“The word of faith which we preach” (Rom. 10:5-13)

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We live in a day in which technology gives authors and podcasters and social media influencers the ability to generate enormous followings.  Sometimes it’s because they entertain their audiences, but sometimes it’s because they have some wisdom and say useful stuff.  There are people out there with a lot of knowledge about certain things, and they get a reputation for being generally reliable and insightful as well as being able to say the right thing in the right way.  And so they obtain a following.

I think an example of this in the Christian world is Dr. Albert Mohler whose “The Briefing” has elicited quite a following, and for the right reasons.  Mohler frankly has a better grasp on the history of ideas and movements than most, enabling him to evaluate the news from a Christian worldview in a responsible and reliable way.  From the bit of research I did, a conservative estimate is that he probably pulls in around 100,000 listeners per month.

His audience, however, is nothing compared to Joe Rogan who pulls in probably 11-15 million listeners per episode!  His ability to interview the right people in an entertaining and interesting way has made him one of the primary social media influencers of our day.  But the point I want to make is that these guys are not just producing videos; they are discussing ideas and talking about the news.  And people are interested in what they have to say.

Now what about the church?  Should people be interested in what the church has to say?  Yes, they should, and for one very obvious reason: God has given the church a message.  This is not fantasy; it is a fact.  He has given us a written word, the Bible, a book which is composed by men who were not merely inspired the way Shakespeare was inspired; these are prophets, men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit, so that even though they each spoke in his own way, they wrote truth, infallibly and inerrantly and authoritatively.  And in this Book is a message that has been given to the church to preach to the world.  

I would argue that what God has to say through the church to the world is arguable infinitely more important than anything anyone else is talking about on YouTube or any other online platform.  It’s more important than politics, than wars or rumors of wars, or than the latest scientific discovery.  I’m not of course saying that any of those things are unimportant; I’m just arguing that whatever God has to say is, relatively speaking, so much more important that in comparison everything else is trivial.  

And what God is saying to the world today is not about AI and its possible problems or potential.  It’s not about the latest technology craze or the latest politician’s promise for a better world.  To be clear, I’m not saying that what God has to say has no implications about those things.  In fact, what God has to say has implications about everything.  But drawing implications from the things God has said is one thing.  However, what we ought to be asking first is, “What is it exactly that God has said in the first place?”  Before we even begin to think about the implications, what is the message itself?  What is it that the church with the Bible in its hand is to say to the world?

Again, wouldn’t you think that what God has to say, and what he does say, and what he tells us to say, is infinitely important?  Don’t you think that it ought to have our attention?  And don’t you want to know what it is?  Shouldn’t you?  Is it right to be more interested in what this or that public figure is up to than what God has to say?  Isn’t there something immoral and sick about us that makes us more excited to watch a good movie or listen to a fascinating podcast than to hear what God has to say to us in his word?  Surely we ought to want to hear what God says.  And it shouldn’t matter how it comes!  God has spoken; let men be silent!  Let us listen to what God has to say.  

Now here’s the thing: God does not come down on Mt. Sinai today to speak to us.  He did that once and the people begged God to just sent Moses back to tell them what he had to say.  And so that’s what God has done.  He sends prophets.  He sends apostles.  Ultimately he sent his Son, the Lord Jesus.  And the mission of the church today is to take the word of Christ, the word of the apostles and prophets, and tell it to the world.  And we do so through the preaching of the message that God has given to the church.  

This is what Paul is doing here in Romans 10.  He tells us in verse 8 about “the word of faith, which we preach.”  The word “preach” there is kerusso, which is the thing a kerux would do.  A kerux was the title given to individuals in the ancient world who were commissioned by a king to communicate his message to the populace.  A kerux didn’t speak his own message; he spoke the message of his king.  And the authority of the message didn’t depend upon the speaker but on the fact that it carried the authority of the king who commissioned him to speak his words.

This is the way Paul viewed himself.  He was a kerux for Jesus.  As he tells us at the beginning of this epistle, he is a slave, a servant of Jesus Christ.  He is not in this letter giving us his opinion on the state of things.  No, he is a commissioned apostle, sent by Jesus, to give his message.  This is what he preached, and this is what the church is to preach in every age.  Not our words, but the words of Christ, the words of God.  Words that are infinitely important, bearing ultimate authority, entirely true, and lifechanging for those who embrace it.

