Telos: Aim and Completion

Some verses are long and need careful reading. This one is short enough to memorize in a minute.

“Christ is the end of the law.”

The claim built on it needs very few words. “Christ is the end of the law (Romans 10:4). The law ended in Christ.” On this reading the law ran until Messiah came, and when He came, it stopped. Nothing, it seems, could be plainer than the word “end.”

Because everything hangs on that one word, the verse deserves a chapter of its own.

Romans 10:4 For Messiah is the telos τέλος tel'-os(goal, completion) of the nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) for dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness) to everyone who believes.

One Word, Two Directions

The word translated “end” is telos (τέλος). It can mean end, as when a period of time comes to its telos. But its first meaning is goal or completion: the point something is aimed at, the purpose it was for. The YLV glosses it here as “goal, completion.”

English carries both senses in a single word. When someone says, “The end justifies the means,” no one hears end as termination. It means purpose, the goal one is aiming at. A dictionary, then, cannot settle Romans 10:4, since both meanings are there. What matters is how Paul used the word, and he used it in another letter, in a sentence that no one misreads.

1 Timothy 1:5 But the goal of our instruction is agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love) from a pure kardia καρδία kar-dee'-ah(heart, soul-domain) and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

“The goal of our instruction is agape(love).” The word for goal is the same telos. The word for instruction is parangelia παραγγελία par-ang-gel-ee'-ah, a charge, a command given. In Greek, Paul writes that the telos of the command is love.

Read it as “end,” and the sentence would mean that instruction ends in love, so that once love appears, teaching stops and no one needs to be taught anything again. No one reads 1 Timothy that way. Paul means that all his instruction aims at love. Love is the target it was pointed at.

Romans 10:4 is built in the same way. The Messiah is the One the law pointed to, the goal at which the law aimed.

The Recipe and the Meal

Think of a recipe in a family cookbook. Its telos, its whole purpose, is the meal. Every measurement and every step in it is aimed at the dish on the table.

When the meal is served, no one declares the recipe finished and burns the page. Reaching the goal does not abolish the recipe; if anything, it proves the recipe was right. Next week, when the family wants that meal again, they open the same page.

That is the difference between end as termination and end as goal. The first throws the recipe away. The second says that it did exactly what it was written to do.

How Paul Proves It

Had Paul meant that the Torah ended in Messiah, we would expect the verses that follow to leave the Torah behind. Instead, from the very next verse, Paul proves his point with the words of the Torah itself.

Romans 10:5-8 For Moses writes concerning the dikaiosyne(righteousness) that is by the nomos(law): "The person who does these things shall live by them." But the dikaiosyne(righteousness) that is by faith speaks thus: "Do not say in your kardia(heart, soul-domain), 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" — that is, to bring Messiah down — "or, 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" — that is, to bring Messiah up from the dead. But what does it say? "The rhema ῥήμα hray'-mah(spoken-word) is near you — in your mouth and in your kardia(heart, soul-domain)" — that is, the rhema(spoken-word) of faith which we proclaim:

Verse 5 quotes Leviticus. Then, to explain “the dikaiosyne(righteousness) that is by faith,” Paul turns to Deuteronomy. “Who will ascend into heaven?” “Who will descend into the abyss?” “The rhema(spoken-word) is near you — in your mouth and in your kardia(heart, soul-domain).” These phrases are drawn from Moses, and here is the passage in his own words:

Deuteronomy 30:11-14 For this commandment (mitzvah מִצוָה mits-vaw') which I am commanding you (tzivvah צָוָה tsaw-vaw') this day, it is not too wonderful for you, nor is it far off. It is not in the heavens, saying: 'Who will go up for us to the heavens, and take it for us, and make us hear it, that we may do it?' And it is not beyond the sea, saying: 'Who will pass over for us to beyond the sea, and take it for us, and make us hear it, that we may do it?' But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.

Moses is speaking of a commandment that is “not too wonderful for you, nor is it far off.” It is not in the heavens, and it is not beyond the sea. “But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” The commandment is near enough to be done.

This is the passage Paul reaches for when he describes the righteousness of faith, and the choice deserves to be weighed. A man who believes the law has ended does not explain faith in the words of the law. No one announces that a book is finished and then, in the next breath, quotes it as his authority. Paul quotes Moses because, for Paul, Moses still speaks. The word Moses called near, “in your mouth and in your heart,” is the same word Paul says “we proclaim.”

The One Who Spoke Before Paul

Yeshua’s own words settle the matter. Before Paul ever wrote to Rome, Yeshua said what He came to do with the law.

Matthew 5:17-18 Do not think that I came to abolish the nomos(law) or the prophets — I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota ἰῶτα ee-o'-tah(smallest Greek letter) or one keraia κεραία ker-ah'-yah(stroke of a letter) will pass away from the nomos(law) until all things are accomplished.

We read these words closely in Book 1. Yeshua did not come to abolish but to fulfill, and “until heaven and earth pass away,” not the smallest letter and not one stroke “will pass away from the nomos(law).”

Set Romans 10:4 beside these words. If telos means “end,” Paul contradicts Yeshua, for Yeshua says that He did not come to abolish the law, while Paul would be saying that Messiah is where the law stops. If telos means “goal,” the two say the same thing. Yeshua came to fulfill the law, and Paul says that Messiah is what the law was aiming at. The Teacher and the apostle point at the same target.

Why They Missed the Goal

The verse just before Romans 10:4 shows why Paul wrote it.

Romans 10:3 For not knowing the dikaiosyne(righteousness) of God and seeking to establish their own dikaiosyne(righteousness), they did not submit to the dikaiosyne(righteousness) of God.

The problem Paul describes is not that these people kept the Torah too well. They were “seeking to establish their own dikaiosyne(righteousness),” and so they “did not submit to the dikaiosyne(righteousness) of God.” They took the Torah and tried to build a righteousness of their own out of it, and they walked straight past the One to whom it pointed. They read the recipe and never sat down to the meal.

That is why Paul writes “for dikaiosyne(righteousness) to everyone who believes.” Righteousness before God comes through faith in the Messiah, the goal of the Torah, and not through a righteousness of one’s own. It is the same grace with which we began in Book 2, and it does not tear a single page out of the book that pointed to Him.

“Christ is the end of the law” is therefore true, in the sense Paul meant. He is its telos, its aim, and its completion. The law was never pointing at itself. It was pointing at Him.