The Upper Register

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

Having given a cursory critique of the other main views, in this post I'm going to expound view 2b more fully. My old view (view 1a) was motivated largely by lexicographical concerns. I was convinced that the word telos is most frequently used in a temporal sense, meaning "terminus." This was based on the fact that the temporal/terminal usage of telos predominates in both the Septuagint and the New Testament.

However, what got me thinking along different lines was reading a 1985 dissertation by Robert Badenas titled Christ the End of the Law: Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective (JSNTSup 10; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985).

Badenas proved conclusively in case after case that in extra-biblical Greek telos has a strongly teleological meaning. He also showed that it can be used in a prospective or a retrospective teleological sense. When used prospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a future goal not yet attained, and can be glossed "goal," "aim," "object," "purpose," or "intention." When used retrospectively, telos means "end" in the sense of a goal that has been attained, and can be glossed "completion," "culmination," "attainment," "fulfillment," "climax," "realization," "actualization," or "outcome."

With that extra-biblical usage firmly in place, when we turn to the New Testament – which uses the word around 40 times – we find that the teleological meanings, although infrequent, are not entirely absent. There is one indisputable text where telos is used in a prospective teleological sense:  "The goal (telos) of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Tim 1:5 NASB; "aim" in ESV). And then there are seven instances where telos is used in a retrospective teleological sense. Of the seven, in six occurrences telos is rendered by the NASB as "outcome" (Matt 26:58; Rom 6:21-22; James 5:11; 1 Pet 1:9; 4:17). And on one occasion, it is rendered "fulfillment." This is where Jesus says to the disciples as he is about to go to the cross, "For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment (telos)” (Luke 22:37 ESV).

At the very least we have to admit that both the temporal and the teleological meanings are possible in Rom 10:4. In the end, the context must decide.

Now Badenas took the teleological meaning in a prospective sense in Rom 10:4 and adopted view 2a. His interpretation of the verse was: "Paul seems to say that faith in Christ is at the same time true faith in the Torah … Right understanding of the law leads to faith in Jesus Christ … The law always required a response of faith" (Badenas, 149-50).

I was convinced by Badenas's examination of the extra-biblical sources, but not by his exegesis of Rom 10:4. I especially did not agree that the law required a response of faith – after all, Paul says that "the law is not of faith, rather 'The one who does them shall live by them'" (Gal 3:12). So I began to wonder, "What if we take Badenas's second teleological usage, the retrospective one, and what if we see the Law not as demanding faith but righteousness?"

And that is when the whole passage finally made sense to me. Here is my interpretive translation of the text:

Romans 10:3-4:  "Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness [by keeping the Law], the Jews did not submit to the righteousness that comes from God. For Christ is the one in whom the Law's demand for righteousness is fulfilled, with the result that there is righteousness [from God] for everyone who believes."

In other words:

"'Christ is the end of the Law,' i.e., its completion or consummation. He gives that which the Law requires, that is, whoever believes in Christ has that which the Law demands, i.e., he is righteous by imputation" (Philipp Melanchthon, Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, 1540; translation mine; the Concordia translation by Fred Kramer gets it wrong here).

"The moment that a man believes in [Christ], the end of the law is attained in that man; that is, it is fulfilled in him, and he is in possession of that righteousness which the law requires … and consequently he hath eternal life" (Robert Haldane, Commentary on Romans, 1853).

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 3

I will explain and defend view 2b in my next post. In this post, I want to address some of the problems with the other views.

As I mentioned in my first post, my main objection to view 1a – and this applies to view 2a as well – is that there is a weak logical connection between the two halves of the verse. Verse 4a: "Christ is the end of the law," and v 4b: "for (= so that there may be) righteousness to everyone who believes." How does the fact that Christ has abrogated the Law (view 1a) or the fact that Christ is the hermeneutical goal of the Law (view 2a) lead to righteousness being imputed to everyone who believes? The abrogation of the Law does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 1a). A Christocentric hermeneutic does not lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" (view 2a). The only thing that does lead to or bring about "righteousness for all who believe" is Christ's obedience to the point of death, his active and passive obedience.

It is interesting to notice how most of the commentators who argue for views 1a and 2a tend to ignore the second half of the verse. They are so focused on the meaning of the first half ("Christ is the telos of the Law") that they almost forget about the second half ("for righteousness to everyone who believes"). But this is the key to figuring out the meaning of the verse as a whole.

