Few sentences have carried more weight in Christian discussions of the Law than Romans 10:4:

"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

Romans 10:4

Does Paul mean that Christ terminated the Law? Is Christ the goal towards which the Law was always moving? Does end mean fulfilment, completion, or abolition?

The question cannot be answered by replacing the word end with a more comfortable word and moving on. Paul speaks positively about the Law: it is holy, just, and good; it bears witness to the righteousness of God; and faith does not make it void. Yet he also speaks of a decisive change: believers have died to the Law, are delivered from it, and are no longer under its guardianship.

Romans 10:4 holds those truths together. Christ is not the termination of something evil or mistaken. He is the destination towards which the Law pointed and the One in whom its purpose reaches completion. Precisely because the goal has been reached, seeking righteousness through the Law reaches its appointed end in Him.

One Greek word, several possible meanings

The Greek word translated "end" is telos. Like its English equivalent, it can carry more than one shade of meaning. It may describe an endpoint, an outcome, an aim, or the completion towards which something moves.

Paul's own usage demonstrates this range. In Romans 6 he asks believers what fruit they had in the sins of which they were now ashamed:

"For the end of those things is death."

Romans 6:21

He then contrasts that former life with service to God, whose fruit is holiness and whose "end" is everlasting life (Romans 6:22). In both verses telos describes the result or final outcome of a course. Elsewhere Paul writes that "the end of the commandment is charity," where the word means the aim or intended result of the charge (1 Timothy 1:5).

Those examples show why the dictionary alone cannot settle Romans 10:4. Telos is capable of expressing termination, goal, result, and completion. The surrounding argument must determine which aspects Paul intends.

The argument begins with righteousness

Paul's subject in Romans 9:30–10:4 is not the abstract value of the Mosaic Law. It is the way in which righteousness is obtained.

Gentiles who had not pursued righteousness attained it by faith. Israel, which pursued "the law of righteousness," did not attain it. Paul explains why:

"Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone."

Romans 9:32

Paul is not saying that every individual Israelite rejected Christ. He himself was an Israelite, and a believing remnant remained. His grief concerns the widespread unbelief of his kinsmen and their attempt to establish their own righteousness rather than submit to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:1–3).

Christ is therefore called the telos of the Law within a contrast between two approaches to righteousness. One seeks to establish a standing before God through the Law; the other receives God's righteousness by faith in Christ.

This is why the complete wording of Romans 10:4 matters. Paul does not stop at "Christ is the end of the law." He adds, "for righteousness to every one that believeth." The statement concerns the Law in relation to righteousness and identifies faith, rather than possession or performance of the Law, as the way that righteousness is received.

Moses himself bears witness

Paul immediately develops the contrast:

"For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them."

Romans 10:5

He then describes "the righteousness which is of faith" in language drawn from Deuteronomy 30. No one needs to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down or descend into the deep to raise Him from the dead. God has already acted in the incarnation and resurrection. The saving word is near:

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Romans 10:9

This use of Moses is striking. Paul is not discarding the Old Testament in order to preach Christ. He is reading Moses as a witness to the word of faith which the gospel now proclaims. The same Scriptures which expose the demand of righteousness also direct the hearer away from self-achievement towards God's gracious provision.

Paul had already made this point earlier in Romans:

"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."

Romans 3:21

Righteousness is manifested "without the law"—apart from Law-keeping as its ground—yet the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. There is discontinuity in how righteousness is sought and received, but continuity in the testimony of Scripture.

Does faith make the Law void?

Paul anticipates the objection that justification by faith must empty the Law of value:

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."

Romans 3:31

This does not mean that believers are placed back under the Mosaic covenant as the means of justification or covenant standing. It means that the gospel confirms the truth to which the Law bears witness. The Law's verdict upon sin is upheld, its demand for righteousness is not treated as trivial, and its testimony to God's saving purpose is brought into the light.

The cross does not prove that the Law was excessive. It proves that sin is so serious that redemption required the death of the Son of God. Faith does not call evil good or persuade God to overlook His own holiness. It rests in Christ, who bore the curse and fulfilled the righteousness which sinners could not produce for themselves.

Abraham was justified before the Law

Romans 4 prevents us from imagining that salvation by faith was an emergency introduced after the Law failed. Abraham was counted righteous before Moses, Sinai, and even circumcision:

"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness."

Romans 4:3

Paul deliberately distinguishes a reward owed to the worker from righteousness counted to the one who believes:

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."

Romans 4:5

The giving of the Law did not replace promise with a new way of justification. Neither did it establish a successful works-system which Christ later exchanged for grace. God's saving promise was always received by faith.

The problem in Romans 9–10 is therefore not that Israel respected the Law too highly. The problem is that many sought righteousness as though it could be established through their performance, while stumbling over the Messiah to whom their Scriptures bore witness.

The Law was holy, but the flesh was weak

Paul refuses to blame the Law for human sin:

"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good."

Romans 7:12

The Law reveals God's righteous standard and exposes sin for what it is. Yet a command can identify righteousness without giving fallen humanity the power to perform it. Romans 8 locates the weakness where it belongs:

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

Romans 8:3

The Law was not morally defective. Human flesh was unable to fulfil its righteous demand. God therefore accomplished through His Son what the Law could not accomplish through fallen humanity. The result is not lawlessness, but that "the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

This distinction matters. If Christ were the end of the Law because the Law was bad, Romans 7 would make little sense. If Christ changed nothing about the believer's relationship to the Law, Romans 7–8 would make equally little sense. The Law remains holy; the believer's covenantal relationship to it has nevertheless changed through death and resurrection with Christ.

