Deeper Commentary

ROMANS CHAPTER 10

10:1- see on Jude 20.

Brothers, my heart's desire and my supplication to God is for Israel, that they may be saved- "Desire" is a word used only elsewhere about the desire or will of God. Paul was therefore sharing God's desire or passion for Israel. He was praying with his will aligned with that of God, who passionately wishes Israel's salvation, and has millennia of track record in seeking it. As noted on 9:1-3, that desire of Paul's was to the point of being theoretically willing to sacrifice his own salvation for theirs. This will / desire of God and Paul will finally come to reality, in that all Israel shall indeed be saved (11:26); but through a redefinition of who is Israel. For "all Israel" being saved must be integrated into the idea that most of Israel shall not be saved, but "a remnant shall be saved" (9:27). That remnant become "all Israel" in God's eyes.

The language of Israel being saved is used in the Old Testament concerning their Red Sea deliverance from Egypt (Ex. 14:30; Dt. 33:29). Paul thereby again identifies himself with Moses. But their salvation from Egypt was not their personal salvation; and the term is used again of Judah's salvation from Babylon, which again they did not make full use of. This perhaps is why Is. 45:17 says that "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation". By being in the Lord Jesus by baptism, in the name of salvation, they could find a salvation which was eternal- a clear reference to eternal life. Only through the ministry of "the Lord our righteousness", whereby God's righteousness is imputed to us through His Son, can Israel finally be saved (Jer. 23:6). Again, this is all the outworking of the theology of Romans 1-8 in the case of Israel.

10:2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge- Bearing witness is legal language, of which Paul has made frequent usage in Romans 1-8. In the court of Divine judgment, it could be said in mitigation, as it were, that Israel had a zeal for God. But it was not according to knowledge, and the only knowledge worth anything is in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. The idea of kata knowledge is to be found again in Col. 3:10, where we read that through the activity of the Spirit, we are renewed in knowledge kata the mental image of the Lord Jesus. The tension is therefore between attempted legal obedience, and permitting the work of the Spirit. This is the tension which has been explored in chapter 8; accepting imputed righteousness and our inability to be justified by works means accepting the work of the Spirit to transform us in reality to that which we are now by status in Christ. Paul wrote Romans from Corinth, where he had repeatedly argued the same; the Judaist influence in Corinth was not producing spirituality, because they were not making use of the gift of the Spirit in their hearts to transform them (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5).

10:3 For being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God- Their ignorance was not in that they were unaware of the alternative. They were, to translate the Greek literally, 'agnostic' to it, not committed to it, ignorant in the sense that they ignored it. As noted on :2, there is a tension between accepting the work of the Spirit, and on the other hand seeking justification by acts of legal obedience. 'Seeking to establish' continues the courtroom language of :2. They tried to make a case before God in the basis of their own righteousness in terms of obedience to laws. But they failed to make a case; in the terms of Romans 1-8, they stood before God condemned by their sin, with their defence in ruins. The only alternative was to subject themselves beneath God's grace and accept imputed righteousness. The same word is used of our submission to Christ, who is the righteousness of God (Eph. 5:24). He has been given the power to subdue all things unto Himself [s.w.], but we must ourselves choose to make that submission. It is pride in our own puny obedience to a few laws which stops that totality of submission to Him which is required for us to be counted fully righteous.

10:4 For Christ is the end of the law regarding righteousness to everyone that believes- This could be simply saying that for the believer in imputed righteousness, the law is finished as a source of righteousness. We have been given all righteousness in Him, and so the Law is over as a source of righteousness; and this is why Christ ended the Law in His death. But telos, "end", suggests that Christ was the end point of the Law, and the believer in imputed righteousness believes this. If the Law were perfectly obeyed, it would lead to a man who died on the cross with a perfect character- the Lord Jesus. In this sense the Law was not simply a series of types pointing forward to Him; if it were fully obeyed, it would lead to who Jesus was in character and action.

The idea that the Lord Jesus ended the Law of Moses on the cross needs some reflection. That statement only pushes the question back one stage further- how exactly did He ‘end’ the Law there? How did a man dying on a cross actually end the Law? The Lord Jesus, supremely in His death, was “the end of the law” (Rom. 10:4). But the Greek telos [“end”] is elsewhere translated “the goal” (1 Tim. 1:5 NIV). The character and person of the Lord Jesus at the end was the goal of the Mosaic law; those 613 commandments, if perfectly obeyed, were intended to give rise to a personality like that of the Lord Jesus. When He reached the climax of His personal development and spirituality, in the moment of His death, the Law was “fulfilled”. He taught that He “came” in order to die; and yet He also “came” in order to “fulfil” the Law (Mt. 5:17).

