Letter to the Romans -- Chapter 10
After having firmly declared the providence and sovereignty of God, who alone chooses whom to harden and whom to have mercy upon, Paul continues on to explain how the people of Israel illustrate this truth and how the righteousness by faith plays into it. “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Romans 10:1-4). Though the Israelites were zealous for God, Paul rightly saw how no amount of zealousness and striving could get them anywhere with Him. They were zealous in vain as they strove to establish their own righteousness, failing to see the righteousness that comes from God alone and apart from anything of man. If we ourselves continue to look to our own actions, decisions, choices, “free-will”, and merits then we too are refusing to submit to God’s righteousness in Christ Jesus. Christ is the end of all self-righteousness and all man-achieved, activated, and instigated righteousness, as all men share in His righteousness thru simple faith which believes that He has already done it all.
Paul continues on to compare and contrast the law and the gospel: “Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The man who does these things will live by them’” (Romans 10:5). The righteousness that is by the law, by the doing and willing of man, is a righteousness that hinges on the efforts of men. It is any righteousness that is in the hands of man and is determined by him; if man is the agent then it is a righteousness by the law no matter how we try to veil it otherwise. In contrast Paul goes on to explain the righteousness by faith: “But the righteousness that is by faith says: ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ‘or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)” (Romans 10:6-7). Here we see that the righteousness by faith does not look to the individual and try to judge whether they have willed their way to ascend into heaven or to descend into hell. The righteousness that is by faith does not concern itself with what “I have done,” with what “you have done,” or even what choices we have made. The righteousness by faith also does not try to determine who is elected, predestined, and chosen by God, for it sees that this is a fruitless endeavor and question that only drives men away from the manger, cross, and empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
So what does the righteousness by faith say? “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:8-10). The righteousness by faith simply says: “Forget whether you think you have been elected or not. Forget any possibility of being righteous thru your own deeds, actions, choices, merits, decisions, or willing. Simply look to the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb, look to the gospel of Jesus Christ that is being proclaimed to you here and now. The good news that He has already died for your sins and has saved and forgiven you thru His blood on the cross. Cling to this with every fiber of your being. He is your righteousness now. He is your election. He is your predestination. You (specifically you!) have been chosen in Jesus Christ apart from anything from your self and solely because of God’s immeasurable grace and mercy for the sake of His Son.” As we see here the righteousness by faith never points to man and it always relentlessly points to Jesus Christ crucified. If men point you to something in you for your salvation, whether some prayer, decision, choice, willing, or working, close your ears off to them and get back to tunnel-vision for Christ. The righteousness by faith never even points us to our own faith, it points us to the cross. If we think too long about faith it will become our focus and we will lose Christ who alone needs to be our focus. So often in America today men preach faith, faith, faith, and forget that faith is not the point, it is Jesus Christ who is the point. CFW Walther understood very well that we must not lose Christ amidst all our “faith” talk: “A preacher must be able to preach a sermon on faith without ever using the term faith. It is not important that he shout the word faith into the ears of his audience, but it is necessary for him to frame his address so as to arouse in every poor sinner the desire to lay the burden of his sins at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ…You must instruct him to do nothing but listen to the Word of God, and God will give him faith.” Therefore the righteousness by faith doesn’t focus on faith, it focuses on what Jesus Christ has done for us in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, thereby bringing men (whether they are conscious of it or not) to faith and trust in God’s promise given to us there. “As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:11-13). Yes, God alone chooses whom to have mercy upon and we are nothing but helpless clay in His hands who can do nothing good on our own, however for the sake of His Son, God has destroyed all difference between us so that we all may share in the blessings of Jesus Christ. Thru His Son we all have been bought and forgiven and it takes the Word of this promise to bring men to faith in this work of Christ.
Therefore we must ask with Paul: “How, 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? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15). Here Paul touches on how the universal grace of Jesus Christ, the predestination of the elect, and the fact that not all men are saved, come together in the one truth of the Scriptures. The key that holds all these truths together in Christ Jesus is what is called the “means of grace.” God has chosen to attach His blessings in Christ to His external Word. He has chosen the humble means of His Word and promise as the vehicle to reach us sinful men with the good news. Therefore, how can men believe in Christ if they have not heard the message? How can they share in the death and resurrection of Christ if they have not been baptized into the Trinity? How can anyone be reached with these means of grace if men are not called and sent to preach? With Paul we answer humbly, “Indeed, they cannot.” Though Christ died for all men, if they don’t hear about it they cannot be brought to faith, and therefore God has called us to be His workers and harvesters. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:2-3). God has sent us into the world to bring His Word and His Baptism to the nations so that they may hear and be touched by the Good News in order to be brought to share in its universal blessings! “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’” (Matthew 28:18-20). It is in these words of Christ that we have been given the command to take His Word and Baptism to all nations in order to make disciples of all nations, creeds, walks, ethnicities, ages, abilities, and backgrounds. This is our duty to bring this message of reconciliation to the world so that thru this message God might bring men to Christ. God is indeed calling us to be His harvesters and thru His Word we also are fed daily by this message of reconciliation that strengthens and sustains us in the promise of God. “Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again…All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15, 18-21).
