Romans 10:14-21 “What’s Going On?”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁴Therefore, how can they call into one they not believed, and how can they believe of whom they have not heard, and how can they hear without one preaching, ¹⁵and how can they preach except they be sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful [are] the feet of ones bringing good news [of] peace!” ¹⁶But not everyone listened to/obeyed the good news, for Isaiah says, “Lord, who believed our message?” ¹⁷Therefore, the faith [is] out of a message and the message [is] through [the] word (message) of Christ (the Messiah).” ¹⁸But I ask, “Did they not hear?” Certainly, their voice went into all the earth; their words into the ends of the world.” ¹⁹But, I ask, “Did Israel not know?” Moses first says, “I will provoke you to jealousy by a not people; I will provoke you to anger by senseless people.” ²⁰And Isaiah says, “I was found by ones not seeking Me; I revealed Myself to ones not asking for Me.” ²¹And he says regarding Israel, “All the day long, I have held out My hands toward a disobeying and contradicting people.

This chapter has been particularly difficult to study. Practically every verse is a jewel in and of itself, but it has been hard to understand how they all fit together. I’m not alone in that observation. Many, especially of the older commentators, note how it seems difficult to follow the logic.

I suspect that is true here for at least two possible reasons. First, it is simply a fact that the ancient peoples did not think like us. What I mean is that their logic often flowed along a very different path than ours. I have remarked before how today and in our Western culture, we want the facts. We want to arrange the facts in order and that is how we present our case. The ancient world instead painted pictures with their words. In the passage before us, Paul might be throwing colors on a canvas, each one seemingly unrelated to the others – yet, when you step back and think about it, it presents the picture of what he wants us to know. If, in fact, that is what he is doing, then no wonder we struggle to follow his logic. You could overlay a grid on a Rembrandt and study the colors in each square, but the picture only makes sense when you step away and look at it all together. If I’m right, that would explain why we struggle to “follow his logic” – he simply doesn’t think like us. He’s not somehow wrong, nor is what he's saying impossible for us to understand – we just need to let him say it his way, then step back and try to get his picture.

The second reason I would suggest why we struggle to follow his logic could be that we need to get mentally back into their situation. What I mean is, today, I think we have all pretty well settled into the whole situation with the Jewish people and us Gentiles. We have no problem seeing in the Bible the prophecies that the Gospel would go out and encompass the non-Jewish world. We also understand that is temporary, that the Lord still fully intends to fulfill all His promises to Abraham and his descendants. We’ve settled comfortably into this world where there are Jews who don’t accept Jesus as their Messiah, then there are Jews who do – along with us Gentiles from all over the world.

In Paul’s time, this was all new and, in fact, that is the whole reason why Romans 9-11 had to be written to begin with. The world had always been one where there were Jews and their religion and then there was everyone else, and that was pretty much it. All of a sudden everything changes.  Paul has to say in 9:6, “It is not as if the Word of God has failed.” It would have to be curious to Gentiles, because this Gospel was basically a Jewish thing, yet the Jews in general rejected it. Then suddenly there is this thing called the Church and it was sweeping across the civilized world, seemingly leaving the Jewish people behind.

Had God rejected the Jews, as it appeared? If so, what about all His promises to them? Paul just finished chapter 8 and the wonderful security of the believer, but if it didn’t “work” for the Jewish people, will it work for us? It would have made sense to ask the question, “Has the Word of God failed?” We find ourselves right in the middle of this 3-chapter long explanation so that we Gentiles would understand what on earth was going on.

I’m suggesting, if we try to get back in their curious mindset, if we keep remembering that they did not understand “what’s going on,” perhaps the flow of logic will make more sense? So whether Paul is speaking in pictures or if we’re just need to read it in its own context, the fact is it made perfect sense when it was written.

So what’s the big picture here? First of all, Gentile believers need to understand that although the Jewish people seem to be quite zealous about their religion, it is a sadly misdirected zeal: “For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not according to knowledge” (v.2). In fact, what they have totally missed is that their “religion” has always been about Christ – their Messiah. They made it about law-keeping, but missed that it was about Christ: “Christ is the end of law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (v.4).

God’s standard for anyone (“For there is no difference” – v.12), is and always has been what we do with the Christ, with Jesus: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved” (v.9). In fact that is so basic, that we can simply write it down, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord (Jesus) will be saved” (v.13).

We then come to what might be an excursus, where Paul breaks into “How then can they call on the one they have not believed in?...And how can they preach unless they are sent?... (vv.14-15). I wonder if Paul here isn’t justifying his ministry to the Gentiles, while also alluding to the fact that the people of Israel have had many, many prophets (beginning with Moses and quoting Isaiah). Given that is true, the problem clearly is not that they haven’t heard or even that they didn’t understand: “Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of (message of) Christ…Did they not hear? Of course they did…did Israel not understand?” (vv.17-19). Of course they could have understood (“the Word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart” – v.8). In fact, they’d been warned ever since Moses himself (v.19) that if they refused to hear, the Lord would turn to the Gentiles: “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation.”

Not only Moses but even the great prophet Isaiah had warned them their refusal to hear and believe would cause the Lord to say, “I was found by those who did not seek Me” (v.20) – which all leads down to even that great prophet’s declaration that God’s conclusion regarding the Jewish people is this: “All day long, I have held out My hands to a disobedient and contradicting people” (v.21).

So, the Lord Himself would have us Gentiles understand that salvation has always been about a relationship with Christ, that that is and was, in fact, the Jews’ “religion,” but that they refused to hear it. The Word of God has not failed. If the Jewish people missed it, it is absolutely 100% their fault. We Gentiles can be assured that those who put their faith in the Messiah will be saved. If Romans 8:39 – “nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ” (v.39) doesn’t seem to “work” for Israel, it’s not because the Word of God isn’t true. In fact, the problem is precisely that it doesn’t apply to them because it only applies to those who believe.

