For being ignorant of God's righteousness [Here Paul shows wherein they lacked knowledge. "For they," says Scott, "not knowing the perfect justice of the divine character, law and government; and the nature of that righteousness which God has provided for the justification of sinners consistently with his own glory"-- Romans 3:26], and seeking to establish their own [Refusing to "put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27), they clothed themselves with a garment of their own spinning, which they, like all other worms, spun from their own filthy inwards. Or, to suit the figure more nearly to the language of the apostle, refusing to accept Christ as the Rock for life-building, they reared their crumbling structure on their own sandy, unstable nature, and as fast as the wind, rain and flood of temptation undermined their work, they set about rebuilding and re-establishing it, oblivious of the results of that supreme, unavertable, ever-impending storm, the last judgment -- Matthew 7:24-27], they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. ["Subject" is the keyword here. The best comment on this passage is found at John 8:31-36. Those who admit themselves bondservants of sin find it no hardship to enter the free service of Christ, but those whose pride and self-sufficiency and self-righteousness make them self-worshipers, can bring themselves to submit to no one. By use of the phrase "righteousness of God," Paul indicts them of rebellion against the Father and his plan of salvation, rather than of rebellion against the person of the Christ, who is the sum and substance of the Father's plan--the concrete righteousness whereby we are saved.]

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Old Testament