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§24 Salvation Without Limits (Rom. 10:5–21)

The present section continues the theme of human responsibility begun in 9:30. Israel’s predicament is not the result of ignorance or of divine arbitrariness, but of willful disobedience. Support for the argument is again drawn heavily from the OT, particularly from Deuteronomy and Isaiah. God’s word was not distant but near (v. 8), a word which Israel both heard (v. 18) and understood (v. 19). The gospel had been clearly presented to Israel, and this made Israel’s rejection of it the more blameworthy. Like the message of Hosea (ch. 11) centuries before, Paul depicts God as a spurned lover: “ ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people’ ” (10:21). But Israel’s rejection of Christ was neither unforeseen nor unprovided for. As chapter 11 will reveal, the void Israel left was filled by the Gentiles, a circumstance that will prompt Israel to return to the covenant. “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (8:28).

10:5–8 / These verses elaborate the theme of 10:4 by contrasting two kinds of righteousness: the righteousness that is by the law (v. 5), and the righteousness that is by faith (v. 6). The irony of righteousness by law, noted Bengel, is that one “does not find in the law what he seeks; and he does not seek, what he might find in the Gospel” (Gnomon, vol. 3, p. 140). Concerning righteousness by law (see 2 Apoc. Bar. 67:6) Paul says, “The man who does these things will live by them” (v. 5; quoted from Lev. 18:5). In Leviticus the injunction meant that once the Israelites entered the Promised Land they were to live by God’s commandments, not by Canaanite customs. But Paul lays the accent on works (live by them), thus casting one back on his own power rather than on God’s. He quotes the verse to the same effect in Galatians 3:12. As a means of righteousness the law pits one against God. It demands that believers are ultimately responsible for their relationship with God, and this results in an impossible dilemma: if they could fulfill the law’s requirements they would swell with pride and make God their debtor; but, in fact, they inevitably fail the test of the law, and judgment results.

The solution, of course, is that “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (10:4). Faith short-circuits the rationalizations and casuistries of righteousness by law by casting the believer solely on God’s power and promises. This is the point of verse 6, which may reflect the thought of Deuteronomy 9:4: “After the Lord your God has driven [the nations] out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ ” God did not owe Israel anything; his benevolence was not a reward for human righteousness, but an expression of his grace.

To further this idea Paul quotes loosely from Deuteronomy 30:11–14: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down)” or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). Deuteronomy 30:11–14 originally referred to the law, but Paul freely applies it to Jesus Christ! Calvin was rocked on his heels by Paul’s cavalier use of Scripture here. Comparative studies, however, reveal that Deuteronomy 30:11–14 was freely handled in Jewish tradition, Paul’s interpretation being but one example. For Paul the meaning of the OT and of salvation history is fully comprehensible only in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:12–16). He implies the same in verse 17 when he says that “the message (of the OT) is heard through the word of Christ.” Paul’s radical substitution of Christ for the law can only mean that he sees in Jesus Christ not a new revelation, but a completed revelation which supersedes everything before it. The OT is thus truly a Christian book. Had Israel perceived the essence of the law it would have acknowledged its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

What is humanly impossible—to scale the heights or descend the depths—has been revealed by God in the law, but ultimately in Christ. All noble, pious, and heroic attempts to demonstrate human righteousness are only active unbelief. It is not we who bring Christ to people, but Christ who sends us to them with his saving word. We do not raise Christ from the dead; our proofs for the existence of God or the historicity of the resurrection, for example, do not secure their reality. We do not establish God and his work, but God establishes us. Our task, in other words, is not to be responsible for salvation, but to be respondable to it.

It is not we who seek God, but God who has sought us. “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart” (v. 8; quoted from Deut. 30:14; cf. Eph. 2:13, 17–19). God is not a principle, distant and undefinable, but a person, near and intimate, present in the word of the gospel. He is known not through sentiments and feelings, or by proofs and deductions, or through mystical and ineffable experiences. God imposes upon himself the limits of knowability; he is known only as he makes himself known through the Word incarnate and through the witness to the Word in preaching and proclamation. That is the word of faith we are proclaiming (see Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12; 6:5).

10:9–10 / The word which is near is Jesus Christ who fulfills the law (10:4). Verses 9–10 are a chiastic (A-B-B′-A′) construction:

A if you confess with your mouth

B and believe in your heart

B′ for it is with your heart that you believe

A′ and it is with your mouth that you confess.

