Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved. I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God. (1-4)
There is an old English proverb that says, “Zeal without knowledge is like a runaway horse.” In short, it is out of control, dangerous, and hard to stop. This was Paul’s statement about his own Jewish brothers and sisters. They had misdirected zeal and this misdirected zeal was their undoing. They had an enthusiasm for God, but they had no knowledge of the true God, Jesus Christ, and as a result, they had missed God’s way. Instead of following God’s way of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, they insisted that they could somehow be right with God by following the law. This was a fool’s errand and always will be because sin makes it impossible to be perfect enough to please God.
Unfortunately, you can substitute every other religion and every cult in the world in the place of Israel in those verses above. It is no mistake that every other world religion and every cult adheres to a “works-based” salvation. It seems that one characteristic of the sin nature is a misguided belief that we can somehow be good enough. It is a lie that is rooted in our very pride. We want to believe that somehow if we try hard enough, and are zealous enough, that we can get there on our own. It doesn’t matter how much you mean well, because hell will be filled with people who tried their hardest and fell short. As Paul says in another place, “There is none righteous, no NOT ONE.” (Romans 3:10).
I think about the Muslims that I know who have a deep “enthusiasm for God, but it is a misdirected zeal.” Consider the Jehovah’s Witnesses that knock on your door or the young Mormons that serve for two years around the world. They think they know the truth, they mean well, and they believe that their service will somehow win them favor with God. As Paul said about the Jews, “They don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself.” No matter how much one clings to his Sharia law, or her vision of Nirvana, or his book of Mormon, there is only one way. You have to believe in the Christ who has already accomplished everything. You have to experience God’s grace by knowing and having faith in His Son (the real Jesus of the bible). Then, and only then, can you be made right with God.
