Commentary on Romans 10:1-4

Text in red are my additions.

THE JEWS MISUNDERSTOOD THE JUSTICE OF GOD

A Summary of Romans 10:1-4

The Apostle protests again (cf. Rom 9:1-3) to the Romans his sincere affection and sympathy for his fellow-Jews. Their failure, he says, is due, not to lack of zeal, but to the error of insisting on their own false notion in preference to the true notion of justice. The theme is the same as in Rom 9:30-33; but, while there he was speaking of Israel stumbling at the stumbling-block, he is here entering into a psychological analysis of the Jewish mind which, in observing the Law, came short of Christ, the end of the Law.

Rom 10:1. Brethren, the will of my heart, indeed, and my prayer to God, is for them unto salvation.
Here St. Paul gives renewed assurance of his abiding interest in the salvation of his fellow-Jews. And yet, their incredulity has put a chasm between him and them, as is evident from the fact that he speaks of them in the third person, while addressing the Romans in the second person as brethren.

The will of my heart (ευδοκια = eudokia), i.e., my strong desire (St. Chrysostom), or my inclination, purpose (Lagrange). The particle μεν (men), not followed by δε (de), is most probably to be used in its adverbial sense of confirmation, meaning here, certainly translated above as “indeed” (Lagrange). 

Rom 10:2. For I bear them witness, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

I bear them witness, etc. The Apostle, who had been a zealous Pharisee, and had himself been eaten up with zeal for God (Gal. 1:14; Acts 22:3), was well able to testify to the zeal of his fellow-Jews. They certainly were most assiduous in studying the law of God, but they failed to understand God’s designs. They were at great pains to promote the honor and glory of God, but they were little concerned to scrutinize their own conceptions to see what God’s honor and glory might consist in. Hence their ignorance was culpable. Thus St. Paul (1 Tim. 1:13) blamed his own ignorance, and St. Peter (Acts 3:17) said that the Jews crucified Christ through ignorance.

A zeal of God, i.e., a zeal for the cause of God.

Knowledge, i.e., a profound understanding (επιγνωσιν = epignosin) . Cf. Eph. 1:17; 4:13; Col. 1:9-10; etc.

Rom 10:3. For they, not knowing the justice of God, and seeking to establish their own, have not submitted themselves to the justice of God.

They not knowing, through their own culpable ignorance, the justice of God, i.e., the system of gratuitous justification by means of grace through faith in Christ to come, as the Scriptures had announced (Rom 3:21; 41-25). To receive this grace of justification it was needful that the Jews should recognize themselves as sinners, even like the Gentiles; but they were persuaded that it was necessary for the honor of God to establish their own, i.e., to defend as true justice their own idea of justification, based on the external observance of the Law, and the result of their own personal efforts. Considering this frame of mind we can readily understand how they would not submit themselves to “the justice of God,” i.e., the justification which God communicates to men, which is a gratuitous gift of God dependent upon faith in Christ. Cf. Philip, 3:9.

Rom 10:4. For the end of the law is Christ, unto justice to every one that believeth.

For (γαρ = gar) explains why the submission of the preceding verse was required.

The end, etc., i.e., the purpose of the Mosaic Law was to lead to Christ. All the precepts and ceremonies of the Law were types of Christian mysteries, intended to prefigure Christ and to prepare man for His coming. How far astray, then, were the Jews in trying to establish a system of justification independent of faith in Christ! But Fr. Lagrange and others understand τελος νομου (= telos nomou, “end of the law”) here to mean not that the Law was ordained and led to Christ, or that Christ was its perfection and fulfillment; but that, since the justice of God is now given in Christ, the Law has come to an end, as an instrument of justice, and has no further purpose (cf. also Gal. 3:25). Hence in the first explanation τελος (telos) would mean purpose; in the second, end, or term. We see no reason why both explanations cannot stand.

Law, although without the article in Greek, means the Mosaic Law, as is clear from the context (Lagrange, Cornely, etc.), and not law in general (Weiss, Zahn, etc.).

That believeth. To obtain justification and salvation faith in Christ has at all times been the indispensable means,—in Christ to come under the Old Law, and in Christ already come under the New Dispensation.