So, if people living in that ancient world wanted to understand “what’s going on,” there it all is in a nutshell.

Eventually, in ch. 11, Paul will get around to turning that truth on us. Just like for the Jews, the question will always be, “Do you believe?”

Simple question. Simple answer, but it’s up to you and me to make sure we get it right!

 

Romans 10:12-13 “Who He Is”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹²For [there] is not a difference between Jew and Greek, for the same [is] Lord of all, being rich into all ones calling on Him, ¹³for if anyone calls on the name of [the] Lord, he will be saved.

I was thinking I’d study all the way to the end of the chapter before circling back and really thinking about what it says. However, before I move on, I want to park for a moment on these two verses. I believe there is a truth here that is actually enormously helpful. Paul, at this point, asserts that, as far as righteousness and salvation, there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles. That thought would have been a bombshell to most Jewish people, but then what proof would Paul offer to make such a statement? He says, “the same Lord is Lord of all…”

That is exactly the thought I want to ponder: “the same Lord is Lord of all…” Even for Jewish people, their “Great Shemah” is taken from Deut. 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the Lord is one…” In an ancient world of almost universal polytheism, it was a founding principle of Jewish life that there is only one God and He is the Lord.

One God.

Here is the point I want to make and then try to explain, Again, I believe it can be very helpful to us all. When the Jewish people looked out and despised us Gentiles, when they would be shocked by statements like, “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile,” what they failed to see was that it really doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is who God is. To you and me today, what’s important isn’t who we are. It’s who God is.

That is actually a new thought for me, and perhaps it is to you too, so I will try to explain, then hopefully show you that it is enormously helpful as you and I would seek to live our lives.

“The LORD our God is one Lord.” “The same Lord is Lord of all…” Who is God? He is the LORD. He is the Great I AM. The Jewish name for God was Yahveh, which we commonly express as Jehovah, but it is His name that means literally “I AM.” He is the infinite unchanging God who inhabits eternity, who is infinitely perfect in all His attributes. He lives entirely above time and space. In fact, He Himself created time and space for you and me to live in. For Him there is no time or space. He fills all of the universe with all of His being and is everywhere present in all His infinite perfection. He is changeless, because change requires the idea of time and would imply either improvement or decline, neither of which are even logically possible for the Great I AM.

He is God. He is who He is. He exists in the fulness of all His perfect Divine attributes, all of which inhere together in only more infinite perfection. That is part of what we mean when we call Him our Rock.

Enter us. God created Adam and Eve in perfection and placed them in His perfectly created world. They sinned and plunged the entire universe into the miseries of sin. They had been perfect. Suddenly they are fallen, condemned sinners. Note that God didn’t change. They did. But what happened? The unchanging God displayed to all Creation His attribute of grace. Before their fall, there was no need for grace as we know it. Yet there it was, intermingled with all His other perfect attributes, and suddenly there was a reason for Him to express it.

He came calling, “Adam, where are you?” and what did the sinners do? They ran and hid. He, of course, knew exactly where they were and called them out in their silly fig leaf outfits. He, in His perfect justice, clearly held them accountable for their sin, then, of His own free will, gave them the promise of the Messiah who would someday come and “crush the head of the serpent,” then “dressed them in animal skins.” This last act has throughout history been understood as an act of sacrifice – obviously the animals had to die and shed their blood to give up their skins. As it says in Heb. 9:22, “…for without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”

Think about this: Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were perfect. After then sinned, they were miserable fallen sinners doomed to eternal death. After the Lord came to them in grace and gave them the promise of a Messiah, and which they obviously believed, they became saved sinners, restored to God’s favor, and bound for eternal life in heaven. Through all of that, what defined who they were? It was God Himself, yes? When they were created they were perfect, and why? Because their existence aligned perfectly with God’s design and will. They became sinners. And why? It was because of God’s perfect justice. They chose to rebel against His rule and therefore, became condemned sinners. Then suddenly, they became redeemed believers. And why? Because the Lord is a God of perfect grace.

All along the way, it is actually God who is defining who they are.  At every step, they are what they are precisely because of who God is. If God were not perfect in justice, maybe their sin could have been winked at. “Oh, well, after all, it really was only a little sin.” Right? However, that wasn’t possible – because of who God is. If God were not perfect in grace, He could have just been fed up with them, cooked them with a lightning bolt, and made Himself some “better” people. However, because He is a God of perfect grace, He Himself made a way for them to be restored, so suddenly they are redeemed believers – but they could only be so, because of who God is.

So now let’s talk about today. How many people down through the ages have thought, “I can never be forgiven. I’ve sinned too much. I’ve been too bad a person.” They were wrong, of course, but why? They are correct that they are a bad person, but what are they wrong about? God. Do you see how, in a sense, it isn’t important who they are. What matters is who God is. Because of who He is, they are free to accept His grace, and in fact, receive the very forgiveness of which they are despairing.

Then there is the person who says, “Not interested.” I once spoke to a man who was told he only had a short time to live. I asked if we could talk about His soul. He immediately responded, “Nope. Not interested. I’ve lived this way all my life and I don’t intend to change.” Obviously, if he kept that up to the end, he is today suffering his eternal destiny. He thought he was free to decide whatever he wanted and somehow, in his mind, it wouldn’t matter. He was correct that it was his choice. He was wrong in thinking it wouldn’t matter. In both cases, what made him right and wrong? Who God is.

Do you see, in both these cases, what was important in the end was not who we are, but who God is. It is God who defines who we are. In a sense, we don’t even know who we are until we first of all understand who God is and what that means for us. To misunderstand who God is guarantees we’ll utterly fail to understand who we are.

