CHRIST THE END OF THE LAW – Charles Spurgeon

Christ the End of the Law

Introduction
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4. You remember we spoke last Sunday morning of “the days of the Son of man.” Oh, that every Sunday might be a day of that kind in the most spiritual sense! I hope that we shall endeavor to make each Lord’s Day, as it comes around, a day of the Lord, by thinking much of Jesus, by rejoicing much in Him, by laboring for Him, and by our growingly importunate prayer that to Him may the gathering of the people be. We may not have very many Sabbaths together—death may soon part us—but while we are able to meet as a Christian assembly, let us never forget that Christ’s presence is our main necessity. And let us pray for it and entreat the Lord to grant that presence always in displays of light, life, and love!

I become increasingly earnest that every preaching time should be a soul-saving time. I can deeply sympathize with Paul when he said, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” We have had so much preaching, but, comparatively speaking, so little believing in Jesus. And if there is no believing in Him, neither the law nor the gospel has answered its end and our labor has been utterly in vain. Some of you have heard, and heard, and heard again, but you have not believed in Jesus! If the gospel had not come to your hearing, you could not have been guilty of refusing it. “Have they not heard?” says the apostle. “Yes, verily,” but still, “they have not all obeyed the gospel.” Up to this very moment, there has been no hearing with the inner ear and no work of faith in the heart in the case of many whom we love. Dear friends, is it always to be so? How long is it to be so? Shall there not, soon, come an end of this reception of the outward means and rejection of the inward grace? Will not your soul, soon, close in with Christ for present salvation? Break! Break, O heavenly day, upon the benighted ones, for our hearts are breaking over them!

The Reason for Rejecting Christ
The reason why many do not come to Christ is not because they are not earnest, after a fashion, and thoughtful and desirous to be saved, but because they cannot stand God’s way of salvation! “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” We get them by our exhortation so far on the way that they become desirous to obtain eternal life, but “they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.” Mark, “submitted themselves,” for it needs submission! Proud man wants to save himself! He believes he can do it and he will not give over the task until he finds out his own helplessness by unhappy failures. Salvation by grace, to be sued for in forma pauperis—to be asked for as an undeserved blessing from free, unmerited grace—this it is which the carnal mind will not come to as long as it can help it! I beseech the Lord so to work that some of you may not be able to help it. And oh, I have been praying that, while this morning I am trying to set forth Christ as the end of the law, God may bless it to some hearts that they may see what Christ did, and may perceive it to be a great deal better than anything they can do! May they see what Christ finished and become weary of what they, themselves, have labored at so long and have not well commenced at this day. Perhaps it may please the Lord to enchant them with the perfection of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus. As Bunyan would say, “It may, perhaps, set their mouths a-watering after it,” and when a sacred appetite begins, it will not be long before the feast is enjoyed! It may be that when they see the raiment of worked gold which Jesus so freely bestows on naked souls, they will throw away their filthy rags which now they hug so closely.

Two Main Points
I am going to speak about two things, this morning, as the Spirit of God shall help me. The first is, Christ in connection with the law—He is “the end of the law for righteousness.” And secondly, ourselves in connection with Christ—“to everyone that believes, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.”

I. Christ in Connection with the Law
The law is that which, as sinners, we have, above all things, cause to dread, for the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. Towards us, the law darts forth devouring flames, for it condemns us and in solemn terms appoints us a place among the accursed, as it is written, “Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” Yet, strange infatuation! Like the fascination which attracts the gnat to the candle which burns its wings, men, by nature, fly to the law for salvation and cannot be driven from it! The law can do nothing else but reveal sin and pronounce condemnation upon the sinner. And yet we cannot get men away from it, even though we show them how sweetly Jesus stands between them and it. They are so enamored of legal hope that they cling to it when there is nothing to cling to—they prefer Sinai to Calvary, though Sinai has nothing for them but thunder and trumpet warnings of coming judgment!

