It is an interesting phenomena that religion lies inextricably linked with much of the world’s violence. It has always been the case that wars have been fought with the idea that God, a god, or an ideology is being defended against God, a lesser god, or a perverse ideology.
On the micro scale, it is also an observable phenomena that there is nothing like religion to generate a lot of heat, debate, and anger. It is easy to understand that by cutting a few corners and making a few generalizations and slips in logic that many can come to the conclusion that ‘religion’ is to blame for many of the world’s ills. Robert Owen in his debate with Alexander Campbell said, religions are necessarily the source of vice, disunion and misery. But as David Martin, Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science said, There is a very crude form of critique of religion which has to do with evil caused by religion. One thing that is very interesting is that when you get rid of religion, all those evils that you thought were associated with religion reappear, just as strongly and sometimes even more forcefully. So they were inherent possibilities of social life as such, not characteristics specifically associated with religion.
A case in point in our own time would be the atheistic communist experiment that followed the revolution in the USSR after 1917 and last for 70 years. It cannot be said to have created a better or sweeter society than religious models. It’s true that some religious models can be oppressive, but we must make a distinction between true religion and false religion. But all that aside, religion does stir the emotions in many people. True, it can lie dormant in many till it is brought to the surface by a comment or a scripture. This upsets the live and let live, I’m ok you’re ok philosophy of much of the world.
The first important truth from Romans 10 I want to mention is salvation is not just sweet talk. V.1 A secular Roman writer, Tacitus, described early Christians as being at enmity with mankind. Why? Because they questioned the world’s values, for one thing, would not participate with the world in its worldliness for another, but mainly because they taught the world was lost, heading for judgement without Christ. To many, questioning the universal salvation of the world is akin to questioning the multiplication table. Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth? was Paul’s question on another occasion, but it would fit well here too. Paul was no Jew-hater: he says my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. In Rom. 9:1-3 he expresses a similar sentiment. Why would it be suggested so that he has to counter the suggestion? Because he preached a gospel that said, effectively, the Jews were lost!!!!! This was the nation chosen by God to be holy, separated from the pagan world, to receive the law, and to bring the Christ into the world, and yet, according to Paul, they had killed Him, the Lord of glory. If Paul’s doctrine is true, then it seems the whole plan of God has failed – the chosen people are lost, and if the chosen people are lost, what is the point???? And what of the rest of the world??? When he said that many Gentiles were saved whilst many Jews were lost, well, you can imagine how Jewish blood boiled. Rom. 9:6 supplies part of the answer: they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. But we are religious!!!!! Rather than question the integrity of one’s own religious position, it is far easier to assign malicious attitudes to anyone who would question such a position – or as we say, it’s easier to shoot the messenger. There were those who wanted to shoot Paul rather than examine whether the things this inspired apostle of the Lord said were true. That leads to the second important truth:
Salvation is not based on zeal alone: Vs. 2-5 Paul says he is not even suggesting that they are not religious. On the contrary, they are very religious – zealous even (from Zeo – to boil, seethe) . Here were zealously religious people who were lost! If such a condition existed then in the field of human affairs you can rest assured it exists today. It ought to be a word of warning to us and the whole religious world. A belief, false belief, that is so prevalent today is that it doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. That is a different doctrine than saying sincerity is necessary. Insincerity is not lauded in the Bible – it is no more pleasing to God than it is to man (cf. Rom. 6:17).
If the Jews were lost even though sincere, what was their problem? The problem was ignorance (v.3). How common is ignorance of God’s Word?! Sincerity with ignorance will cause a person to be lost even as knowledge with insincerity will cause a person to be lost. We need to sincerely obey the truth in order to be saved. Through ignorance we do our own thing – invent our own theology – imagine that we think is as good, if not better, than what God says. But man has never been able to stumble unaided upon the plan of God, He having hidden it in a mystery so that man could not boast in himself.
