For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:10

Romans 10:5–13 – Romans: The Righteousness of God
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 9, 2023 (am)

Whatever you needed to do to get to church this morning was worth the effort, the struggle, the battle! I’m just assuming that most of us had to fight battles to get here today—the battle to get up in time, and to stay up, and to press on through the irritating morning routine, the battle to lay down conflicting desires for how you’d most like to use a nice summer day, or conflict in relationships that has you at odds as husband and wife, or as parent and child, or sibling to sibling, or friend to friend. A lot of things get in the way and stand in the way and dance around in the way of our getting to church on Sunday. But today you should thank God that you fought your way through all of them by His grace and strength because of what you’re going to hear today.

Today we get to the heart of the matter, the core reality, the key experience of life in this world that we desperately need to encounter, and embrace, sometime during our sojourn here—the earlier the better! There’s no greater or grander or truer or more important or more meaningful or more lasting information or insight or instruction that you could ever hear that will make a greater difference in your life from here on out than what you will hear today!

If you recall from last Sunday, we were moving through a series of for statements (10:2, 3, 4) that were explaining Paul’s affirmation in 10:1 Brothers [and sisters], my heart’s desire and prayer to God for [Israel] is that they may be saved. And each successive for further explained the statement just before it until we got to the hinge affirmation on which this whole paragraph (9:30-10:13) turns in v.4—a foundational theological principle that reverberates with a significance that’s heard well beyond the already ample parameters of this passage to the very shores of the deep waters Paul has been navigating through this section. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. The life and death and resurrection and ascension and promised return of the Lord Jesus Christ brought to an end the era of the law as the outcome which the law was anticipating all along, thus initiating the long-awaited new covenant era!

Today we move into the last of the three parts of this paragraph (9:30-10:13) with yet another for statement beginning an explanation of that all-important hinge v.4. This will continue on through v.13. And just notice quickly how Paul’s argument develops/flows using connecting words: but (6, contrast), or (7, alternative), but (8, contrast), and because (9, rationale), before finishing with another series of explanatory for’s (10, 11, 12, 13). We’ll look at this passage in three parts.

Contrasting Two Ways to Pursue God’s Righteousness – 5-8

Reading into v.5 with the biblical/theological statement it’s explaining: 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. 5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. And that’s just what the law says in Lev.18:5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

So, is Paul teaching something different about the law than the law taught about itself? (cf. 3:20, … by works of the law no human being will be justified in [God’s] sight….) No, not at all (By no means!). The law is a revelation of the righteousness of God, and of the righteous expectation of God. And if Israel lived according to the law, they could enjoy fellowship with God, the benefits of obedience listed in Deu.28 and other places. And when they sinned, they had a covering; God made provision through the sacrificial system for the forgiveness and cleansing of His people toward keeping the covenant and not facing its curses.

In short, the law prescribed how to live in fellowship with God until the promised fulfillment (Mat.5:17) of the law arrived. And that fulfillment, that end, we see here (4) was Jesus, the Christ [Messiah]. What Paul is clarifying in this letter, then, is that the law couldn’t do what [Messiah] did do, namely, declare sinners not guilty before God, reconcile them to Him, save them, which means, grant them eternal life with Him!

So, 5 … the person who does the commandments shall live by them. 6 But the righteousness based on faith says, and here Paul quotes the OT again, not suggesting that it contradicts itself, but toward showing his readers that the very difference I just identified was present in the OT, anticipating Jesus! It was present in passages where the fullest meaning doesn’t break forth until Jesus has come. Think of Isa.53:5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.… 11 … by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. There are Jewish interpretations of this passage that identify some potential realities to which it points, but there is nothing that fulfills it like the coming of Jesus and His death on the cross to accomplish the salvation of all who believe! So it is with this passage from Deu.30:12-13 in which Moses was speaking of the law, that Israel didn’t need to go out in search of it, but that it had been delivered right to their doorstep. But now Paul is adding explanations in his parentheses that help us see an even deeper meaning now that Christ has come! He’s even tying in the imagery from Deu.30 to specific saving events in Jesus’ life! 6 … “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead) (the abyss and the sea [Deu.30:13] were somewhat interchangeable concepts in the OT and in Judaism [Moo 2018 673-674]). Bottom line, seeing what God has purposed and then done in and through Christ to keep His promise of salvation not just to the ethnic line through which Jesus was born but also to those from all nations who’d savingly believe in Him, we recognize that we didn’t need to do anything more to make that happen than Israel needed to do for God to deliver His law into their hands at Mt. Sinai! God did it all without our help!

So, Paul is telling his readers that even the OT has told them that salvation is not about doing! 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim). To borrow from and mix together the language and imagery of Ezekiel’s (36:25-28) and Jeremiah’s (31:31-34) prophecies of the new covenant, just as God did the work to write His law on stone tablets, He’s done the work to write it on the tablet of His people’s hearts. Salvation is the Lord’s work! Doing the law never achieved anything more than merely maintain relationship with God through the sacrificial system, which also prefigured His ultimate saving work through Christ. But God’s aim was always to conform His people’s hearts to His character, displayed in Christ, not just to change their behavior.