I suppose that is easy to see when it comes to people and their eternal salvation. Where you and I need to ponder this business, and where I believe we could receive great encouragement and help is to think about how it continues to apply to us, even as redeemed believers.

Although we are redeemed, yet we retain that awful sin nature until we die or Jesus comes. We have the Holy Spirit in us to help us, but, as Paul lamented back in Romans 7, we live in that tug-of-war between good and evil. So, although we are redeemed, as we look within ourselves, as we evaluate what we have and haven’t done, we will in fact find the full range of good and evil, of success and failure. There are many things that are true of us – both good and bad, – but once again, what is truly important? Who God is.

I myself have lamented many times about that video of failures that replays constantly in my brain. It feels as if my mind cannot be happy unless it’s constantly tormenting me with the memories of all the ways I’ve failed my whole life. I found not too long ago, quite by accident I think, that I could shut down that voice by simply replying, “To God be the glory.” What I meant was realizing that even though I may in fact have failed (miserably), yet God in His amazing sovereign greatness actually took those failures and in some way used them for good. Sometimes He was humbling me, sometimes He was teaching me, sometimes He was getting me somewhere He wanted me to go, and, although I almost hate to say this, I’m sure He was even using my failures in some way for others’ good. Turning Jospeh’s words around, “I meant it for evil, but God meant it for good!”

That actually did work really well for me to shut down the video. Bad memory? To God be the glory. Another bad memory? To God be the glory. Another bad memory? To God be the glory. I don’t think I could have verbalized it at the time, but what was I doing? Was I not saying, the important thing, even in my failures, was not who I was. What truly mattered in the end is who God is.

Another way of looking at it is the question then of who we are even in those failures. Like the man who despaired of forgiveness, we can conclude we are hopeless sinners. What does God call us in Christ? Redeemed. His children. His beloved children. Does that change because we fail? Obviously not. And why not? Because God hasn’t changed. In the end, what is important is not who we are, but who God is!

The same would be true even in what we consider to be our successes. If we think we “done good,” does that somehow “raise us up above the stars of heaven?” Of course not. Hopefully by this time we’ve learned that anything we ever do right, we did because God gave us the strength, the wisdom, even helped us make the good choices. So who really gets the glory? We can be free of our foolish arrogance and actually stay humble even in successes precisely because we remember what truly matters is who God is.

As I said earlier, this is all somewhat of a new thought for me. Back to our passage before us, Paul says, “There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for the same Lord is Lord of all…” What is he saying? Is he not saying, in the end, it isn’t so important whether we’re found Jews or Gentiles. What matters is who God is. He’s the same, no matter who we are, what we’ve done, how we’ve succeeded or failed. Regardless of the facts of our lives, we will only find the truth of our identity when we look straight into the face of God.

No wonder Jesus said, “I am the truth.”  

No wonder Paul will conclude this whole section of Romans saying in 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Let us all say, “Amen,” but let us live that Amen as we would constantly remember, what’s important really isn’t who we are. It’s who He is!

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Romans 10:5-11 “Clarifying”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁵For Moses is writing [regarding] the righteousness which [is] out of law, that the man doing these things will live in them, ⁶but the righteousness out of faith says thus, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven, that is to bring Christ down?’ ⁷or ‘Who will go down into the Abyss, that is, to bring Christ up out of dead ones?’” ⁸But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” which is the word of faith which we are preaching, ⁹that, if you confess with your mouth [the] Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead ones, you will be saved. ¹⁰for with the heart one believes into righteousness and one confesses into salvation, ¹¹for the Scripture says “Everyone believing upon Him will not be ashamed.”

Before I move on in this chapter, there is one thing I’d like to clarify. From the end of chapter 9 through then end of chapter 10, Paul is having to emphasize the error and failure of Israel’s legalism. Back in 9:30-32, he had said, “That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not obtained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works…”

Just like Paul, if we spend enough time condemning legalism, at some point it starts to sound like we’re against the whole idea of keeping the Law, of actually concerning ourselves with obeying God. In 3:31, he had to pause and ask, “Do we, then, nullify law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold law.”

All of that said, I think it’s worth pausing ourselves and clarifying what we’re saying. All the way back to Israel, they told Moses, “All that the Lord commands us, we will do” (Deut. 5:27). Read the Lord’s response then in v.29: “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear Me and keep all My commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever.”

“Oh that they had such a heart in them!” He knew they didn’t. The problem was, they didn’t know they didn’t! Just like all of us in our natural fallen legalistic minds, they actually thought they could say to God, “Look here. Just give us the rules and we’ll keep them! Yes, sir, you picked the right people all right. Just stand back and watch what a great job we do of keeping the rules!” Of course, there’s one HUGE problem with all of that. We can’t. They couldn’t. No one can. We are born fallen sinners. The Lord gave them ten commandments which they should have immediately realized they couldn’t keep, but that wasn’t enough, so He went on to add some 618 more! “You want rules, I’ll give you rules.” When they realized they couldn’t keep those, rather than crying out for a Savior, what did they do? The Jewish people created thousands more.

However, is the problem the rules themselves? No! Back up in Deut. 5:29, the Lord wanted them to keep His laws “so that it might go well with them and their children forever.” The problem is not with God’s law. The problem is that the way to righteousness leads through the Cross. What did the Lord say? “Oh that they had such a heart in them!” The problem is we don’t. We do not have the heart to obey. We were born children of Adam with hearts God says are “desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). As Jesus told Nicodemus, “Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3).