Christ’s Relationship to the Law
O that for a while you would listen anxiously while I set forth Jesus, my Lord, that you may see the law in Him! Now, what has our Lord to do with the law? He has everything to do with it, for He is its end for the noblest object, namely, for righteousness! He is the “end of the law.” What does this mean? I think it signifies three things. First, that Christ is the purpose and object of the law. Secondly, that He is the fulfillment of it, and thirdly, He is the termination of it.

Christ as the Purpose and Object of the Law
First, then, our Lord Jesus Christ is the purpose and object of the law. It was given to lead us to Him. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, or rather our attendant to conduct us to the school of Jesus. The law is the great net in which the fish are enclosed that they may be drawn out of the element of sin. The law is the stormy wind which drives souls into the harbor of refuge. The law is the sheriff’s officer to shut men up in prison for their sin, concluding them all under condemnation in order that they may look to the free grace of God, alone, for deliverance! This is the object of the law—it empties, that grace may fill—and wounds that Mercy may heal.

It has never been God’s intention towards us, as fallen men, that the law should be regarded as a way to salvation for us, for a way of salvation it can never be. Had man never fallen; had His nature remained as God made it, the law would have been most helpful to Him to show Him the way in which He should walk. And by keeping it He would have lived, for “He that does these things shall live in them.” But ever since man has fallen, the Lord has not proposed to him a way of salvation by works, for He knows it to be impossible to a sinful creature. The law is already broken and whatever man can do, he cannot repair the damage he has already done. Therefore he is out of court as to the hope of merit.

The Law Shows Our Sin
The law demands perfection, but man has already fallen short of it and, therefore, let him do his best; he cannot accomplish what is absolutely essential. The law is meant to lead the sinner to faith in Christ by showing the impossibility of any other way! It is the black dog to fetch the sheep to the shepherd. It is the burning heat which drives the traveler to the shadow of the great rock in a weary land. Look how the law is adapted to this, for, first of all, it shows man his sin. Read the ten commandments and tremble as you read them! Who can lay his own character down, side by side, with the two tablets of divine precepts without at once being convinced that he has fallen far short of the standard?

When the law comes home to the soul, it is like light in a dark room revealing the dust and the dirt which otherwise had been unperceived. It is the test which detects the presence of the poison of sin in the soul. “I was alive without the law, once,” said the apostle, “but when the commandments came, sin revived and I died.” Our comeliness utterly fades away when the law blows upon it.

The Law Shows the Result of Sin
The law also shows the result and mischief of sin. Look at the types of the old Mosaic dispensation and see how they were intended to lead men to Christ by making them see their unclean condition and their need of such cleansing as only He can give. Every type pointed to our Lord Jesus Christ! If men were set apart because of disease or uncleanness, they were made to see how sin separated them from God and from His people. And when they were brought back and purified with mystic rites in which were scarlet wool and hyssop and the like, they were made to see how they could only be restored by Jesus Christ, the great High Priest.

Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law
Now, the abundance of the blood of old was meant to show clearly that sin has so polluted us, that without an atonement, God is not to be approached. We must come by the way of sacrifice or not at all. We are so unacceptable in ourselves, that unless the Lord sees us with the blood of Jesus upon us He must put us away. The old law, with its emblems and figures, set forth many truths as to men’s selves and the coming Savior, intending, by all of them, to preach Christ.

Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law’s Righteous Demands
The law demands that the righteousness should be without omission of duty and without commission of sin—and the righteousness which Christ has brought in is just such an one that for its sake the great God accepts His people and counts them to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. The law will not be content without spiritual obedience—mere outward compliances will not satisfy. But our Lord’s obedience was as deep as it was broad, for His zeal to do the will of Him that sent Him consumed Him. He says Himself, “I delight to do Your will, O My God, yes, Your law is within My heart.”

