Interesting to note that a man who understands the Gospel like no other is one who is especially concerned with the salvation of Israelites. He has not abrogated them to some category of "vessels of wrath" nor has he tossed his hands up as "not chosen before the foundation of the world." Indeed, even in Acts where he wipes the dust off his feet he makes repeated efforts to win them for Christ and here he earnestly prays for them and bears witness of them.
So what is righteousness anyway? What is God’s righteousness? What righteousness did the Gentiles attain and the Jews fell short of? I’ve spoken about this before and more often than not people say something like “Righteousness is goodness.”
But note the text states that the Gentiles were not pursuing righteousness: we can’t say they weren’t pursuing goodness. It would be ridiculous to state that for years upon years Gentiles were ignoring The Good and trying to attain only evil especially in light of the moral arguments of philosophers prior to Paul’s day.
Rather this righteousness was attained by faith and here people will be quick to interject their arguments about the Jews working for their salvation in the Law and the Law being useless and the Law detracting from Grace, but hold one minute. This is God’s Law, a perfect and holy and just law: how dare we.
Paul says that Israel was “pursuing a law of righteousness but did not arrive at that law.” Note what’s being stated here, the Jews were actually following the law of righteousness yet they didn’t grip the law, come to terms with it, arrive at it.
Here our Gentile minds start filling up arguments that Jesus was the only one that kept the entire law perfectly thus actually being the only man to have kept the Law.” And when we mention the Sabbath we get into sticky territory where we border on the edge of blaspheming the Lord by either supplanting the Sabbath or ascribing it to some tripartite division of the Law under the Ceremonial header or merely getting rid of the thing altogether.
They didn’t pursue God’s Law of Righteousness by faith but as though it were something to be attained by their doing so then they stumbled over the stumbling stone.
Here’s what Paul is actually saying. The Law wasn’t describing how to be good, although it did do that, nor was it describing what exactly you have to do to be saved on your own accord. The Law by making its propositions of do and do not is describing, by inference somebody who doesn’t have to be told all that.
I am reminded of the Father who tells the child “sit up in class, listen very well and take notes” knowing full well that such sort of actions point to an individual who will do well from that sort of attention—even if that individual is a myth in dad’s mind.
But the Law was perfect and belonged to God so there’s no hypotheticals about it. The Law was pointing to an individual–not to individuals who could actually earn the status the Law was pointing to. That’s where Israel stumbled, on the stone that was laid down and by its very existence points out that no one could attain that status: it can only be bestowed and that by faith (note Romans chapter 4 for further analysis on faith).
Therefore Israel is not saved because of the way they tried to attain a perfectly right righteousness: by earning it. With this fact in mind Paul finds himself still praying for their salvation!
Last time I said that God’s unmerited mercy was being poured out on vessels of wrath: stupid, pagan Gentiles who weren’t even looking for God in the first place—but what about Israel, these vessels that were prepared beforehand for glory? What about their fate?
Paul’s overarching point, if you recall, is especially concerned with the salvation of unsaved Israel—a point that seems to be quickly ignored in many debates. If the argument here is that God has decided not to save Israel there is truly a problem with God’s word which will always stand yet in Paul’s day (and presently) Israel as a whole does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
The evidence stands against them for the prophets had spoken about God’s mercy left and right (a fact that is overwhelmingly ignored when looking at God in the Old Testament). Speaking about a cast off Israel, God through Hosea says He will take those cast off Israelites and call them His People and they will thus be called living sons of the living God. Speaking about a chastised Israel, Isaiah says that the entire Israelite nation will not be wiped out but there would be a remnant, a small shoot, that will be saved and preserve Israel for God has left them this posterity instead of wiping them out like Sodom and Gomorrah.
So God did in fact show mercy to Israel that He hasn’t wiped them out and He doesn’t intend to wipe them out but currently Israel does not believe because in the way they pursued God’s righteousness.
Airing dirty laundry is pretty nasty when your neighbors peek out the back window and see the stains and filth. But, for our own purposes, it helps get rid of the stench and hopefully, puts the stuff to light to expose how bad the stains are. In our Christian home we extol the virtues of Martin Luther and gloss over some of the other stuff he’s done or said chalking it up to age or uninformed. Here’s a quote from Martin Luther’s book "On the Jews and Their Lies" or rather Von den Juden und ihren Lügen which is outright wrong in it’s approach to the Jews and completely antithetical to Paul’s thinking. Forgive me for posting it, but this is for my records. The full book is here.Remember I am QUOTING and I by no means agree with Luther on what’s below.
It would not be inconceivable to think that Paul is using the illustration of the potter and clay in a completely new way, or at the very least, a way unimagined by the readers of the Prophets. After all, many have argued that that is exactly what Matthew did (cf. {{Isa 7:14}}; {{Matt 1:23}}—young maiden vs. virgin). But I don’t think that fits in with what Paul is doing.
While establishing the righteousness of God in the Gospel he makes a repeated effort in showing how the revelation of this righteousness is completely consistent with God’s previous revelation of righteousness.