The passage
      v4. Our passage for study expands on the idea presented in this verse. In this verse Paul tells us that Christ is the "end of the law". Christ terminates, once and for all, the absurd notion that law-obedience can maintain and/or progress our right-standing ("righteousness") before God. Through faith in Jesus we are judged right with God on the basis of Christ's righteous obedience. We are righteous, not because of anything we do, but because of what Christ has done for us.
      v5. Using Leviticus 18:5, Paul makes a negative observation. The person who seeks to stand approved (possess "righteousness") in the sight of God by means of obedience to the law, is bound to perfectly live out the commandments of the law ("live by them"). Of course, here lies the problem, none of us can live right by the law.
      v6-8. In the next three verses, Paul draws out a truth from Deuteronomy 30:11-14. Establishing our right-standing before God doesn't require a superhuman effort. We don't have to climb to heaven, or descend into the abyss. God's gracious gift of his eternal approval is contained in a message that is ever before us. All we have to do is respond to this "message that calls for faith." To head down the law-obedience path (works of supererogation) is to imply that Jesus hasn't fully finished his work on our behalf.
      v9-10. Paul now explains why the "word is near" us, ie. why it is not difficult to grasp hold of. "Because" (better than the NIV "that") the content of "the message that calls for faith" is itself simple. The message summarizes the person and work of Christ; he is God with us, and because he lives, we can live also.
      v11. To support his statement in v10, Paul quotes Isaiah 28:16. Clearly, to, "not be put to shame" means the same as to be "justified", or "saved".
      v12-13. Finally, Paul affirms the equality of all humanity before God, either Jew or Gentile. Right-standing before God is a gift available to all humanity for the asking. To stand approved before God (justified) is simply a matter of faith.

The bounty of God's goodness
      Our Lord gives us so much; a beautiful world; an abundance of good things; the fullness of the harvest; the riches of the earth. All around us we see his hand of mercy and kindness. It is a wonderful world, a gift of a loving God. Thus, we praise him and thank him.
      Yet, he gives us more than just the riches of creation. God gives us the riches of his own person - of goodness and love; he gives us the gift of holiness as he is holy. And when God does this, he gives us eternity, he gives us life eternal. This gift, like the abundance of the earth, is ours for the taking. This rich blessing is for "all who call on him".
      Deuteronomy spoke of the shape of righteousness, of the law, and how that righteousness should be imaged in the life of the people of Israel. It warned them - it spoke of blessings and cursings. Of the law, in particular, it said it is not "too difficult for you or beyond your reach". "No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it". The moral goodness which the law spoke of was something that came from within. As such, it was like the goodness of creation, the gift of a merciful God.
      Of course, the problem was that most of the people of Israel saw goodness as something that could be achieved by obeying the law. They saw their standing in the sight of God as maintained and progressed by merit - by obedience to the law. This nomism blinded Israel to Christ and so they ended up rejecting the source of moral goodness itself, namely, the perfection of Christ.
      The danger we face as believers is that, like Israel, we can forget that all we are, and all we will be, is the gift of a gracious God. It is so easy to believe that our standing in the sight of God has something to do with Christian ethics, that we advance our standing before God by the worth of our lives. Yet, only God can give us goodness - the goodness of Christ. With this gift we are perfect in the sight of God, and day by day, little by little, we become what we are in Christ. Such is God's gift to us.