Christ as the End of the Law
And now, secondly, He is the law’s fulfillment. It is impossible for any of us to be saved without righteousness; the God of heaven and earth, by immutable necessity, demands righteousness of all His creatures. Now, Christ has come to give to us the righteousness which the law demands, but which it never bestows. In the chapter before us, we read of “the righteousness which is of faith,” which is also called, “God’s righteousness.”

What the law could not do, Jesus has done! He provides the righteousness which the law asks for, but cannot produce! What an amazing righteousness it must be which is as broad and deep and long and high as the law itself! The commandments are exceedingly broad, but the righteousness of Christ is as broad as the commandments and goes to the end of them.

Christ as the Termination of the Law
Christ is the end of the law in the sense that He is the termination of it. He has terminated it in two senses. First of all, His people are not under it as a covenant of life. “We are not under the law, but under grace.” The old covenant, as it stood with father Adam, was, “This do and you shall live.”

Its command he did not keep, and consequently, he did not live, nor do we live in him, since in Adam all died. The old covenant was broken and we became condemned, but now, having suffered death in Christ, we are no more under it, but are dead to it. Brothers and sisters, at this present moment, although we rejoice to do good works, we are not seeking life through them! We are not hoping to obtain divine favor by our own goodness, nor even to keep ourselves in the love of God by any merit of our own. Chosen, not for our works, but according “to the eternal will and good pleasure of God,” we are called, not of works, but by the Spirit of God. We desire to continue in this grace and return no more to the bondage of the old covenant. Since we have put our trust in an atonement provided and applied by grace through Christ Jesus, we are no longer slaves but children, not working to be saved, but saved already, and working because we are saved! Neither that which we do, nor even that which the Spirit of God works in us, is, to us, the ground and basis of the love of God toward us since He loved us from the first because He would love us, unworthy though we were. And He loves us, still, in Christ and looks upon us not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Him, washed in His blood and covered in His righteousness. You are not under the law, Christ has taken you from the servile bondage of a condemning covenant and made you to receive the adoption of children, so that now you cry, “Abba, Father!”

Christ as the Terminator of the Law
Again, Christ is the terminator of the law, for we are no longer under its curse. The law cannot curse a believer, it does not know how to do it. It blesses him, yes, and he shall be blessed, for as the law demands righteousness and looks at the believer in Christ—and sees that Jesus has given him all the righteousness it demands—the law is bound to pronounce him blessed. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” Oh, the joy of being redeemed from the curse of the law by Christ, who was “made a curse for us,” as it is written, “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.”

The Sweet Mystery of Salvation
Do you, my brothers and sisters, understand the sweet mystery of salvation? Have you ever seen Jesus standing in your place that you may stand in His place? Christ accused and Christ condemned! Christ led out to die and Christ smitten of the Father, even to the death! And then you cleared, justified, delivered from the curse because the curse has spent itself on your Redeemer! You are admitted to enjoy the blessing because the righteousness which was His is now transferred to you that you may be blessed of the Lord, world without end! Let us triumph and rejoice in this forevermore! Why shouldn’t we? And yet some of God’s people get under the law as to their feelings and begin to fear that because they are conscious of sin they are not saved, whereas it is written, “He justifies the ungodly.”

Living Near a Sinner’s Savior
For myself, I love to live near a sinner’s Savior. If my standing before the Lord depended upon what I am in myself and what good works and righteousness I could bring, surely I would have to condemn myself a thousand times a day! But to get away from that and to say, “I have believed in Jesus Christ and therefore righteousness is mine,” this is peace, rest, joy and the beginning of heaven! When one attains to this experience, His love to Jesus Christ begins to flame up and he feeds that if the Redeemer has delivered him from the curse of the law, he will not continue in sin, but he will endeavor to live in newness of life! We are not our own, we are bought with a price and we would, therefore, glorify God in our bodies and in our spirits, which are the Lord’s.

Christ in Connection with the Law
Thus much upon Christ in connection with the law.