Before we talk about “the rules,” we need to be born again. We need to be born from above. When we go to the Cross and embrace our Jesus, the Lord Himself fixes our problem. Remember what He said? “Oh, that they had such a heart in them!” At the Cross, He does exactly that – He puts “such a heart” in us. He sends His blessed Holy Spirit to indwell us – to actually live inside us – so that it is true in every way, we do have such a heart in us. It’s His heart! As long as we live in these Adamic bodies, we’ll still have this awful sin nature that would drag us down into hell, but there is, at the same time, the very Third Person of the Trinity itself living inside us, making it possible for us to actually want to know God, to want to embrace Jesus as our Lord, to want to keep God’s commands.

The difference between faith and legalism is not a question of whether we want to do what’s right. It’s a question of how we get there. As Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). Once again, the way to righteousness leads through the Cross – and that is true of salvation itself and it is still true as you and I seek to live our daily lives.

Just because we have truly been born again doesn’t mean we revert right back to the “All that the Lord commands us, we will do! Yes, sir, you picked the right ones here! Just watch what a bang-up job we do!!!” A thousand times, no! What our very salvation should have awakened us to is the enormity of our sin problem, and that realization should humble our proud hearts as long as we live in this fallen world. We need Jesus! As the old hymn said, “We need Thee every hour.” We need to “abide in the vine” (Jn. 15:5). Our very efforts to “keep the Law” or to obey God need to start with the heartfelt prayer, “Lord, help me!” “I can’t do this on my own.” He told us (if we’d listen), “From birth, even unto old, old age, I will carry you” (Isa. 46:4). We need to say, “Then, yes, please, Lord carry me!”

And here’s the thing. What did the Lord say back there in Deut. 5:29? The Lord wanted them to keep His laws “so that it might go well with them and their children forever.” “That it might go well with them.” Real born-again people realize the Lord’s way is the best way. We want to obey Him. Faith doesn’t make us forget right and wrong. Faith gives us the freedom to actually see the beauty of God’s way and makes us want to do right.

I know it’s true in my life and I hope it’s true in yours too, that the more I know the Lord, the more I want to just get lost in His goodness. I find myself in prayer telling Him, “I want You to confirm me in holiness. I want to be like the angels and not even want to sin!” I can honestly say to Jesus, “Adam’s image now efface; Stamp Thine image in its place!” I realize that cannot happen fully until I leave this world, but I am soooo thankful that He does help me day by day. I may obey Him very imperfectly, but He does help me, and to whatever extent I let Him, I find, in fact, His way is the way of life!

Faith isn’t opposed to God’s law. Instead it is the very path to it – it’s just that faith helps us see that path leads through the Cross. The fear of the Lord may have been the beginning of wisdom, but we find it isn’t the end. The end is “to love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself!”

Once in a while, we need to pause and clarify that!

Romans 10:5-11 “Very Simple!”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁵For Moses is writing [regarding] the righteousness which [is] out of law, that the man doing these things will live in them, ⁶but the righteousness out of faith says thus, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven, that is to bring Christ down?’ ⁷or ‘Who will go down into the Abyss, that is, to bring Christ up out of dead ones?’” ⁸But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,” which is the word of faith which we are preaching, ⁹that, if you confess with your mouth [the] Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead ones, you will be saved. ¹⁰for with the heart one believes into righteousness and one confesses into salvation, ¹¹for the Scripture says “Everyone believing upon Him will not be ashamed.”

This is another passage that could be written in gold letters. This is it. To understand and embrace these seven verses is the difference between life and death, between heaven and hell.

What do we find? In v.5, Paul is referring to Moses’ words in Lev. 18:5. “The man who does these things will live by them.” At first glance (and to an unregenerate mind), it might seem as if Moses is speaking like a legalist – “Do these things and live.” That understanding would be true except for one HUGE problem: We can’t. Anyone who took that meaning and tried to live it would (should) very quickly have realized something was seriously wrong, that no matter how hard they tried, they constantly failed. That, of course, should have pointed them to Christ – which was the whole point of the Mosaic Law to begin with.

Whether we’re talking about our eternal salvation or our daily lives, the Law’s model, “Do this and live,” doesn’t work. Every time we climb up one rung on that ladder, it would seem God moves up three. However, the whole Bible, the book of Romans, and the passage before us would tell us there’s a different way. As we read in 3:19, all legalism gets us is “…every mouth stopped and the whole world standing guilty before God.” Verse 21, however, says, “But now a righteousness from God apart law has been made known…” Rather than this “righteousness out of law,” there is a “Righteousness out of faith.”

Once again, to understand these things is the difference between life and death, between heaven and hell! I suppose, if a person actually could realize that their natural legalism won’t work, but that God has a different way, we would probably think it must be time to “roll up our sleeves” and embark on some new assignment that God is about to give us. We’d probably think, “This must be something really complex and difficult – but, no matter what, I must comply.” That is actually Paul’s point in alluding to Moses’ words from Deut. 30:11-14 – the “Who will ascend into heaven…who will descend into the Abyss…?” was just a Jewish way of expressing that something is impossible (cf. Ps. 139:7-10).

Instead of some new, difficult, complex, impossible assignment, what does our passage tell us? “The Word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.” We already have the one thing we need! It’s been there all along. All our lives we’ve turned our backs to God and not our faces! I once spoke with a man who was dying of cancer. He started telling me that, as far as he could see, there were many possibilities of what happens to us after we die, and it just wasn’t clear what was true.

As we talked, he would say things like, “I just hope God lets me in.” In all his ramblings about “You just can’t know,” he kept making references to God and Jesus, to heaven and hell.” After a while, I pointed that out to him. I said, “It is true, a lot of people have a lot of different ideas, but it seems to me you really do believe in your heart there is a heaven and a hell, and that God and Jesus are very real.” I pointed out several things he had said, and suddenly I could see the wheels turning in his mind.

