“Christ is the end of the law…”

It was 1967, and the title of the book was kind of catchy, kind of goofy: I’m OK, You’re OK.  In it author Thomas Harris introduced the psychological idea of transactional analysis.  Not exactly your household term today, but back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s it was all the rage — it sold over 10 million copies. Like all systems that exclude or deny God, it simply runs in circles, like trying to find a cure for a disease from a plant growing in soil that has completely corrupted every form of vegetation with harmful bacteria.

The question that Harris failed to adequately address in his book is, “OK with whom?”  The assumption is I’m OK with myself, and my friends, relatives and neighbors are OK with themselves too.  And that suggests that we should be able to be OK with each other.  But this only begs the question, “How do I know I’m OK?”  The only way anyone can know is by assumption, not proof.  And the assumption, of course, is that human nature is essentially good, or at least ‘OK’.  But is it?  I heard recently that over 5,000+ years of recorded history, there has been less than 150 years when there was not at least one war occurring on planet earth.  Does that sound like human nature is ‘OK’ to you?  Me neither.  Why then is man such a volatile creature?  It comes back to our first question, “OK with whom?”  We can expand that to mean, “Am I OK with God?”  The evidence screams, “obviously not!”

Even if I were ‘OK’ with God, is that enough?  If by ‘OK’ we mean God merely tolerates us, then no, that is not enough.  God only tolerates people for a while.  He tolerated the generation of Noah’s day for only 120 years (Genesis 6:3).  Then they all drowned for rejecting Noah’s message and ark.  So no, that kind of being OK with God is certainly not enough.  But if by ‘OK’ we mean that God fully accepts us, totally embraces us, completely forgives us, then yes, being OK with God is certainly enough.  But how is this possible when God is perfectly just, holy and righteous and we are so far from that?

In Romans 10, Paul begins the second of three chapters dealing with the topic of the Jews and salvation.  As chapter nine ends, he says that the non-Jewish nations (“Gentiles”, v. 30) “did not pursue righteousness” but found it anyway.  However, “Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.  Why not?  Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works” (vs. 31-32).  Here is the line in the sand, the supreme distinction: God is honored by our faith in him, because the grand overall message of the Bible is that God simply wants to be trusted.  Thus he reveals himself and his character and invites us to believe him, his work and his Son, the “stone that causes men to stumble” (v. 33).

That is why “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (10:4).  When I think of the word end I think of road signs that say “dead end,” meaning this road does not go through, it stops and you’ll have to turn around.  Before the days of better global communications, visitors to the States would see these signs and be fearful of driving down those streets thinking they would meet their demise.  That is not what this word means.  The Greek word means “goal, aim, target or purpose.”  In other words the law reveals God’s righteous character.  Thus the law has no finish, no conclusion to it.  It is eternal (Ps. 119:89, 96, 111, 160, etc.), but its aim, its goal is Christ himself (Matt. 5:17).

Jews, however, missed this wholesale.  They “are zealous for God,” wrote Paul, “but their zeal is not based on knowledge” (10:2).  How could this be?  They had “the adoption…the divine glory…the covenants…the law…the temple worship…and the promises” (9:4).  How could they have missed it?  They missed it because they turned this knowledge on its head, “and sought to establish their own [righteousness], not “submit[ting] to God’s righteousness” (10:3).  Their eyes were on themselves, not God.  They saw the law as a means to an end — their own righteousness, not God’s; personal glory, not Christ’s.  Oil doesn’t mix with water; nor does light with darkness.

Israel had all the available revelation from God, but was self-centered and rebellious.  Are your eyes on yourself, completely missing the revelation you have?  Or are you looking to Christ as your end — your aim, your goal, your target?  Since Christ is “the end,” is his glory your end too?