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!
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