The whole has the ring of a confession used in worship, perhaps at baptism. Paul is likely taking up an ancient creed as he did at 1:3–4, here perhaps the earliest Christian confession that “Jesus is Lord.” Early Aramaic-speaking believers already recited at the Lord’s Supper, Marana tha, “our Lord [Jesus] has come” (1 Cor. 16:22; Did. 10:6). Especially as the gospel made its way into pagan regions, the accent on Jesus’ lordship over all other lords and powers increased (1 Cor. 8:5; Phil. 2:9–11). We saw at 9:5 that Paul very likely called Christ “God.” The formula kyrios Iēsous here would have been equally provocative for his Jewish readers, for the title “Lord” (Gk. kyrios; Heb. Yahweh) occurs as a proper name for God some 5000 times in the OT. Paul could not yet define the nature of Jesus (in the later words of the Nicene Creed) as “being of one substance with the Father,” but the fact that he freely applies the personal name of God in the OT to Jesus implies that Jesus shares the dominion of Israel’s God. What is true of God’s lordship is also true of Jesus’ lordship. To speak of Jesus is therefore to speak of God, and speech about God must begin and end with Jesus, for Jesus is “the word of faith” (v. 8).

A Christian is one who confesses that Jesus is Lord over all (Col. 2:15) and who believes that God raised him from the dead. The lordship and resurrection of Jesus are the essence of salvation, and they achieve their full purpose only through confession and belief: if you confess … if you believe. The variable (the subjunctive) is with humanity, if; the certainty (the indicative) is with God, “you will be saved.” One might expect belief to precede confession, but the reversed order doubtlessly reflects the order in the preceding quotation (i.e., “mouth … heart,” v. 8). Their order, however, is less important than their inseparability. Belief without confession is betrayal; confession without belief is hypocrisy. The righteousness of faith consists of belief and confession. Belief means active trust in God’s goodness to us in Jesus Christ, as opposed to mere intellectual assent to a propositional truth. And confession means a deliberate and public witness to that belief. Belief and confession forsake all hopes of establishing their own righteousness (10:3). They direct hope outward, extra nos, to the righteousness of God.

10:11–13 / In support of verses 9–10 Paul again (see 9:33) quotes Isaiah 28:16, “Everyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” In Isaiah the passage meant that whoever believes in the cornerstone of Zion would not be ashamed. Paul understood the cornerstone to refer to Christ and thus applies the whole reference to Jesus. By prefacing the quotation with Everyone he emphasizes that salvation is available to Jews and Gentiles without distinction. He continues in verse 12, For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Paul made this same assertion in 3:23 with reference to sins: “There is no difference, for all have sinned.” But neither is there any difference with reference to grace (cf. 11:32)! Jesus is the same Lord of both Jews and Gentiles. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (v. 13; see Joel 2:32). The gospel is not the possession of a privileged few—not even of the chosen people. The gospel is salvation without limits, a universal promise for everyone who believes.

Grace comes solely from God, who richly blesses all who call on him (v. 12). There is no partiality with God, nor is grace a miserly concession on his part (2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25). Gentiles are not the objects of God’s reluctant benevolence. On the contrary, God richly blesses all who call on him, even Gentiles “who did not pursue righteousness” (9:30). Herein lies the offense of grace, as Jesus illustrated in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16). It is indeed bad business to pay laborers who have worked one hour the same wage as those who have worked twelve. Jesus’ parable, however, is not about economics, but about grace. There was a Roman coin (an assarion) worth one-twelfth of a denarius, a day’s wage; but there is no twelfth part of the grace of God!

10:14–21 / But have Jews had a fair opportunity to “call on the name of the Lord”? To answer that question Paul keys off the quotation from Joel 2:32 in verse 13 and presents us with another sorites (see 5:3–5 and 8:29–30), a series of propositions in which the predicate of the preceding becomes the subject of the following (thus, call … believed / believe … heard / hear … preaching / preach … sent). Here Paul works backward, so to speak. We would expect the sorites to progress from beginning (sending) to end (believing), but Paul reverses the order, beginning with the Jews’ guilt because of their failure to believe. Each link in the chain of assertions holds fast except the final one, and that was Israel’s refusal to believe.

The quotation in verse 15 (“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Isa. 52:7) originally referred to the messengers who reported the Jewish release from Babylonian captivity in the sixth century B.C. In later Judaism, however, it was almost universally applied to the coming of the Messiah. Paul has shortened and altered the Isaiah text considerably. The word translated beautiful by the NIV is in Greek hōraios, originally meaning “the right season” or “the ripe moment.” Just as long years of captivity prepared Israel for the good news of release, so the proclamation of the gospel came at the most opportune moment for its reception by the Jews. This too heightened their culpability for not believing it. The messengers to Israel doubtlessly include the prophets and Jesus (Mark 12:1–12), and later Paul himself.