Galatians describes an appointed transition

Galatians gives the temporal dimension which a reading of "goal" must not ignore. Paul says that the Law "was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made" (Galatians 3:19). Before faith came, God's people were kept under the Law, shut up unto the faith which would afterwards be revealed (Galatians 3:23).

Paul then uses the figure of a schoolmaster or guardian:

"Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

Galatians 3:24–25

The language is both directional and historical. The Law guarded God's people in anticipation of Christ, and that guardianship belonged to a period which has now reached its conclusion. "Faith" did not first exist when Jesus came—Abraham had already believed God. Paul is speaking about the historical arrival of the promised Seed and the public revelation of faith in Him.

Galatians therefore protects the interpretation of Romans 10:4 from two opposite errors. The Law was not a pointless detour with no relationship to Christ. Nor does its role continue unchanged after Christ has come. It pointed forward, guarded for a time, and reached its appointed transition in the Messiah.

Jesus came to fulfil

Jesus used similar language when He declared:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Matthew 5:17

Fulfilment is not contempt. Christ does not treat the Law and the Prophets as a failed revelation which He must correct. He brings their promises, patterns, demands, and prophetic expectation to their intended completion.

Yet fulfilment is not mere repetition either. When a promise is fulfilled, the promised reality has arrived. When a sacrifice finds its substance, the shadow cannot remain the governing form. When the One to whom the Scriptures point has come, faithfulness to those Scriptures requires receiving Him.

This is the tragedy within Romans 9–10. Many possessed the words which testified of God's righteousness while missing the One in whom that righteousness was revealed. Their zeal for God was real, but zeal without knowledge could not provide the righteousness they sought (Romans 10:2–3).

The strongest alternative: telos means termination

A serious interpretation must allow the word end to retain its force. Paul does not merely say that Christ helps readers appreciate the Law more fully. He describes a decisive redemptive-historical change.

Believers are "not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14). They have become dead to the Law by the body of Christ and are "delivered from the law" so that they may serve in newness of spirit (Romans 7:4–6). Galatians says that after faith has come, "we are no longer under a schoolmaster" (Galatians 3:25).

For that reason, translating telos as "end" is not a mistake which must be corrected to "goal." Christ does bring something to an end. The question is what ends and in what sense.

Paul cannot mean that the Old Testament ceases to be God's Word, that God's moral character has changed, or that the Law no longer reveals sin and bears witness to Christ. His own continuing use of the Law rules out those conclusions. Nor can he mean that the Law was formerly God's successful method of justifying sinners, because Romans 4 denies that works ever justified the ungodly.

What reaches its end is the pursuit of righteousness through the Law and the Law's temporary covenantal guardianship in the history of redemption. Christ is the decisive boundary. Righteousness is now openly manifested in Him and given to everyone who believes.

Goal and end meet in Christ

The most natural conclusion is therefore not "goal instead of end" or "end instead of goal." Christ is the Law's goal, fulfilment, culmination, and appointed end.

Those ideas belong together. A journey ends when its destination is reached. A promise ceases to await fulfilment when the promised reality arrives. A guardian's temporary work ends when the appointed heir reaches the time set by the father.

Because Christ is the Law's destination, seeking righteousness through the Law reaches its end in Him. Because He fulfils its witness, this ending does not make the Law false. Because He establishes righteousness by His obedient life, atoning death, and resurrection, the believer does not honour the Law by attempting to provide an independent righteousness. The believer honours its testimony by receiving Christ.

Romans 10:4 is therefore both continuous and decisive:

  • Continuous, because the Law bears witness to the righteousness revealed in Christ.
  • Decisive, because Christ's coming brings the Law's preparatory and covenantal role to its appointed completion.
  • Universal in its offer, because this righteousness is available "to every one that believeth," Jew and Gentile alike.

What does this mean for Christians?

Christians are not justified by the Law. Neither are they placed under the Mosaic covenant as though Christ had not come. Their standing before God rests entirely upon the righteousness of Christ received by faith.

That freedom must not be confused with moral indifference. Paul says that love fulfils the Law and that the righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit (Romans 8:4; 13:8–10). Believers serve God in "newness of spirit," not in order to manufacture a verdict of righteousness, but because they have been joined to the risen Christ (Romans 7:4–6).

Christians should therefore neither seek justification through the Law nor speak contemptuously of it. We read it as holy Scripture. It reveals God's holiness, uncovers sin, records the history of redemption, instructs in righteousness, and directs our attention to Christ.

The Law is not the Gospel, but it bears witness to the Gospel. It is not the believer's means of justification, but it reveals why justification is needed. It is not the final destination, but it faithfully marks the road towards the One who is.

Christ is the end of the Law

Paul's choice of telos is richer than a simple announcement that the Law has been discarded. Christ is its goal because its testimony converges upon Him. He is its fulfilment because He accomplishes what its promises, patterns, and demands anticipated. He is its culmination because God's saving purpose reaches its decisive revelation in His death and resurrection. And He is its appointed end because, once He has come, righteousness cannot be sought as though the Law were the destination.

The tragedy of Romans 9–10 is that people may possess the Scriptures, pursue righteousness, and display religious zeal while still stumbling over Christ. The hope of the passage is that the word of faith is near and its promise is open to all:

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Romans 10:13

Righteousness is not found in possessing the Law, boasting in the Law, or attempting to establish a record through the Law. It is found in the One to whom the Law bears witness.

Christ is the Law's goal reached, its purpose completed, and its appointed end for righteousness to everyone who believes.

References for further review