"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are actually more views than just the two I have mentioned so far. The easiest way to understand this is to recognize that the two main meanings of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, resulting in a total of four views. I will refer to the two temporal interpretations as view 1a and view 1b, and the two teleological interpretations as view 2a and view 2b.

Here is a table that summarizes the four views based on how they interpret telos (temporal vs. teleological), how they interpret the word nomos ("Law"), what they take the subject of the sentence to be ("Christ is the end of the Law" vs. "The end of the Law is Christ"), how they interpret the phrase "for righteousness," and then lists representative scholars for each view. I also mention at the bottom those who try to combine various views. The view I used to hold is view 1a. The view I now hold is view 2b.

View	Τέλος	Νόμος	Subject	Εἰς δικαιοσύνην	Scholars
1a	Temporal meaning: End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Hodge, Käsemann, Lietzmann, Meyer, Michel, Nygren, Sanday & Headlam, Stott, Talbert, Witherington
1b	Temporal meaning:  End as terminus, termination, cessation, abrogation	Misuse of the Mosaic Law as a means of justification	Χριστός	Attributive, modifying νόμου	Dunn, Hübner, Hultgren, Morris, Murray,  Schreiner
2a	Teleological meaning:  End in prospective or prophetic sense: the goal as future; i.e., aim, object, purpose, intention, σκοπός	The Torah as scripture, which demands faith	τέλος	Result/purpose; consecutive clause	Badenas, Byrne, Calvin, Cranfield,  Keck, Matera, Wright, Ziesler
2b	Teleological meaning:  End in retrospective sense: the goal as attained; i.e., completion, culmination, attainment, fulfillment, climax, realization, actualization, πλήρωμα	Mosaic Law as demanding works for justification	Χριστός	Result/purpose; consecutive clause; possibly predicate εἰς	Chrysostom, Fitzmyer, Haldane, Luther, Melanchthon, Rhyne, Shedd
	Combination of 2b & 1a				Barrett, Bruce, Moo
	Combination of 2b & 1b				Osborne
	Combination of 2a & 1a				Achtemeier

Let me offer a translation and summary for each view:

View 1a: "Christ is the end of the Mosaic Law so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view sees Rom 10:4 as teaching the fundamental redemptive-historical truth that the Mosaic Law as a covenant has come to an end in Christ and is no longer the covenantal constitution of the people of God in the new covenant era.

View 1b: "For everyone who believes, Christ is the end of misusing the law as a means of justification." On this view, it is not a global statement about a key covenantal transition in redemptive-history from the old to the new covenant, but a statement about the ordo-salutis transition of the individual moving from a life of legalism (striving to be justified before God by keeping the Law) to a life of grace. On this view, Rom 10:4 is about how regeneration changes a person's attitude toward the Law.

View 2a: "The goal of the Torah (= the Law as divine revelation, as Scripture) is Christ so that there may be righteousness for all who believe." This view takes the verse as Paul's affirmation of his Christological hermeneutic. The revelation of God in the Torah (viewed not merely as the legal code of the Mosaic Law but as the entire Pentateuch including the Abrahamic promise) points to Christ.

View 2b: "The object of the law (namely, righteousness) is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." This view regards the statement as a fundamental redemptive-historical statement about the relationship between Christ and the Law, namely, that Christ is the one in whom the Law's aim or object (which is to demand and offer righteousness to those who do it) has been realized in Christ, specifically, in his meritorious obedience to the point of death as accepted by God in his resurrection-vindication.