Note how Paul describes it in verse 8: “the word of faith.”  This is not the “word of faith” in the sense of words having power and forcing God to do whatever we want as long as we believe in it enough, like Kenneth Copeland and others in the “word of faith movement” argue.  No, this is a word of faith in the sense that the only appropriate response to the word of God is faith.  This is not us bending God to our will; this is us submitting ourselves to his (cf. ver. 3)!  Again, the only appropriate response to the divine message is to believe what God has said.  To do otherwise would be to call God a liar.  It is a word that calls for faith because faith is the only appropriate response to what God has to say.

What is it then that the church is to preach to the world?  What is the truth that we are to remind ourselves of, and which we will never outgrow?  It is “the word of faith.”  This is the message that God has given to the church and which the church is to give to the world.  This is the thing that is the most important thing we could possibly be talking about.  

What is it?  Paul explains what it is (and isn’t!) in verses 5-13, and this is what we want to look at together this morning together.  As we look at it, I just want to point out that this is not a message the Christian will ever outgrow.  Our whole life from beginning to end is to be based on it.  It is not a message that the church is to outgrow.  This is not a message that we need to disenthrall ourselves of.  It is not something that we have outgrown in the 21st century.  This was the message of the church in the first century, and it is still the message of the church today.  God does not change, and the fundamental needs of man have not changed.  This message is just as relevant today as it was when Paul first penned these words around the year A.D. 60.  It comes to us in four stages: law (5), gospel (6-8), response (9-10), and promise (11-13).

Law

Paul begins in verse 5, “For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.”  The apostle is quoting Leviticus 18:5 here, and is saying that on the law’s own terms, if you want to be justified (declared righteous) by the law, then you have to keep the law.  Obedience to the law is the only way we can be righteous and so gain life by the law.

Recall that the apostle has just said in verse 4 that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe, and the “for” at the beginning of verse 5 explains why that is so.  Christ is the end of the law for righteousness because the righteousness based on the law is fundamentally a reliance upon our performance, not a reliance upon the achievement of Christ.  The “righteousness which is of the law” is seeking eternal life by doing the law.  It’s a seeking after our own righteousness rather than relying on the righteousness of Christ.  You see, you can’t trust in Christ for righteousness while seeking to establish your righteousness before God based on you keeping the commandments.  As Paul would put it to the Galatians, “if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:21).  You can’t be trusting in your own keeping of the law of God and trust in Christ fulfilling the law for you at the same time.  That is the connection between verse 4 and 5 here in Romans 10.

Now some folks have countered this interpretation by arguing that Moses never intended Lev. 18:5 to mean that obedience to the law of God is a way to gain justification and eternal life.  They argue that the life gained by obedience there is a life that pleases God and therefore under his blessing.  And I would agree that in its context that’s what the Leviticus passage was intended to convey.  What Paul is doing is quoting Lev. 18:5 as it was intended and interpreted by many of his Pharisaic contemporaries.  They were going about the establish their own righteousness (Rom. 10:3), and they were doing this by an attempt to keep the law (9:31).  What Paul is reminding them is that if you want to gain righteousness by the law, if you want to gain eternal life by the law, then you have to do it on the law’s own terms.  And the terms of the law are perfect obedience.  The law blesses those who obey, and it curses those who don’t.  The man how does these things lives by their obedience.  They also die by their disobedience!

The problem is that this is an impossible standard to meet in terms of gaining God’s acceptance.  For none of us is without sin.  We have all failed to fully obey God’s law.  Justification by the law will only lead to disappointment and utter failure.  A person who thinks they are good enough to gain eternal life on the basis of their life choices is delusional.  

But this is not only an impossible standard; it is also an inescapable standard.  This is why Paul brings this up.  We sometimes want to forget that the standard by which we will be judged is the standard of God’s law.  Not the laws of the state.  We don’t get into heaven through the approval of men, or by the acceptance of the culture.  We can easily forget the warning of our Lord to the Pharisees of his day: “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Lk. 16:15).  Just because people like you doesn’t mean God is pleased with you.  When it comes to gaining eternal life, the only righteousness that counts  is God’s righteousness, and that righteousness is defined by God’s law.  It is an inescapable standard.

