Romans 10:1-4

10:1-4.

The apostle has summarily enunciated the real solution of the enigma in Romans 9:30-33. The proud claim of the people to uphold their own righteousness caused them to stumble at the true righteousness, that of faith, which God offered them in the person of the Messiah. Chap. 10 develops and establishes this solution of the problem. Notwithstanding their religious zeal, the Israelitish nation, blinded by their self-righteousness, did not understand that the end of the legal dispensation must be the consequence of the coming of the Messiah (Romans 10:1-4); because he came to inaugurate a wholly new order of things, the characteristics of which were opposed to those of the legal system: 1st. The complete freeness of salvation (Romans 10:5-11); 2d. The universality of this free salvation (Romans 10:12-21).

In the act of unveiling the spiritual ignorance of the elect people, which forced God to separate from them for a time, Paul is seized with an emotion not less lively than that which he had felt when beginning to treat this whole matter (Romans 9:1 et seq.), and he interrupts himself to give vent to the feelings of his soul.