II. In what way he directed them to seek it —
The whole Epistle to the Romans was written with the express view of setting forth the way of salvation. It shews at large that we are fallen and ruined crea- tures ; that God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world to redeem us ; and that all who would be saved, must seek for mercy through his meritorious blood and righteousness. But in a more peculiar and emphatical manner did he urge these truths in that part from whence our text is taken.
He shewed them that they must found all their hopes on Christ alone —
[Consult the preceding context. There he states a matter of fact well known to all; namely, that the idolatrous and abandoned Gentiles, who had never thought about salvation, had been prevailed upon to seek after it, and had actually attained it, because they were willing to accept it in God's appointed way, by faith in Christ alone : whereas the Jews, who had shewn considerable attention to the concerns of their souls, had failed of attaining salvation, because they disdained to seek it in this way. He tells them, that this fact agreed with the prophecies, which actually foretold this very event, and declared (many hundred years before) that Christ would thus become a stumbling-block to that self-righteous people f.
The same he sets forth also in the following context. He confesses that his Jewish brethren had a zeal to serve God ; but it was a mistaken zeal. In three things they fatally erred : they were ignorant of the plan which God had devised for jus- tifying sinners — they were seeking to establish a righteousness of their own, by which they might be justified before him — and when a better righteousness was proposed to them, even the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would not trust in it, or submit to be saved in such an humiliating way — That these were errors, even the law itself might teach them ; for " Christ was the end of the law for righteousness :" He was the very object to whom both the ceremonial and moral law directed them, for the obtaining of such a righteousness as should justify them before God: and this righteousness they were to obtain by faith in him. The moral law shut them up to this method of obtaining salvation, because it denounced nothing but curses against every one that had violated it even in a single instance5: and the ceremonial law taught them to
f Rom. ix. 30—33. 2 Gal. Hi. 10, 23, 24.