Having taught us that the Word of God in all its forms is the means by which God brings us and appropriates to us His grace, Paul continues to discuss the difficult questions that arise when we look at Israel, God’s chosen people. “But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:16-17). Paul once again reiterates that it is only thru the Word of Christ that men are brought to faith; it is not their work, decision, choice, or will, it is the Word itself that creates faith and therefore apart from the Word there can be no faith. All the Israelites however have not accepted the good news of Christ and this begs the immediate question of whether Israel ever heard the Word. “But 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’” (Romans 10:18). Here Paul clearly shows from the Scriptures that the message and Word of Christ has indeed gone into all the earth and has reached the ends of the world. So if the Word has gone forth to them all, then our next logical question is whether they understood the message that came to them: “Again 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.’ And Isaiah boldly says, ‘I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me’” (Romans 10:19-20). Here Paul even debunks the possibility that Israel misunderstood the message of Jesus Christ. He clearly shows from the Scriptures that Israel in fact did understand the message by contrasting the Gentiles to them. God chose to reveal Himself to those who did not understand and who did not seek, desire, or ask for Him, therefore He revealed Himself to the ignorant Gentiles who did not have the understanding that Israel did.
Paul continues: “But concerning Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’” (Romans 10:21). Even in the face of hearing the Word and understanding its message Israel was still disobedient and obstinate. It is here that we come to see what Paul is really getting at with this line of questioning: all the efforts, desires, willing, choosing, decisions, hearing, seeking, and even understanding of men cannot create faith within him or bring him in right standing with God. Even though God’s own chosen people had been given the Word, they were powerless to respond to it. Even though God’s own chosen people understood the message proclaimed to them, they were futile in laying hold of it. Even though God had patiently pleaded for them to come to Him and to turn away from their sin, they did nothing but fall into idolatry over and over again. Thru Israel we see that no matter how hard we strive to bring ourselves to faith or to lay hold of God it is impossible for man. With the disciples we desperately ask: “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:26), and Christ replies once and for all: “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). God Himself must be the agent and worker by which we come to faith. God has chosen to reveal Himself to those who did not seek, ask, or desire in order to illustrate this very point that what is impossible for us men, God alone can do.
Paul continues on to compare and contrast the law and the gospel: “Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The man who does these things will live by them’” (Romans 10:5). The righteousness that is by the law, by the doing and willing of man, is a righteousness that hinges on the efforts of men. It is any righteousness that is in the hands of man and is determined by him; if man is the agent then it is a righteousness by the law no matter how we try to veil it otherwise. In contrast Paul goes on to explain the righteousness by faith: “But the righteousness that is by faith says: ‘Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ‘or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)” (Romans 10:6-7). Here we see that the righteousness by faith does not look to the individual and try to judge whether they have willed their way to ascend into heaven or to descend into hell. The righteousness that is by faith does not concern itself with what “I have done,” with what “you have done,” or even what choices we have made. The righteousness by faith also does not try to determine who is elected, predestined, and chosen by God, for it sees that this is a fruitless endeavor and question that only drives men away from the manger, cross, and empty tomb of Jesus Christ.
So what does the righteousness by faith say? “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:8-10). The righteousness by faith simply says: “Forget whether you think you have been elected or not. Forget any possibility of being righteous thru your own deeds, actions, choices, merits, decisions, or willing. Simply look to the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb, look to the gospel of Jesus Christ that is being proclaimed to you here and now. The good news that He has already died for your sins and has saved and forgiven you thru His blood on the cross. Cling to this with every fiber of your being. He is your righteousness now. He is your election. He is your predestination. You (specifically you!) have been chosen in Jesus Christ apart from anything from your self and solely because of God’s immeasurable grace and mercy for the sake of His Son.” As we see here the righteousness by faith never points to man and it always relentlessly points to Jesus Christ crucified. If men point you to something in you for your salvation, whether some prayer, decision, choice, willing, or working, close your ears off to them and get back to tunnel-vision for Christ. The righteousness by faith never even points us to our own faith, it points us to the cross. If we think too long about faith it will become our focus and we will lose Christ who alone needs to be our focus. So often in America today men preach faith, faith, faith, and forget that faith is not the point, it is Jesus Christ who is the point. CFW Walther understood very well that we must not lose Christ amidst all our “faith” talk: “A preacher must be able to preach a sermon on faith without ever using the term faith. It is not important that he shout the word faith into the ears of his audience, but it is necessary for him to frame his address so as to arouse in every poor sinner the desire to lay the burden of his sins at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ…You must instruct him to do nothing but listen to the Word of God, and God will give him faith.” Therefore the righteousness by faith doesn’t focus on faith, it focuses on what Jesus Christ has done for us in His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, thereby bringing men (whether they are conscious of it or not) to faith and trust in God’s promise given to us there. “As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:11-13). Yes, God alone chooses whom to have mercy upon and we are nothing but helpless clay in His hands who can do nothing good on our own, however for the sake of His Son, God has destroyed all difference between us so that we all may share in the blessings of Jesus Christ. Thru His Son we all have been bought and forgiven and it takes the Word of this promise to bring men to faith in this work of Christ.