10:5 For Moses writes, that the man that does the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby- The quotation from Lev. 18:5 could mean that actually perfect obedience would lead to life eternal; but more likely it is simply a statement that the man who obeys all the laws would live "in it" [NEV "thereby"], referring to the righteousness of the law. He would have blessing in this life, and live this life in the righteousness of the law- and that was it, without any hope of ultimate salvation.

10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith says thus: Do not say in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down)- The quotation from Dt. 30:11-14 is somewhat doctored by Paul. The words in their original context don't seem to be saying what Paul interprets them as meaning; as elsewhere, Old Testament words and phrases are picked up and read in a totally different, Christ-centred light in the New Testament. Paul appears to be teaching that the descent of Christ from Heaven is fundamentally in terms of the action of His Spirit in the heart, which is the sanctification which arises from believing in imputed righteousness [as outlined in chapter 8]

10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)- The Lord's resurrection enabled the gift of the Spirit in the hearts of the believers, which according to Romans 8 is all part of the wonderful process which follows believing completely in imputed righteousness.

10:8 But what did it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is, the word of faith, which we preach- The word of the simple Gospel- that if you believe in Christ you shall be saved- was enabled by the Lord's resurrection and shall come to full term in His descent from Heaven at the last day (:6,7).

"The word of faith" can simply mean that the basic content of God's word is an appeal for faith in His Son. But it is thereby also true that the word of the Gospel leads to faith. The Lord foresaw in Jn. 17:20 that there would be those who would believe on Him “through their word” (i.e. the word taught by the disciples). Our word of preaching can bring others to faith. Our preaching leads to faith being created in the hearers. “The word of faith, which we preach” (Rom. 10:8) is the word (Gospel) that leads to faith; and a man cannot believe without hearing the Gospel, and he will not hear it unless it is preached by a preacher. Paul summarises by saying that faith comes by hearing [the Gospel] and hearing by [the preaching of] the word of God (Rom. 10:8,14,17). Paul’s point is that whoever believes will be saved (Rom. 9:33)- and therefore, we must preach to all, so that they might take advantage of this blessed opportunity. In his repetitious manner, Paul builds up the argument in this letter:

- Even under the law, Israel could believe God’s word as preached by Moses and have righteousness imputed to them (10:5-8)
- We preach, in essence, the very same word (10:9,10)
- Isaiah said the same: that belief of his preaching would result in justification (10:11)
- We preach the same. Whoever believes in the Lord’s saving Name by baptism will be saved (10:12,13)
- Therefore preach the word, for without your doing this, people can never believe it and therefore be saved (10:14,15)
- Israel had heard the word of the cross preached in the past, so just hearing the preacher will not automatically result in faith (10:16-21). Both preacher and hearer must be aware of this. Therefore there was a need for the preachers to turn to another wider audience, i.e. the Gentiles.

Note that this passage in Romans 10 reasons that men will only hear the Gospel if there is a preacher, and yet it also states that all men have heard the Gospel, in fulfilment of the prophesy of Psalm 19 that the message would go into all the earth. But later in the same epistle, Paul says that he preached because he wanted to take the Gospel to those “who have not heard” (15:21). There must be a connection within his thought with what he wrote in chapter 10, about all men hearing the Gospel through preaching. Surely he understood that the fulfilment of the prophecy that all men will hear the Gospel is purely dependent upon our freewill effort to preach to all men. This understanding inspired Paul to press ahead with his plans to expand Gospel work into Spain; and it should motivate us likewise.

