The Bible Binge: The Sound of Salvation (Romans 10:14-17)

The Sound of Healing

Research has shown that the use of sound helps relieve stress. This is why muscle therapy is often accompanied by soft music. The Mayo Clinic provides music for people having heart surgery, because their research has found that music boosts the healing process. Many nursing programs train nurses on what words and tones to use in bedside manners because their words have been found to be an aid in the healing of patients. One study found that language used in a positive way has a significant impact on both physical and emotional health. Positive words have been found to boost empathy and hope. Other studies have shown that prayer for another person reduces stress and anxiety in the one being prayed for. And it’s not just our culture. The Chinese character for medicine includes the character for music because music has long been thought to provide healing as a medicine.

Sound. We live in a noisy world. Have you every been in a sound-proofed or padded room? Don’t answer that! It’s kind of eerie. Noise cancellation technology can be had at certain prices. We’re always looking for quiet. Yet even our quiet times have noise. How many of you sleep with a fan? I do! I used to live on the beach in Florida. Five years. When I moved to Ohio, I had to buy one of those wave speakers that emulates the sounds of waves crashing and the tide going in and out. I could sleep without the sound of the ocean.

It’s not just the created sound. Our world is noisy because of all the noise we make. Step outside and you’ll hear traffic. Trains. Manufacturing. Airplanes. Get on the internet and people are engaged in cancel culture… we’re right, you’re wrong. All that is noise. The world is wired with sound.

Today’s Bible Binge text is very noisy. There are a lot of noise words in Romans 10 through 12. This noise is touching on an aspect of our salvation that we don’t think much about. Our salvation involves sound. Our spiritual lives are absolutely dependent on sound. Now, the moment I say this, I can already hear the objections coming from our deaf and hard-of-hearing brothers and sisters. Whatever I’m about to say tonight, I believe Jesus provides them with other means or ways of accessing this very same gospel.. in a way that is heard. That said, our salvation involves sound… so much so, that we miss out if we don’t embrace sound as a significant part of our salvation experience.

Romans: Unified in and by the Gospel

We are working our way through Romans. This is a letter written by the great missionary Paul to a gathering in or around Rome that he has never met. In the letter he expresses hope that he will see them soon and spend significant time with them. This gathering apparently has some difficulty with unity. Some of it is diversity in their ethnicity… Jews and Gentiles worshiping and serving in the same context means distinctive cultural and even religious differences show up. But there’s also this… Paul points to their unity in the gospel as the way forward, but along the way spends a lot of time unpacking the details of the gospel.

They are unified in their sin. All have sinned. They are unified in their need to be made acceptable with God. They are unified by Christ’s love for all of him and his cross work on all of their behalves. And they are unified in their baptism that places them into Jesus. We’re unified because we’re all sinners in need of Jesus and his forgiveness.

But how does this all happen? As Paul addresses the Jew and Gentile differences in this congregation, he describes the process by which they have become unified in the gospel. Here’s a very quick summary of what Paul is saying in Romans 10.

There is a Message: The Gospel

Romans 10:8–9 “The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 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.”

This is the gospel that turned Europe upside down 500 years ago. The message is the Good News of Jesus making you acceptable to God. And you don’t have to work for it. You don’t do anything. That Good News of Who Jesus is for you at the cross is to be passively received by faith. That’s it. This is the message of faith. Everything Jesus has done for you is yours by faith. No strings attached. That’s even controversial in our Christian America. So many strings being attached to faith.. to the point where being a Christian is not about faith, it’s about behavior. It’s nothing new. That’s the very thing Paul is pushing back against throughout his letter.

The Gospel is to be Proclaimed

The Good News comes to us in verbal communication. The Gospel comes to us and FOR US in proclamation.

Romans 10:8 “This is the message of faith we proclaim.”

The Good News that we receive in faith doesn’t come through works.. and it doesn’t come through some sort of internal stuff going on. The Good News is not manufactured from within. The Good News is external to us. And it is being spoken to us. There’s a popular slogan in our Christian America that is falsely attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Go and preach the gospel: use words if necessary.” While that is well-meaning in that our actions should reflect our faith, there is no receiving the gospel without words. None. Words are in the DNA of the Gospel because the Gospel has its source in THE WORD, Jesus himself.

One other thing about this word proclaimed… when Paul or John or even Jesus use the word Proclaim or preach, they are speaking of the verbal activity of prophetic communication that is unilateral. Preaching is distinctive from teaching in that preaching is unilateral or monologue. Teaching is bilateral or dialogue. That’s an important distinction. There is a time and place for discussion and dialogue over the Bible and giving opinions and feedback to the preacher as we do in a classroom. The preaching event in the life of the congregation is not one of those times.

