Where is my zeal? What do I know?

Romans 10:1-4 NASU

Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. 2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. 3 For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Romans 10:1-4 has opened up a new avenue of thought for me. In this passage, Paul notes that the Jews have a “zeal” for God, but it is a zeal that is not accompanied with “knowledge” (epignosis—knowledge or recognition). He goes on to say that the main problem for them is that their zeal leads them to attempt to produce a righteousness within themselves that will appease God; that is, they are “seeking to establish their own [righteousness], they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3).

Now usually it is here that I missed the argument.

Paul isn’t saying that they were lost because they tried to keep the Law, he is saying that they were trying to substitute their OWN righteousness (one that Paul himself claims to have achieved in Philippians 3:5-6) in the place of God’s dikaiosune. In other words, they were making themselves just and thus expected that God would therefore accept them due to their own righteousness or justice.

We hear this all the time—“He was a good man, so now he is in a better place.” But the apostle Paul says, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” That is, Christ puts an end to self-achieved righteousness.

The problem isn’t Law, for it is “holy, just, and good” as Paul notes in Romans 6 and 7. The problem is this unholy tendency to justify ourselves before a holy God. Adam did it, Job did it, the Pharisees and Sadducees did it, we all do it.

How does it usually manifest itself in me? In this manner—I get upset when things in life don’t go my way because I “deserve better.” That is self-righteousness talk. We deserve hell. We deserve any misery God chooses to place on us, but the good news is that in his incomparable mercy, God has chosen to give us not our OWN righteousness (which is, as Isaiah says, “filthy rags”), but rather, the righteousness that is the end, the righteousness of God in Christ. This righteousness is attained only by faith in Christ’s faithfulness to accomplish all that God has for us.

Paul’s problem with his own people is that they are zealous to prove themselves, not zealous for God to prove himself. Lord, how like them I am! Christ is the end, it is his honor and righteousness for which I should be zealous. Forgive us, oh Lord, for our pitiful attempts to make ourselves righteous, and grant through the life and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we should be found righteous through him.

Now back to the issue of “knowledge” in these verses. The word rendered knowledge is epignosis, which carries the meaning of knowledge or recognition. Thayers renders it something like “precise knowledge.”

Isn’t it interesting here that the Jews are described as having a zeal for God that lacks “knowledge”? Notice that it doesn’t say it lacks “faith.” Yet in this same passage Paul adds that Christ is the end of the Law with regards to righteousness to “every one who believes.” In other words, knowledge requires faith/faithfulness.

The Jews described here are faithful to pursuing their own righteousness in an apparent zeal for the things of God, but the best they accomplish is a passion without knowledge, a righteousness that pales in comparison to God’s own righteousness.

In fact, in the verses following Romans 10:4, Paul goes on to compare the two kinds of righteousness mentioned in the first four verses. Righteousness that is known by “faith” results in salvation. Why? It is dependent upon an intimate and precise knowledge of the author of that righteousness; namely, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Knowledge in this sense can have an intimacy to it, a precision that is almost scary. Like a married couple who finishes each other’s sentences or can communicate an almost physical intimacy by just a glance, so is the intimacy that is called for with Christ. This knowledge is based on faith. Unlike my physical spouse, Christ is not in this room for me to touch, to hold, but by faith (a means of knowing something) I can grasp him, I can hold him, even better, I can be held by him.

God show me how to live faithfully in this knowledge of you, in your righteousness, and forgive me for trying so often to make myself righteous in your sight instead of relying on your faithfulness to me. How slow I am to understand sometimes! How foolish! Now it is clear why Paul “counts all things as manure,” these things cannot make him righteous, they cannot affect his relationship with God at all! Christ is the end of the Law with regards to righteousness, he is true righteousness. Lord, help me to cultivate that relationship with you. Thank you for accepting even me in your grace and mercy.

Like Adam and Eve, we only have one rule to obey—believe in Jesus and confess him. Can we do that, or like our ancestors, will we choose the wrong tree?

Thanks for reading!