Paul comments that truly Israel have already heard the essence of the Gospel we preach, in that “the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Rom. 10:8). He quotes here from Dt. 30:12: “For this command [to be obedient- or, as Paul interprets it, the word of the Gospel]... is it not far from thee [cp. how God is “not far” from anybody, Acts 17:27]. It is not in heaven above, that thou shouldest say, Who will ascend for us into heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?” (Dt. 30:12 LXX). As Moses spoke these words on the last day of his life, he was at the foot of Nebo, which he ascended for his final meeting with God. He is surely alluding to the way in which he had ‘ascended to heaven’ before in ascending to God on Sinai, fulfilling Israel’s wish that he should bring God’s word to them rather than God Himself speak with them. He had returned bringing God’s word to them, to which they had agreed they would “hear and do”. Earlier, in Dt. 5:27, Moses had reminded the people how they had said: “Go thou near, and hear all that the LORD our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the LORD our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it”. Now he is telling them that actually the word he had brought to them needn’t have been brought to them as in essence it was within their hearts. It is for exactly this reason that Paul could reason elsewhere in Romans that the Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the Law, although they don’t know the letter of the Law. And the same principle is found in 1 Thess. 4:9: “As touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves [i.e. from within yourselves?] are taught of God to love one another”. This is rather like how the Gentiles were not ‘written unto’ and yet they knew from their conscience the essential spirit of the Mosaic Law.

10:9 Because if you shall confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and shall believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved- Being saved is as simple as that. It is belief and not legal obedience which is required.

Confessing Christ before men applies to baptism, not just bucking up the courage to give someone a tract at work (Mt. 10:32 = Rom. 10:9,10). Rom. 10;9,10 stresses that belief and confession are necessary for salvation. This may be one of the many links between Romans and John’s gospel, in that Jn. 12:42 speaks of those who believed but wouldn’t confess. Confession, a public showing forth of our belief, is vital if we are to be saved. It’s perhaps worth noting that baptisms tend often to be attended largely by believers, and be performed indoors, e.g. in a bath at someone’s home, or a church hall. It’s quite possible to learn the Gospel, be baptized- and nobody out in this world ever know. It’s down to us to ensure this isn’t true in our case.

I have wondered, and it’s no more than me wondering, whether it could be that Rom. 10:9,13; Acts 22:16 and the other references to calling on the name of the Lord at baptism imply that the candidate for baptism made the statement “Jesus is Lord!” after their confession of faith or just before their immersion, and then they shouted the word “Abba! Father!” as they came out of the water, indicating their adoption as a child of God (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).  

10:10 For with the heart man believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made to salvation- With the heart (mind / brain) man believes unto salvation and not by legal obedience. It is faith which leads to [imputed] righteousness; but if we really have believed this wondrous truth, then we will confess it with our mouths. We cannot be passive to it. It's not that witnessing to others is a work to be done for salvation; it is rather the inevitable outcome of having believed within the heart that really, I am counted right before God and in Christ I shall live for ever. The early believers clung to the Lord in whom they had believed "with purpose of heart" (Acts 11:23). They that had not heard of the cross of Christ were made to see, understand and therefore believe by Paul's preaching (Rom. 15:21). Our appeals likewise must be to the understanding. See on Acts 11:14; Heb. 11:19.

10:11 For the scripture says: Whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame- The "whoever" in Is. 28:16 is taken to mean that ethnicity is not important. It is faith and not obedience to any legal code which leads us to not be shamed at the last day, nor today. For Rom. 5:5 uses the same word to say that the sure hope we have of salvation, due to righteousness being imputed to us, means that we are not ashamed even now- "Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us". Those seeking to be unashamed on the basis of their legal obedience have not therefore known the activity of the Spirit within their hearts.

10:12- see on Rom. 3:30.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, for the same one who is Lord of all is rich to all that call upon him- The "whoever" of Is. 28:16 means just that, no distinction is made between ethnic groups. The riches given by the Lord Jesus to those who believe are those of the gift of the Spirit (1 Cor. 1:5; 2 Cor. 9:11). The early preachers concluded that there was no longer a distinction between Jew and Gentile exactly because they saw the gift of the same Spirit to both Jewish and Gentile believers, and the Spirit gift purified the hearts of them all (Acts 15:9). This was surely why the miraculous manifestation of the Spirit was given to the Gentiles whom Peter was to baptize with Cornelius- to make this same point.

10:13 For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved- Salvation was for "whoever", regardless of ethnicity. And salvation was by calling upon oneself the Lord's Name, having His Name / characteristics counted to them- and not by legalistic obedience. This is another way of saying that righteousness is imputed by faith in the Lord Jesus, and demonstrating this by baptism into His Name. The pouring out of the Spirit gifts described in Joel 2 was primarily fulfilled in Acts 2, whilst looking forward to "the great and the terrible day of the Lord". Thus Joel 2:32 "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" was fulfilled primarily in the first century too; it is quoted here in Rom. 10:13 in this connection.