The Gospel is to be confessed

Then Paul says the Gospel that is proclaimed is to be confessed.

Romans 10:8–9 “This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,”

Now, there is a time for speaking. Verbalizing back what has been proclaimed. This is making that Gospel your own. Saying it out has a way of internalizing what has been proclaimed. The speaker says. Then we say. There is that rhythm of the Gospel… Who Jesus and what He has done for us in the proclamation we now bring our words into alignment with the Gospel. It is as if Jesus sings our salvation to us and we harmonize our voice with His own voice. That is confession of the gospel.

The Gospel is to be believed

Paul then says the Gospel is to be believed.

Romans 10:9 “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.”

Faith is how the gospel is received. Implicit in the confession of the mouth is that the heart is engaged. The mouth confesses what the heart believes. Faith lays hold of what has been proclaimed in the Proclamation of the Good News. And notice the final line: you will be saved. There’s nothing to do in order to receive salvation. In faith receive what is proclaimed in the Good News.

The Gospel is to be heard

Paul then summarizes everything he has just said with this statement:

Romans 10:17 “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the Word of Christ.”

This is another of those verses that shook the world 500 years ago. What this verse is saying flies in the face of any religion or any spirituality that somehow thinks salvation comes from any place other than God’s Word. Saving faith, what receives the forgiveness Jesus gives us, only comes through hearing The Word of God. It doesn’t come from a small silent voice inside of us. Only through hearing the Gospel of Christ.

The translation I typically use says what is heard comes through the message about Christ. I think Paul’s langauge is stronger. The “message about Christ” implies that what is heard comes through knowledge about the Good News of Jesus. The right information. And there are many who believe this. I did for a long time. I had to have the right facts in order to be saved. But that’s not really what this text is saying. The language here is that what is heard comes through the Word of Christ. Or the Gospel. Period. It really does mean what it says… that the Word itself is delivering faith.

That’s huge. That’s monumental. Absolutely life shattering. My life was flipped upside down when I realized what is happening in this statement.

The Word Proclaimed delivers faith to me in the moment.

The very faith I need to believe in Jesus is given to me in Word and Sacrament. Jesus is saving me through sound waves. The Word comes into the ear and is recieved in the heart where the Word itself is producing faith. Sound waves. This is why the Word must be verbally proclaimed… because it is

In hearing the Word, the Gospel produces faith in the heart.

This is Jesus doing all of the work of salvation for me. and For You. The Sound of Salvation is Jesus using sound waves to connect us to himself. Using sound waves, along with water, wine, and bread, Jesus uses the stuff of earth to give us His salvation.

The Sound of Salvation produces what it Proclaims

We live in a noisy world. Our lives are noisy. Our hearts are noisy. Jesus uses the sound waves of salvation and forgiveness to cut through the noise. The Sound of Salvation is active. It is doing something to us from outside of us. It produces in us what it is proclaiming to us from outside of us.

This is why Confession and Absolution is important. When Nathan stands here and says “I forgive you all your sins”, that’s not simply a reminder. That’s not simply an affirmation that your sins are forgiven. In that moment as Nathan speaks, through his words, via the Promise of Christ, the sound waves are moving into your ears and providing forgiveness in real time.

When we stand up here and we say that the Promise of the Gospel is for you, Jesus death on the cross and the salvation He provides for you moves into your heart through your ear to give you the faith to believe it. Jesus’ love and grace for us is constantly moving our hearts as it comes in through our ears.

I saw this question on Facebook this week, and it was amazing to read many of the responses. The question drew dozens of responses and it was hard to believe that it would be so controversial. Here’s the question:

Q: How much have you contributed to your salvation?

There’s only one answer, but the dozens of answers spoke volumes about where we are in Christian America. Some said “I contributed the sinners’ prayer.” Others said “I contributed the faith.” Or “I provided the repentance.” Here’s the only answer, the answer that Paul is getting at in the book of Romans all the way down to chapter 10:

Q: How much have you contributed to your salvation?

A: Zero.

Nothing. Zero. Anything else is works salvation. Faith comes by hearing. Faith doesn’t come from a change of mind, or a sudden realization. Faith doesn’t come from an internal decision. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing by the Word of Christ, the Gospel. Full. Stop. That is the Sound of lent FOR YOU.

Let’s Pray.