Romans 9:30

to Romans 10:21. We come now to the second main division of that part of the epistle in which Paul discusses the problem raised by the relation of the Jews to the Gospel. He has shown in chap. Romans 9:6-29 that they have no claim as of right to salvation: their whole history, as recorded and interpreted in the Scriptures, exhibited God acting on quite a different principle; he now proceeds to show more definitely that it was owing to their own guilt that they were rejected. They followed, and persisted in following, a path on which salvation was not to be found; and they were inexcusable in doing so, inasmuch as God had made His way of salvation plain and accessible to all.

Romans 9:30 f. τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; usually, as in Romans 9:14, this question is followed by another, but here by an assertion. The conclusion of the foregoing discussion is not that God has been faithless or unjust, but this paradoxical position: Gentiles (ἔθνη, not τὰ ἔθνη) that did not follow after righteousness attained righteousness, the righteousness which comes of faith; while Israel, which followed after a law of righteousness, did not attain that law. διώκειν and καταλαμβάνειν are correlative terms: see Wetstein. The repetition of δικαιοσύνη is striking: it is the one fundamental conception on which Paul's gospel rests; the questions at issue between him and the Jews were questions as to what it was, and how it was to be attained. τὰ μὴ διώκοντα δικαιοσύνην is not an unfair description of the pagan races as contrasted with the Jews; how to be right with God was not their main interest. δικαιοσύνην δὲ τὴν ἐκ πίστεως for the form of the explanatory clause with δὲ cf. Romans 3:22; 1 Corinthians 2:6. It is not surprising that a righteousness of this sort should be found even by those who are not in quest of it; its nature is that it is brought and offered to men, and faith is simply the act of appropriating it. Ἰσραὴλ δὲ κ. τ. λ.: this is the astonishing thing which does need explanation. διώκων νόμον δικαιοσύνης. The idea is not that Israel was in quest of a law of righteousness, in the sense of a rule by the observance of which righteousness would be attained: every Israelite believed himself to be, and already was, in possession of such a law. It must rather be that Israel aimed incessantly at bringing its conduct up to the standard of a law in which righteousness was certainly held out, but was never able to achieve its purpose. The νόμος δικαιοσύνης, the unattained goal of Israel's efforts, is of course the Mosaic law; but it is referred to, not definitely, but in its characteristic qualities, as law, and as exhibiting and enjoining (not bestowing) righteousness. εἰς νόμον οὐκ ἔφθασεν : did not attain to, arrive at, that law it remained out of their reach. Legal religion proved a failure.