10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they do not have belief? And how shall they believe in him about whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?- Paul now demonstrates that believing these things demands in practice that we preach them. People cannot believe these things if they have not heard them. If we grasp the wonder of imputed righteousness in Christ, we should therefore take Him to people, and to Israel in particular. This is where true theology cannot but have a transforming influence in practice. For one cannot be passive to these great truths.

Here Paul clearly states that (as a general rule) it is impossible to believe in Christ without a preacher. The Ethiopian eunuch was the classic case of this. Bible in hand, his exasperation boiled over: “How can I (understand), except some man shall guide me?" (Acts 8:31). It is perfectly possible that Rom. 10:4 alludes to this, implying that this man's case was typical [and notice the connections between Acts 8:37 and Rom. 10:9]. Likewise the Lord Jesus spoke of "them also which shall believe on me through their  (the preachers') word" (Jn. 17:20)- not through their unguided Bible reading. If all we had been given was a Bible, most of us would simply not be where we are today, spiritually. If I had started reading from Genesis, I don't think I'd have got much beyond Leviticus before giving up on the Bible. Yet there are some who have made it through, from Genesis to Revelation. And their testimony is even more emphatic: "Without doubt I needed someone to guide me, I was just crying out for all the pieces to be put into place", in the words of one such recent convert.

10:15 And how shall they preach, unless they are sent? Even as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things!- An apostle is a sent one. But the implication is that we are all apostles- grasping the wonder of the salvation possible is of itself the call to preach it. And human need is of itself the call. The prophecy of the Lord Jesus preaching: “How beautiful are the feet of him that preaches the Gospel” (Nah. 1:15)  is quoted here with a subtle change of pronoun: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach”. We are the Lord Jesus to this world, because we are brethren in Him. Any who are in Him, having His righteousness imputed to the, counted as Him, must act as Him- and He is the light of the world. So must we be. This alone is a powerful imperative as to who we are, how we speak, the men and women we show ourselves to be. Paul is quoting this Old Testament prophecy about Jesus to prove that we are all “sent” to preach the Gospel. The validity of our commission to preach is quite simply that Jesus Himself preached; in this way we are all personally “sent” to preach, simply because He was sent to preach. As the Father sent Him, so He sends us.

10:16 But they did not all obey the glad tidings. For Isaiah said: Lord, who has believed our report?- This is one of a number of instances of where Old Testament Messianic Scriptures are applied to Paul in the context of his preaching Christ. What is true of the Lord Jesus must be true of us, if we are "in Him" and counted by God as Him. In Judaism, the prophets were seen as a saintly group to whom no ordinary person could pretend. But both the Messiah and Isaiah are here being cited as patterns for all who are "in Christ". The identity between Christian preachers and Isaiah also demonstrates that the essence of the Gospel ["glad tidings"] was preached in the Old Testament. Isaiah's lament here is of Judah refusing the good news of Messiah in his day, and that is just what happened in the first century. Isaiah's lament is that despite the amazing achievement of Messiah and God's offer of grace in Him, Jewry generally had not believed it.

The theme of Romans is the Gospel, and in this context Paul makes the point that because both Jew and Gentile are saved by the Gospel, therefore we should preach to both Jew and Gentile (Rom. 10:9-18). In this context, Paul quotes from Is. 52:7 and Nah. 1:15, both concerning preaching to Israel: "How shall they hear without a preacher? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them (cp. 'he' in the originals- our preaching is a manifestation of the Lord) that preach the Gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings". The Nahum passage is in the context of preaching to Israel the good news of their ultimate freedom from the Assyrian invasion which was then imminent. We are in a strikingly parallel situation in these last days. Rom. 10:16 then goes on to quote Is. 53:1, which again refers to the preaching of the Gospel to Israel, and applies it to our preaching.

10:17 So belief comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of God- "Hearing" is the same Greek word translated "report" in :16. It refers more to our preaching than to their hearing. We can play a part in the faith of others; our preaching is their hearing, and without it, they cannot believe. God has delegated His purpose and the progress of His work to us. The responsibility is huge. Faith comes by hearing God’s word. But we can hear (or in our generation, read) God’s word without faith (2 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 4:2). Bible reading, like every other spiritual exercise, can become a mere formality. "The word of God" here as often in the New Testament refers to the message of God in Christ, the Gospel, rather than every verse in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, including the Chronicles genealogies. Our reporting / preaching [NEV "hearing"] is dia the word of God. This is not quite the same as saying that we preach the word of God; that would be phrased differently in Greek. Our preaching is on account of the word; it is motivated by the wonder of the word we have ourselves heard.