Therefore we must ask with Paul: “How, 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? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (Romans 10:14-15). Here Paul touches on how the universal grace of Jesus Christ, the predestination of the elect, and the fact that not all men are saved, come together in the one truth of the Scriptures. The key that holds all these truths together in Christ Jesus is what is called the “means of grace.” God has chosen to attach His blessings in Christ to His external Word. He has chosen the humble means of His Word and promise as the vehicle to reach us sinful men with the good news. Therefore, how can men believe in Christ if they have not heard the message? How can they share in the death and resurrection of Christ if they have not been baptized into the Trinity? How can anyone be reached with these means of grace if men are not called and sent to preach? With Paul we answer humbly, “Indeed, they cannot.” Though Christ died for all men, if they don’t hear about it they cannot be brought to faith, and therefore God has called us to be His workers and harvesters. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:2-3). God has sent us into the world to bring His Word and His Baptism to the nations so that they may hear and be touched by the Good News in order to be brought to share in its universal blessings! “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’” (Matthew 28:18-20). It is in these words of Christ that we have been given the command to take His Word and Baptism to all nations in order to make disciples of all nations, creeds, walks, ethnicities, ages, abilities, and backgrounds. This is our duty to bring this message of reconciliation to the world so that thru this message God might bring men to Christ. God is indeed calling us to be His harvesters and thru His Word we also are fed daily by this message of reconciliation that strengthens and sustains us in the promise of God. “Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again…All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15, 18-21).
Having taught us that the Word of God in all its forms is the means by which God brings us and appropriates to us His grace, Paul continues to discuss the difficult questions that arise when we look at Israel, God’s chosen people. “But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:16-17). Paul once again reiterates that it is only thru the Word of Christ that men are brought to faith; it is not their work, decision, choice, or will, it is the Word itself that creates faith and therefore apart from the Word there can be no faith. All the Israelites however have not accepted the good news of Christ and this begs the immediate question of whether Israel ever heard the Word. “But 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’” (Romans 10:18). Here Paul clearly shows from the Scriptures that the message and Word of Christ has indeed gone into all the earth and has reached the ends of the world. So if the Word has gone forth to them all, then our next logical question is whether they understood the message that came to them: “Again 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.’ And Isaiah boldly says, ‘I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me’” (Romans 10:19-20). Here Paul even debunks the possibility that Israel misunderstood the message of Jesus Christ. He clearly shows from the Scriptures that Israel in fact did understand the message by contrasting the Gentiles to them. God chose to reveal Himself to those who did not understand and who did not seek, desire, or ask for Him, therefore He revealed Himself to the ignorant Gentiles who did not have the understanding that Israel did.
Paul continues: “But concerning Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’” (Romans 10:21). Even in the face of hearing the Word and understanding its message Israel was still disobedient and obstinate. It is here that we come to see what Paul is really getting at with this line of questioning: all the efforts, desires, willing, choosing, decisions, hearing, seeking, and even understanding of men cannot create faith within him or bring him in right standing with God. Even though God’s own chosen people had been given the Word, they were powerless to respond to it. Even though God’s own chosen people understood the message proclaimed to them, they were futile in laying hold of it. Even though God had patiently pleaded for them to come to Him and to turn away from their sin, they did nothing but fall into idolatry over and over again. Thru Israel we see that no matter how hard we strive to bring ourselves to faith or to lay hold of God it is impossible for man. With the disciples we desperately ask: “Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:26), and Christ replies once and for all: “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). God Himself must be the agent and worker by which we come to faith. God has chosen to reveal Himself to those who did not seek, ask, or desire in order to illustrate this very point that what is impossible for us men, God alone can do.
1 comment:
I suppose I still struggle with something, maybe it has to do with free will. Why, if God alone chooses who will be saved, does He not save all?
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