A short time later, he was a born-again man. He had realized exactly what Paul says in this passage, “The Word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart.” It wasn’t complex, it wasn’t difficult. In fact, he already “knew” it. He just needed to stop turning his back to God and start turning his face.

And what exactly is this “faith” that makes all the difference? These are the very words that turned on the lights in my own young heart: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” I struggled for a long time to understand this faith thing. If you ask any Christian, “What must I do to be saved?” they will probably answer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Jesus Himself even said, “He who believes in me has everlasting life” (Jn. 6:47). My question was, “But what does it mean to believe?”

At that time, basically everyone in America went to church on Sunday and could talk about heaven and hell and about God and Jesus and the Bible. I could honestly say, “Everyone in America believes in Jesus.” My problem was, it was obvious to me they weren’t all saved. I wondered, “So what makes my ‘believing’ any better than theirs?” I said to myself, “It’s great if all that is required is this ‘believing,’ but what does that really mean?" It was obviously something different than what “everyone believed.”

Then one day I stumbled across this passage, Romans 10:9: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” That’s it! Real saving faith is to tell God, “I accept that Jesus is Lord (the Boss), and I do believe in my heart that He died for me and rose again,” That’s it! It’s one thing to “believe” all that “stuff about Jesus.” It’s another thing to actually come to grips with the fact that He is LORD. Real believing always deals one way or another with this question of who’s going to be the boss in my life. And realizing that Jesus is the rightful Boss, I then have the problem that, up to today, I’ve been a cosmic rebel against Him. However, even as I embrace His rule over me, I also embrace the simple truth that He Himself took care of my sin problem. He died and rose again for me!

That’s what I mean about letters of gold. How could it be any simpler? And it isn’t difficult. It’s what I really already know in my heart. It’s been there all along. We’ve always known God was only a prayer away. We just wanted to go our own way, so we conveniently ignored Him.

People may get distracted by the idea of “confessing with your mouth” and “believing in your heart.” To me, the simple answer is that there is no such thing as a true believing that doesn’t change our lives. To truly believe that Jesus is Lord means I’m already changed. I want to live a new life. I want to be a different person.  The “believing” which goes on inside will change us on the outside. “Scholars” can argue all of that for pages and pages, but it isn’t that complicated. Real faith simply produces real Christians.

And what do we find? “Everyone believing on Him will not be ashamed.” Whether it’s a question of our eternal salvation or simply our daily lives, we can always rest assured that trusting God is the safest thing we can do. He will not disappoint us. In the short run, He may not give us what we think we want. In the short run, He may allow pain and trouble in our lives. However, faith will always, always, always be found to be its own reward. To trust God, to love Him, to turn our faces toward Him, is the smartest thing we can ever do!

It is really very simple!

Romans 10:1-4 “It All”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Brothers, the pleasure of my heart and the prayer toward God of them are into salvation, ²for I testify to them that they have zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, ³for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they were not submitted to the righteousness of God, ⁴for Christ [is the] end of law into righteousness to everyone believing.

Verse 4 is really the key to understanding all of this business about Legal vs. Grace righteousness: “For Christ is the end of law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” As John said, “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17). Truly knowing and understanding Jesus is the key to understanding it all.

As we noted in the last post, Legal righteousness makes perfect sense to our fallen minds: You have to do right to be right. On the other hand, anyone who is truly born-again understands we cannot be saved by our works. We all know that “the wages of sin is death,” and that “there is none righteous, no not one,” that salvation can only be through faith in Jesus, that it is, “by grace, through faith.” Paul already very clearly established all of this in the first three chapters of Romans.

Born-again people understand this, when it comes to their salvation itself. What I’m suggesting is that the problem comes when we are considering the whole business of living life. In other words, we understand grace and faith when it comes to our salvation, but what about our daily lives?  Now that we’ve been saved by grace, do we then return to law-keeping for our lives every day? Do we not see that “do right/be right” is the same Legal righteousness which the Israelites pursued – and got it wrong?

As we would think about this passage, right off the bat, I want to acknowledge again that Grace righteousness makes no sense to our fallen minds. “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him. Neither can he understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14). Only truly born-again, Spirit-indwelt people will understand Grace righteousness. The problem is – but do they? Do I? Do you? Have you ever stopped to seriously consider what is going on in your head all day every day? Is it Legal righteousness – the “Do right/be right,” or is it Grace righteousness – “Be right/Do right”?

“Christ is the end of the Law.” Scholars argue whether that means He brought an end to the Law, or if it means “end” in the sense of “goal” or “fulfillment.” Personally, I think the simple answer is that it means both. The Greek word for “end” means the same thing as our word “end.” It can either mean “end” in the sense of completion, like the end of the journey, or it can mean goal, as when we might say, “The end I’m shooting for is to…” So, in Greek or English, “end” means both.

Think about it: The whole universe is under God’s Law. He is the King and to displease Him is literally an act of cosmic treason against our King! Apart from Jesus, you and I are 100% under that Law and obligated to fulfill its every demand. Our natural minds grossly underestimate the enormity of our sins – not realizing they are offenses against the infinite, holy God! And what does that mean? It means that every sin is an infinite offense. It is God we have offended! He is the infinite King and we are rebels against His rightful rule. Again, every sin is literally an act of cosmic treason and therefore, it is punishable by an infinite death. That introduces a terrible consequence for each of us, as us finite creatures can never repay the price of an infinite punishment. That is precisely why hell is forever!

If Law-keeping is required, you and I are abjectly hopeless! Enter Jesus. “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” and “by His stripes, we are healed” (Isa. 53). Jesus, by the Cross, brought an end to Law in exactly this sense. Without Him, there is only Law – and us cosmic rebels are doomed. However, as Paul already showed in Romans, “But now, a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known…this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe…He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the One who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (3:21-26).

