The Message of Faith (Romans 10:1-13)

Introduction

On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse, seated in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court, tapped the code for his now-famous message to his colleague, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore. Vail accurately transcribed Morse’s communication and repeated the message to Morse: “What Hath God Wrought.” The message is from the Bible: Numbers 23:23

Numbers 23:23 (CSB)

“What great things God has done!”

We might say that was the first instant message. Long before computers and smart phones, the telegraph made it possible to instantly send an important message to anyone, as long as there was a telegraph wire connecting the sender with the receiver. However, to accurately understand the message, the receiver needed to understand the code: the electronic dots and dashes, arranged in particular sequence, communicating the message.

Today, we have better technology. No longer must we know Morse code. No longer must we be hard-wired to the other person. We can communicate instantly with anyone in the world, with a computer or cell phone or even a watch.

Of all the messages we have to communicate, the greatest is the message of faith. Unfortunately, the message of faith, to some, sounds like Morse Code. The human heart, trying to achieve a righteousness of our own, cannot transcribe God’s code into an understandable message. But, “What great things God has done!” Christ has come. Crucified, resurrected and exalted in the heavens, He has fulfilled the promise of God and provided salvation to all who believe. And in Him, the message of faith can be understood.

In Chapters 9–11 of Romans, Paul addresses the problem of Jewish unbelief. In chapter 9 the emphasis was on God’s purpose according to election; the emphasis of chapter 10, however, is on the human factors, on the need for an understanding of the gospel , for the proclamation of the gospel (14–15), and for the response of faith (16–21). With chapter 10, Paul turns from the past to the present, from his explanation of the Israelites’ unbelief to his hope that they will yet hear and believe the gospel.

The message of faith is just that: FAITH (10:1-4)

Paul begins this chapter, as he began the last, with a very personal reference to his love and longing for “them”: the Israelites. There are several similarities between the openings of the two chapters. In both Paul mentions his heart: his heart’s sorrow and anguish because the unbelieving people of Israel are lost (9:2f.), and his heart’s desire and prayer to God … that they may be saved (1). J. B. Phillips catches the earnestness of the apostle’s cry: ‘My brothers, from the bottom of my heart I long and pray to God that Israel may be saved!’ At the beginning of chapter 9 he expresses the hypothetical wish that he himself might be cursed if thereby they could be spared (9:3); at the beginning of chapter 10 he expresses an ardent, prayerful wish for their salvation.

We need to pray for the unsaved, asking the Holy Spirit to open their ears and eyes so that they can hear and see the message of faith (10:1)

Paul’s pain was increased by their combination of zeal and ignorance. Paul has no doubt of their religious sincerity. He can testify about them from his own experience that they are zealous for God. And he knows what he is talking about, because he himself in his pre-conversion life was ‘extremely zealous’ in his religion, as seen in his persecution of the church. Indeed he was ‘just as zealous for God’ as any of his contemporaries, and could even describe his zeal at that time as an ‘obsession’.

But sincerity is not enough. We can be sincerely wrong. (10:2)

So he is obliged to say of the Israelites that their zeal was not based on knowledge. Scripture says that “it is not good to have zeal without knowledge’. Sincerity is not enough, for we may be sincerely mistaken.”

Paul now particularizes in two negatives: they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Instead, they sought to establish their own. The tragic consequence of the Jews’ ignorance was that, recognizing their need of righteousness if they were ever to stand in God’s righteous presence, they sought to establish their own, and they did not submit to God’s righteousness (3).

People naturally strive to establish a righteousness of their own. (10:3)

This ignorance of the true way, and this tragic adoption of the false way, are by no means limited to Jewish people. They are widespread among religious people of all faiths, including professing Christians. All human beings, who know that God is righteous and they are not (since ‘there is no-one righteous, not even one’, 3:10), naturally look around for a righteousness which might fit them to stand in God’s presence. There are only two possible options before us. The first is to attempt to build or establish our own righteousness, by our good works and religious observances. But this is doomed to failure, since in God’s sight, as Isaiah wrote, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” The other way is to submit to God’s righteousness by receiving it from him as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ.

The fundamental error of those who are seeking to establish their own righteousness is that they have not understood Paul’s next affirmation: Christ is the end (telos) of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes (4).

Jesus completed the law so that righteousness is available to all who believe. (10:4)

Telos means “end” in the sense of a goal or completion. This indicate that the law pointed to Christ and that he has fulfilled it. The word also means “end” in the sense of termination or conclusion. This indicates that Christ has repealed the law as the way to righteousness. But the repeal of the law gives no legitimacy either to a claim that we can sin as we please because we are “no longer under law but under grace” (6:1, 15), or to those who maintain that the very category of law has been abolished by Christ and that the only absolute left is the command to love. When Paul wrote that we have ‘died’ to the law, and been ‘released’ from it (7:4, 6), so that we are no longer ‘under’ it (6:15), he was referring to the law as the way of getting right with God. Therefore, the reason Christ terminated the law is so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

In respect of salvation, Christ and the law are incompatible alternatives. If righteousness is by the law it is not by Christ, and if it is by Christ through faith it is not by the law. Christ and the law are both objective realities, both revelations and gifts of God. But now that Christ has accomplished our salvation by his death and resurrection, he has terminated the law in that role. The first step to obtaining the righteousness of God is to renounce our own righteousness, that is the way of self-effort. That will never work.

2. The message of faith is near and easily accessible (5–10)

Paul quoted Leviticus 18, which describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them” (5). In other words, in order to obtain righteousness through the law, a person must obey every law all the time. There is no room for error. This way to life (or salvation) is by complete obedience to the law. Paul himself understood that reality when he quoted it in Galatians 3:12. But in that context, he added “no-one is justified before God by the law,” because no-one has succeeded in obeying it.

