Romans 10:5-10

Introduction

Paul has revisited the plight of Israel in more depth as he opens chapter 10, digging into a little bit more depth than we saw in chapter 9. We’ve seen Paul’s prayerful desire for their salvation, we’ve seen their zeal for God, and Paul’s own testimony reflected in that, we’ve seen their ignorance in that zeal, their intent to establish their own righteousness while simultaneously failing to submit themselves to that of God - namely, they failed to submit to Christ, both when He was promised in the Old Testament and put forth in the New Testament.

Paul now moves into verses 5-13 with two intentions. First, he is going to prove that the righteousness which is by faith was not foreign to the Old Testament, but that Moses himself spoke of it. Secondly, he is going to prove (again) that true, saving righteousness is in accordance only with grace and faith.

The new spin for Paul in this section is that he is also going to demonstrate exactly what saving faith looks like.

Paul will once again lean heavily on Moses to prove his point. With these matters in mind, let’s begin.

The Mosaic Conception of Righteousness

Paul begins by considering Moses’ conception of law-righteousness and faith-righteousness. He contrasts two statements of Moses, one that puts forth the type of law-righteousness that Paul accuses Israel of, and another that puts forth the type of faith-righteousness that Paul prays for and implores to Israel.

First let’s consider Mosaic law-righteousness

Mosaic Law-Righteousness: The Covenant of Works

Paul quotes Moses in Leviticus 18:5

Leviticus 18:5 LSB

‘So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does them, he shall live by them; I am Yahweh.

This phrase is repeated often throughout the Old Testament, verbatim. Essentially the teaching is this: obey and live. Keep the commandments and live. Do what God says and live. The Biblical authors throughout the Old Testament are careful to retain the conditional aspect of this obedience. Life is conditioned upon the man’s doing of the statutes and judgments.

We see here in Leviticus, as well as in Romans 10, an explicit affirmation of what theologians have historically called the covenant of works. The covenant of works was made with Adam in the garden and was the binding rule by which he was to live in the garden. We see this covenant being made in Genesis 2:15-17

Genesis 2:15–17 LSB

Then Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

We have all the necessary elements of a covenant in place. We see the two parties, God and the man. This includes God being identified according to His covenant name, Yahweh. We see the conditions, namely, do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We see the curse that will result if the covenant is broken, namely, that the man will surely die.

The summary of this covenant is this: obey and live, or disobey and die. There are only two options, and both are contingent wholly on Adam’s performance.

We know what happened to Adam.

The question becomes, does the covenant of works exist beyond Adam? Does God still operate with men this way? I believe the answer is a resounding yes.

As we survey the Old Testament, we see repeated use of the themes and concepts seen in the covenant made with Adam, applied variously to Israel, to the nations, and to all humanity.

In addition to Moses in Leviticus 18, we can observe the song of the Levites in Nehemiah 9, which reflects the structure and shape of the covenant of works as applied to Adam, and applies that same structure and shape to Israel’s history.

This is the same theme seen in Ezekiel 20, where God pronounces judgment upon Israel for transgressing the covenant. Three times Ezekiel is reminded that if the covenant is kept, Israel will live.

Jesus also affirms this covenant of works in Luke 10:25-28

Luke 10:25–28 LSB

And behold, a scholar of the Law stood up and was putting Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered and said, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.”

And the careful student of Romans will remember that this is not the first time Paul has mentioned this covenant of works. In Romans 2:5-7 Paul also asserts that those who persevere in doing good will inherit eternal life.

Romans 2:5–7 LSB

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL REPAY TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORKS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;

The witness of Scripture is in complete alignment with both Paul and Moses here. Law-righteousness then is equivalent to a covenant of works, a covenant which says: do this and live.

