Israel did not lack in zeal for the true God. This is something that distinguished them from all other nations in the ancient world who worship idols. As a nation Israel alone was devoted to the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul underlines this in Romans 10:2: For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God.
What Israel lacks is good insight. Their zeal is genuine, but they are blind.
This strong statement concerning Israel refers to the fact that they are a people that have allowed themselves to be instructed by the law of God. Paul himself wrote concerning them that they are sure that they are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor for the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth
(Romans 2:19–20). How then can he now write that they are a people who are filled with zeal but at the same time without knowledge? He answers this in Romans 10:3: For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Apart from the context, one could easily read this sentence as meaning that, despite their zeal to live in accordance with the law, the Jews never really understood what it is all about. Is Paul here trying to say that through the ages they had always tried to justify themselves through the merit of their own works without ever realizing that they had to seek forgiveness and acquittal from God? Most definitely not. Paul is not specifically here writing about the flaws of the religion of Judaism. Rather, he is writing about the situation in which Israel now finds itself after having excommunicated Jesus Christ. This becomes abundantly clear from the passage that follows, Romans 10:4–13, wherein Paul does not write about the Jewish people
but about Christ himself.
In the gospel of Christ, the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith to faith (Romans 1:17). The Jews, however, have denied this righteousness of God.
They denied Jesus as though he was merely the natural son of Joseph and Mary. They mistrusted him because he gave a whole new meaning to the sabbath law and sharpened the law concerning divorce. They slandered him by suggesting that he was possessed by the devil. They harassed him with trick questions. They picked up rocks to stone him to death. Finally, they crucified him. During that whole time, however, they did not know what they were doing (Luke 23:34a, Acts 3:17, 1 Timothy 1:13). They did not know God’s righteousness and despite the Light shining in the darkness, they did not see it: He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him
(John 1:11).1
2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.