderstanding of righteousness as something that applied to Israelalone.  With the former meaning, Paul is scolding the Jews for self-righteousness–the attempt to establish a relationship with God based on one’s own works.  On the latter view, Paul is scolding them for national righteousness–the attempt to confine a relationship with God to Israel to the detriment of all other nations.  (Douglas Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Romans, 634)

 

Then he who seeks to be justified through himself, submits not to God’s righteousness; for the first step towards obtaining the righteousness of God is to renounce our own righteousness:  for why is it, that we seek righteousness from another, except that necessity constrains us?  (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries: Volume XIX, 383)

 

For Paul the center of any concept of righteousness had to be the cross of Jesus Christ.   — Geoffrey W. Bromiley