Old Testament Background: God's
Faithfulness to
Romans 10:9, 10 NASB
“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
If we take verse 9 to mean
this is talking about to be justified then it seems that we have to take this
to mean that we not only have to believe that Jesus died on the cross for our
sins but that we also have to make a public confession of that and also we have
to be convinced that Jesus rose from the dead as a separate, conscious
proposition.
When we communicate the
gospel we should clearly communicate that Jesus Christ is God and that He is risen from the dead. When we go through the book of Acts we see
that this is almost always the case. This is how the gospel was presented. We
need to make that clear. But that does not necessarily mean, on the other hand,
that there is a conscious analyzed understanding of the deity of Christ and
resurrection. We use the word “analyze” because when we present the gospel to
people, as unbelievers they are spiritually dead and they don’t grasp the full
significance of it. For example, as a four-year-old or a five-year-old they
can’t grasp the significance of resurrection from the dead or even the deity of
Christ. Even a lot of older folks have difficulty in comprehending the doctrine
of the Trinity in an analyzed way. So we would say that is an unanalyzed
acceptance of the fact because as Jesus is presented as the living, resurrected
Son of God, that is what they believe in. But it is not taken out and analyzed
quite like that statement that “Jesus died for you, He paid for your sins, and
by believing and trusting in what He did at the cross you have eternal life.”
The focal point of our
belief, that which must have a clear understanding of, is that Jesus died as
our substitute and paid the price for our sins on the cross. So as we look at
these questions, should we focus on the substitutionary
death of Christ? Yes, that is the focal point. Resurrection?
In an unanalyzed way, we present Jesus as raised but we don’t really comprehend
all that that means when we first trust Him, as well as the deity of Christ.
Question: Is there a clear
statement in the Scripture that one must believe in not only the death of
Christ but also have that clear conscience or analyzed belief in the
resurrection as well. A verse that seems to suggest that is this verse in
Romans 10. This is an extremely interesting verse and it is used by many people
to teach the gospel, but we do not believe that this is talking about the
gospel at all. To really properly interpret it we have to do a lot of homework.
To properly interpret the Bible the first thing we have to know is context.
We use the term “justification” to indicate
our entry into our new spiritual life. It happens simultaneously with
regeneration and when we are adopted into God’s royal family and have eternal
life. The key passages in the Old Testament that frame Romans 10:9, 10 are
Deuteronomy chapter thirty and Joel 2:32. We have to also connect this to
Jesus’ statement in Matthew 23:39 and what Jesus says to
We also have to understand
some key words: “saved” and “salvation”. Saved in Romans doesn’t mean
justification, it has to do with either the end result of the whole process,
which we refer to as glorification, or sometimes it may refer to phase two
sanctification, but also the spiritual life in light of the end result, i.e.
being saved now in terms of being saved from the power of sin with a view
towards being saved from the presence of sin. It also has the idea of being physically
delivered from physical harm or threat. Then we have the terms that are
parallel here: “confess” and “call.” What doe they mean, to confess Jesus as
Lord and calling upon the name of the Lord? Is it mental or verbal? Then we
have the term “righteousness.” Is this imputed righteousness which is the focus
of Romans chapter four, or is this experiential righteousness which is the
outgrowth of chapter on sanctification.
We will look at the overview
of the context of Romans 9-11 because the question here is that if God promised
these things to
So in Romans 9-11 Paul is
going to vindicate God’s righteousness in light of
In the first 29 verses of
Romans chapter nine Paul talks about God’s rejection of
The point Paul is going to
make from 9:30 to 10:13—the immediate context surrounding our verse—is that
Israel itself is to blame for rejection or being set aside by God because
Israel first rejected God’s gift of righteousness through faith for
righteousness from the source of works. That is the point he makes in the first
four verses of chapter 10, especially verse 3 NASB “For not knowing
about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not
subject themselves to the righteousness of God.” In the next section,
When is this going to take
place? When is God going to bring them to this salvation? It is when the
deliverer comes out of
So, “THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM
“HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS”—what is ungodliness? It is the word asebeia [a)sebeia] which refers to a lack of reverence to God, a lack
of obedience to God, a lack of submitting to His authority, a lack of following
Him. It is the result of rejecting God and His plan for righteousness. “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.” To take away their sins means to completely remove
them, i.e. their temporal guilt. The word there for taking away means to detach
something, remove it, cut it off, to cause a certain state or condition to
cease. That is the idea here, the state of their being under that fifth cycle
of discipline curse. So the point that is being made by Paul at the end of
Romans 9-11 is that what history is driving to is that
God ultimately will fulfill that promise to
Romans 10:5 NASB
“For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based
on law shall live by that righteousness.” He uses a preposition there which
means “out from the source of the law.” Moses says that the one who does such
things will live by them. This is a quote from Leviticus 18:5. Were Jews in the
Old Testament saved by keeping the law? No. If we look at
But then He gives them the
law. The law wasn’t the basis of becoming redeemed as a nation or becoming God’s
chosen people, the law was to tell God’s people how they were to live. The law
wasn’t a way to acquire righteousness, it was the way
to live now that they were God’s people. That is the focal point of the Mosaic
Law. So when Paul is quoting this he says that the man who does such things
shall live by them. What God said in the law was, If
you obey the law you will live, and I will bless you abundantly. But if you disobey
then there are going to be certain consequences, certain judgments that will come
upon the nation. The nation is used as a whole, as an analogy of what happens
to the church age individual believer.
Romans 10:5 is an echo of
what Paul wrote earlier in Galatians 3:21 NASB “Is the Law then
contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a
law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would
indeed have been based on law.” A similar verse is Philippians 3:9 NASB
“and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from
{the} Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which
{comes} from God on the basis of faith.” Our righteousness isn’t that which we
are justified on the basis of, it is not a righteousness that is the result of
what we do, it is the righteousness of Christ’s
character which is credited to our account when we trust in Him. We receive His
righteousness by means of faith, by trusting in Him. God sees that
righteousness that has been credited to our account and declares us justified—individually.
Romans 10:6 NASB
“But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: ‘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). [8] But what
does it say? ‘THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN
YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART’—that is,
the word of faith which we are preaching.” These three verses are all citations
from Deuteronomy chapter thirty—roughly so, they are not exact quotations. Paul
is taking these certain statements and applying them to make the application to
the current situation.
In Deuteronomy chapter
twenty-eight there is a rehearsal of the judgments God will bring on
Jesus has come. He has given
sufficient witness of who He is and what He did for us. So man has no excuse
and can’t say it is too difficult and he doesn’t understand. God has said it
has been made very clear. The issue is volition. But the life that Paul is
talking about in the context of Romans 10 is not eternal life in terms of being
justified, it is the life that comes to a justified believer who is continuing
to walk in the light, abide in Christ, walk by the power of the Holy Spirit,
and studying and applying God’s Word in his life. That is the analogy with the
Old Testament. It is not talking about moving from spiritual death to spiritual
life but moving from carnal death to spirituality, to walking by means of the
Holy Spirit. The overall context of Deuteronomy chapter thirty has to do with
the ultimate restoration of
That is the opening
context. If the opening context has to do with physical deliverance of