Commentary - Romans 10:1-4

Bird's-eye view

In this pivotal section of Romans, the Apostle Paul, having just laid out the staggering doctrine of God's sovereign election in chapter 9, immediately pivots to express his profound personal anguish and pastoral heart for his kinsmen, the Israelites. This is no abstract theological treatise for him; it is a matter of life and death for the people he loves. Paul's burden is that they might be saved. He then proceeds to diagnose the root of their spiritual disease with surgical precision. Their problem was not a lack of religious passion; they had a profound zeal for God. Their problem was that this zeal was untethered from true knowledge. The central error, the fatal mistake, was their ignorance of God's provided righteousness in Christ. Instead of submitting to this gift, they were exhaustively seeking to manufacture and establish their own righteousness through works of the law. Paul concludes this diagnosis by presenting the cure: Christ Himself is the goal, the fulfillment, the end of the law, making righteousness available to everyone who simply believes.

This passage is a masterclass in confronting religious error with both heartfelt compassion and doctrinal clarity. Paul does not mock their zeal; he affirms it. But he shows that zeal, no matter how intense, is damning when it is misdirected. The fundamental choice for every human being is laid bare here: you will either submit to the righteousness of God as a gift, or you will attempt to build your own. There is no third way. Paul's argument here demolishes all forms of self-righteousness, making way for the gospel of grace, which is received by faith alone.

Outline

Context In Romans

Romans 10:1-4 serves as a crucial bridge between the high doctrines of divine sovereignty in chapter 9 and the practical outworking of salvation through faith in the rest of chapter 10. In chapter 9, Paul has just defended God's absolute righteousness in choosing a people for Himself, using the examples of Jacob and Esau, and Pharaoh. This could leave a reader with a cold, fatalistic impression. So, Paul immediately begins chapter 10 by revealing his passionate, pastoral heart. His profound belief in God's sovereignty does not eliminate his desire for the salvation of his countrymen; it fuels it. He understands that God uses means, and his prayer and preaching are among those means. This section, therefore, answers the implicit question, "If God has chosen, why does Israel's unbelief matter so much to you?" Paul shows that their unbelief is not an arbitrary result of a divine decree, but a culpable rejection of a righteousness freely offered. He is setting the stage to explain how salvation comes, through hearing and believing the gospel message (Rom 10:17), and to show that Israel's failure was precisely a failure to believe.

Key Issues

Righteousness on the Wrong Foundation

Imagine a man who wants to build a magnificent skyscraper. He is zealous for the project. He hires the best architects, buys the finest materials, and works tirelessly day and night. He is meticulous about every detail of the structure itself. But he has made one fundamental, catastrophic error: he has decided to build it on a foundation of sand. All his zeal, all his effort, all his meticulous work on the building is not just wasted; it is actively contributing to the certainty and the severity of the eventual collapse. This is precisely the picture Paul paints of his fellow Israelites. Their problem was not a lack of effort or a lack of religious fervor. They were zealous to build a tower of righteousness that would reach to heaven. But they were building it on the foundation of their own works, their own performance, their own law-keeping. They were seeking to establish their own righteousness. The gospel comes along and points to a different foundation, a bedrock foundation laid by God Himself, which is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. But to build on that foundation, you have to abandon your own sandy project. You have to admit that your self-constructed tower is a pile of garbage. And this is what they would not do. They refused to submit to God's way of building, and so their very zeal for righteousness became the instrument of their damnation.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.

Paul begins with a deeply personal and affectionate appeal. He addresses his readers as brothers, and immediately lays his heart bare. After the high-altitude theology of chapter 9, this is wonderfully pastoral. His doctrine of election does not make him a fatalist; it makes him a prayer warrior. He has a constant, gut-level desire, a yearning in his heart, for his Jewish kinsmen. And this desire is not just a free-floating emotion; it is directed Godward in prayer. He is actively petitioning God on their behalf. And what is the substance of his prayer? Not their political restoration, not their cultural preservation, but their salvation. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, has a soul that bleeds for the salvation of the Jews. This sets the tone for everything that follows. He is not a detached prosecutor, but a loving brother making a painful diagnosis.