This was Israel’s great plight: they assumed in their folly that they were not like Adam. That they were better than him, that somehow they could conjure up in themselves the necessary righteousness to maintain this covenant and earn life. But they failed to understand that they were doomed before they even got started, for in Adam all have sinned and all have died. This is the doctrine of federal headship that Paul explained back in chapter 5, and that he mentions in Galatians and also in 1 Corinthians 15. Because of Adam, the law is powerless to save. Original sin, that organic wickedness inherent in our very nature, renders the law powerless to save before we are even fully conscious of it. Israel failed to recognize this, despite the fact that Moses declared it specifically, as we will see in a few moments.

I want to point out a few observations from what we’ve seen so far:

God does not change. God has not ever changed the requirements for righteousness before Him. The standard has always been: do this and live. People who try to argue that God dealt with Adam differently, or Israel differently, or people in general differently, is preposterous and Paul affirms that here. We can take comfort in this fact. God’s immutability means that what He has given to us in Christ is ours forever. The grace of Christ is sealed to our hearts and lives for eternity.

The covenant of works still applies today. By virtue of our descent from Adam, the covenant of works still applies today. The standard has not changed, as we saw in the teachings of Jesus and as we have seen and will continue to see with Paul. We are still required to “do this” if we desire to live. This ought to terrify you, because, just as was the case with Israel, we’re doomed to break this covenant by virtue of our descent from Adam. It doesn’t matter how hard we try, the Adamic sinfulness of our natures will prevent us from fulfilling this covenant as we ought. This observation leads us to a clear logical implication: if life requires obedience, and if that obedience is impossible for us, then we must trust someone else to execute that obedience on our behalf if we would live. The covenant of works serves therefore as the foundation of the gospel, articulated in covenant terms as the covenant of grace.

Trust in themselves to fulfill the covenant of works was what ultimately condemned Israel. Paul’s message to the Israelites of his day and by extension all people who are descendants of Adam is this: you must believe in another righteousness if you are to inherit eternal life.

And this righteousness was not foreign to Moses, so it is to Moses that Paul returns in the second part of his contrast.

Mosaic Faith-Righteousness: The Covenant of Grace

Law-righteousness, or the covenant of works, says do this and live. Faith-righteousness, according to Moses, says live, and do this. This is the most basic contrast between law and gospel, between works and grace. This redemptive reversal is what Israel missed. In their pride and arrogance, they assumed that they were better than their father Adam, and that they would not fail in their obedience to the covenant stipulations as he did, despite his failure being written into their very DNA. They missed the reality, declared by Moses and expounded by Paul here, that if righteousness is to be had, it must come externally. God must give the grace, God must give the faith, God must give the righteousness.

Paul appropriates Moses, and also subtly Solomon, to make the following point: the covenant grace was always the plan for Israel. The covenant of works was republished to them to remind them of their need for grace, and having received that grace from God, to remind them of God’s standards for righteous living.

Let’s look at Paul’s quotation of Moses, this time from Deuteronomy 30.

We need to understand Deuteronomy 30 in context. This is the conclusion of Deuteronomy and the conclusion of Moses’ life and ministry. These are his parting words.

Contextually, he has just declared the covenant stipulations, blessings, and curses. This is the content of chapters 28 and 29.

In these chapters we see God dealing with Israel just as he dealt with Adam.

The blessings given to Adam upon his obedience were agricultural prosperity, offspring, and rule over the earth. The blessings given to Israel in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 mirror these blessings.

Likewise, Adam is cursed with toil, banishment, and death upon his disobedience. These curses are mirrored in Deuteronomy 28:15-68.

And just as Adam failed, Israel failed. Therefore Israel toiled to produce the fruit of the ground, and were ultimately banished from their garden, some might call it a vineyard.

Moses proceeds in chapter 29 to change his tone. He is a covenant administrator in chapter 28, but in chapter 29 he is a future-facing prophet. There he prophesies to Israel that they will indeed transgress the covenant, because God has not given them a new heart and new spirit and a willingness to obey. All these curses will indeed come upon them, and it will be as if they have been sent back to Egypt, back into slavery, back into bondage.