v4
      teloV (oV) "[Christ is] the end [of the law]" - end, goal, completion, termination, consummation, fulfilment, result, decision, etc. Scholars are divided as to the sense of this statement. See Moo. Selwyn, in his commentary on first Peter, argues that the word never means "fulfilment", "consumption", but only ever "end", therefore "termination." Those who accept this view tend toward the traditional interpretation that the "end of the law" means that Christ has put to bed, once and for all, the false idea that law-obedience can "establish" right-standing before God, although it is hard to believe that even a faithful Jew thought law-obedience could "establish right-standing. It is certainly likely that nomist believers thought that law-obedience could maintain and/or progress their standing before God. See the new perspective on Paul. How Christ has done this prompts further debate, but he has certainly ended the law-obedience option with his idealized teaching on the law, eg. The Sermon on the Mount. Any sensible reading of the sermon is bound to accept that Christ's words are beyond doing. "Christ ends the law and brings righteousness for everyone who has faith", NEB. Other approaches tend toward either, Christ: i] Completes the law in the sense of giving us a complete understanding of God's perfect expectations; ii] Fulfills the law in the sense of doing it perfectly. Commentators often hold both views in combination and sometimes link them to the meaning "termination." "Christ fulfils the underlying intention of the law and supersedes it", Leenhardt. Sandly and Headlam argue for termination. Cranfield argues that Paul's intention in the passage is to display Christ as the embodiment of the law, but he happily includes fulfilment and termination. The trend seems to be that "end" "implies the cessation of the validity of the old Law", Black.
      nomou (oV) "law" - Certainly Paul has in mind the Law of Moses, but a wider sense is likely: "the will of God as a rule of duty, no matter how revealed", Hodge.
      eiV "so that there may be" - to, for. Morris notes the following possibilities: "with reference to", result (so that), or purpose ("as a means to righteousness", so NIV). That the preposition introduces a result clause best fits the logic of Paul's argument. Christ has put to bed the crazy notion that law-obedience progresses our standing in the sight of God, and as a result, has provided an uncluttered pathway for everyone to stand in the right before God, by faith and not works of the law. "So that everyone who believes is put right with God", TH.

v5
      gar "for" - Links the verse closely to v4.
      thn dikaiosunhn (h) "the righteousness [that is by the law]" - the righteousness of the law. Again, "righteousness" is best understood in a judicial sense, of right standing before God as a result of God's act of justifying. This right standing "of the law" is probably an instrumental genitive, "by means of the law." There are a number of ways of understanding "the righteousness of the law", but given the context, a negative sense seems best. There is no right-standing before God by means of the law, because to gain this standing, a person has to do it. So, Paul is contrasting the "right-standing by means of the law" with the "right-standing by means of faith."
      oJ poihsaV (poiew) aor. part. "does" - the doing [man]. The person who tries to establish their standing before God by obeying the law, by doing what the law requires; "those who keep the law", JB. As noted above, we often see the law-obedience heresy in terms of obeying the law as the means of gaining right-standing before God. This was not a Jewish concept. A person was a Jew by grace, it was through the gracious act of a sovereign God that they were born into a divinely blessed family. Law-obedience is all about maintaining and progressing one's privileged position, but of course, it doesn't work, in fact, it prompts rebellion. Our standing before God is totally of grace through faith. Paul's focus on this issue is driven by the fact that the same heresy (sanctification by obedience) was infecting the early church.
      zhsetai (zaw) fut. "live" - This is always a tricky word as it can mean: i] "to exist"; ii] "to conduct oneself" and iii] "to come alive and exist in a resurrected body in eternity." The natural drift is toward the third option, "shall have life by it", REB, but the second option is best here.
      en "by" - in, by, with, to.. The preposition is obviously taking an instrumental sense. A person who obeys the law ("does") as a means to maintain / progress right-standing in the presence of God, will obviously be a person who conducts themselves ("will live") by means of those laws; "he who performs the righteousness required by the law shall live by that righteousness", Weymouth. Obviously, no such person exists; "an impossible task", adds Barrett.

v6
      ek + gen. "[but the righteousness] that is by [faith]" - of, out of, from. Although a different preposition is used to "by the law", a similar instrumental sense probably applies, "through faith", TEV; "by faith", NEB. Of course, there are other possibilities, eg. "righteousness based on faith", RSV, = faith-righteousness.
      legei mh eiphV (legw) "do not say" - says no say. See above. Paul uses a typical literary device of his time by having a virtue (here "righteousness", ie. right-standing before God that is by grace through faith - the doctrine of justification) speak. The important observation to make is that it speaks in the words of the Old Testament. Paul alludes to Deuteronomy 30:11-14 where Moses makes the point that the keeping of the law is not beyond the people, ie. so remote that keeping it would be as difficult as ascending to heaven, or descending into the deep. Of course, sin made the law impossible to keep, but divine mercy makes its legal keeping possible. Paul has justification say the same thing, namely, what she demands is not difficult. Her demand only requires faith.
      katagagein (katagw) aor. inf. "to bring [Christ] down" - To say that right-standing before God through faith is beyond human capability is to demand the Christ descend to earth again and deal again with sin.

