"For Christ Is The End Of The Law..."
5th Sunday after Pentecost
Romans 10:1-10; Matthew 8:28-34;9:1
Today we will focus on The Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. By "Romans" – we fundamentally understand they are the Jews who lived in Rome and who accepted the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (there may also have been actual Romans and Greeks within that community).
At this time Apostle Paul has not yet been to Rome, for in this letter (chapter 1) he mentions, that he would like to come to them - the Community of Christ in Rome.
"For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established.…but was hindered until now…" (Romans 1:11- 13).
In the first lines of the 10th chapter, which were read today, Ap. Paul draws the attention of those Christians in Rome to the Jews (in Israel)--possessing zeal, seeking to show loyalty to God--acted foolishly.
Paul himself was of Jewish origin. And he first (as Saul), when the apostles began preaching the Gospel of Christ (after the descent of the Holy Spirit)--on the instructions of the high priests of Jerusalem--went to Damascus to arrest and persecute those Christians. As can be seen from the description, he himself asked for such a commission from the high priest (Acts 9:1-2). And he, like most of the Jews, was firmly convinced of his loyalty to God, tried to show his zeal for God and His Law by his actions.
Christ's foretelling was coming true that:
“The hour will even come when everyone who causes you death will think as if he brings service to God..." (John 16:2).
But the Lord Jesus Christ, only after his Ascension, appeared to Saul, the persecutor of Christians on the way to Damascus (Acts 9:3-7) and opened his spiritual eyes, spiritually regenerating him; and Saul took the name Paul, and became the greatest evangelist of Christ's faith to various peoples.
Of course, Paul did not act by human power, but by the grace of God. And, remembering his spiritual blindness, when he persecuted the first Christians, thinking that he was pleasing God, Paul, having love for his Jewish people, dreams and desires that all his people will accept Christ as their Saviour, so that the zealots of the Law and those who still blindly persecute Christ, His followers, understand their mistakes, their sin and convert to the Lord Jesus Christ, about whom the prophets of the Old Testament testified.
He proves to those still blinded Jews that he, Paul, is not a traitor to the faith of his fathers, but on the contrary - he has kept the same faith and preaches about the same one God that Abraham, Moses and all the prophets recognized.
"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge”; that is, they do not understand the will of God: "seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law…" (Rom. 10:1-4).
This signifies that whoever wants to be righteous, whoever wants to truly fulfill the will of God, must recognize Jesus Christ as his/her Saviour, accept His teaching. Unfortunately, the majority of Paul's compatriots, the Jews, did not accept and do not accept that plea of Paul "from the bottom of the heart", did not accept his explanation and understanding of faith in the one God.
Just as the Romans were blinded by the pride of their position of state power, so too the leading elite, and following them the majority of the Jewish people, were blinded by the national pride of "God's chosen people" who keep their faith in the one God. Such pride in faith, nurtured through many generations, inevitably gives rise to fanaticism and intolerance.
I have dwelled at length on the appeal of the Apostle Paul to his fellow Jews and the situation that was then created, in order that it might be easier for us to understand the zealots of Christ's faith - the crusaders, who out of fanaticism went to "liberate the Lord's tomb" and caused the ruin of Christianity in the East. . .
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.