CHAPTER TEN: Paul's Prayer for Israel, who had Zeal, without Knowledge of, or

Paul's Prayer for Israel, who had Zeal, without Knowledge of, or Subjection to, God's Righteousness: Fundamental Contrast between the Righteousness of Doing and That of Believing. Verses 1-10.

The Believing Method was According to Israel's Own Scriptures,--unto which They did not Hearken: as God had Foretold. Verses 11-21.

1 Brethren, the dear wish of this heart of mine, and my prayer to God for them, [Israel] is for [their] salvation. 2 For I bear witness to them that they have a zeal for God, but not at all according to knowledge. 3 For being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to God's righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the Law unto righteousness, to every one that believeth.

BRETHREN,--HERE PAUL addresses all saints concerning his yearning for national Israel's salvation. The words my heart's desire are literally, "the dear pleasure of my heart." Israel's salvation was to Paul a thing of delight to contemplate and hope for. Moreover, as always, Paul puts his wish for them into prayer to God: in which all spiritual longings should end!

Verse 2: He bears them this witness, and gladly, that they had a zeal for God, but he most strongly denies that there was any real knowledge of God and His ways in that zeal. Mohammedans have zeal. When I passed through the Azhar Mosque, in Cairo, a Moslem merchant was kneeling, forehead on the carpet, in prayer. Four hours later I saw him still kneeling! And outside were over 10,000 students, diligently learning the Koran! Zeal must not be Mistaken for knowledge in Divine things. See Josephus quoted below. [207] It is perhaps unkind in this place, (so tender with Paul), to cite the religious zeal of pagan or Mohammedan. But Paul himself classes the "beggarly elements" of Jew and pagan together! (Gal. 4:8-10), since the cross.

Verse 3: But it is certainly a terrible thing we see. Here is the Jew with God's own Book, the Old Testament Scriptures, in his hand, and blind to that Scripture's revelation of his guilty, lost state before God. The Jews were in a fearful condition in two ways:

First, they were wholly ignorant of the one great, vital fact sinners must know: that righteousness, life, and all things are a free gift of the grace of God; and that the Law was meant only to make them discover their sin and their own helpless need of the outright gift of righteousness from God. The expression ignorant of God's righteousness, does not mean that the Jewish people were ignorant of holiness and righteousness as attributes of God,--in fact, they prided themselves on the knowledge of such a God as over against the hideous pagan gods. But the righteousness of which they were wholly ignorant was that while "God Himself was just," He was also "the Justifier of the ungodly" of all who "believed on Jesus." As we said in Chapter Nine, the Jews had seized upon their possession of the Law as in itself giving them a standing with God. Our Lord could have spoken to almost any Jew as He did to the woman at Sychar's well: "If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is that saith to thee!" For of a gift of righteousness they had no conception.

The Law dispensation was necessarily unfruitful, "making nothing perfect," because it neither imparted life, nor gave strength to fulfil its demands. As Paul writes to the Hebrews, there was a "disannulling" of it, and a "vanishing away" of the legal covenant (Heb. 7:18; 8:13).

When Christ came, although born under the Law in order to redeem Israel (Gal. 4:4, 5), yet He Himself, from the very beginning, took the place of the Law! In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6, and 7) He declared: "It was said . . . but I say." He came, indeed, not to destroy but to fulfil, and inasmuch as Israel was under the curse of the Law, He redeemed them that were under the Law by becoming Himself a curse for them (Gal. 3:13).

Although Christ in His ministry, ("lest we cause to stumble,"--Matthew 17:27) paid due heed to Moses' directions (as in the case of the leper--"Go show thyself to the priest"), yet He never, for example, enforced the Sabbath: indeed He freely wrought healings on that day, in the face of the murderous hatred of the legalists.

The Law was designed not to bring about self-righteousness or self-hope, but contrariwise, self-despair. The law witnessed to a man his need of a mediator--as at Sinai (Deut. 5:23-27). Christ Himself is the righteousness of God. When He died, bearing the sin of the world, the Law's demand for human righteousness was over, ended, closed up, set aside. Christ has now been "made of God unto us righteousness": we want no other. But it is not easy to subject ourselves unto God's righteousness: for God justifies the ungodly. Justification is a gift for very beggars, the only hope for the guilty, lost and undone [208] The Jews, ignorant of God's gift of righteousness utterly refused thus to subject themselves. They said "We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man [Jesus], we know not whence He is!"

John the Baptist's ministry is full of meaning here. It is both a precious and an awful thing--the results of John's testimony. Luke tells us: "All the people, when they heard [John], and the publicans, justified God [when John preached repentance and confession of their sins], being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, being not baptized of him" (Luke 7:29, 30). It is touching to the spiritual heart to find, for Instance, that all five of those converted in the first