Christ is the τέλος of the Law? A Better Translation of Romans 10:4

Romans 10:4 has been the subject of a lot of debate, and most of the debate has centered around the interpretation of the first Greek word: τέλος. A standard Greek dictionary for the New Testament such as BDAG gives the first definition as “a point of time marking the end of a duration” and glosses the word as ‘end, termination, cessation.’ On the other hand, the third definition in BDAG says “the goal toward which a movement is being directed” with the glosses of ‘end, goal, outcome.’ So some in this debate say that the word τέλος means that the Law ceases in some sense with the Christ, the Messiah, while others say that the Messiah is the culmination or climax of the Law or Torah or covenant. In this video, we suggest an alternative interpretation and translation of the verse that focuses not on the meaning of the word τέλος but instead on the last phrase παντὶ τῷ πιστεύοντι. In doing so, we suggest that the precise nuance of τέλος actually isn’t as important to the correct understanding of the verse. It is the end of the verse, not the beginning, that matters more.

This is a bonus episode for our series on Key Terms in Pauline Theology. As we release the main episodes for this series where we interview top scholars in the field regarding their research on key terms, we're also going to release these shorter episodes where we dive into a specific biblical text that deals with that term. So in our previous episode, Kevin interviewed Joshua Jipp about the term Χριστός, or Messiah, and how it relates to other terms, such as νόμος, or Torah. In this episode, Kevin dives into Romans 10:4 to show how the Greek can help us better understand how these terms relate, and ultimately better understand the text.

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