For those who believe, Jesus is the end of Law as the standard by which we please the King. However, He was also, from the beginning, the “end” of Law, in the sense that He was the very goal to which Law was pointing us. Col. 2:17 says, speaking of Law, “These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Everything about the law of Moses was supposed to point people to Jesus. As Paul says in Gal. 3:24, “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ…” 

When the Risen Jesus spoke to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, it says “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Lk. 24:27). For the Jews to have not seen Jesus “in all the Scriptures” meant they’d missed the point of it all! And for you and me, even in our daily lives, what is “the point of it all?” What is the good for which all things “work together?” Is it not “that we should be conformed to the image of Christ?” The “end” we’re aiming for is Jesus!

Even Law itself points us to Jesus. Our hopelessness and guilt ought to point us to faith in Jesus. And having been born again by that faith, the whole point of it all is for us to become more and more like Jesus. “Beholding His image, we’re changed into that image, even from glory to glory” (II Cor. 4:18). He is the end of law as our schoolmaster and saves us by faith, then He Himself and His likeness become the end or goal of that faith. Christ truly is “the end of law.” To know Him is life itself! “For this is eternal life, that they might know You and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (Jn. 17:3).

I guess we’re back to “zeal without knowledge.” How sad that people can be “zealous for God” and yet miss Jesus – which means in reality they missed it all! The challenge comes back to you and me and I would suggest that is true particularly in our daily lives. “The just shall live by faith.” Christ is “the end of law for righteousness for everyone who believes.” Are we filling our hearts and minds with Him and sincerely seeking to let Him be the reason for all we do – Grace righteousness – or “seeking to establish our own” – Legal righteousness?

It doesn’t make sense, but then it does – in Jesus.

Romans 10:1-4 “Righteous”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Brothers, the pleasure of my heart and the prayer toward God of them are into salvation, ²for I testify to them that they have zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, ³for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they were not submitted to the righteousness of God, ⁴for Christ [is the] end of law into righteousness to everyone believing.

Righteousness. That’s not a word that people use today, except in jest, yet the truth is still everyone wants to be “right.” No one likes to be told or even think they’re “wrong.” Being right in the eyes of other people is one thing. Being right in the eyes of God is obviously something entirely different. People’s aversion to being considered “wrong” is reflected today in the very fact that they don’t want to hear about sin. If there even is such a thing as “sin,” they want to be the ones to say what it is – and isn’t.

Yet, for us born-again people, righteousness is still an important concept. For those of us who are older, we grew up in a world where the Bible was still respected and the Ten Commandments were a big deal. We simply knew there was right and wrong. I’m not so sure people were any more moral back then, but at least, when they did wrong, they knew it and it bothered them. For many, many people, it was that relentless, nagging conscience that drove them to Christ.

Regardless of what brought us to Him, as believers, we now think a lot about these issues of “right and wrong,” and that is precisely this matter of righteousness. The question then is, how can we be “righteous?” Before we jump to an answer, look again at our text. Somebody got it wrong! The people of Israel “did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own" and so “they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” Back in chapter 9, Paul had said “That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not obtained it. And why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works” (v30-32).

Notice there are clearly two kinds of righteousness. There is a righteousness “that is by faith,” and a righteousness “by works.” Anyone who’s been around church for any length of time is probably saying, “Well, of course. Everyone knows that.” However, we should all stop and notice, when it comes to Israel, we’re talking about people who had the Scriptures and who were even “zealous for God.” As those people thought about righteousness, what made sense to them? Well…if you want to be right, you have to do right. Basically, you need to keep the Ten Commandments. Right?

Somehow that makes perfect sense to our human minds. Yet what is that? It is the very righteousness the Israelites pursued and our text is telling us they got it wrong. Before we dismiss their failure, we need to pause and remember we’re no different than them. What made sense to them actually makes sense to us. You want to be right, you have to do right. Right? How can that not be right?

I would suggest even born-again people need to do some serious thinking about this whole business. The next verse in our text tells us “Christ is the end of the law,” and we all cheer and say, “Yes, He is my righteousness!” If that is your testimony, good for you. However, have you ever realized you still find yourself thinking about this matter of righteousness? Even counting on Christ for your salvation, are you not still having to address this issue of righteousness? Are you not still thinking a lot about right and wrong? And is it not still making sense to you, if you want to be right, you have to do right? Yes? So, how is your thinking any different than Israel’s?

If you are following me, I hope you are realizing we’ve got ourselves in a conundrum. We’re counting on Christ for our salvation, then promptly reverting right back to the very “righteousness” that made sense to the Israelites, and we’re being told they got it wrong!

Even if you are already born-again – saved by faith in Christ – we all still need to realize there are two kinds of righteousness. According to our text, there is “God’s righteousness,” which is a righteousness “of faith,’ and then there is a “law of righteousness,” a kind that is “by works,” a kind that we “seek to establish on our own.”

Which is yours? Even as you would trust Christ for your eternal salvation, as you go about your day, what sort of righteousness are you living? Is it “do right” and “be right?” If that is true, why did Paul assert in Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace”? Why didn’t he say, “Sin shall not be your master. You must do right”? Why did suddenly grace take front stage?

Here is what is going on and how it makes sense to me: I call the two “ways” Legal righteousness and Grace righteousness. Legal righteousness is, it would seem, very simple. It’s “do right – be right.” The Ten Commandments say. “You shall not commit murder.” Cool. I haven’t murdered anyone (yet), so by that standard, I am righteous. They say, “You shall not steal.” I haven’t stolen anything (lately), so that makes me righteous. It says, “You shall not lie.” I haven’t lied (at least since yesterday – it’s currently 4:53 AM), so I’m righteous, right? Of course, the more we dig, the more we have to admit that, well, of course I have failed before, but I’m trying not to. As long as I’m successful, I’m righteous, right?

