LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Israel's Failure to Achieve Justice
At the end of Romans 9, when it seems that Paul has already definitively left behind the theme of God's righteousness, he takes it up again with new vigor. And this time he does it in relation to Israel. And Paul asks himself: Why did the chosen people not attain the righteousness of God?
The answer the apostle gives to this question is very useful to us. "Israel, who went after a law of righteousness, did not attain it (righteousness). Why? Because they went after it not by faith, but as it were by works of the law; for they stumbled at the stumbling stone" (Rom. 9:31-32). The point is: What is the way in which we try to attain righteousness? With what attitude?
Israel repeatedly told God that they were willing to keep the law. However, as Paul makes clear to us, the purpose of the law was not to be kept, but to serve as a mirror in which they could see the blackness of their hearts and cry out for God's grace. However, they used it only as a showcase to display their own righteousness. So, they failed.
Again and again, God cries out through the prophets, that he is tired of that righteousness, a hypocritical righteousness, based on external sacrifices, without the commitment of the heart. When the Lord Jesus came, they were so entangled in their religious ways, that they did not recognize the one who could truly justify them - for "the end of the law is Christ".
That is why Paul says that Christ was a stumbling block to them. That blessed Rock that God established as the cornerstone of their spiritual building, was for them a stumbling block. So it can also be with us today. If we approach God with a system of works, with an attitude of exhibiting our own righteousness, we will be rejected.
Something is said of Israel that could also be said of us: "For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God: for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Rom. 10:3-4).
May the Lord grant us such a sense of unworthiness and failure in ourselves, that we never pretend to replace Christ's righteousness (which is only obtained by God's grace through faith), with our own dark, filthy and vile righteousness. Faith is the entrance to this grace, and it is also the key that enables us to remain in it, for "in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed by faith and to faith, as it is written, But the just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17).
Faith is at the beginning and also in the middle, and at the end. Let not Israel's failure be ours. Rather, let their failure be a warning to us about our attitude before God. "For the things which were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Rom. 15:4).