Only two of the four views take the second half of the verse seriously and provide a coherent explanation of the verse as a whole. I'm referring to view 1b and 2b (my view). Let's look at view 1b. This interpretation is favored by those who claim that (a) telos must have a temporal/terminating meaning, and (b) who are allergic to the alleged antinomian implications of view 1a. They take "for righteousness" and attach it to the word "Law" as an attributive, and they take "to everyone who believes" and move it to the beginning of the sentence. Their interpretation is that "To everyone who believes, Christ is the end of the Law-for-righteousness." In other words, Christ is not the end of the Law itself, but of the carnal misuse of the Law as a means of righteousness. When a person is converted, they stop using the Law as a means of justification.

But this interpretation is grammatically unlikely. In the Greek, the word "Christ" is sandwiched between "Law" and "for righteousness," which makes it nigh unto impossible that Paul intended "for righteousness" to be an attributive prepositional phrase modifying "Law" ("the-Law-for-righteousness"). Another problem is that when a prepositional phrase is used attributively, the definite article is almost always repeated before the preposition (this construction occurs over 400x in the NT), but here it is absent.

Another problem with view 1b is that it separates "to everyone who believes" from "for righteousness." The two phrases go together in order. This can be seen by comparing Rom 10:4 with 1:16 where Paul makes a statement with the same grammatical structure:

Rom 1:16	The gospel	is the power of God	for salvation	to everyone who believes
Rom 10:4	Christ	is the end of the Law	for righteousness	to everyone who believes

Note the similar structure:  X is Y so that there may be salvation (or righteousness) to everyone who believes. The phrase at the end, "to everyone who believes" is identical in Greek. And in both cases, it goes with the preceding noun ("salvation" or "righteousness"). 

As I see it, then, views 1a, 1b, and 2a are problematic. In my next post, I'll defend my new view, view 2b.

"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.

"Christ is the End of the Law for Righteousness" (Rom 10:4), Pt. 1

In Romans 10:1-4, Paul writes the following of his kinsmen according to the flesh, that is, the Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah:

"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ² For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³ For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. ⁴ For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." (ESV)

All commentators agree that Rom 10:4 is a critically important verse for understanding Paul's view of the Law. What does Paul mean by referring to Christ as "the end of the Law" (telos nomou)?

I have long been fascinated by this verse. Until recently, I held the view that "end" (telos) means "termination" or "abrogation," and argued that this verse meant that the Mosaic Law has come to an end with Christ. (This does not mean that the moral law has been abrogated, for that would be impossible; merely the Mosaic Law as a whole, the law as the covenantal constitution of theocratic Israel.) I argued this based on the fact that the word telos in both the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament seems predominantly to have a terminating significance. I was also attracted to this interpretation because it fit with other statements by Paul to the effect that the Mosaic Law as a covenant is no longer in effect after Christ has come (e.g., Rom 6:14-15; 7:1-6; Eph 2:15; 1 Cor 9:20-21; Gal 3:24-25; etc.). I advocated this interpretation as recently as my 2011 dissertation on "the righteousness of God" in Paul.

However, I have recently changed my mind. I now think that telos should be taken in a teleological sense, meaning "goal" or "aim." I would now translate the verse as follows: "The object of the Law is realized in Christ, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." My main reason for changing views is that my old view did not provide a reasonable explanation of the second half of the verse. How does Christ's being the termination or abrogation of the Mosaic Law result in righteousness being available to everyone who believes? It doesn't.

Furthermore, my old view does not fit well with the preceding context. In vv 1-3, Paul is expressing his heartfelt prayer and desire that his Jewish kinsmen would come to faith in Christ. He says that he acknowledges their zeal for God, as expressed in their zealous commitment to the scrupulous observance of the Mosaic Law, but the problem is that their zeal is not according to knowledge. Their problem is that they imagined that they could achieve righteousness before God by their own zeal in keeping the Law. But the righteousness that comes to humans as a free gift from God was revealed in Christ's death and resurrection. They chose to ignore and reject that righteousness, and instead sought to establish their own righteousness, rather than submitting to the righteousness God has made available in Christ. It is here that we come to our verse. They should have submitted to the righteousness of God, for the law's object (namely, righteousness) is not attained by human effort but by Christ himself, with the result that righteousness (i.e., the righteousness of God) is now available to everyone who believes.

So far I have presented the debate as being between two views - taking telos in a chronological or a teleological sense. But in my next post, I'll explain that the interpretive situation is more complex than this. These two main senses of telos can be subdivided into two sub-views, and so there are actually four main options for interpreting Rom 10:4. After that, I will provide brief arguments against three of these views and return to further explaining the view I am defending. Along the way, I'll mention commentators who hold to these various views.