A Straight Line

Each of us might remember the days when we were young children in school if we sit and think long enough. As you reflect upon your days in school I want you to remember those wooden rulers that had the metal strip on one side so that you could draw a straight line. That straight edge was the greatest thing until it got bent or pulled loose from the ruler. Once that happened it was just a useless little piece of metal, that became impossible to use for anything helpful, and often whole rulers were thrown away because of that one little piece not being any good. This is hopefully an interesting illustration to help you in understanding what Paul is saying to us in Romans 10:1-5. Now keep the ruler in mind while you read the scriptures. Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. Romans 10:1-5

See Paul is saying here that his heart’s desire and prayer is that the people of the nation of Israel would be saved. He even testifies that they have zeal for God, but it is zeal that is not founded in truth. They are zealous, but they are still wrong. They are like that one kid who has mangled the metal side of his ruler, the straight edge, yet he keeps trying to draw a straight line with it. The line is ragged and crooked every time, yet he won’t give up, but instead keeps trying with zeal to make the line straight. Likewise the Israelites kept trying to draw a straight line from themselves to God by keeping the law, but the truth is that each one had already broken and bent the law out of shape by his own sin, and could not use it as a straight edge. The whole time they keep working to draw that line of righteousness, the Lord Jesus is sitting next to them having made the most perfect line to God, so perfect in fact, that each person could substitute Jesus’ line for their own.

Christ should have been the end of the Israelites trying to work salvation by keeping the law, yet he was not. Christ was righteous by the law’s standard, and therefore he lived and continues to live because he kept the law. He is standing next to the Jew as well as the Gentile offering to let us borrow his straight line, or his righteousness. Yet both Jew and Gentile alike have to look up from trying to draw a straight line with a mangled straight edge, long enough to see the offer and accept. All the zeal in the world will never make our crooked line straight. We need to look up to him and no longer be ignorant that our straight edge is broken, but admit it is broken, admit that Christ’s fulfillment of the law was once for all, and put our faith in him. That was Paul’s desire for the Jews, and it is his desire for us as well.

I hope and pray that this illustration made sense, and I look forward to hearing your comments on it.