Romans 10:3-4 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
God’s righteousness is experience through grace that is received through faith in Jesus Christ. The Jews Paul writes about were “ignorant” of this way of righteousness. We might even go as far as to say that they ignored the way of grace and chose the way of pride by “seeking to establish their own.” They tried to be righteous by obeying the law. This was futile because the power of sin twists human effort to be religious and good into a distorted selfishness and pride in one’s abilities and accomplishments. Pride can show up in many ways in religious people. It eventually leads to a false sense of security.
Verse 4 is a significant claim in this letter and New Testament theology. This verse must be carefully interpreted within its context within this letter and then in wider Pauline theology. Christ puts an end to the struggle to be righteous and holy by providing a different way to come before God. Christ does not end the law as the will of God or as what we should obey. He ends the law as the perceived way to be righteous. He ends the struggle to try to be good enough, as ch. 7 indicates. The key idea is that those who believe end their struggle against the law. They trust in God’s grace through total submission shown through baptism and dying to the old way of life.
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