Righteousness Not To Be Achieved
RIGHTEOUSNESS NOT TO BE ACHIEVED
ROMANS 10:5-8
God’s righteousness is near you—receive it!
Paul’s argument now turns to the quotation of authoritative texts of Scripture, such as we have seen him do before, and which is surely evidence that he was addressing a congregation familiar both with this use of Scripture and the Old Testament. Furthermore, the clause-by-clause exposition of the second passage, which Paul quotes, is in the style of some of the commentaries in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It may be that neither quotation seems at first reading to support Paul’s argument. It seems therefore to follow that the Christian church was already familiar with the new interpretation of the verses concerned. This appears to be especially the case with the second passage, which, on the face of it, seems to bear something of the same meaning as the first. Paul turns it into an allegory of Christ, so briefly as to leave the impression that his hearers must have heard the interpretation before.
Consider the two passages: Leviticus 18:5. Moses was the author of the Law. He states that the person who performs its statutes shall live by them. That is precisely what the bewildered Jew said he was doing. But Paul has gone to tremendous pains to prove that such self-confidence was based on a defective view of performance, and a lamentably faulty view of sin. To keep the Law, and to “live” by doing so, was the aim of every true Israelite. But even before Christ came, it must have been an endeavor conscious of its inadequacy, with calling on God to help, lift and forgive. Paul is aiming his words rather at the Pharisee and legalist who claimed perfection and full achievement. “Keep the Law and live.” “But the Law cannot be kept” (Galatians 3:10-12).
Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Paul is not so much quoting this eloquent passage as basing upon its words a free interpretation which makes them a prophecy of Christ. The passage, in fact, meant that the Law was near and practicable, but always assumed a context of repentance and awareness of sin, and indeed, in the remote ancient setting, a remedy of ritual and sacrifice. Paul sets the passage in the context of his own argument, and his wider conviction that the Law only finds its explanation in Christ, that the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are one, and not to be separated.
Righteousness, to sum up, has not to be achieved but received.