Romans 10

Romans 10:1

B. Israel’s Present (Chap. 10) 10:1 Paul’s teachings were most distasteful to the unconverted Jews. They considered him a traitor and an enemy of Israel. But here he assures his Christian brethren to whom he was writing that the thing that would bring the greatest delight to his heart and the thing for which he prays to God most earnestly for Israel is that they may be saved. 10:2 Far from condemning them as godless and irreligious, the apostle gives his testimony that they have a zeal for God. This was apparent from their careful observance of the rituals and ceremonies of Judaism, and from their intolerance of every contrary doctrine. But zeal is not enough; it must be combined with truth. Otherwise it can do more harm than good. 10:3 This is where they failed. They were ignorant of God’s righteousness, ignorant of the fact that God imputes righteousness on the principle of faith and not of works. They went about trying to produce a righteousness of their own by law-keeping. They tried to win God’s favor by their own efforts, their own character, their own good works. They steadfastly refused to submit to God’s plan for reckoning righteous those ungodly sinners who believe on His Son. 10:4 If they had only believed on Christ, they would have seen that He is the end of the law for righteousness. The purpose of the law is to reveal sin, to convict and condemn transgressors. It can never impart righteousness. The penalty of the broken law is death. In His death, Christ paid the penalty of the law which men had broken. When a sinner receives the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, the law has nothing more to say to him. Through the death of his Substitute, he has died to the law. He is through with the law and with the fu tile attempt to achieve righteousness through it. 10:5 In the language of the OT, we can hear the difference between the words of the law and the words of faith. In Lev_18:5, for example, Moses writes that the man who achieves the righteousness which the law demands shall live by doing so. The emphasis is on his achieving, his doing. Of course, this statement presents an ideal which no sinful man can meet. All it is saying is that if a man could keep the law perfectly and perpetually, he would not be condemned to death. But the law was given to people who were already sinners and who were already condemned to death. Even if they could keep the law perfectly from that day forward, they still would be lost because God requires payment for those sins which are past. Any hopes that men may have for obtaining righteousness by the law are doomed to failure from the outset. 10:6 In order to show that the language of faith is quite different from that of the law, Paul first quotes from Deu_30:12-13, which reads: It is not in heaven, that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?The interesting thing is that, in their setting in Deuteronomy, these verses are not referring to faith and the gospel at all. They are speaking about the law, and specifically the commandment to turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul (Deu_30:10 b). God is saying that the law is not hidden, distant, or inaccessible. A man doesn’t have to go up to heaven or cross the sea to find it. It is near at hand and waiting to be obeyed. But the Apostle Paul takes these words and reapplies them to the gospel. He says that the language of faith doesn’t ask a man to climb to heaven to bring Christ down. For one thing, that would be utterly impossible; but it would also be quite unnecessary, because Christ has already come down to earth in His Incarnation! 10:7 When the apostle quotes Deu_30:13, he changes it from Who will go over the sea to Who will descend into the abyss. His point is that the gospel does not ask men to descend into the grave to bring Christ up from among the dead. This would be impossible, but it would also be unnecessary, because Christ has already risen from the dead. Notice that in 10:6, 7 we have the two doctrines concerning Christ which were hardest for a Jew to acceptHis Incarnation and His Resurrection. Yet he must accept these if he is to be saved. We will see these two doctrines again in 10:9, 10. 10:8 If the gospel doesn’t tell men to do the humanly impossible, or to do what has already been done by the Lord, what then does it say?Again Paul adapts a verse from Deuteronomy 30 to say that the gospel is near, accessible, intelligible, and easily obtained; it can be expressed in familiar conversation (in your mouth); and it can be readily understood in the mind (in your heart) (Deu_30:14). It is the good news of salvation by faith which Paul and the other apostles preached. 10:9 Here it is in a nutshell: First you must accept the truth of the Incarnation, that the Babe of Bethlehem’s manger is the Lord of life and glory, that the Jesus of the NT is the Lord (Jehovah) of the OT. Second, you must accept the truth of His resurrection, with all that it involves. God has raised Him from the dead as proof that Christ had completed the work necessary for our salvation, and that God is satisfied with that work. Believing this with the heart means believing with one’s mental, emotional, and volitional powers. So you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. It is a personal appropriation of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is saving faith. The question often arises, Can a person be saved by accepting Jesus as Savior without also acknowledging Him as Lord? The Bible gives no encouragement to anyone who believes with mental reservations: I’ll take Jesus as my Savior but I don’t want to crown Him Lord of all. On the other hand, those who make submission to Jesus as Lord a condition of salvation face the problem, To what degree must He be acknowledged as Lord? Few Christians would claim to have made an absolute and complete surrender to Him in this way. When we present the gospel, we must maintain that faith is the sole condition of justification. But we must also remind sinners and saints constantly that Jesus Christ is Lord (Jehovah-God), and should be acknowledged as such. 10:10 In further explanation, Paul writes that with the heart one believes unto righteousness. It is not a mere intellectual assent but a genuine acceptance with one’s whole inward being. When a person does that, he is instantly justified. Then with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; that is, the believer publicly confesses the salvation he has already received. Confession is not a condition of salvation but the inevitable outward expression of what has happened: If on Jesus Christ you trust, speak for Him you surely must. When a person really believes something, he wants to share it with others. So when a person is genuinely born again, it is too good to keep secret. He confesses Christ. The Scriptures assume that when a person is saved he will make a public confession of that salvation. The two go together. Thus Kelly said, If there be no confession of Christ the Lord with the mouth, we cannot speak of salvation; as our Lord said, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. And Denney comments, A heart believing unto righteousness, and a mouth making confession unto salvation, are not really two things, but two sides of the same thing.The question arises why confession comes first in 10:9, then belief, whereas in 10:10 belief comes first, then confession. The answer is not hard to find. In verse 9 the emphasis is on the Incarnation and the resurrection, and these doctrines are mentioned in their chronological order. The Incarnation comes firstJesus is Lord. Then the resurrectionGod raised Him from the dead. In verse 10 the emphasis is on the order of events in the salvation of a sinner.

