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

Nothing is further from the truth than to believe that one's good deeds will somehow outweigh his bad deeds and thereby merit God's good favor, eventually earning him a place in God's holy heaven. The fact of the matter is that mankind is hopelessly lost, "without Christ . . . having no hope, and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6).

In Romans 10:3 the apostle Paul describes those who go about to establish their own righteousness as being willingly ignorant of God's righteousness. God's righteousness is only found in Christ. He is the only One who has a right standing before God.

God, the righteous judge, has already declared Jew and Gentile to be guilty, already condemned and sentenced to die. He has no right standing before the lawcourt of God.

This is why it is so futile to reason that law keeping or our own good works will be sufficient to gain heaven. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness" (see our text). No matter what we do, it is never enough. The person who trusts in doing will never be done. It is impossible to work one's way to heaven. It's "Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9).

Therefore, the "end" or termination point is Christ. He is the One who fulfilled all the law for us, who finished forever, by His death, the work of salvation. When we believe on Christ alone, the sentence of death is passed and we receive the righteousness of Christ and eternal life. NPS