Romans 10:4
For Christ is the end of the law
for (so that there may be)
righteousness to everyone who believes.
Study
● The end (the goal, the purpose) of all law is righteousness, the production of the most perfect results.
▪︎ In the natural world the use of the law is to perpetuate results essential to its wellbeing, e.g., the circulation of the atmosphere, ebb and flow of tide, alteration of seasons, motions and influence of planets, etc.
▪︎ The great aim of laws in the moral world is to regulate conduct so as to produce a righteous character. The aim of the law of Moses was to lead to a higher life.
Romans 7:10 NASB
This commandment,
which was to result in life,
proved to result in death for me;
• The ethical element in the Mosaic law discovered to man the havoc made by sin.
Romans 7:7,11,13
⁷What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
¹¹for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
¹³Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
• The ceremonial element shadowed forth the remedy. The sacrifices and festivals were intended to show the necessity for the expiation of sin, by the atonement of Christ.
● In Christ we have the great end of both the ethical and the ceremonial law, righteousness and holiness. Law depends for its authority upon the personal character of the lawgiver. The character of Christ was like His law holy, just, and good.
▪︎ From Christ proceeds the moral law by which sin is discovered to us. His character is a constant reproof to us. His words bring home the consciousness of the violated law.
▪︎ In Christ is the only remedy for sin. The arrangements of the ceremonial law terminated in Him; the shadow retired when the substance appeared. In His life and death He fulfilled the duties and endured the penalties of the law, thus vindicating the righteousness of God and providing a complete righteousness for sinful man.
● Faith in the Christ is accepted as a perfect obedience to the law. Law is powerless punitively when the end for which it exists is attained. We disarm the law by obeying it.
All our unaided efforts to obey law, while in a state of lawless unnature, are futile. It is like running alongside a parallel pathway into which we are vainly trying to turn ourselves. Faith, and faith only, is the means of junction. This puts us into the position in which law would place us.
The end of all law being the production of the most perfect results, this very end is answered when we believe in Jesus. For Christ, and all He has, becomes our own.
“He is made unto us, of God, wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.”
“The law and the gospel are evidenced in man’s moral nature. The law the ideal of its life, the gospel the life of its ideal.”
We learn from this that:
- It is hopeless to attempt to attain righteousness by law, because of our moral inability to obey all its requirements.
- Faith in Christ is the only and universal way of obedience
Devotional
Christ was revealed to abrogate, annihilate, to utterly abolish sin.
Now, we all know what it is to have a thing abrogated.
Just imagine
We now have a law, that on a roundabout everyone who is driving on the roundabout has the right to go before those who are driving on roads connecting to that roundabout, where before traffic coming from the right would have right of way.
The first law was removed, and replaced by the new law.
This means that nobody can blame me for not giving way to traffic coming from the right while I’m on the roundabout anymore, for that law isn’t valid anymore. They cannot bring it against me, for I no longer am under the old law.
So he who believes in Jesus may be summoned by conscience, when misinformed, but the answer of peace to his conscience is, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
Twitter: @SchoemakerHarry
Website 1: https://devotionals.harryschoemaker.nl
Website 2: http://bijbelplaatjes.nl
About Author