2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

Paul acts as a character witness for his opponents, and he gives them credit where it is due. He testifies, he bears witness, that they possess a genuine zeal for God. This was not a feigned piety. They were passionate, energetic, and dedicated in their religious pursuits. Think of Saul of Tarsus, persecuting the church with a clear conscience, believing he was serving God. That is the kind of zeal he is talking about. But then comes the fatal qualifier: this zeal is not according to knowledge. It is a powerful engine, but it is disconnected from the steering wheel. It is energy without enlightenment, passion without perception. Their zeal was driving them full-speed in the wrong direction, away from God, even as they thought they were racing toward Him. This is a crucial warning for all time: sincerity and passion are no substitute for truth.

3 For not knowing about the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

Here is the core of the problem, the specific content of their ignorance. Paul lays out a three-part spiritual tragedy. First, they were ignorant of the righteousness of God. This doesn't mean they didn't know God was righteous. It means they didn't understand the righteousness from God, the perfect righteousness that God provides as a free gift through faith in Christ. Second, because of this ignorance, they were seeking to establish their own. This is the essence of all false religion. It is the project of self-justification, the attempt to build a resume of good works, of ritual observance, of moral effort, that would be acceptable to God. It is a righteousness that originates with man. Third, the tragic result: they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. The word for "subject" or "submit" is a military term. God's righteousness comes like a king, demanding surrender. It does not come to assist our righteousness project; it comes to condemn it and replace it. Salvation requires an unconditional surrender of our own efforts. We must stop trying to establish our own righteousness and instead bow the knee to the righteousness of God in Christ. This they refused to do. Their pride would not allow them to receive as a gift what they were so zealous to earn.

4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

This verse provides the glorious solution to the tragic problem of verse 3. Why is seeking to establish your own righteousness through the law a dead end? Because Christ is the end of the law. The Greek word here is telos, which means more than just termination or cessation. It means goal, purpose, fulfillment, consummation. Christ is what the law was always aiming at. The entire sacrificial system, the moral commandments, the civil codes, they were all a great arrow pointing down through history to Him. He fulfilled the law's demands perfectly in His life and paid its penalty fully in His death. Therefore, the law as a means of earning righteousness has been brought to its intended goal and is now obsolete. Christ is the end of that road. And what is the result? Righteousness is now available to everyone who believes. The door is thrown open. The qualification is not ethnic identity or moral performance, but simple faith. Whether Jew or Gentile, the one who stops trying to establish his own righteousness and trusts in Christ receives the very righteousness of God as a gift.

Application

The temptation that damned first-century Israel is the same temptation that confronts every one of us today. It is the temptation of the Pharisee in all of us. It is the deep-seated human desire to be our own savior, to have something to point to in ourselves, to "establish our own" righteousness.

This can take many forms. For the irreligious person, it is the vague belief that "I'm a good person." For the religious person, it is far more subtle and dangerous. It can be a trust in our church attendance, our theological knowledge, our daily devotions, our political conservatism, our parenting techniques, or our rejection of "big, bad" sins. We can have a zeal for God, a genuine passion for Christian things, but if that zeal is fueling a project of self-justification, it is a zeal "not according to knowledge." It is a damning zeal.

The gospel calls us to a radical and humbling submission. It calls us to look at our best efforts, our most zealous achievements, our most prized moral accomplishments, and count them all as loss, as garbage, for the sake of Christ (Phil. 3:8). We must submit to the righteousness of God. This means we stop trying to justify ourselves and we allow ourselves to be justified by Him. We surrender. We receive the verdict of "righteous" not because of what we have done, but because we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. True Christian faith is not about trying harder; it is about trusting better. It is about abandoning our own sandy foundations and building our entire life, our entire hope, on the bedrock of Christ and His finished work.