Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. (2) For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (3) 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. (4) For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.
This chapter, like the former, gives us a very interesting view of the tenderness and affection of Paul's heart. He knew what the Lord had said, that there was a remnant according to the election of grace; and, therefore, unconscious who they were, in the great mass of the Jewish nation, he testifieth to the whole body of his brethren after the flesh, how eagerly he longed for their salvation by Christ. For the whole Jewish nation differed widely from the world around them in their apprehension of God. They had a zeal for his glory distinguished from all their neighbours. They were not as those nations were, Idolaters. They expected Christ. They honored the law in the external observance of it. But in the midst of all this, they had no consciousness of Christ, and were totally ignorant of Him as a Savior. A righteousness of their own, or a fancied righteousness they were endeavoring to set up, all the mean time unconscious of the Person, and work of the Lord our righteousness.
Reader! it may be well to pause, and consider the subject as it concerns ourselves. An ignorance of Christ's righteousness, and a supposed preparation for acceptance with God in a righteousness of our own, is the general creed of the present hour. The great mass of those who profess the Gospel, if engaged at all in a concern for salvation, is prosecuting the hope of acceptance, partly by the deeds of the law, and partly by the grace of Christ. But, this is neither law nor Gospel. It is not the law, for a curse is pronounced upon everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them, Galatians 3:10. Neither is it the Gospel, for there we are expressly said to be saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, for it is the gift of God, and not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9
I would not wish the Reader to turn away from the subject those few verses contain, before that he hath considered, and that very maturely, the charge Paul brings against those brethren of his, of whom he speaks. There is nothing as essential in forming the standard of true faith, as this very point of the sinner's justification before God. If we are confused in our apprehension of things here, that confusion will run, like the links in a chain, through every part in life and practice. Now the Apostle expressly saith, that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Here then is the righteousness, the sole righteousness of his people. In this the soul of the true believer is justified before God. And, such is the infinite worth and perfection of it, that God beholds and accepts the persons of the redeemed in it, as fully and compleatly justified, as if they had wrought it out themselves. For Christ and his redeemed are one. The scripture blessedly saith concerning it, that it is unto all and upon all them that believe, Romans 3:22. See the Commentary on this passage.
And I beg the Reader yet one moment longer to bear with me while I add, that beside the proper apprehension of the doctrine itself, in order to a real enjoyment of the soul, there must be an heart-felt acquaintance with it in the conscience. The Apostle James calls that word an engrafted word which is able to save the soul, James 1:21. meaning, that it lives in the heart, and is always remaining there. Not floating in the understanding, but influencing the whole life. A child of God, when regenerated by the Holy Ghost, awakened to a sense of sin, and an apprehension of the Person, work, and glory of Christ; hath passed from death to life. He hath felt the sentence of God's broken law in his conscience; and hath fled from it to Jesus, and his complete, all-justifying righteousness. And here he rests. In this he finds a perfect security. And his comfort in it is not made up in the correctness of his judgment, but in the lively actings of faith in his soul. Reader! are your apprehensions of Christ, as the end of the law for righteousness, living principles, inwrought by God the Spirit on this foundation?