It is in this prophetic tone that Moses enters into chapter 30. Having prophesied that the nation will transgress the covenant and fall under the curse of God, he now prophesies that the curse is not permanent. Moses prophesies that, when in this second bondage, Israel will remember Yahweh and His word and works and return to him. They will listen, and God will bring them back from captivity. Yahweh will gather them and will take them back to their land, and in the midst of this, God will do what He did not do beforehand: circumcise their hearts so that they will love God with their whole being and thereby live.

Because of God’s promised work in their lives, they will return and obey as they should have done at the first, loving God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength.

And then we get to the critical portion of this prophecy for Paul: Verses 11-14. This word of prophecy, this saving word, this redemptive remembering and returning, is not in the heavens or over the sea. It is near Israel. It is in their mouth, and it is in their heart.

How does it get there? God puts it there.

So when Israel utterly fails in the covenant of works, when they fail to “do this and live,” God does not destroy them from off the face of the earth, but instead gives them grace. This is the seedbed of the new covenant. The grace that God was pleased to pour on Abraham, He will pour out upon Israel and upon the nations when they heed His call because of their new hearts. This was the assertion of Jeremiah when he declared the new covenant in Jeremiah 32, and Ezekiel when he declared the same in Ezekiel 36.

He doesn’t place His requirement so far out of reach that you must go up to heaven to get it, or cross the sea to get it. No, God gives because it pleases Him to do so. He gives grace in His good pleasure.

Paul’s Appropriation of Moses

Paul takes up these realities and declares that the word that Moses spoke of, the redemptive work of God that was to come, has been fulfilled in Christ. Paul’s point for Israel is that what they held so tightly to in Moses has come in Christ, and they are missing it.

Israel, as it were, tried to ascend to heaven to bring down the righteousness they needed, and tried to descend into the depths to retrieve the righteousness that was required, when all along God had placed it so near to them that they could touch it. What they pursued so vigorously, God had already given. If I may illustrate along the same lines of the vigorous pursuit illustration we used a few weeks ago. This might be a bit fanciful but I trust it will illustrate the point.

Imagine if you will an athletic track. The runners are there, preparing to run the race to win the gold medal. The runners drop down into the starting blocks. One runner in particular, Israel, is fervent in his desire to obtain the gold medal based on his training. He lowers himself into the blocks and as soon as the gun is fired, he springs into action. Head down, arms chopping, hands rigid, he takes off. With long, steady strides he eats up to the ground. He is focused on executing each and every aspect of his training with perfection. But here’s what he doesn’t realize: he’s not going anywhere. He’s on a treadmill. Nothing he’s doing is of true value to obtain the gold medal. And here’s what’s worse: standing just off to the side of the treadmill is the officiant of the games, holding out the gold medal, ready to reward it. But Israel is so focused on themselves and what they’re doing, that they fail to realize that if they just step off the treadmill and bow their head, forget about themselves and the training and all these things, they would receive the gold medal.

What Israel needed, what they desired, what would save them, was always right there. It was near to them, in their heart and in their mouth. Remember and return.

Paul is now effectively saying to Israel that what Moses had prophesied had come. Their salvation was an arm’s length away. Israel need only reach out to it in faith, according to God’s gracious gift and promise.

Hodge:

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans Commentary

The meaning of this passage then is, ‘The gospel, instead of directing us to ascend into heaven, or to go down to the abyss, tells us the thing required is simple and easy. Believe with thy heart and thou shalt be saved.’

There is no need, and indeed no possibility for men to ascend to heaven to bring their savior to earth, or for them to descend to the depths to raise him up, for God has already done this. Therefore, God’s work of redemption brings Israel near to Him. God’s work brings us near to Him.

This is the humility of Agur in Proverbs 30:2-4

Proverbs 30:2–4 LSB

Surely I am more senseless than any man, And I do not have the understanding of mankind. Neither have I learned wisdom, Nor do I know the knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name? And what is His Son’s name? Surely you know!

To coalesce Moses, Agur, and Paul: Men have no capacity in themselves to complete the necessary requirements of salvation. No man can accomplish the miracle of the incarnation, of God very God taking on human flesh and being found in the likeness of men. No man can accomplish the miracle of the resurrection, bringing Christ up from the dead. Only God can do these things. Only God can complete the prerequisites of salvation. Only God can save.