In v.4 Paul says Christ is the ‘end‘ of the law: This is telos – its fulfillment, its consummation; that to which the law was pointing. The Jew sought to establish his own righteousness (v.3b), but the believer in Christ does not consider the law as the way to obtain righteousness (cf. Phil. 3:9). So the Christian and the Jew have the same goal – to be righteous in the sight of God – but they seek it by different methods (Rom. 9:30-32).
What’s the difference? Note v.5: the righteousness of the law works on this principle – by performance (Lev. 18:5) Deut.6:25 cf. Gal. 3:10,12. Zeal is not enough: not the labour of my hands can fulfil the laws demands, Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone, thou must save and thou alone (Rock of Ages). How many have sung that grand old song yet still envisage going to heaven is based upon how good a person has been? God is the Saviour, not we ourselves, as He was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Cor. 5:19) – then v.21. Now for the third important truth:
Salvation is not by isolating Scripture. The N.A.S.V. renders Ps.119:160 the sum of thy word is truth. Paul quotes from Deut.30:11-14 which came after the law of blessing and cursing (that was a simple law – if you obey I will bless you but if you disobey I will curse you). God then makes it very clear that there are no excuses for a turning away from the law He had given them. They cannot plead ignorance – it was not an unobtainable or unknowable law. As you notice, Paul doesn’t so much as quote that passage, but rather appropriates the principle of it in the New testament context. So he adds a few explanatory words (Rom. 10:6-8). So the New Covenant and the righteousness through it are set forth for man in the same way – God has provided (cf. v.18).
Israel didn’t have to go get the law to obey it, God provided it on Mt. Sinai. The Christian doesn’t have to do the impossible and go to heaven to get Christ to come and die, and after having done that, descend into Hades and get Him to rise from the dead. No, He did that already on His own cognition and initiative. The law was no unintelligible mystery but a thing to be known and loved. It is also true of Him who is the end of the law (1 John 3:23). God has done the necessary meritorious work, but we have to believe that he has done it and respond appropriately.
I want us to pay attention to v.9 as it is so often misappropriated. It reads, if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. This is often appealed to as proof that one does not have to be baptised for the remission of sins. However that which proves too much proves nothing at all. Consider:
- Does anybody suggest that this verse would eliminate the necessity of repentance? After all repentance is not mentioned here. But a man might say, But it is mentioned in other passages! That’s right and so is baptism.
- Note verse 10. What’s the difference between righteousness and salvation? Nothing. If I have been made righteous then I am saved. This is Jewish parallelism – the rhyming of thought by saying the same basic thing twice but using different expressions. Note, if believing in my heart makes me righteous, then why do I need the mouth to say anything at all?
- Why does he use belief and confession to represent gospel obedience? Is the mouth and heart all that God commands? Surely not. Why single out these two? Because he is appropriating the language of Deut.30:14. The heart and mouth. But note that what the heart did and the mouth did didn’t preclude other obedience – cf. v.16. This is a synecdoche, where a part stands for the whole: eg. Mark 16:16; Luke 24:47.
- What is Paul doing here? He is not spelling out the various acts of obedience to the gospel, but he is comparing systems: the righteousness of faith is through trust in someone else – the One we believe in and confess, whereas the righteousness of the law is through trust in one’s personal performance. He is not contrasting belief and confession with repentance and baptism, but rather contrasting the righteousness by the faith system with the righteousness by the law system. So what is it for you? Are you trusting in your goodness to get you to Heaven? Do you take comfort in the fact you judge yourself a better person than the fellah that lives down the road? Do you equate being religious with being righteous? Or are you trusting in Christ? When you trust someone you believe what they say. Christ says cast off your own righteousness and be clothed in mine – it is sufficient to save. Do you believe this? When you trust someone you do what they say. He says, Hear these sayings of mine, believe in me, repent of your sins, confess me before men, and then be baptised into me for the remission of your sins and I will clothe you with my righteousness.