Romanos 9:30-31

‘What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at the law.'

‘What shall we say then?' is a typical Pauline introduction to the next phase in his argument (Romanos 4:1; Romanos 6:1; Romanos 7:7), although at the same time certainly also connecting up with the previous discussion. It summarises the situation from a new point of view. For here there is certainly a movement from the idea of God's election, where all was of God's decree, to that of man's faith and belief, where man is responsible for his actions and attitudes. Prior to this all had been due to the sovereignty of God. God had been active in choosing out a remnant for Himself (Romanos 8:29). Now, suddenly, emphasis is laid on man's faith or unbelief as a deciding factor (constantly throughout Romanos 9:30 to Romanos 10:17), and it is faith or unbelief in the Messiah. Here is the human side of why the majority of Israel has been rejected. It was because they had rejected their Messiah. In contrast believing Gentiles, conjoined with the believing remnant of Israel, have been accepted because they have believed in Him.

So Paul is here dealing with what was a sticking point for Jews, that so many Gentiles were being saved, and on so simple a basis. They had been willing to accept that Gentiles could become a part of Israel, by being circumcised, after having gone through a process of instruction and Law keeping. What they could not stomach was this new mass movement in which Gentiles were being immediately included among the elect as a result of believing in Christ, without being circumcised and without being instructed in the Law. Paul, therefore, now explains the basis of it. Why are so many Gentiles being saved even though they had not followed the path of righteousness? (That is, they had not been Law-keeping Jews, nor had they submitted themselves to a probationary period under the Law). It is because they have ‘attained to righteousness', the righteousness of God, the righteousness which is the consequence of faith and is given freely to those who believe in Jesus Christ. And as the whole of Romans 1-8 has demonstrated, this righteousness is based on the Messiah Jesus, and on what He has done for them (Romanos 1:3; Romanos 3:21; Romanos 4:24; Romanos 5:1; Romanos 6:1; Romanos 6:23; Romanos 7:4; Romanos 7:25; Romanos 8:1; Romanos 8:9; Romanos 8:17; Romanos 8:32). As Romanos 9:32 emphasise, it was Israel's failure to believe in Him that was the reason for their downfall. ‘The righteousness of faith' is thus that righteousness which is received as a gift in consequence of the righteousness provided by the Messiah, and it is received through faith (Romanos 3:21; Romanos 4:24; Romanos 5:15; Romanos 8:1).

In contrast with the believing Gentiles, who had attained to righteousness through accepting the free gift of Christ's righteousness, were unbelieving Israel, who while ‘following after a law of righteousness' did not arrive at it. (Or ‘who pursuing after the Law of righteousness did not overtake it', metaphors possibly taken from the race track). We might have expected Paul to say ‘following after righteousness' or ‘following after the righteousness of the Law' (Romanos 10:5) in contrast with what he had said of the Gentiles. But instead he speaks of ‘following after the Law of righteousness'. This was an important emphasis. For by stressing ‘the Law of righteousness' he was bringing out what they really did seek. He was emphasising that what they sought was not true righteousness but a synthetic kind of righteousness which was comprised of obedience to the Law in accordance with their own interpretation of it. They were ‘following the Law', and in practise the idea of ‘real righteousness' was secondary. It passed them by (see Mateo 23:23; Mateo 9:13; Mateo 12:7; Marco 12:33). What they were more concerned with was ‘observing the Law'. For they had convinced themselves that by doing this they would please God, and observe the covenant. They saw it as their side of the bargain with God. To them the be all and end all had become ‘following the Law' as interpreted by the Rabbis so as, in their eyes, to observe the covenant. But the problem with this was that they had by this observed the letter of the Law rather than the spirit of the Law. Indeed they had put their whole effort into observing it without any real concern as to whether they were truly being righteous, and thereby many had convinced themselves that they were righteous, when all they were was self-righteous (see Lucas 18:11). For as Jesus had said, ‘you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the Law, judgment and mercy and faith' (Mateo 23:23). So Paul is saying that on the whole they had no conception of true righteousness.

And the consequence of this was that they had not ‘arrived at the Law'. They had not attained to it. They had failed to fulfil it. Indeed they had fallen far short of it. They had not even come close to achieving it. And this was because they had failed to observe its spirit, to love God wholly from the heart and to love all men as themselves (both their neighbour and the stranger who lived amongst them - Levítico 19:18; Levítico 19:34). All the Law could do, therefore, was condemn them, as Paul had made clear in Romanos 2:1 to Romanos 3:20. So ‘not arriving at the Law' indicates their falling short of it, and it brings out that what they really feared was not ‘falling short of righteousness', but ‘falling short of the Law' which they had turned into a list of rules. They had done what it is so easy to do, they had replaced the spirit with the letter.