EXPOSITORY THOUGHTS ON ROMANS CHAPTER 10
(Quotes from Scripture are taken from the NIV)
1Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Even though Paul knows that only a remnant of the great nation of Israel will be saved, his heart's desire and his prayer to God is that salvation will come to the Jews. After all, they are his kinsmen in the natural. He recognises that they have had great privileges in the past when God was working with them. Of all the nations in the world, they were the most zealous for God. It was this zealousness that caused them to keep the Law so rigidly. It was because they wanted to please God, especially in Jesus' time because they wanted to make up for the lost time when they were not right with God. This is why their laws became so complicated. They wanted to make sure that they had every angle covered, just in case they missed out because they did not observe something important.
Paul recognises that although they had plenty of zeal for God, it was not based on correct knowledge. This is so true when we are dealing with issues in our own churches. Zeal for God is not enough to ensure that things are done correctly. Christians are not meant to be zealots, imposing rules and regulations on others, and interfering in the lives of innocent people just because they do not seem to have the same perceived standards as they themselves hold. True Christian zeal is based on a clear knowledge of God's will, His nature and character. To gain that knowledge, all we have to do is to read the gospels and see how Jesus went about His ministry and how He conducted Himself before different types of people.
Paul says that the Jews did not know anything about the righteousness that comes from God. We know that those who put their trust in the Lord Jesus receive His Righteousness, and that covering makes them completely acceptable to the Father. The Jews who crucified Jesus did not know that. They were too busy trying to establish their own righteousness by zealously keeping the Law. This was not the way God wanted it. He knew that keeping the whole Law was impossible, so righteousness was never going to come that way. Even though Jesus showed the way for the Jews to become righteous before God, they would not submit to what Jesus was telling them. Instead, they held more tightly to their own Law and traditions and got rid of Jesus by having Him crucified.
Submitting to God's righteousness means a submission to Christ. There is no righteousness outside of Christ. The purpose of the Law is to lead people to Christ. This is what Paul means by "the end of the Law". It is not that the Law has come to an end. The word "end" here means "purpose" rather than finality. Through the ages, the Law had a purpose for the Jews. It was leading up to the revealing of Christ. The Law that Moses received from the hand of God was to be fulfilled in Christ. The Jews, as a nation, were growing up through the Law, and submitting to Christ was the next logical step in God's plan. Those who made the transition from the Law to Christ left the Law behind, and received the new Law written on their hearts by the Holy Spirit. The fundamentals of the new Law are the same as the Mosaic Law. The difference is in how it is applied to the believer. The old Mosaic Law was a set of external rules that people had to obey. They had to align their hearts and minds to that Law. It was a Law that required obedience and godly fear. It was rare for a person to follow the Law just out of love for it. Keeping the Law was a sacred duty for the Jew. Sacred, yes, but a duty nevertheless.
The new Law, however, is applied differently. It is not a set of external rules that people have to follow out of a sense of duty and fear. It is a Law that can only be applied to a changed heart. A person who insists on follow a set of external rules in order to keep them "in the faith", is only showing that their heart is not fully changed into the state that the new Law can be written on it. Only a full submission to Christ as Saviour and Lord can take the hardness out of a person's heart and make it new so that the Law of Christ can be written on it. Once the Law of Christ is written on the new heart, then following it becomes a matter of inward principle, motivated by the love of Christ within the new heart. The outworking of keeping the new Law of Christ can quite possibly be the same as an unregenerated person following the external Mosaic Law.
So following the Law is not the real issue then. Paul had no problems with Jews continuing to follow the Mosaic Law all during the time of his ministry. He knew that once they came to Christ, the new Law was written onto their new hearts, and so the principles of a sanctified life were more happily followed.
Once a person submitted themselves to Christ, received their new heart, and had the Law of Christ written on it, they were totally covered with the Righteousness of Christ so that they could stand before God without any sense of sin, or inferiority. This is "the righteousness for everyone who believes" that Paul is talking about here.
5Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them."[a] 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'[b]" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7"or 'Who will descend into the deep?'[c]" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,"[d] that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That 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. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."[e] 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."[f]
Paul now compares the righteousness that comes by the Mosaic Law and the Righteousness of Christ which comes by faith (that is, trusting in and relying on the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross).
The definition of "righteousness" is right standing with God. What this means is that a person who has righteousness is a person who can stand before God without any guilt of sin, shame, or any sense of unworthiness or doubt about his right to stand in that position. He is totally acceptable to God in every sense.
The righteousness (the same definition) that comes by the Law has a condition attached to it: The person who wants righteousness by following the Law will have to live by the principles of the external Law. That means that he has to keep the whole Law without exception, and if he makes the slightest mistake at any time in his life, then he has failed to keep the whole Law and therefore falls short of the acceptability that God requires for him to be righteous.
The righteousness that comes by faith is in contrast to this. We don't have to go anywhere or put a lot of self effort into gaining this righteousness. A possible application of the verse would be that we don't have to become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly use, like some sort of religious mystic to achieve righteousness; nor to we have to become so self-degrading like some religious hermits and Indian "holy men" or have a vow of abject poverty and ultra humility to achieve this righteousness.