v7
      abusson (oV) "the deep" - deep. Here, the abyss, Sheol, the place of the dead. Paul reworks the actual quote from Deuteronomy ("who will cross over the sea to get it?") and makes it fit with Jesus' descent into Sheol (the place of the dead, the tomb, but certainly not our concept of hell). The point is the same as above. Right-standing before God is an easy ask, it is simply by grace through faith. To strive for it is to undermine the consequences of Christ's resurrection. It is like working to repeat what Christ has already done - descending into the abyss to raise him up again.

v8
      to rJhma (a atoV) "the word" - The way is the way of faith and it definitely is an easy way forward. We need only respond to a "message that calls for faith" TH.
      pistewV (iV ewV) "faith" - here the "word of faith" is obviously the gospel. The gospel proclaims that God's righteousness in now ours to claim as a gift of grace. It's not too high or too deep as though it is beyond us.
      khrussomen (khrussw) pres. "we are proclaiming" - we preach. Present tense indicates the continued action of evangelizing, proclaiming the gospel.

v9
      oJti "that" - that, because, since. The NIV has "that" in the sense that the verse supplies the content of the message/gospel, Morris etc., but a causal "because" is a possibility, ie. the message is proclaimed because it has Christ as its content, eg. Cranfield, a content that is simple to grasp, eg. Moo. Possibly introducing a statement in its own right, eg. Barclay, CEV. The context fits Moo's suggestion.
      ean + subj. "if" - Forming a conditional sentence, 3rd. class.
      oJmologhshV (oJomologew) aor. subj. "you confess" - you confess, agree, proclaim. Here most likely it means "acknowledge", Goodspeed, although not necessarily public acknowledgement. This verse does seem to be a confessional formula for a new believer. Note, Paul follows the order of Deut.30:14 with "acknowledge" before "believe". He restates his point in v10 with the more natural order of "believe" followed by "acknowledge".
      kurion (oV) "Lord" - The confessional formula affirms Jesus as sharing authority with Jehovah, given that "Lord" is constantly ascribed to Jehovah in the Greek Old Testament (LXX). The term "Lord", when applied to Jesus, initially meant "master", but came to convey the very incarnate nature of Christ - God with us.
      pisteushV (pisteuw) en th/ kardia/ "believe in your heart" - you believe in the heart. The center of your reasoning, mind, given that "heart" in Greek thought is not the center of our emotions, but the center of reason.
      hgeiren (egeirw) aor. "raised" - raise. Here again the substance of the gospel, the decisive and distinctive belief of Christians. It is the primary article of our faith on which we either stand or fall. If Christ lives then we live also. Paul again identifies the resurrection as the distinctive focus of Christian belief, rather than the crucifixion. A point often forgotten in modern gospel presentations.
      swqhsh/ (swzw) fut. pas. "saved" - Here referring to the eschatological end of all things, thus eternal life.

v10
      pisteuetai (pisteuw) pas. "you believe" - one believes. An impersonal passive, as with "confess" = one confesses. "For it is the heart's faith which brings a person into a right relationship with God, and it is the open assertion of that faith with the lips which brings a person to salvation", Barrett. It is not wise to differentiate between believing and acknowledging. Both are but outward and inward expressions of a single act.

v11
      gar "for" - A reason for the value of faith, indicating that "faith" is the issue for Paul, not so much the outward "acknowledgement" of faith.
      kataiscunqhsetai (kataiscunomai) fut. pas. "put to shame" - be shamed. Here in the sense of abandoned by God, Isaiah 28:16.

v12
      ou diastolh (h) "no difference" - no distinction. The way of salvation by grace through faith is the only way for both Jew and Gentile; "this includes everyone", TEV.
      oJ autoV kurioV pantwn "the same Lord is Lord of all" - the same Lord of all. An example of an ellipsis where "is Lord" is understood and so left out. Which "Lord" is intended, God or Christ? Given v9, most likely Jesus is intended.
      epikaloumenouV (epikalew) pres. mid. part. "call on" - calling on. In the middle voice the word means call upon, appeal, address. Our word "ask" will probably do and so here Paul identifies another element in the process of Christian belief: believe, acknowledge, ask...... Mind you, there is no mechanical expectation that we must use these elements in some particular order, or even that we must use each one of them independently. In reality, asking is another way of believing, as is acknowledging.