First he believes, then he makes a public confession of his salvation.10:11 The apostle now quotes Isa_28:16 to emphasize that whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. The thought of public confession of Christ might arouse fears of shame, but the opposite is true. Our confession of Him on earth leads to His confession of us in heaven. Ours is a hope that will never be disappointed. The word whoever forms a link with what is to follownamely, that God’s glorious salvation is for all, Gentiles as well as Jews. 10:12 In Rom_3:23 we learned that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile as far as the need for salvation is concerned, for all are sinners. Now we learn that there is no distinction as far as the availability of salvation is concerned. The Lord is not an exclusive God, but is Lord over all mankind. He is rich in grace and mercy to all who call upon Him. 10:13 Joe_2:32 is quoted to prove the universality of the gospel. One could scarcely wish for a simpler statement of the way of salvation than is found in these words: Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. The name of the LORD stands for the LORD Himself. 10:14 But such a gospel presupposes a universal proclamation. Of what use is a salvation offered to Jews and Gentiles if they never hear about it? Here we have the heartbeat of Christian missions! In a series of three how’s (how shall they call … believe … hear without a preacher), the apostle goes back over the steps that lead to the salvation of Jews and Gentiles. Perhaps it will be clearer if we reverse the order, as follows: God sends out His servants. They preach the good news of salvation. Sinners hear God’s offer of life in Christ. Some of those who hear believe the message. Those who believe call on the Lord. Those who call on Him are saved. Hodge points out that this is an argument founded on the principle that if God wills the end, He also wills the means to reach that end. This, as we have said, is the basis of the Christian missionary movement. Paul is here vindicating his preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, a policy which the unbelieving Jews considered inexcusable. 10:15 God is the One who sends. We are the ones who are sent. What are we doing about it? Do we have the beautiful feet which Isaiah ascribed to Him who brought glad tidings of good things (Isa_52:7)? Isaiah writes of the beautiful feet of Himthat is, the Messiah. Here in Rom_10:15 the him becomes them. He came with beautiful feet 1900 years ago. Now it is our privilege and responsibility to go with beautiful feet to a lost and dying world. 10:16 But Paul’s ever-present grief is that the people of Israel did not all listen to the gospel. Isaiah had prophesied as much when he asked, Lord, who has believed our report? (Isa_53:1). The question calls for the answer, Not many. When the announcement of the Messiah’s First Advent was heralded, not many responded. 10:17 In this quotation from Isaiah, Paul notices that the belief spoken of by the prophet springs from the message that is heard, and that the message comes through the word about the Messiah. So he lays down the conclusion that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Faith comes to men when they hear our preaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, which is based, of course, on the written word of God. But hearing with the ears is not enough. A person must hear with an open heart and mind, willing to be shown the truth of God. If he does, he will find that the word has the ring of truth, and that the truth is self-authenticating. He will then believe. It should be clear, of course, that the hearing alluded to in this verse does not involve the ears exclusively. The message might be read, for example. So to hear means to receive the word by whatever means. 10:18 What then has been the problem? Haven’t both Jews and Gentiles heard the gospel preached? Yes. Paul borrows the words of Psa_19:4 to show that they have. He says, Yes, indeed:Their sound has gone out to all the earth, And their words to the ends of the world.But the surprising thing is that these words from Psalms 19 are not speaking of the gospel. Rather, they describe the universal witness of the sun, moon, and stars to the glory of God.

But as we said, Paul borrows them and says, in effect, that they are equally true of the worldwide proclamation of the gospel in his own day. By inspiration of the Spirit of God, the apostle often takes an OT passage and applies it in quite a different way. The same Spirit who originally gave the words surely has the right to reapply them later on. 10:19 The call of the Gentiles and the rejection of the gospel by the majority of Jews should not have come as a surprise to the nation of Israel. Their own Scriptures foretold exactly what would happen. For example God warned that He would provoke Israel to jealousy by a non-nation (the Gentiles), and anger Israel by a foolish, idolatrous nation (Deu_32:21). 10:20 In even bolder language, Isaiah quotes the Lord as being found by the Gentiles, who weren’t really looking for Him, and being made manifest to those who weren’t inquiring for Him (Isa_65:1). Taken as a whole, the Gentiles didn’t seek after God. They were satisfied with their pagan religions. But many of them did respond when they heard the gospel. Relatively speaking, the Gentiles responded more than the Jews. 10:21 Against this picture of the Gentiles flocking to Jehovah, Isaiah portrays the Lord standing all day long with outstretched, beckoning hands to the nation of Israel, and being met with disobedience and stubborn refusal.