Becoming a Christian is at once the easiest thing and the hardest thing in the world.
It is easy when you lay down your arms, repent from your waywardness and receive Jesus Christ as Saviour.
It is hard
when you want to have it your own way, or when you wish to decide the terms on
which you wish to be reconciled with your Creator.
We are working our way through Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Paul’s intention is to help us understand how we become Christians (Rom.
1-11) and how we may continue to live as Christians (Rom 12-16). Having outlined the
problem of sin against a holy God, whose creation we are, he helps us to
understand that there is only one solution to our dilemma, by which we may have
peace with God - Jesus Christ, the Saviour. Nowhere
does he indicate that we may choose our own path to God. Quite the opposite-
God chooses His Saviour and He chooses the method of salvation. It is when we
bow our knee to Him that our salvation becomes most visible. Tragically, the Jews in Paul’s day refused to
bow the knee to Jesus.
In Romans 9:30-33 Paul explains that Israel’s failure to embrace the gospel was directly
related to their stumbling over Jesus Christ. They would not accept God’s
solution for salvation. Instead, Israel
by and large was seeking salvation by law keeping, rather than by trusting in
Jesus Christ alone. And so, Jesus became
that stumbling stone predicted by Isaiah (Isa. 8:14; 28:16 à cf. Rom. 9:32 see also
1 Cor. 1:23). Jesus became to them a stumbling stone, when in fact He was
their rock of salvation (Ps. 95:1). Unlike most of them that godly Jewish old
man Simeon saw the infant Jesus in the temple, 8 days after He
was born, and he rightly prophesied that
this child was “appointed both for the fall and rising of many in Israel”(Lk. 2:34)
OUTLINE: ROMANS
10:1-13
1.
Ignorance
of the righteousness of God (10:2-3)
2.
Jesus
is the righteousness of God (10:4-7)
3.
Believe in Jesus (10:8-13)
In Rom. 9:1-5 we had seen that this large rejection of their Messiah had
deeply grieved Paul and again he expresses his heart for them when he says in 10:1, “brothers, my heart’s desire and
prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” So again, what is their problem? And better still what is the solution?
Again, Paul makes known the heart of Israel’s problem. It is
not that they deny the existence of YAHWEH, the God of Israel. In fact, says
Paul, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God … BUT not
according to knowledge.
What knowledge did they not possess?
10:3 answers the question: they were ignorant of the righteousness of God; they sought to establish their own (basis of) righteousness; they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
That word, ‘righteousness’ is a key word in the letter to the Romans[1]. The Jews had been zealously seeking to establish their own righteousness through law keeping, but they failed to reach that standard (9:31,32).
What should they do?
- They should not be ignorant of the righteousness of God
- they should submit to Gods righteousness
- God's righteousness is expressed in Christ who is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
And here we find a massive lesson in understanding the nature of true biblical faith.
Outward zeal (i.e. mere religious sincerity and earnestness) cannot save anybody! It is not an infallible sign that someone is right with God. Passion without truth cannot save anyone. This needs to be said loudly and boldly! Many people, even sincere Christian people are frequently more impressed by expressions of zeal rather than by truth. We easily make up our mind not by what people actually say about their beliefs but by what we feel about them. Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones in a searching sermon on Romans 10:3 gives an illustration of this:
“On a visit to London some years ago,
I went into a certain book room which was managed by an evangelical
organization… To my astonishment, I found that they were selling there a second-hand
book by a man who was notorious at that time. He was no longer alive, but he
had written this well-known book about Christianity in which he virtually
denied all the cardinal articles of the Christian faith. As I was looking
round, the secretary of this society came to speak to me, so I called his
attention to this book and expressed my amazement.
'Ah,' he said, 'wait a minute. You know, we must be very
careful.' 'What do you mean?' I asked.
He said, 'Have you ever met this man?' And when I told him I had not, he
replied, 'Well, I have. I stayed with him a few months back. I was on
deputation work and he entertained me for the night, and the next morning we
went into a little chapel attached to his house where he took family prayers.
And you know, I don't think I have ever been in such a spiritual atmosphere. It
was a blessing to my soul to hear him taking family prayers on that occasion.' 'Yes, but my dear sir,' I said, 'what does he
say in this book?' 'Oh, I know that,' he said, 'but you see, if you had heard
him taking those prayers! I have never known a more devout man. I have never
been in a more devotional atmosphere.' My reply was this: 'But I don't care
what you felt. This is what the man says about the Lord Jesus Christ and His work
and it is a denial of the Scriptures!' But I found it very difficult to
persuade him.