II. Ourselves in Connection with Christ
Now, secondly, ourselves in connection with Christ—for, “Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believes.” Now see the point—“to everyone that believes”—there the stress lies. Come, man, woman, do you believe? No weightier question can be asked under heaven! “Do you believe on the Son of God?” And what is it to believe? It is not merely to accept a set of doctrines and to say that such-and-such a creed is yours and then and there to put it on the shelf and forget it. To believe is to trust, to confide, to depend upon, to rest upon, to rest in. Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Do you believe that He stood in the sinner’s place and suffered, the Just for the unjust? Do you believe that He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him? And do you, therefore, lay the whole weight and stress of your soul’s salvation upon Him, yes, upon Him alone? Ah then, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to you and you are righteous!

The Importance of Belief
In the righteousness of God you are clothed if you believe! It is of no use to bring forward anything else if you are not believing, for nothing will do. If faith is absent, the essential thing is lacking—sacraments, prayers, Bible reading, hearing of the gospel—you may heap them together as high as the stars, into a mountain as high as Olympus, but they are all mere chaff if faith is not there! It is your believing or not believing which must settle the matter! Do you look away from yourself to Jesus for righteousness? If you do, He is the end of the law to you.

Christ is the End of the Law to Everyone Who Believes
Now observe that there is no question raised about your previous character, for it is written, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.” But, Lord, this man, before He believed, was a persecutor and injurious! He raged and raved against the saints and hauled them to prison and sought their blood! Yes, beloved friend, and that is the very man who wrote these words by the Holy Spirit, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.” So if I address one here, this morning, whose life has been defiled with every sin and stained with every transgression we can conceive of, yet I say unto such, remember, “all manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, your iniquities are blotted out, for the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanses us from all sin! This is the glory of the gospel, that it is a sinner’s gospel—good news of blessing, not for those without sin, but for those who confess and forsake it! Jesus came into the world, not to reward the sinless, but to seek and to save that which was lost. And he, being lost and being far from God, who comes near to God by Christ and believes in Him, will find that He is able to bestow righteousness upon the guilty. He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.

The Power of Belief in Christ
And, therefore, to the poor harlot that believes, to the drunk of many years standing that believes, to the thief, the liar and the scoffer who believes! Jesus is the end of the law to those who have, before, rioted in sin but now turn from it to trust in Him. But I do not know that I need mention such cases as these. To me the most wonderful fact is that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to me, for I believe in Him. I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day.

Faith Regardless of Its Strength
Another thought arises from the text, and that is that there is nothing said by way of qualification as to the strength of the faith. Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes, whether He is Little Faith or Greatheart. Jesus protects the rear rank as well as the vanguard. There is no difference between one believer and another as to justification. So long as there is a connection between you and Christ, the righteousness of God is yours! The link may be like a film, a spider’s line of trembling faith, but, if it runs all the way from the heart to Christ, divine grace can and will flow along the most slender thread! It is marvelous how fine the wire may be that will carry the electric flash.

We may need a cable to carry a message across the sea, but that is for the protection of the wire. The wire which actually carries the message is a slender thing. If your faith is of the mustard-seed kind; if it is only such as tremblingly touches the hem of the Savior’s garment; if you can only say, “Lord, I believe, help You my unbelief”; if it is but the faith of sinking Peter, or weeping Mary, yet if it is faith in Christ, He will be the end of the law for righteousness to you as well as to the chief of the apostles! If this is so, then, beloved friends, all of us who believe are righteous. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have obtained the righteousness which those who follow the works of the law know nothing of.

Righteousness Through Faith in Christ
We are not completely sanctified—would God we were! We are not rid of sin in our members, though we hate it, but still, for all that, in the sight of God, we are truly righteous! And being qualified by faith, we have peace with God. Come, look up, you believers that are burdened with a sense of sin! While you chasten yourselves and mourn your sin, do not doubt your Savior, nor question His righteousness! You are black, but do not stop there, go on to say as the spouse did, “I am black, but comely.”