That’s all Legal righteousness. That’s the one that makes perfect sense to us, but it’s Israel’s righteousness and our text is telling us, they got it wrong! Then there is Grace righteousness. It is the “righteousness of faith.” It is “God’s righteousness.” It is the one “the Gentiles pursued,” and they got it right. Rather than “do right/be right,” Grace righteousness says “Be right and you will do right.” The Law says, “Do this and live.” Grace says, “Live! And do this.” The Law whips a dead horse and can’t get it to pull the wagon. Under grace, it is the Spirit that gives us life, and so we live. Instead of whipping the poor dead horse, grace brings him back from the dead, then offers him the chance to be and do exactly what he was created for – to pull the wagon.

Let’s be frank up front – Grace righteousness doesn’t make sense. That’s because it is spiritually discerned. It is simply beyond our fallen minds. Only those who have come to Christ for salvation to begin with – those who do understand what it means to be saved by faith – can understand how that same faith, that same grace, is actually the righteousness I live. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in I Cor. 2:9-16, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard…” We’re talking about something that is “spiritually discerned.”

Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing.” He said we must “abide in the vine.” Grace starts with Him. For me, all day every day, Grace righteousness is all about Him, not me. As I sincerely seek to know Him, to constantly know Him better, to let His Spirit by my spirit, to humbly acknowledge it’s true – without Him, I can do nothing – and prayerfully beg Him to help me live, then I find myself actually doing right. However, even if I do, I’m keenly aware it was Him, not me, that did it. It wasn’t my “trying” that gave me the wisdom or strength, it was Him. That’s Grace righteousness.

Grace first gives us life, then helps us to live. It is be right/do right. Then the wonderful thing about grace is that, when we fail (which is most of the time), it doesn’t reach for the whip, it stretches out its hand and says, “Hey, you who are highly favored, let me help you up. Let’s try this again (and again, and again, and again…). God’s grace in Christ means we are loved, so we can live loved. The same grace that saved us in Christ is the same grace that daily gives us life.

One more thought on this – the difference is that grace means we live a love relationship with God. The more I know Him, the more I keep before my mind His wonderful grace, the more I love Him – precisely because I realize how much He first loved me, the more I want to love Him. If I’m sitting in His big loving lap, wrapped in His big loving arms, how can I do and say and think things I know displease Him? In spite of my awful sin nature, I actually don’t want to sin. I don’t want to think those awful thoughts. I don’t want to be coarse. I don’t want to be unkind. I can actually honestly tell Him, I want to be confirmed in holiness, like the good angels. I want to be a person who doesn’t even want to sin.

When grace gets us there, can we all see we are but one step from heaven itself?

May grace help us all to “abide in the Vine.” May our righteousness be His, until the day He takes us home and truly makes us righteous!

Whether anything I’ve said makes any sense to you or not, I hope this text in Romans 10 has at least made you stop and ponder your own understanding of righteousness. Some people got it wrong. Some people got it right. I’m quite sure I know which you want to be!

 

Romans 10:1-4 “Zeal Without Knowledge”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Brothers, the pleasure of my heart and the prayer toward God of them are into salvation, ²for I testify to them that they have zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, ³for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they were not submitted to the righteousness of God, ⁴for Christ [is the] end of law into righteousness to everyone believing.

I wish the whole world could read verse 2 and take it seriously. “For I can testify about them that the are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.” Oh, wow. Prov. 19:2 says, “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.” Any older adult can see that young people are often filled with zeal for this or that, but so often simply foolish. A friend of mine once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” I look back on my own life and can say I spent an enormous amount of time and energy on a lot of things which I now realize were a complete waste of time.

I used to puzzle over Jesus’ words, “For without Me, you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). At the time, I was rushing hither and yon doing this and that, thinking I was serving the Lord, yet I didn’t really take the time to be sure what I was doing was God’s will and not just my own. Now I can see how little was accomplished for all that effort. “Zeal without knowledge.” “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge.”

This first of all brings us back to where we ended the last post. What is knowledge? Where do we get truth? Christian people should answer quickly, “from the Bible.” That is true, of course, but look at the case in point. We’re looking in Romans 9 at the Jewish people. Did they have the Bible? Of course they did. Not only that, but they thought they were champions of Bible study. Jesus said of them, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life…” (Jn. 5:39). We have before us an entire people group who not only had the Scriptures, but also studied them, and, according to Paul, were even “zealous for God.” Yet he could say of them, their zeal was “not according to knowledge.”

“How can that be?” every Christian should ask themself. I would suggest we are back to our simple little adage, we have to “let it say what it says.” The Pharisees may have been diligent students of the Bible, but they went to that Bible with their minds already made up. The passages they did not like, they simply ignored or derived fanciful interpretations to explain away. And where did that get them? It made them “zealous for God,” but as Jesus warned His disciples, “A time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God” (Jn. 16:2). Not only did they kill the disciples, they even killed the Messiah Himself!

Wow, is it not good to have zeal without knowledge!

The challenge to us born-again believers is to be sincerely trying to go to the Bible prayerfully, to be humbly asking the Lord to give us light, seeking to understand what it says, then simply believing it, embracing it, and seeking to live it. And I want to assert here that this isn’t some daunting assignment. The Lord didn’t give us the Bible to confuse us. He didn’t make it hard to understand. I am personally amazed at how simple it is – if we simply let it “say what it says.” We may often run across passages where we can’t figure out what they mean, but I would suggest there will always be plenty that will be “all too clear,” and it’s on those things we should build our faith. God’s Holy Spirit is more than able to “lead me on level ground” (Ps. 143:10), to be that voice behind us saying, “Here is the way. Walk ye in it” (Isa. 30:21).

