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!
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