Romans 9:30-33

The Stumbling Stone

Paul is again making the case that while the Law is good, and we should strive to live according to God's holy standards, neither the Law nor our good works can save us. It is our faith in God and in the One He sent that makes us right in His sight.

Unfortunately, for the law-abiding Jew and the legalistic “Christian,” this can be a hard pill to swallow. To think that all their efforts to keep the Law cannot make them righteous before God if they fail to acknowledge the One who takes away their sins is difficult to accept.

And therein lies the stumbling block—Jesus Christ Himself.

He is the “stone” that causes people to stumble and the “rock” that makes them fall. Yet, for anyone who places their trust in Him, even the Gentiles who had not pursued righteousness through the Law, they will never be disgraced.

Consider the irony. Those who diligently pursued righteousness through their own efforts failed to attain it, while those who simply believed received what the others had been striving so hard to achieve.

Why? Because righteousness before God is not something we can earn; it is something we must receive by faith.

Remember, the Law is good, but one of its primary purposes is to reveal our need for a Savior. It exposes our sin and reminds us that we all fall far short of God's glorious standard. Therefore, our good works, though commendable and certainly expected of those who belong to Christ, cannot save us.

We are saved only through faith in the One whom God sent to deliver us from our sins—the perfect, sinless sacrifice who paid the price we could never pay and made it possible for our slate to be wiped clean.

And that requires humility. We must acknowledge that we cannot save ourselves, regardless of how good we think we are or how diligently we try to keep God's commandments. There is no room for boasting at the foot of the cross.

Perhaps that is why Jesus remains a stumbling stone for so many. Human nature wants to take credit for its accomplishments. We want to believe that somehow we have earned God's favor. Yet the Gospel strips away every claim of self-righteousness and brings us to the realization that we are completely dependent upon His grace.

The question, then, is not whether we have done enough to earn God's acceptance, but whether we have humbled ourselves enough to receive what He has so graciously provided.

Are we trusting in what we have done for God, or are we trusting in what Jesus Christ has done for us?

That distinction makes all the difference—not only in how we live, but in where we will spend eternity.