Paul says that the word that we believe is right here with us: in our own mouths and our own hearts. It is a specific word of faith. Note that it is not just any word of faith. Paul specifies the particular word of faith that brings us to a state of righteousness with God. Here is that word of faith:
"Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord" "Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead."
Paul says that if we do those two things, we will be saved. Notice that there is no mention of having to keep any kind of Law or do any kind of good works at this stage to receive this promise. Paul says that what justifies us before God is what our heart believes, and what brings salvation to us is our verbal confession that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul repeats what he said at the end of the last chapter: if we put our trust in Jesus Christ for our justification and salvation, we will never be ashamed. This means that we can stand before God at any time without any sense of shame at all.
Paul goes on to say that in this, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. That is what got him into trouble with the Jews and put him in prison: that he put the Gentiles on the same footing with God as the Jews. Paul is quite clear about it though. Both Jew and Gentile have to come through the same narrow way of believing and confessing. This is unacceptable to the Jew, because of the strong tradition of having to follow the Law and do good works in order to earn a standing with God. The problem with the Gentiles was that they had to give up their own gods and forms of worship in order to enter through the narrow way of Christ to full acceptance of the Father.
But the way of salvation through Christ is open to anyone. There is no favoured race of people any more that can say that God is exclusively theirs. The way to righteousness is open to all races, creeds and colours. Any person in the world can decide to confess Jesus as Lord and believe in his heart that God has raised Him from the dead, and receive full justification, salvation, and acceptability before God.
Notice that Paul speaks about salvation in the future tense. This gives the view that there is a present assurance of salvation, and a future event where the salvation becomes actual and real.
14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"[g]
Paul then moves to the next issue concerning the path to righteousness. He says that although those who call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved, how can they call on Him if they don't believe in Him? This means that they have to come to the place where they believe the gospel strongly enough to want to call on Him. Paul then answers that problem by saying that the path to believing is hearing. So they need to be put in a place where they can hear the Word of God and have an opportunity to decide whether they are going to believe it or not.
Paul deals with the issue of hearing by saying that people will be able to hear if someone comes and preaches the gospel to them. Therefore, preaching the gospel is an essential part of getting people saved. But not everyone can preach the gospel effectively. Paul says that to be able to preach with the power needed to bring the hearers to faith, the preacher needs to be sent. Who sends the preacher to preach? Paul does not give the answer here, but we can safely assume that it is the Holy Spirit who sends and equips the preachers. So if a person aspires to preach the gospel, he needs first to wait upon the Lord until the Holy Spirit brings the calling of God to him and commissions him to the work. This is just like what the Spirit said to the group at Antioch: "Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work I have called them." Paul and Barnabas got the call, and they were sent, and they went out and boldly preached the gospel, and many heard, believed and were saved. Paul is speaking then from his personal experience.
Paul uses the Scripture from Isaiah 52:7 to support the truth that God fully approves of those who submit to the Holy Spirit and allow themselves to be call and sent to preach the good news of the gospel.
16But not all the
Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our
message?"[h] 17Consequently,
faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word
of Christ. 18But I ask: Did they not
hear? Of course they did:
"Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world."[i]
19Again I ask: Did Israel not
understand? First, Moses says,
"I will make you envious by those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding."[j]
20And Isaiah boldly says,
"I was found by those who did not seek me;
I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me."[k]
21But concerning Israel he says,
"All day long I have held out my hands
to a disobedient and obstinate people. "[l]
Paul accepts that not all the Jews accepted the good news of the gospel. This is a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that not everyone will believe the message. Paul points out that faith comes by hearing the message. This is why preachers are important. The message itself is not just any message, it is the good news that Christ died for our sins on the cross and was raised by God for our justification. This is why the preaching of the Cross of Christ is so powerful in bringing people to faith to be saved. Paul asks the question, "Did the Jews hear the message?" He answers his own question in the definite positive. He quotes more references from Isaiah to prove that they did hear the message and heard enough of it to ensure their salvation.
He goes on to ask the question, "Did the Jews really understand the message?" Paul shows through the words of Moses and Isaiah that it was not that they misunderstood the message. It was because they did understand it but refused to accept it. Isaiah foretells the acceptance of the gospel by the Gentiles. These were the people who were not seeking God at the time the message was proclaimed to them by Paul and the other Apostles. They were the ones who found the Lord Jesus Christ, ahead of the Jews who closed their hearts and minds to Him.
Paul shows the Jews through the words of one of their own prophets that God reached right out to Israel to offer them salvation and righteousness, but they remained disobedient and obstinate. This is interesting, because they were a people who insisted on keeping the Law to the letter, and many of them achieved that, but God still saw them as disobedient because in spite of keeping the Law, they rejected Christ who is the whole purpose of the existence of the Law. Therefore those Jews were left behind in their unbelief and disobedience, while the believing Jews and the Gentiles went on to receive the righteousness of Christ.
The Gentiles did not have to observe the Mosaic Law, and they received the new Law written on their hearts. The believing Jews received their new hearts and the new Law, and this made their observance of the Mosaic Law that much more meaningful and precious to them.
Footnotes:
[End of Chapter 10]