Passage Overview · Free · Romans 10:4–8
Christ the Goal of the Law for Righteousness
Paul again begins with desire and prayer for Israel’s salvation. He recognizes zeal for God but says zeal can lack knowledge when people seek to establish their own righteousness rather than submit to God’s righteousness.
Verse 4 says Christ is the telos of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Telos can carry the sense of end, goal, culmination, or intended outcome; interpreters debate whether Paul primarily means termination, fulfillment/goal, or both within salvation history. The paragraph should therefore not be flattened into “the Old Testament was bad and Jesus abolished it.” Paul has just spent nine chapters arguing from those Scriptures and will continue doing so.