Final Thoughts on Salvation and Faith
Now, mark that the connection of our text assures us that being righteous we are saved, for what does it say here? “If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” He who is justified is saved, or what were the benefit of justification? Over you, believer, God has pronounced the verdict, “saved,” and none shall reverse it! You are saved from sin and death and Hell—you are saved even now, with a present salvation—“He has saved us and called us with a holy calling.” Feel the beauty of it at this hour. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God!”

Conclusion
And now I have done when I have said just this. If anyone here thinks He can save himself and that his own righteousness will suffice before God, I would affectionately beg him not to insult his Savior. If your righteousness suffices, why did Christ come here to work one out? Will you, for a moment, compare your righteousness with the righteousness of Jesus Christ? What likeness is there between you and Him? As much as between an ant and an archangel! No, not so much as that—as much as between night and day, hell and heaven! Oh, if I had a righteousness of my own that no one could find fault with, I would voluntarily fling it away to have the righteousness of Christ! But as I have none of my own, I rejoice the more to have my Lord’s.

Final Warning
When Mr. Whitefield first preached at Kingswood, near Bristol, to the coal miners, he could see when their hearts began to be touched by the gutters of white made by the tears as they ran down their black cheeks. He saw they were receiving the gospel and he wrote in his diary, “as these poor men had no righteousness of their own, they, therefore, gloried in Him who came to save publicans and sinners.” Well, Mr. Whitefield, that is true of the coal miners, but it is equally true of many of us, here, who may not have had black faces, but we had black hearts! We can truly say that we, also, rejoice to cast away our own righteousness, and count it dross and dung that we may win Christ and be found in Him! In Him is our sole hope and only trust!

Rejection of Christ’s Righteousness Leads to Perishing
Last of all, for any of you to reject the righteousness of Christ must be to perish everlastingly, because it cannot be that God will accept you or your pretended righteousness when you have refused the real and divine righteousness which He sets before you in His Son! If you could go up to the gates of heaven, and an angel were to say to you, “What title have you to entrance here?” And if you were to reply, “I have a righteousness of my own,” then for you to be admitted would be to decide that your righteousness was on a par with that of Immanuel, Himself! Can that ever be? Do you think that God will ever allow such a lie to be sanctioned? Will He let a poor wretched sinner’s counterfeit righteousness pass current, side by side with the fine gold of Christ’s perfection? Why was the fountain filled with blood if you need no washing? Is Christ a superfluity? Oh, it cannot be! You must have Christ’s righteousness or be unrighteous—and being unrighteous you will be unsaved—and being unsaved you must remain lost forever and ever!

Faith in Christ is the Way to Righteousness
What? Has it all come to this, then, that I am to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for righteousness and to be made just through faith? Yes, that is it! That is the whole of it. “What? Trust Christ, alone, and then live as I like?” You cannot live in sin after you have trusted Jesus, for the act of faith brings with it a change of nature, and a renewal of your soul. The Spirit of God, who leads you to believe, will also change your heart. You spoke of, “living as you like.” You will like to live very differently from what you do now. The things you loved before your conversion, you will hate when you believe—and the things you hated you will love.

A Change of Heart
Now you are trying to be good and you have great failures because your heart is alienated from God. But when once you have received salvation through the blood of Christ, your heart will love God—and then you will keep His commandments and they will be no longer grievous to you. A change of heart is what you need but you will never get it except through the covenant of grace. There is not a word about conversion in the old covenant—we must look to the new covenant for that! And here it is—“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean. From all your filthiness and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. A new heart, also, will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them.” This is one of the greatest covenant promises—and the Holy Spirit performs it in the chosen! Oh, that the Lord would sweetly persuade you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ—and that promise and the other entire covenant engagements shall be fulfilled to your soul! The Lord bless you! Spirit of God, send Your blessing on these poor words of mine for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Charles Spurgeon