Romans ~ Part 26

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As I’ve stressed in my previous post, our journey to comprehend the profound significance of Sha’ul’s Letter to the Romans is not just a study but a crucial cornerstone of our faith.

Regarding the Jewish Experience ~ Part 4

If you find yourself in conversations where political opinions or societal norms clash with your Christian faith, Romans 9:30-10:13 can serve as a powerful guide. We will be covering those verses in this and the next blog. You might feel pressured to conform or be silent about your beliefs. Instead, seek opportunities to articulate how your faith shapes your views, emphasizing righteousness through faith, as Sha’ul describes. Engage gracefully when discussing controversial topics, ensuring that your approach reflects Yeshua’s love and invites dialogue rather than division.

Jews Did Not See Grace

Sha’ul turns from God’s role in Isra’el’s apostasy to the human aspect. The majority of Isra’el missed the Messiah because they did not grasp that the first requirement of the Torah is faith (trusting God), not “works” (actions undertaken on one’s own, apart from God). Isra’el has had the right goal (vv. 30–31) but has pursued it in the wrong way (vv. 32–33). Chapter 10 (which must not be separated from 9:30–33) analyzes what Isra’el’s misunderstanding was (10:1–13) and proves that there was no excuse for it (10:14–21) so that the blame rests entirely with Isra’el.

Essential to correctly understanding the Mosaic Law is a covenant based not on “works” but on trusting God. All major English translations and most commentators present 9:30–10:21 as if Sha’ul were contrasting two paths to righteousness authorized by God, the Mosaic Law and the Brit Hadashah, and showing the advantages of the latter over the former. But there is only one path, for the Torah of Moshe requires faith and offers righteousness by faith, just like the Brit Hadassah; so that any interpretation which denigrates the Law of Moses is not only antisemitic but insulting to God, the Giver of the Torah of righteousness (v. 31).

³⁰ So, what are we to say? This: that Gentiles, even though they were not striving for righteousness, have obtained righteousness; but it is a righteousness grounded in trusting! ³¹ However, Isra’el, even though they kept pursuing a Torah that offers righteousness, did not reach what the Torah offers. ³² Why? Because they did not pursue righteousness as being grounded in trusting but as if it were grounded in doing legalistic works. They stumbled over the stone that makes people stumble. (Isaiah 8:14) ³³ As the Tanakh puts it,

“Look, I am laying in Tziyon

a stone that will make people stumble,

a rock that will trip them up.

But he who rests his trust on it

will not be humiliated.” (Isaiah 28:16)

Gentiles who were not seeking righteousness were granted it by grace through trusting. They did not work for it or earn it. But Isra’el missed it by seeking righteousness through the law and by their works. They stumbled over the Messiah and did not believe in Him (Isaiah 8:14; 28:16). Yeshua Himself warned Isra’el that they missed the “stone” (Mattityahu 21:42–44; see Psalm 118:22–23).

Jews Tried to Earn Salvation

As a first approximation, in chapter 10, Sha’ul writes mainly about the salvation of Jewish individuals, while in chapter 11, he is more concerned with the salvation of the Jewish nation as a whole.

10 ¹ Brothers, my heart’s deepest desire and my prayer to God for Isra’el is for their salvation; ² for I can testify to their zeal for God. But it is not based on correct understanding;

Zeal for God is good, not bad (Galatians 4:17–18); “who will hurt you if you become zealots for what is good?” (1 Kefa 3:13) Thus not all zeal is fanaticism. True, zeal can be abused, as Sha’ul can testify, because before he came to faith, he zealously persecuted believers in Yeshua (Acts 7:58–8:3, 9:1–6, and especially 22:3–4, where he describes to the Jewish establishment his former attitude by saying, “I was a zealot for God, as all of you are today”. Why does non-Messianic Jewish zeal for God go astray? Because it is not based on correct understanding of the Torah, God’s word about Himself—a statement designed at least to pique the curiosity of Jews who spend their lives studying the Torah. Sha’ul explains what he means (see vv. 3–10).

³ for, since they are unaware of God’s way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own, they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous.

This verse is just an expansion of what was said at 9:32a, but it must be restated here to establish the chain of reasons noted in vv. 3–10.

⁴ For the goal at which the Torah aims is the Messiah, who offers righteousness to everyone who trusts.^[1]

The evidence that non-Messianic Jews“have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous” (v. 3), which itself shows that their “zeal for God” is “not based on correct understanding” (v. 2), is that they have not grasped the central point of the Torah and acted on it. Had they seen that trust in God—as opposed to self-effort, legalism, and mechanical obedience to rules—is the route to the righteousness that the Torah itself not only requires but offers (9:30–32a), then they would see that the goal at which the Torah aims is acknowledging and trusting in the Messiah, who offers on the ground of this trusting the very righteousness they are seeking. They would see that the Torah’s righteousness is offered through Him and only through Him. They would also see that He offers it to everyone who trusts—to them and Gentiles as well.

Is Sha’ul guilty of stereotypical thinking and prejudice? Does he accuse all non-Messianic Jews of relying on self-effort and having an attitude of legalism? No, rather, he considers this to be the prevailing establishment viewpoint in the non-Messianic Jewish community of his time. Stereotypical thinking and prejudice (which, when applied to Jews, is called antisemitism) arise when an attribute possibly predicated truly on a community is applied uncritically, often falsely, to each individual in it. This Sha’ul does not do.

However, the Messiah has not brought the Law to an end, nor is He the termination of the Law as a way to righteousness. The Torah continues. It is eternal. God’s Torah, properly understood as the very teaching that Yeshua upholds (1 Corinthians 9:21, Galatians 6:2), remains the only way to righteousness—although it is Yeshua HaMessiah through whom the Torah’s righteousness comes. For the Good News that righteousness is grounded in trust is proclaimed already in the Torah itself; this is the central point of Romans 9:30–10:21. In seed form this was already stated in Romans 1:16–17; Sha’ul declares it directly in Galatians 3:6ff. To such a Torah, there is no cessation, neither in this world nor the next.

Our next post continues to examine the theme: Regarding the Jewish Experience.

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[1] Romans 9:30-10:4.