Explaining the Only Way to Attain God’s Righteousness – 9-10

We see this as Paul moves into his because clause (9) where he gives his rationale for tying the deepest meaning of Deu.30:14 to work of Christ. 8 … “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”… 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. He’s again picking up the imagery from Deu.30:14 and giving it specific meaning with regard to how salvation is actually received, in contrast to doing the law.

And that’s a really important point to understand. Paul hasn’t just given a new set of laws, new things to do, confess and believe. Rather, he’s describing the essence of faith, what it looks like to express faith. And he’s tying it in to the heart and mouth imagery of Deu.30:14. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. In other words, it is a belief in the heart that runs so deep it can’t help but be confessed, spoken, from the mouth! So, there’s no magic words, no incantation or recitation, that need to be uttered aloud in order to be saved. There just needs to be a belief in the heart that can’t help but flow out of the mouth!

Affirming that God’s Righteousness Is Available to All – 11-13

11 For the Scripture says, returning to Isa.28:16 (cf. 9:33) to finish his thought, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For, Joe.2:32, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So, surely the word of God has not failed (9:6), and not just because He intended only a remnant of [ethnic Israel] to be saved from the start (9:27, cf. Isa.10:22-23), but also because the salvation of the nations was His aim from the start! And that plan is continuing on just fine in the current salvation of the Gentiles.

Now, Paul hasn’t yet finished defending his bold affirmation in 9:6. Indeed, we still have the whole of c.11 to consider, in addition to the remainder of c.10 (14-21). But we’ve come far enough in Paul’s argument for us to understand why I made my bold claim as we started this morning! Remember it?

Today we get to the heart of the matter, the core reality, the key experience of life in this world that we desperately need to encounter and embrace sometime during our sojourn here, and the earlier the better! There’s just no greater or grander or truer or more important or more meaningful or more lasting information or insight or instruction that we could ever hear that will make a greater difference in our lives from here on out than what we’ll hear today!

Conclusion

So, what is it that I’m talking about here? You’ll hear it most clearly if we just string together vv.9, 10, and 13—9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. … 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” That’s the testimony of OT Scripture, made accessible to us in this new covenant era because Christ, the end of the law (4), has come and done precisely the saving work that Scripture promised He’d do (cf. Isa.53)—reconciling to God all who receive Him by faith!

That’s the message we preach week by week here at GCD and there are few passages in the Bible that say it more clearly and directly than this one. This is a call to believe and receive the gospel that every one of us needs to hear and believe and receive—to believe in [our] heart and confess with [our] mouth in order that [we may] be saved. So, please listen to me, each and every one of you. Have you done this? And if not, how about today?

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Resources

Arnold, Clinton E., gen. ed. 2002. Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary. Vol. 3, Romans-Philemon. Romans, by Douglas J. Moo, 2-95. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Barnhouse, Donald Gray. 1952. Romans, four volumes. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans

Beale, G. K., & D. A. Carson, eds. 2007. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Romans, by Mark A. Seifrid, 607-694. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

Carson, D. A., R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham, eds. 1994. New Bible Commentary 21st Century Edition. Romans, by Douglas J. Moo, 1115-1160. Leicester, Eng.: InterVarsity.

Chadwick, Henry, gen. ed. 1957. Harper’s New Testament Commentaries. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, by C. K. Barrett. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Comfort, Philip W., gen. ed.  2007. Cornerstone Biblical Commentary. Romans, by Roger Mohrlang. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale.

Cranfield, C. E. B. 1990. Romans: A Shorter Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Dever, Mark. 2005. The Message of the New Testament. Ch. 6, The Message of Romans: Justification, 146-166. Wheaton: Crossway.

Dockery, David S, ed. 1995. New American Commentary. Vol. 27, Romans, by Robert H. Mounce. Nashville: Broadman & Holman.

Green, Joel B., ed. 2018. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. The Letter to the Romans, by Douglas J. Moo. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Hodge, Charles. 1989. The Geneva Series of Commentaries. Romans. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth.

Hubbard, David A., and Glenn W. Barker. 1988. Word Biblical Commentary. Vol. 38ab, Romans, by James D. G. Dunn. Dallas: Word.

Longman III, Tremper, & David E. Garland, eds. 2008. Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Vol. 11, Romans-Galatians. Romans, by Everett F. Harrison and Donald A. Hagner, 19-237. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Luther, Martin. 1976. Commentary on Romans. Translated by J. Theodore Mueller. Grand Rapids: Kregel.

Moo. Douglas J. 2000. The NIV Application Commentary. Romans. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Morris, Leon, ed. 1985. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Vol. 6, Romans, by F. F. Bruce. Downers Grove: InterVarsity.

Moule, H. C. G. 1977. Studies in Romans. Grand Rapids: Kregel.

Murray, John. 1968. The Epistle to the Romans, 2 Vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Nygren, Anders. 1949. Commentary on Romans. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Owen, John, ed. Commentary on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, by John Calvin. Translated by John Owen.

Sproul, R. C. 2005. The Gospel of God: An Exposition of Romans. Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus.

Stott, John, NT ed. 1994. The Bible Speaks Today. The Message of Romans, by John Stott. Leicester, Eng.: InterVarsity.

Yarbrough, Robert W., and Joshua W. Jipp, eds. 2018. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Romans, by Thomas R. Schreiner. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

 

NEXT SUNDAY: The Name of God commandment from Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11