Fraudulent Righteousness
Anyone who seeks righteousness apart from Christ alone is in rebellion against the righteousness of God. They have failed to submit to God's righteousness.
Romans 10:2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
Trying to use the law to determine what to do regarding right or wrong, in the hope of getting it together enough to be acceptable to God, is the very thing that makes one unacceptable.
The Jews whom Paul was writing about were doing just that. They were ignorant of God's righteousness made available in Christ. Therefore, they sought to obtain their own righteousness by adhering to the law.
In Romans 10:2-4, it is clearly shown how such an action results in not being submitted to God's righteousness. It is a fraudulent righteousness!
No one can start, nor maintain a relationship with God by any other means of righteousness than that of God's own righteousness, which is only available by grace through faith in Christ.
There is no such thing as a genuine relationship with God apart from Jesus Christ. No matter how strongly a person may feel, or imagine it to be true that they have somehow drawn closer to God by some other means, they are deceived in thinking so because God has established the only way to know Him and to belong to Him and have a relationship with Him is through Jesus Christ.
John 10:1 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which He spoke to them. 7 Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Jesus is the only way!
