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"The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified; but
after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster" (Gal. 3: 24, 25).
He was "the end" in the sense of the Antitype:
"The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the
things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make
the comers thereunto perfect" (Heb. 10: 1).
He was "the end" in the sense of the Perfecter:
"The law made nothing perfect" (Heb. 7: 19).
He was "the end" in the sense of Fulfillment:
"What the law could not do, in that in was weak through the flesh, God sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the
righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us" (Rom. 8: 3, 4).
He was "the end" in the sense that in Him the believer had died to the law:
"Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ" (Rom. 7: 4).
To all this wealth of teaching, and its provision of righteousness by faith, Israel was
blind.
Returning to Rom. 10: we read:
"For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man that doeth
those things shall live by them" (Rom. 10: 5).
But no one ever had fulfilled or ever could fulfil the requirements.
The Apostle does not allow the Jew to shield himself behind the plea that the doctrine
of the gospel is difficult to comprehend. In verse 9 we read:
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10: 9).
We are all familiar with these words, but we may not be so familiar with the O.T.
passage concerned, and the line of argument which the Apostle is pursuing.
Once again we must remind ourselves that the Apostles is speaking to Jews, using a
type of reasoning familiar to the followers of Rabbinical methods, but foreign to the
logical processes of the Greek. He makes free use here of the passage in Deut. 30:,
where Moses tells the people that the commandment of God is "not hidden" or "far off",
not "in heaven" or "over the sea", but "very nigh", both in "heart" and "mouth"
(Deut. 30: 11-14). This passage is balanced by Deut. 29: 29, where the "secret
things" and the "revealed things" are spoken of. Dr. Ginsburg draws attention to the