What a shame it is to see our whole world filled with zeal in so many ways, yet to see it so misplaced. The radical Muslims think they’re “zealous for God,” then reign in terror. Look at how horrifically the Taliban and the Iranian government treat their people. It would seem their favorite pastime is murder. Their hatred and cruelty may be obvious to the rest of the world, but they actually think they’re “zealous for God.” Then we can say, they may be one of the worst examples, yet the whole world is filled with people trying to be “religious” yet completely missing the way. Our world is full of “zeal without knowledge.”

We could multiply examples of people sitting on top of poles or cloistering themselves away. We could point out the Hasidic Jews or the Amish or Buddhist monks or whoever is the latest cult following. However, I fear we American Christians need to look much closer to home, if we would profit from reading Paul’s words here. We need to ask ourselves how much of what we call our “faith” is really based on the Bible and how much of it is just more of the “traditions of men?”

I suppose the real question comes down to, “Do I know God?” Jesus said, “For this is eternal life, that they might know You…” (Jn. 17:3). Do I truly know Him? Do I “practice His presence?” In my own heart and mind, is that really the measure of my “faith?” If I couldn’t do any the things we Christians would call our “religion,” would I still have the treasure of my relationship with Him? Is the essence of my faith a Martha or am I truly a Mary?

“It is not good to have zeal without knowledge.” We would learn from the Jews it is even possible to be “zealous for God,” and still to completely miss the way. Lord, may You truly be the very center and essence of my faith. May everything I think and do arise from that relationship. Then may people all around the world, especially born-again Christians, pause and consider their own hearts. May we all buy from Jesus “gold refined in the fire…and white clothes to wear…and salve for our eyes, so we can see!” (Rev. 3:18). May our “zeal” be based on knowledge we get directly from the Word of God and may it truly be a zeal that “brings forth much fruit” (Jn. 15:5).

 

Romans 10:1-4 “Truth”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹Brothers, the pleasure of my heart and the prayer toward God of them are into salvation, ²for I testify to them that they have zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, ³for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they were not submitted to the righteousness of God, ⁴for Christ [is the] end of law into righteousness to everyone believing.

It’s interesting that Romans 10 immediately follows Romans 9. The whole point of Romans 9, it would seem, was to assert the Lord’s absolute sovereignty, particularly in relation to salvation. “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,” He said in v.14. To those who don’t like to hear that, He asks, “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?” (v.20). That’s it. End of discussion. God’s sovereignty, His choosing, predestination are all simply Biblical facts revealed to us by the God who says, “For My ways are not your ways, nor My thoughts your thoughts…” (Isa. 55:8).

Now in Romans 10, right at the outset, we find Paul praying for people’s salvation! Reading ahead down to v.9, we read the familiar, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Notice the “that if…” What this chapter will unequivocally assert is that your salvation is entirely up to you(!). Romans 9 taught us God’s absolute sovereignty. Romans 10 teaches us our absolute responsibility!

These two truths – sovereignty and responsibility – have been a theological battleground for centuries. Frankly, I think that has been only so much wasted ink. Romans 9 is very clear. Romans 10 is very clear. They’re both right there in the Bible and here they even each get an entire chapter and that right next to each other. What is there to argue about – unless someone simply doesn’t like what they’re reading? (Or doesn’t read it at all…) Once again, if we would study our Bible, let it say what it says, and only then ponder its meaning, personally I don’t see where there’s even any room for discussion. A believer’s place in this world is to realize we are the creation, He is the Creator. We are just people. He is God. We dwell in time and space. He inhabits eternity.

I would suggest that this subject of eternal salvation emerges from so deeply in the timeless, eternal, incomprehensible councils of the infinite God, it is simply beyond our understanding. We need to simply read and study our Bibles, see what God says, believe it, and go on to live our lives in light of those truths. Period.

Paul believed that and what do we find him doing even as the chapter opens? Praying for people’s salvation. Telling them, “If you…” Actually, he ended chapter 9 already acknowledging these truths when he quoted “and the one who trusts in Him will never be ashamed.” That said, let us rest in the security of our God’s absolute sovereignty, then never stop praying and longing for the salvation of our family and friends. As long as they still have breath in their lungs, it will remain true, “If you…”

Another thought arises for me from just verse 1 (which only reiterates 9:1-5). In general, I love reading anything the Reformers recorded. On the whole, they were champions of studying the Bible and letting it say what it says. On the other hand, one thing that is shocking is to read their vicious antipathy toward the Jewish people. It would seem they hated the Jewish people and couldn’t say enough bad about them. “Christ-killers” they called them. That antipathy was so bad and so prevalent that, to this day, I understand that, if you go to Israel and identify yourself as a Christian, they will assume you hate them. You have to tell them you are an Evangelical, then they are assured you are their friend.

It is true. They crucified the Messiah. Peter accosted them with that truth in Acts 3:11-26, when he said, “You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead…” However, notice he then urges them, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be forgiven…” Peter didn’t hate them. Like Paul, the desire of his heart and his prayer for them was for their salvation. Once again, I don’t see how anyone can read the Bible, let it say what it says, and have anything but love in their heart for God’s chosen people, the Jews.

The wonderful thing about the Bible is that it is the Truth. The more we would read it, study it, understand it, and embrace its truths, the more we become the very people God’ created us to be. We don’t have to understand how it all fits together, just believe it and live it. Paul did. Peter did. Daniel did. You and I can too.