Dear Friends,

Each of us struggles regularly with a nagging sense of rules and regulations, some of them quite good and some of them at times perhaps fanciful.  We learn from childhood to rely on them to keep us “on the straight and narrow.”  The problem is that they simply do not work.  At times they exacerbate our problem, and complicate our desire to do the right thing.  Tell a young child to stay away from a certain area; for example, the stove in the kitchen when you are cooking something on it.  The minute you forbid some action it becomes intriguing to the child.  We do not altogether grow out of that tendency.   

While external rules shall surely fail to control and refine our desires to live righteously, the mirror opposite inclination fails even more dreadfully.  “Oh well, no one is perfect, so I believe God simply judges us by our sincerity.  If I’m sincere about what I believe, say, and do, God will know it and bless me.”  This attitude is relativistic to the core, and it is also contrary to Scripture to the core.  Scripture emphasizes the legitimate need for sincerity, but Scripture consistently joins sincerity with right conduct, not with our own private sense of right and wrong. 

Paul confronts this problem and several others in this section of the Roman letter.  He tells us that there is a better way to guide and to measure our conduct.  He calls this true right conduct “the righteousness of faith.”  May we learn his lesson well.

God bless,
Joe Holder
 

Whose Righteousness?  What Righteousness?

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 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. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.  ( Romans 10:1-4 )  

            Throughout this section of Paul’s Roman letter, we see an interaction between two measures of righteousness.  One measure is based on a person’s belief in an external law.  The other is based on God.  It is admittedly difficult for us to wrap our minds around a measure of righteousness that is not integrated with a set of “Do or do not do” regulations.  Righteousness at its heart is a measure or rightness or right conduct, so how can we measure it without law?  The typical legalist will accuse anyone who dares to suggest such an idea of being antinomian, just as Paul’s critics accused him in the third chapter of Romans.

            The theme of the tenth chapter of Romans is not the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ credited to our account that accomplished our justification before God.  The chapter rather deals with behavioral righteousness and how it is to be motivated and measured.  Consequently Paul is not here praying for lost, unsaved people to be regenerated—to experience the new birth.  Rather he is praying for regenerated people who believe in God, but whose ideas about how they gain favor with God grow out of ignorant zeal (…they being ignorant of God’s righteousness) , not out of faith in Christ.  In this context Paul affirms that the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit already resides in these people (Notice Romans 10:6 , 8 as examples).   The problem with the people for whom Paul prayed was not that they had no eternal life, but that they lacked right knowledge.  Driven by ignorant zeal, they sought to affirm their spiritual security through acts of personal holiness, not through faith in Christ.  Does this mean that we are not to concern ourselves with personal holiness, the misguided point of those who accused Paul (and whose ideological successors accuse us) of being antinomian?  The answer is an emphatic no!  The point of Paul’s teaching does not question authentic personal holiness, but rather it deals with how such godly conduct is to be measured and attained.  The person who relies on legalism will repeatedly fail to live up to whatever set of laws or rules he/she believes are However, numerous citations by Paul both in the Roman Epistle and elsewhere in the New Testament ( Romans 7:13 , 8:3 , Galatians 3:3 , Hebrews 7:19 , 9:9 , 10:1 ) indicate that the result of a legalist approach to righteousness results in an ever growing sense of failure and guilt.  Eventually the person will become obsessed with gaining “assurance of my salvation” to such an extent that he/she will barely think of anything else.  And the more such a person focuses on this objective the more doubts about his/her spiritual standing with God will rule the mind.  Guilt has been described as the “gift that keeps on giving.”  Like the grave, it is never satisfied.  It will imprison its captives behind the secure bars of doubt, insecurity, and uncertainty, all of which are focused on concerns for one’s “real standing with God.”  It creates a prison for the soul.  In the tenth chapter of Romans Paul’s objective is to deliver such prisoners from this dreadful bondage.  According to Paul, their problem is not a lack of eternal life, but a lack of knowledge.

