Christ: the end of the law?

Christ is the culmination of the Law… Rom 10:4 (niv)

What does this rather vocative phrase from Romans 10:4 mean? What relationship between Christ and the Law is Paul envisioning at this point in his letter to the Roman church?

To help answer this question it can be helpful to read Romans 10:2-4 alongside Romans 3:20-22. *This suggestion is from Lionel Windsor. You can find a more detailed blog here.

The Law's purpose (as Romans 10:4 describes it) was to point beyond itself to Jesus as the only one who could actually establish God’s righteousness.

Jesus isn't the "end" of the law in the sense of declaring its irrelevance or his being an updated version of it; Law 2.0, so to speak. Jesus isn’t the culmination of the Law simply in that he perfectly embodied it himself.
In witnessing to Israel’s sin (Rom 7:7) the Law (along with the prophets) had always borne witness to the fact that God’s righteousness would be revealed only through faith.

Jesus is the end or culmination of the law in the sense that he’s the one the Law (and the prophets) had been directing Israel's attention to all along; the one through whom the gift of God’s Righteousness is graciously given.

This is not to imply that Romans 10:4 is everything that the scriptures (nor Paul himself) have to say about the Law. Yet hopefully, this helps us grasp something of Paul’s meaning at this particular point in Romans’ flow of thought.

Cut off for the sake of my people! Romans 9:3

What does the apostle Paul mean in Romans 9:3 when he says that he would be “cut off from Christ” for the sake of his people, Israel?

I don’t think Paul is implying that (if it were possible) he would somehow substitute his own election to secure the salvation of “disobedient Israel”; that he’d be willing to vicariously suffer in their place.

Rather, in Romans 9-11 Paul is confronting the unthinkable question of whether God could ever forsake his promises to the true Israel. If God really was to abandon his promises, the thought would be too unbearable to endure. Paul objects that he’d rather share Israel’s fate abandoned fate with them, than live in a world where God’s word simply fails.

Paul’s words here are reminiscent of Moses in Exodus 32:32.

In Exodus 32:9-14 God flaggs with Moses the idea of abandoning his plans for Israel after their sin with the Golden calf. The suggestion is that instead, God could make Moses alone into a great nation. The thought that God could prove unfaithful in the eyes of the nations is too horrible for Moses countenance - if such a thing were to happen he’d rather die along with the rest of Israel.

“Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” (Ex 32:32)

Paul can relate to Moses’ sentiment here. And yet it quickly becomes clear that Paul knows that God has in fact NOT abandoned his purposes for true Israel (just as was the case in Moses’ day). Paul goes on to demonstrate over the rest of Romans 9-11 that the failure of some Israelites to believe. in no way invalidates God’s faithfulness to his promise.