10:18 But I say: Did they not hear? Yes, truly, their sound went out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world- Paul is doubtless alluding to the great commission here. But he says that it is fulfilled by the preachers spoken of in Ps. 19:1-4, which he quotes. This speaks of the "heavens" declaring God's gospel world-wide. In the same way as the sun 'goes forth' all over the world, so will the "heavens" go forth to declare the Gospel. The 'heavens' do not just refer to the twelve in the first century; the New Testament says that all in Christ are the "heavenlies"; we are all part of the "sun of righteousness". The arising of Christ as the sun at His second coming (Mal. 4:2) will be heralded by the church witnessing the Gospel of His coming beforehand. The enthusiast will note a number of other preaching allusions in Ps. 19: "The firmament sheweth his handiwork" (v.1) uses a word (in the Septuagint) which occurs in Lk. 9:60 concerning the publishing of the Gospel. "Their line is gone out through all the earth" (v.4) is picked up by Paul in describing his preaching (2 Cor. 10:13-16 AVmg.). The idea of 'going out' throughout the earth was clearly at the root of Christ's great commission (Mk. 16:15). Yet, as we have said, the “heavens" to which this refers in Ps. 19 are interpreted by the New Testament as referring to all believers in Christ. We have to ask whether David really had this interpretation in mind when he wrote Psalm 19. Probably not, but New Testament quotation of the Old is clearly at liberty in taking words out of context and applying them to Christian themes. We are not permitted to wrest Scripture from its context as we are not inspired; but the Spirit within both Paul and David was the same and can rework the words as needed. And yet on a human level, David was one of Paul's heroes; to the point that David's words are quoted by him with the preface: "I say...". But it was the same Spirit working through both men. See on :20.

Israel 'heard' the word, and yet they did not ''hearken" to it (Rom. 10:16,18)- we can hear but not hear. Yet if we really believed that Scripture is inspired, we wouldn't be like this. It is awesome to reflect how those Hebrew letters, those Greek ciphers written on parchment 1950 years ago, were actually the very words of God Almighty. But this is the real import of our understanding of inspiration. Israel literally 'heard' the words of Ezekiel, knowing that a prophet had been among them- but they weren't obedient. We too can pay such lip service to the doctrine of inspiration- and yet not be truly obedient to the word we know to be inspired.

10:19- see on Dt. 7:4.

But I say: Did Israel not know? First Moses said: I will provoke you to jealousy with those who are no nation, with a nation void of understanding will I anger you- Paul sees the Jewish anger at Gentile conversion to Christ as a reflection of their jealousy. If Gentiles became followers of some idol cult, the Jews would have been indifferent. But their jealousy was provoked by Israel accepting Jesus of Nazareth as God's Son and Saviour. This jealousy was and is surely a reflection of a bad conscience, just as subconsciously Joseph's brothers knew that Joseph was not dead but alive, and standing before them. It was Israel's 'knowledge' of the Gospel they had heard which is related by Paul to their anger and jealousy. And we see the same today in many who exhibit anger and jealousy over the faith of others. This is a function of their 'knowledge' which they are in denial of.

10:20 And Isaiah is very bold, and said: I was found by those that did not seek Me; I showed myself to those who were not asking for Me- Paul, having the same Divine Spirit as Isaiah, sensed that Isaiah spoke those inspired words in a "very bold" manner, daring manner (s.w. 5:7). See on :18. The fact Gentiles found God in Christ when they were not seeking Him is an exemplification of the ideas of predestination and calling which have been introduced in chapter 8 as the supreme example of God's grace. The element of calling, of finding God when we were not looking for Him, is an example of that higher hand in our lives which is of grace alone. "Seek and you shall find" is here as it were subverted. It's not that God is hiding behind a set of cards or has set up the Bible as a riddle between Him and men, which few figure out. He shows Himself to those who aren't even seeking. This is grace indeed.

10:21 But to Israel He said: All the day long did I spread out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people- The implication of "all the day long" is that Israel's day of opportunity was over. The spreading out of hands towards someone is a picture of a father teaching a child to walk, urging them to take their first faltering steps towards his opening arms. And this was just the figure used of God to Israel in Hos. 11:3.