            As long as a person obsesses about “…establishing” his/her own righteousness as the foundation for hope and joy in God, the soul will remain imprisoned and tortured with doubts and insecurities.  When we examine this attitude carefully, its true character appears.  “It is all about me and my assurance of my salvation.”  The slave to this concept has failed to pass the first basic test of Biblical discipleship, self-denial.

            “…have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”  The problem with the people for whom Paul prayed was not that they did not possess spiritual life, but that they refused to submit themselves to God’s righteousness.  They believed they must perform up to a certain quality if they were to gain a right standing with God.  Thus the motive for serving God was in fact a self-serving motive of gain for self.  Everything about this mindset clashes with the Biblical model of true discipleship and the first step of self-denial.

            For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.  Paul does not say that Christ eliminates the need for righteousness.  Such an idea would in fact be antinomian.  His point shifts our attention from self and personal accomplishment to God and to the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

            How then do we measure our conduct?  The answer actually is far simpler than trying to comply with an ever growing number of rules and laws.  Here is the simple—profoundly simple and beautiful—Biblical answer.  “While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." ( Matthew 17:5 , KJV )  “Hear ye him.”  The sentence is simple, concise, and unequivocal.  It cannot be misrepresented without deliberate effort.  The measure by which we please God is not an endless list of rules and regulations.  It is the living Person and example of our Lord Jesus Christ.  His life lives and breathes the attitudes and lifestyle that we are to practice.  He never obsessed about assurance of His relationship with the Father.  He never invested torturous hours wondering about His role or His state with the Father.  His whole life was immersed in doing the Father’s will, not His own.  Instead of “It is all about me,” His life shouts out to us, “It is all about my Father!  It is all about what you do toward others!”

            Paul’s wondrous truth to legalistic, imprisoned believers is liberating and invigorating.  It is like a fresh spring breeze that blows away the stale air and brings the scent and feel of life and vitality to us.  Our Lord Jesus Christ has forever ended the need to rely on external laws and performance as the basis for our peace and joy with God.

            Faith in Christ and its spiritual result, the “righteousness of faith,” is not another set of rules and regulations that simply replace Mosaic Law.  Nor is faith in Christ a shapeless something that we get to mold and form to our personal preferences.  Faith in Christ leads us to mold our lives according to the example of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 
For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. ( 1 Peter 2:21-25 , KJV )

           “…that ye should follow his steps.”  Did Jesus claim that mere personal sincerity was the final and distinguishing trait of true Christianity?  No, so neither should we.  Did Jesus obsess about His personal standing with God?  Neither should we.  Did He invest every ounce of His life and activities to serve His Father and to minister to others?   So should we.  When He was misunderstood and persecuted, did He complain and turn paranoid?  Neither should we.  When people say bad things about us, should we lash out and strike back?  What did Jesus do in those moments?  We should follow His example.  When people threatened Him, did He threaten them back?  No, He trusted His Father and continued in His righteous conduct.  So should we.
            I first encountered the term “the walk of faith” while reading some early Christian writings.  Apparently those primitive Christians used this term to epitomize the concept that Paul affirmed in our study passage.  The proper measure of right living under the gospel is not Mosaic Law.  It is not our own set of external rules and regulations.  It is not an obsessive focus on self and the question of our assurance.  The only true measure of our personal right living is not a set of dead, written regulations, but the living, breathing, refreshing example of our Lord Jesus Christ.

            Contemporary Christianity has developed a slogan, “What Would Jesus Do?”  They are moving in the right direction with this idea.  At times they seem to shape this slogan into a new law, but the spirit of such an attitude indeed looks to the example of Jesus’ life and seeks to follow it.

 
These words capture the beautiful spirit of winsome, grace-filled, faith driven Christian living.  Such an attitude and lifestyle is Paul’s objective in this chapter.  Before we can ever hope to find the rich and fulfilling joys of Christian living, we must immerse ourselves in the true spirit of Christ.  This, my friend, is the meaning of Paul’s words, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”  If we truly believe in Him, our life focus will be on others, not on self.  The power behind such an other-focused life is not in our personal obsession with ourselves.  We only realize it when we lose self in service to God through serving those around us.  Today—and every day—begin the day with this prayer, “Lord, help me to live for others that I may live like Thee.”