Above all, the quotation underscores the idea of sending. The gospel is not a philosophy or an idea. It is not a logical inference or a conclusion drawn from the laws of nature. The gospel comes through the proclamation of the word, at moments ordained by God, and through chosen persons. The gospel is always and everywhere “incarnational,” i.e., it is God’s word communicated through persons. Where the gospel is not personal, it is not the gospel. The incarnation of Jesus Christ was, of course, the perfect and consummate example of God’s revelation of himself in history. Apostles, prophets, and witnesses of all sorts are not simply individuals who have had “religious experiences” or who have “studied theology,” but individuals who by God’s gracious will have been called to the person of Jesus Christ, endowed with his authority, and commissioned in his service. And if they are called, commissioned, and empowered by Christ, then their word is Christ’s word (v. 17).

Yes, Israel had heard the message. It had been proclaimed, but not all the Israelites accepted the good news (v. 16). There is a word play in the original Greek on accepted (which is a derivative of the word for “hearing”): Jews heard the gospel (ēkousan, v. 14), but they did not obey it (hypēkousan, v. 16). Paul quotes a passage from the fourth servant song of Isaiah (53:1), attesting that the message had been delivered but not believed: “Lord, who has believed our message?” For Jews hearing was the indispensable prerequisite of religion, because learning depends on hearing. Paul agrees that faith comes from hearing the message (v. 17).

But, had Jews heard the gospel? Throughout verses 14–21 the driving concern is whether or not the Jews have heard of salvation in Christ. Paul asks point-blank in verse 18, But I ask, Did they not hear? His answer, coming from Psalm 19:4, is unequivocal: Of course they did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” Psalm 19, which refers to the heavenly bodies that “declare the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1), is applied by Paul to the evangelization of Jews. It could, of course, be objected that not all had heard the gospel. Surely Paul must have become aware of the endless task of evangelizing Jews (and Gentiles) the further he pressed into Asia and Europe. His goal of preaching in Spain (15:24) was itself evidence of this concern. The quotation, therefore, seems to be employed to the effect that the gospel had already been preached widely in Jewish regions (due in no small measure to Paul’s tireless activity), and that its sparse acceptance there was typical of what could be expected in the future.

Israel may indeed have heard, but perhaps it did not understand. Perhaps, like Pharaoh, Israel had been hardened so it could not understand. Or, perhaps, as one not uncommonly hears today, the gospel is valid only for Gentiles (and Torah for Jews). To this final question Paul quotes three passages from the OT. He again speaks of Israel rather than “Jews,” indicating his concern with a people as opposed to individuals.

The first quotation (v. 19) comes from Deuteronomy 32:21. The verse might be paraphrased: If Israel had made God jealous by worshipping non-gods, then God will make Israel jealous by raising up a non-people. Israel may not understand, implies Paul, but “a nation that has no understanding” will! The non-people, of course, are the Gentiles, and the verse anticipates the argument of chapter 11 that the inclusion of the Gentiles in salvation will provoke Jews to jealousy so that they also will accept the gospel.

Neither could Israel complain that the message was obscure, for Isaiah (65:1), with greater boldness than Moses, asserted that the Gentiles who never sought it or asked for it have indeed found it. That is the gist of the second quotation in verse 20. Like a true rabbi, Paul follows a quotation from the Law with one from the Prophets. If untutored Gentiles received the gift of righteousness, how much more should favored Israel have received it?

The bare truth is that Israel is without excuse. “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people” (Isa. 65:2). The only thing more astonishing than the Gentiles’ faith is Israel’s lack of it. “The more I called Israel,” said the Lord, “the further they went from me” (Hos. 11:2). With outstretched hands God offered Israel the gift of life, but Israel’s hands were full of its own works.

Throughout the discussion of Israel’s guilt Paul steers clear of the rhetoric we have come to associate with anti-Semitism. Governments (and more shamefully, churches) have justified their persecutions of Jews on the basis of race or blood or clannishness or historical destiny or economics or treachery or a thousand other slanders. All these so-called offenses against humanity are categorically rejected by the apostle. His sole and abiding concern is the theological mystery of Israel’s disobedience to God (9:3). Israel, of course, means unbelieving Jews, but we may not be wrong to see in the expression the symbol of a danger inherent in all religious peoples, including Christians. The existence of Israel is a reminder to the church of what can happen when a chosen people grows deaf to the Spirit, when it is more desirous of accommodating itself and the gospel to the world than of proclaiming the victory of Christ over the world, and when it thinks more of fulfilling its own will than of honoring God’s will. Israel, complacent and disobedient, is in varying degrees present in our churches and in ourselves.