And so it is that we find that people are easily taken in with personalities, and particular with people of charisma and zeal, whose utterances about Jesus and His work would leave one gasping. And yet people hang on to their lips! In my years as a pastor -preacher I have been in trouble at times with sincere Christians for calling out such people. They are listened to on the social media, their music are listened to and sung and their books are being read and sold in Christian bookshops, and it is thought that they must be right when, in truth, they would have been condemned as heretics by the early church councils – particularly the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) which confirmed that Jesus is equal to God the Father, rejecting Arianism. They would have been condemned at the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD) which confirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
We say it again and let each one examine themselves in this regard: we easily value our own experience or feeling over Scripture. We often value enthusiasm, zeal, presentation, eloquence, personality over biblical truth. How can such a nice guy be wrong?
Our zeal must be directed by the whole counsel of the word of God. Our zeal must flow from a converted heart. Our zeal must be directed by the Holy Spirit, who is the Inspirer of the Word of God. Paul says that Israel by and large had not understood her own God inspired Scripture. If they had read their Scriptures correctly[2], they would have known that any system that teaches that salvation is gained by self-righteousness cannot be right. Both, the OT and the NT teach that salvation is by God’s grace alone.
The law (and the keeping of it) cannot make anyone righteous. This is the
first thing that Paul points out.
2. JESUS CHRIST OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (10: 4-7)
Here is the second great truth. 10:4 “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes”.
This is a powerful statement. Christ is the end of the law. The Jews believed wholeheartedly that one was saved by law-keeping. This, says Paul, was never a true emphasis of the OT. And those that say that the OT is all about salvation by works, while the NT is all about salvation by grace are wrong! That is playing the OT off against the NT. You cannot do that! There is one covenant, one law and it is completed in Christ! He is the end of the law. There never have been two systems of salvation. There has always only been one way. The law of the OT has always been waiting for its fulfilment in Christ.
But the Jews could not see that. Instead, they had progressively twisted the law of Moses to become a legal system by which, they thought, righteousness could be obtained. There was no faith required, and so it became a system of works. They were stuck in a system, and so, Christ, the Messiah, the end of the law, became a stumbling stone for them.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness! When Christ is the end of the law, it follows that we must look to Him! The Buck stops there! We must take our righteousness from Him!
10:5 It is true that the law of Moses commanded absolute obedience. But since
no one kept the law perfectly, there were the laws of sacrifice illustrating
that sin was serious in God’s sight. By instituting
the sacrificial system, sins were atoned. However, does the blood of bulls and
goats truly take away sin? No! (Hebr. 10:4 à cf. Psalm 40:6-8. So, the law foreshadowed the coming of the ultimate
sacrifice – the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29,36
-à We find Him in Isaiah 53)
10:6 The righteousness based on faith does not look at our own performance of the law. We will always fail! Therefore, the law makes us ultimately look to Christ. He, the spotless Lamb has kept the law perfectly for us. He has born the penalty for those that trust in Him. The price is paid once for all, and those that look to Him are radiant! (Psalm 34:5).
But what about these strange words in 10:6,7? "Do not say in your heart, who will ascend into Heaven to (that is to bring Christ down) or who shall descend into the abyss, (that is to bring Christ up) "? Paul is simply saying this: In seeking to be saved God is not asking you to perform some monumental task by going up into heaven to look for it there, or by descending into the abyss to look for it there. No! NO! All you have to do is LISTEN and LOOK right HERE: The word is near you … that is the word of faith that we proclaim (10:8). LISTEN! LOOK! BELIEVE!
3. BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (10:9-13)
And so in 10:9 he says it as clear as clear can be, and that, in two ways: by way of an outward vocal confession of Jesus as Lord, and with an inward heart conviction.
- You must confess[3] with your mouth Jesus as Lord
- You must (ii) believe in your heart[4] that God has raised Him from the dead. This thought is strengthened in 10:10 and again in 10:11 with quotes from the OT - Isaiah 28:16, and in 10:13 we find a quote from Joel 2:32
Paul emphasizes that the OT way of salvation is salvation by grace through faith; not in law-keeping. Christ is the end of the law. His emphasis in 10:11-13 is of supreme importance:
Look to Jesus! Look to Him, the righteous One. Receive His righteousness!
Look to Him as the One who was raised from the dead. Believe
in Him. In His risen life is your life!
10:12 In this regard there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. There is not one way of salvation for the Jews and another way for the Gentiles. The same Lord is Lord of all." There is one way of salvation, and that one way of salvation is Jesus Christ ALONE. “
And so, "Everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved". No nation, no tribe is excluded from this gospel call.
Can this be said any clearer or plainer?
Who is here who has not yet called upon the
Lord Jesus?
[1] Dikaiosune
is mentioned 36 times
[2] e.g. Jesus said in Matt. 22:29 “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God”
[3] Homologeo -
to say the same thing as another, to agree, confess, or openly declare.
It is an aorist active subjunctive verb, pointing to a decisive, whole-action
acknowledgment.
[4] en tῇ
kardia "In the heart,"
representing the core seat of human thought, will, and emotional conviction
rather than mere surface intellect
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