God’s grace, promised by Moses, fulfilled by Christ, and declared by Paul is near to Israel and near to us. But how do we receive it?

Confessing and Believing

This is one of the most precious and practical portions of all of God’s word.

What is the good news of the gospel, practically speaking? Simply this: your dead works are worthless, and you don’t need them to be saved. You can safely cast them aside in favor of simply confessing and believing.

Paul says that this confession and belief is what Moses had in mind when he speaks of the word being in the mouth and in the heart.

What is the word to be confessed in your mouth? Jesus is Lord. To be saved, one must acknowledge the absolute rule that Christ exercises over all things. He is the ruling one. To be saved then is to acknowledge that fundamental truth declared by Christ at His ascension: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. To acknowledge that because of His character and work, His father has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name. To acknowledge that He is seated at the right hand of His father, interceding for you and pleading the merits of HIs blood on your behalf.

To confess Jesus as Lord is to do exactly what Thomas did when confronted with the reality of the resurrection: fall on your face and cry out “My Lord and my God!”

To confess Jesus as Lord is to follow in the example of the Ethiopian eunuch, when confronted with the reality of Christ’s atoning sacrifice: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God!

And what are the results of this confessing? Paul will give us some more details shortly, but we can look to Christ in Matthew 10 and Luke 12, where we see Jesus telling His disciples that whoever confesses Him before men, He will confess before His father in heaven. For us to confess Jesus as Lord is for us to receive intercessory mediation before the throne of God above. For us to have an advocate before God. For us to have a great high priest who has passed through the heavenly veil and into the holy of holies, to the inner sanctum of the dwelling place of God, who ministers there for eternity as the priestly bridge between God and man.

This is the word that was intended to be in the mouth of Israel according to Moses. The confession of Christ as Lord is the faith-righteousness that was near to Israel.

It is near also to us. Do we confess Jesus as Lord? Do we fall before Him in reverence like Thomas and the eunuch? This ought to be our life’s intent, not only a one time confession but a life of on-going confession of Christ before a watching world. Dan Doriani points out a few ways that we can confess Christ:

Romans Faith and Salvation (10:9–10)

We confess Christ in several ways. We confess Christ in public worship by joining in and participating. We confess the faith in the sacraments, whenever we take communion or present a child or ourselves for baptism. We confess our faith by spending time with God’s people. We confess that we are disciples by reading the Bible and good literature. We confess Christ when we invite a friend to a Christ-centered event. Believers confess the Lord when we conduct ourselves with integrity at work, especially when it would be easy to compromise. We confess Jesus as Lord when we do justice and love mercy. We profess our faith by remaining steadfast and ready to meet our Lord.

But not only is Moses concerned with the word in our mouth, he is also concerned with the word in our heart, and Paul shares that concern.

Just as the word is in our mouth in confession of Jesus as Lord, it is in our hearts in belief that God raised him from the dead.

So just as we confess Jesus as Lord, we believe in His work which culminated in the resurrection, His final victory over the devil and his henchmen sin and death.

Let’s break this down in three ways: First, we believe. Second, we believe with the heart. Third, we believe that Christ was raised from the dead.

First, belief. What is meant by belief?

Belief is obviously connected to the Biblical ideas of trust and faith, but nowhere are these terms really given a strong definition in Scripture. Theologians over the course of church history have said that true saving faith, true saving belief, put forth here by Paul, consists of knowledge, assent, and trust. This was helpfully articulated in the 1700s by a Dutch Theologian named Wilhelmus Schortinghuis. He said this:

Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 3: Spirit and Salvation The Threefold Nature of Saving Faith

“genuine faith” consists of “a literal, and especially an experiential knowledge of the truths of the Gospel, God, oneself, Christ, and the way of grace; of a warm-hearted and willing assent; and of a trust that finds refuge with God in Christ.” These are not three kinds of faith, but three interwoven aspects of saving faith.

