Romans 10:17, NLT: So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ. Thus the first argument shows that the rejection was not total; the second, that it was but for a season. Or let's put on our asbestos suits and descend into hell and bring the Messiah back from the grave. The first is Moses himself. The best of them are but filthy rags: stow them all away in the coal-hole, and look to the merits of your Lord for salvation. Hereupon he enters upon the direct proofs, and first cites Hosea as a witness. In the first ten verses of Deuteronomy 30:1-20, Moses described the two paths that Israel could take: obedience that would result in great blessings or disobedience that would severely damage the nation. Not in our descending, but in Christ's descending our hope is to be found. It didnt surprise God or His prophets. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Surely if equal birth-tie could ensure community of blessing if a charter from God depended on being sprung from the same father and mother, there was no case so strong, no claim so evident, as that of Esau to take the same rights as Jacob. He did not say, "Do and thou shalt live, and yet there is another way." The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. Paul deals with that objection by quoting Isaiah 52:7. Rules for the conduct of Christians to one another, as members of the Christian church, Rom. There never can be solid peace with God without both. No wonder, if souls confound the two things together, that they never know deliverance in practice. Next, he enters upon another branch of the truth the Spirit not as a condition contrasted with flesh (these two, as we know, being always contrasted in Scripture), but as a power, a divine person that dwells in and bears His witness to the believer. On the contrary, he says Gods word is as close to a person as his own mouth and heart. Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety "against all ungodliness." Many times people say, "Oh, I wish I had more faith," and I think that oftentimes we almost insult God by our lack of faith.I have heard people pray, "Oh, Lord, help me to believe. You will find that story in the first volume of my sermons. Have you been born again?" that is, the word of faith, which we preach -- --that is, the word which men were to believe and obey for salvation (compare 1 Timothy 4:6). I have always felt obliged to the Cardinal for that admission; because the best is good enough for me, and since trusting in Jesus is the safest, I intend to stick to it even to the end. Alas! Such moral judgments will, no doubt, be used to leave man without excuse; they can never suit or satisfy God. There is nothing now to be done, but a work in us; this must be our care, to look to our heart and mouth. And how shall they preach unless they are sent? While there were people who could read, the ordinary first-century citizen depended rather on being able to hear something. (Morris). They have a zeal of God. (1-3) Israel's refusal to submit to the righteousness of God. You say, "Well, I can't reconcile that with God's divine election." Christ is the end of the ceremonial law; he is the period of it, because he is the perfection of it. The things about which we are in doubt are far fewer than we would like to think. Look at our dear, departed brother, Mr. Higgs, the last who has crossed the stream. The remnant proves, then, that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete, but rather a pledge of future favour. Birthright from the same father would let in Ishmael on the one hand, as from both parents it would secure the title of Esau on the other. Then he enlarges, and points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. The man who, being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Christian baptism, would assert any license to sin because it is in his nature, as if it were therefore an inevitable necessity, denies the real and evident meaning of his baptism. Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. In our concern to understand what the apostle is saying about righteousness, justification, and the like we ought not to overlook his tremendous concentration on God." (Morris) i. It is our duty truly and earnestly to desire the salvation of our own. The facts were so well known by the preaching of the apostles, that they might be said to be in every mans mouth. - BN. "The man has not got anything like settled peace with God; perhaps he hardly knows his sins forgiven; but at least he is a saved soul." So I have found by my making over my other grandchildren she'll come elbowing her way in to get close to Grandpa. In heaven it will fill us perfectly; but there is no more perfect joy there, nor anything. It is evident, therefore, that dispensational position will not suffice for God, who holds to His own unchangeable estimate of good and evil, and who judges the more stringently according to the measure of advantage possessed. The meaning is, the doctrine is not difficult to be understood and embraced. The thing is done for us, and we have only to accept. Your name is not on the list." They have plenty of, Zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, iii. Second, he cites Joel 2:32: "All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered." "Always remember to keep your voice down," said another. d. Believe in your heart: Mere intellectual agreement with the facts of the cross and the resurrection is not enough. Do not suppose that you can be a believer and conceal your faith. (that is, to bring Christ again from the dead.) Romans 10:17, ESV: So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But they are not even doing the works that God requires in the offering of a sacrifice. 1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Did the Jew fancy that the gospel makes very light of Abraham, and of the then dealings of God? Retrieve. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Changes will take effect once you reload the page. Indeed they have. "He resisted," says the writer, "even to the agonies of death, for the law's sake.". Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Moreover, He gave up the knowledge of God that had been handed down from father to son (ver. Their problem is not that they have not heard or understood it, but that they have refused to believe it (see v. 16). It is a great piece of condescension for a proud heart to be content to be beholden to free grace; we are loth to sue sub forma pauperis--as paupers. "For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. c. Establish their own righteousness: This effort shows Israels lack of knowledge and that they are ignorant of Gods righteousness. As they watched him rising higher, and yet higher, at last a cloud received him: he has gone up to the Father's throne, as the sinner's Savior: at the throne he stands to-day to intercede for sinners, and from that throne he bends to comfort those who come to him. He is not studying an historical personage, however great; he is living with a real presence. It is near and not hard to attain. This Good News is readily available to anyone who will receive it freely from God through Christ. This occupies the central part of the chapter, which then closes with the unfailing and faithful power of God for us in all our experiences here below. c. But the righteousness of faith: This is based on Jesus, and we dont have to work to get Jesus. The apostle refers to Isaiah to show that God would "lay in Zion a stumbling-stone." What the apostle had given him in fulness was the great truth, however fundamental it may be, that I am entitled, and even called on in the name of the Lord Jesus, to know that I am dead to sin; not that I must die, but that I am dead that my baptism means nothing less than this, and is shorn of its most emphatic point if limited merely to Christ's dying for my sins. (d) In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures it is the regular translation of the divine name, Jahveh or Jehovah. Yes, but this is another principle. The consequences are thus pursued; first, the general place of the believer now, in all respects, in relation to the past, the present, and the future. To call Jesus kurios ( G2962) was to count him unique. And we hear it on all sides. Moses does not allow any person to dream that under the law he can be saved in any other way than by perfect obedience thereto. And where? In fact, when Paul wrote the letters to Timothy and Titus, he spoke of the faith several times (see 1 Timothy 1:19 b; 3:9; 4:1, 6; 5:8; 6:10, 12, 21; 2 Timothy 3:8; 2 Timothy 4:7; Titus 1:13; Titus 2:2). That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. But this may be comparatively a light question. The practical part follows, wherein we find, 1. Romans 1:1-32. I thank God he could say that of my religion: it did this for my dear friend it made him a happy man, whose pleasure it was to please others: and now he has passed away in full sunlight into a still brighter noon. He shall never have cause to repent his confidence in reposing such a trust in the Lord Jesus. The information in this verse is a rather loose quotation from Deuteronomy 30:12-14 (it would be best to read these verses). His pathway follows; and he shows that the very troubles of the road become a distinct matter of boast. Cold desires do but beg denials; we must even breathe out our souls in every prayer. Therefore they are not saved. That is the first necessity for the sinner with God. The word of faith - The doctrine which requires faith, that is, the gospel; compare 1 Timothy 4:6. What could be conceived closer or more even than this? Undoubtedly there are fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and God values them I will not say from man, but from His saints; but here it is what, according to the apostle, God has for man. Whatever man in all the world, throughout all the ages, shall come and trust himself on Christ shall never be ashamed of having done so. There is no mystery or obscurity about it. But what saith it? Click to enable/disable Google Analytics tracking. One might know a most real clinging to Jesus; but this would not set the heart at ease with God. Still, it is "man" not yet exactly the Jew, but man who had profited, it might be, by whatever the Jew had; at the least, by the workings of natural conscience. "What shall we then say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? But this one is a special little angel. It was laid down that no food must be cooked on the Sabbath. But this great work of Christ was not and could not be a mere vindication of God; and we may find it otherwise developed in various parts of Scripture, which I here mention by the way to show the point at which we are arrived. Even in their best estate the saved ones need their Lord: even if we walk in the light as God is in the light, and have fellowship with him, we still sin, and still the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Not, of course, that the Roman saints were in this condition; but that God, writing by the apostle to them, seizes the opportunity to lay bare man's state as well as His own grace. The direction is "unto all;" the application is, of course, only to "them that believe;" but it is to all them that believe. But still, all day long His hand stretched out to the Jew who refused to come God's way through Jesus Christ. The solution is given elsewhere in the Bible: Get back to what brought us together in the first placethe combination of the word of Christ and devotion to Him, to the love . 3. Not so, says the apostle. He still loves the Jews, independent as far as God's way of righteousness and all, but God still loves them, and thus, He blesses you, and says, "Oh, come and receive the kingdom and into the joys and the blessings and all." The "word of faith" is the message of justification by the system of "faith" as opposed to the Law. Yet note, that Paul opens this up into two things. But this is not all; and the objection of the Jew gives occasion for the apostle to bring out a fuller display of what God is. Jewish pretensions were therefore disposed of; not here by new and fuller revelations, but by this divinely skilful employment of their own Old Testament Scriptures. The 14th verse in Deuteronomy 30:1-20 completes the thought by saying that the Jews could do what God wanted them to do - that thou mayest do it. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. But if you and I are as he was, "poor sinners, and nothing at all," we may, with firm and resolute grip, lay hold upon the other line, "But Jesus Christ is my all in all." No, if by keeping the law, then that encourages boasting, but it is eliminated because I am saved just through simple faith in Jesus Christ. We know not how low he went, but we are told that "he descended into the lower parts of the earth." a. Thy salvation rests in Jesus, rest thou in Jesus. The Holy Ghost, who now gives the soul its consciousness of deliverance from its place in Christ, is also the witness that the body too, the mortal body, shall be delivered in its time. First Moses says: I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation, (i) There is the ignorance which comes from neglect of knowledge. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever.". A soul may as truly, no doubt, be put into relationship with God be made very happy, it may be; but it is not what Scripture calls "peace with God." They become angry and envious when they see their supposedly ignorant Gentile neighbours accepting the gospel, but they themselves will not listen to it (19-21). The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. "The just shall live by faith" (not by law). We may request cookies to be set on your device. And by the foolish nation I will anger you.". They have not all obeyed the gospel. Possession of it is not dependent on some act of Herculean proportions, such as ascending into the heavens or crossing the sea. Ask those who have seen them die. But what does it say? " A man may be well aware that some habit, some indulgence, some way of life, some friendship, some association must have disastrous results; but he may simply refuse to look at the facts. 15:18-24). Go not to the loom to weave a righteousness. He told me how that they now feel that their good works will make them acceptable to God. This is where so many religious people even sincere Christians go astray. The Christian must believe not only that Jesus lived, but also that he lives. The saving work is done, done by him who was anointed of the Lord to do it. Isaiah was very bold, and he said, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that ask not after me. For they're ignorant of God's righteousness and they are going about to establish their own righteousness.I had a Jewish fellow one night as we were talking say to me, "Well, Chuck, my father is a very religious man. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. It is not among the Gentiles, but in the honoured centre of the polity of Israel. The way of justification and salvation has in it no such depths or knots as may discourage us, no insuperable difficulties attending it but, as was foretold, it is a high-way, Isaiah 35:8. But there is more, which Paul afterwards insisted on. But there is more than this in Romans 4:1-25 He takes up a third feature of Abraham's case; that is, the connection of the promise with resurrection. The shedding of His blood was absolutely necessary: without that precious expiation all else had been vain and impossible. Several general exhortations proper for all Christians, Rom. (iii) The third objection is a restatement of the first: But, what if I insist that they never got the chance to hear? "The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? "His flesh was torn off by the whips, and he streamed down with blood, and his flanks were laid open by wounds." The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. Instead of having to go to great lengths to achieve righteousness by the law, we can immediately receive righteousness by faith, by trusting in the word of the gospel. No prayers, or tears, are wanted to bring him down: he has already come and is near at hand. Pauls intent here is to use the same words to express the same idea about the gospel instead of the law. Even the word of faith; the gospel and the promise of it, called the word of faith because it is the object of faith about which it is conversant, the word which we believe;--because it is the precept of faith, commanding it, and making it the great condition of justification;--and because it is the ordinary means by which faith is wrought and conveyed. I have lost a friend tender and true to me, and my heart is too full for utterance. First of all, the groundwork of it is laid in the first four verses, the last of them leading into every-day walk. for what follow are manifestly his words, in Deuteronomy 30:14. the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; which is to be understood not of the law, for Moses himself is not speaking of the law only, but either of the whole word of God, both law and Gospel; or particularly of the Gospel, which holds forth those special blessings and promises of grace, pardon of sin, and circumcision of the heart, which are mentioned in the context, as what should be bestowed upon the people of the Jews in the latter days; and so is rightly applied by the apostle to the then dispensation, and is to be understood of the Gospel; which was nigh both in the ministration of it, by the apostles, to Jews and Gentiles, and in the application and experience of it; it was not only "in the mouth" of the preachers, but also of the hearers of it, by a hearty and sincere confession; and "in [their] hearts", being attended with the power of God, and received in the love of it, was truly believed in, and cordially embraced; that is, the word of faith. Clearly, then, such ground is untenable. What is the righteousness which is of the law? (ii) There is the ignorance which comes from wilful blindness. The Gentiles did not seem to him to be in the same position as the Jews at all. The same was true of the gospel. of it. Do you mean to tell me that because my father does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah that he is lost?" It is our duty that we must not, it is our privilege that we shall not, be ashamed of our faith in Christ. But that wasnt their only problem. Have done with doings, and feelings, and trust yourself with Christ. 14, 15). Romans 4:1-8,13-17. Truly they had a zeal for the law. The rest of the chapter (7-25) is an instructive episode, in which the impotence and the misery of the renewed mind which attempts practice under law are fully argued out, till deliverance (not pardon) is found in Christ. 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