Is Christ the End of the Law?

Romans 10:4 ...'For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.'

Many professing Christians today take these words from the apostle Paul above literally, and say that Christ brought an end to the law of God, the ten commandments. But is that what Paul meant? Are these words above to be taken literally as they appear? No they are not, and we will show you Biblical evidence as to why the above verse does not actually mean that Christ was the literal END of the law.

Could that word "end" mean something other than "brought to an end"? To find out the truth, we need to use the Bible to interpret this and find some other verses with this kind of statement in them.

James 5:11 ...'Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.'

1 Peter 1:9 ...'Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.'

1 Timothy 1:5 ...'Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.'

I hope these verses help you understand the truth regarding Romans 10:4. Can you see the true meaning of this statement now? Would we say that "the end of the Lord" means Christ came to an end? Or would we say that "the end of our faith" means our faith comes to a literal end? Of course not. The word "end" in these verses mean "end objective" or "end goal".

We have seen the END OBJECTIVE/GOAL of the Lord.

The END OBJECTIVE/GOAL of our faith is the salvation of our souls.

The END OBJECTIVE/GOAL of the commandment is to lead us to charity.

And it is the same for Romans 10:4. So let us re-word Romans 10:4 with the new meaning:

Romans 10:4 ...'For Christ is the "END GOAL" of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.'

Paul wasn't meaning that Christ brought a literal end to the law of God. He meant that Christ IS THE END OBJECTIVE of the law. You see, the law of God points us to Christ Jesus. If we sin against God's eternal law, then we are pointed to Christ Jesus where we can receive forgiveness of sins.

We need the law to show us where we have gone wrong and it leads us to Christ Jesus in whom we find cleansing of sin and righteousness. This is what Paul was meaning, and THAT is the OBJECTIVE and GOAL of the law, to lead us to Christ. And we know Paul did not say that the ten commandments had come to an end, because of what he said in Romans 3:

Romans 3:31 ...'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.'

Romans 7:7-12 ...'What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ... Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.'