The weakness of the law is our weakness. (10:5)

Because we disobey it, instead of bringing us life it brings us under its curse, and that would be our position still if Christ had not redeemed us from the law’s curse by becoming a curse for us. It is in this sense that ‘Christ is the end of the law’.

Righteousness is not to be found that way. So, the righteousness that is by faith, which Paul now personifies, proclaims a different message. It sets before us for salvation not the law, but Christ.

Unlike the law, Christ is not unattainable, but readily accessible. (10:6-8)

The passage Paul quotes (from Dt. 30) begins with a stern prohibition, which the righteousness by faith endorses: ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) (6) or “Who will descend into the deep?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)’ (7). To ask such questions would be as absurd as they are unnecessary. There is no need whatever for us to scale the heights or plumb the depths in search of Christ, for he has already come, died and risen, and so is accessible to us.

What, then, is the positive message of the righteousness of faith? What does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart.” In other words, God has sent us the message of faith through a person: Jesus Christ.

Taking his cue from the reference to the people’s ‘mouth’ and ‘heart’ in Deuteronomy 30:14, just quoted, Paul now summarizes the gospel in these terms: 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.

Thus heart and mouth, inward belief and outward confession, belong essentially together.

Saving faith is the interaction of inward belief and outward confession. (10:9-10)

‘Confession without faith would be vain … But likewise faith without confession is incomplete. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved (10).

The parallelism is reminiscent of Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament, and the two clauses in verses 9–10 are to be held together rather than separately. Thus, there is no real difference here between being ‘justified’ and being ‘saved’. Similarly, the content of the belief and that of the confession need to be merged. This is not salvation by slogan but by faith, that is, by an intelligent faith which lays hold of Christ as the crucified and resurrected Lord and Savior.

Paul did not quote Deuteronomy 30:11–14 in its entirety, for, speaking to Jews, he assumed that his readers knew that Moses went on, using dramatic imagery, that the righteousness of God was neither up in heaven nor beyond the sea—remote, unrevealed and unknown—so that they would have to find someone to ascend into heaven or cross the sea in order to bring it to them.

On the contrary, God’s teaching was very near to them. They knew it already. Far from being above or beyond them, it was actually inside them, in their hearts and in their mouths. In fact, through the prophet Jeremiah, God proclaimed that, “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 33:31)

What God said about his teaching, Paul now affirms about the gospel. It is neither remote nor unavailable.

For Christ has come and died, and been raised, and is therefore immediately accessible to faith. We do not need to do anything. Everything that is necessary has already been done. Moreover, because Christ himself is near, the gospel of Christ is also near. It is in the heart and mouth of every believer. The whole emphasis of Paul’s message, and the message of faith, is on the close, ready, easy accessibility of Christ and his gospel.

3. The message of faith is equally available to anyone and everyone. (10:11-13)

Verses 11–13 build on this. They stress that Christ is not only easily accessible, but equally available to all, to anyone (11) and to everyone (13), since there is no difference (12), no favoritism. All three verses refer to Christ and affirm his availability to faith.

Those who trust in Jesus rather than self-effort will never be put to shame. (10:11)

Verse 11 states: As the Scripture says, For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame,

This is Paul’s second quotation of Isaiah 28:16. The first was in 9:33. The description of saving faith as ‘trust’ shows that the ‘belief’ and the ‘confession’ of the two previous verses (9–10) are not to be understood as a mere subscription to formulas, but an internalized trust.

Those who call on Jesus rather than religion will be richly blessed. (10:12)

Secondly, verse 12 states: Since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him.

This is a marvellous affirmation that through Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. This means that it is not race or religion that determines salvation, but faith in Jesus Christ.

In addition, between those who have been justified by faith and are now in Christ, all distinctions, not only of race, but also of sex and culture, are rendered irrelevant. There is no distinction between us because in Christ, who is Lord of all, all who call on him are richly blessed. Far from impoverishing us, we all receive his unsearchable riches.

Those who call on Jesus’ name will be saved. (10:13)

Verse 13 states: For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Both our calling on him and his blessing of us are elaborated. To call on him is, more precisely, to call on the name of the Lord. That means we appeal to him to save us in accordance with His will, who he is, and what he has done. Everyone who calls on him will be saved.

This is a quotation from Joel 2:32. Peter also cited it on the day of Pentecost, transferring the text from Yahweh to Jesus, which is also what Paul does here. Indeed, this appeal to Jesus for salvation became so characteristic of Christian people that Paul could describe the worldwide community of believers as “those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Application

Make sure you’re seeking a relationship, not a religion.

Make sure that your heart and your mouth are in sync.

Make sure that your life is making Jesus accessible and available to anyone and everyone.

Let’s make this practical!

Renounce self-righteousness and believe in Jesus.

Obey Jesus’ commands. (Those who love Jesus, obey Him.) That’s another way of saying that our heart and our mouth is in sync.

Pray for the unsaved and share the gospel.

According to the message of faith, what is necessary to salvation? First the fact of the historic Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified, risen, reigning as Lord, and accessible to every person. Secondly, the gospel, the word of faith (8), which makes him known. Thirdly, simple trust on the part of the hearers, calling on the name of the Lord, combining faith in the heart and confession with the mouth. But in our world today, there is often something missing: someone who will transcribe the message of faith, urging people to put their trust in Jesus. In other words, just as there is God’s message of faith, there is also God’s messengers of faith. That’s us!

To the people we know, who are striving for a righteousness of their own, the message of faith is as lost to them as Morse Code. They need a modern day Alfred Vail to accurately transcribed God’s communication and repeat the message: “See what great things God has done.” Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.