Joel Beeke, ever brilliant, offers us a punchy three pack of affirms regarding this threefold cord of saving faith:

Saving faith has its sure and solid foundation in the knowledge of divinely revealed truth.

Saving faith is an intellectual and emotional submission to this knowledge.

Saving faith is hiding oneself or taking refuge in the Lord as a fortress against danger.

First, we believe, second, we believe in our heart. This is not merely emotions but the entire inner man. John Murray provides some insight:

The Epistle to the Romans XVI. The Righteousness of Faith (10:1–21)

The heart is the seat and organ of religious consciousness and must not be restricted to the realm of emotions or affections. It is determinative of what a person is morally and religiously and, therefore, embraces the intellective and volitive as well as the emotive. Hence believing with the heart that God raised Jesus means that this event with its implications respecting Jesus as the person raised and the exceeding greatness of God’s power as the active agency has secured the consent of that which is most decisive in our persons and is correspondingly determinative of religious conviction.

Not only is where we believe - the heart - critical, but what we believe - the fact of the resurrection.

Now some will say to be saved you only have to assent to the historical fact of the resurrection. I don’t think that is what Paul intends here. Dan Doriani, Charles Hodge, and other commenters suggest that Paul intends the resurrection, given that it exists as the culmination of Christ’s work on earth, to be understood here as representative of all Christ’s work as a capstone to it. Therefore, what we know, what we submit to, what we believe in our hearts is the sum total of all Christ’s saving work, capped off by the resurrection. We say we trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

John Piper summarizes this well:

Sermons from John Piper (1980–1989) Believe in Your Heart that God Raised Jesus from the Dead

And now we are back where we started. What does it mean to believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead? It can’t mean mere agreement with the fact, because Satan does that, and he is not saved. The key is verse 7. Faith does not ask despairingly, “Who will descend into the abyss?” Faith will not accept the Satanic suggestion that righteousness and life and hope are beyond reach. To be sure we are paralyzed in sin and have no hope of salvation in our own strength (contrast 10:3). But Paul declares, it is not as though Christ were waiting in the abyss until we could bring him up by our own strength. God has taken the initiative and raised him from the dead and brought righteousness and life and hope within the reach of all.

The meaning of the resurrection in this Scripture is that God is for us. He aims to close ranks with us. He aims to overcome all our sense of abandonment and alienation—the feeling that he is too far up or too far down. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration to Israel and to the world that we cannot work our way to glory but that he intends to do the impossible to get us there. The resurrection is the promise of God that all who trust Jesus will be the beneficiaries of God’s power to lead us in paths of righteousness and through the valley of death.

Therefore, believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is much more than accepting a fact. It means being confident that God is for you, that he has closed ranks with you, that he is transforming your life, and that he will save you for eternal joy. Believing in the resurrection means trusting in all the promises of life and hope and righteousness for which it stands. It means being so confident of God’s power and love that no fear of worldly loss nor greed for worldly gain will lure us to disobey his will. That’s the difference between Satan and the saints. O might God circumcise all our hearts to love him and to rest in the resurrection of his Son.

Righteousness and Salvation

For Paul in verse 10, the outcome of this confession and belief is two-fold: righteousness and salvation.

By virtue of the parallel literary device in place here, we can deduce that Paul intends us to understand salvation and righteousness in parallel. We receive righteousness, therefore we receive salvation. We receive salvation, therefore we receive righteousness.

This is the outcome of confession and faith. To be saved, to receive righteousness, the formula is beautifully simple: confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.

This beautiful simplicity is the heart of the good news of the gospel given to us in Christ. Paul’s point here is that this gospel was not veiled to Israel. It is not veiled to Israel now. The word of confession and faith in Christ is readily available for God has accomplished it. We need not scale the heights of heaven or plumbs the depths of hell. God gives, and He gives in abundance, and He gives in abundance regardless of status or background. His grace is abounding in riches.

And it is to that rich abundance that we will turn our attention next week.