Are you thinking that you are okay because you are a good person?  Is your trust in that?  Are you relying on the fact that you have done good things?  My friend, let me remind you that if you are going about to establish your own righteousness, the only righteousness that counts is a righteousness that God approves, and that is the righteousness defined by God’s law.  The one who does those things – actually obeys – shall live by them.  And let me remind you that the first commandment, the primary one, is to love God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind.  It means that you have no other gods before you than the God of the Bible.  Can you say that that describes you?  Have you really loved God with all your heart?  Is it true that you’ve had no idols?  Is your life characterized by thankfulness to God?  Do you trust in him?  

And then it means that you love neighbor as yourself.  As yourself!  If you judge by the way people drive today, I don’t think most people love their neighbors as themselves.  It’s every man for himself and if you get in their way, God help you!  No, we are all basically selfish people.  We will help others when it suits us.  But love them as ourselves?  Do we really?  Why then do so many marriages implode?  Martin Luther said to husbands that as our wife is our nearest neighbor, she deserves our greatest love.  Well, if husbands and wives obeyed this commandment, would so many marriages be in trouble?  If we’re honest with ourselves, there are a thousand ways we have disobeyed this commandment.  “All seek their own,” said Paul and it is still true today.  No, we have not kept God’s law.  How can we expect life by it?

Of course, our Lord also reminds us that God’s law penetrates to the heart.  In the Sermon on the Mount, he reminds us that it’s not enough to not murder someone; we must guard our hearts against sinful anger.  Sinful anger, according to our Lord, is heart murder.  Nor is it enough to simply not commit adultery.  We must guard our hearts against lust.  Lust is adultery of the heart, our Lord tells us.  Have we kept the law on the level of the heart?  Remember what Paul said back in chapter 2 of Romans: “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (2:16).  God knows your heart and he examines it with a knowledge that is better even than our own.  

My friend, are you going about to establish your own righteousness? It can only be because you don’t really appreciate the standard of God’s law.  It can only be because you are ignorant of God’s righteousness (10:3).  It is a wonderful blessing when God opens our eyes to see our sinfulness.  And that happens when he opens our eyes to see ourselves in the light of his law.  Have you?  Do you feel condemned by the law of God?  Well, that is good because it is only when the law condemns us and exposes our utter lack of righteousness that we will be open to the gospel.  The law becomes our schoolmaster to drive us to Christ.  And that is the subject of the next few verses.

Gospel

In verses 6-8, Paul quotes another part of the law, from Deuteronomy 30:11-14, not to give an exposition of the text, but use the language of the text to illustrate the finished work of Christ.  In the Deuteronomy passage, the point was the accessibility of the law: “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”  Now Paul takes this language and uses it to argue for the accessibility of the gospel because Christ has come, died for us, and risen from the dead.  The work of salvation is done, and the work of redemption is finished. We don’t need to keep the law because Christ fulfilled it for us.

Here is how Paul employs the passage: “But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)” (Rom. 10:6-7).  Note the contrast between the righteousness of the law in verse 5, which depends on our obedience, and the righteousness of faith which trusts in Christ’s finished work.

The point is that we don’t need to act as if Christ has not come down from heaven and become incarnate and kept the law on our behalf, keeping all its commandments and satisfying all its demands in his life and death.  We don’t have to ask who will ascend into heaven to bring Christ down as if he hasn’t come, because he has come.  And we don’t have to ask who will descend into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead as if he didn’t rise from the dead, because he has risen form the dead.  Christ coming down and Christ rising from the dead are the bookends of his life on earth and comprise his work of redemption for us.  It’s all been done.  Those who seek life from the law really are acting as if there is no redeemer.  They are acting as if Christ had never come. They are acting as if Christ never rose from the dead.  “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20).

And this is the gospel.  My friends, the gospel is not a twelve-step program.  It’s not a series of steps towards psychological wholeness.  The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ did what we cannot do.  It is the good news that the eternal Son of God became incarnate, put himself under the law for our sakes, fulfilled all its demands in our place, died for our sins, and rose from the dead having obtained eternal redemption for us.  As Paul puts it to the Corinthians: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory  what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:1-4).  We need righteousness, and the gospel message is that righteousness has been achieved for sinners only by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why the righteousness by which we are justified before God is not our righteousness.  It’s God’s righteousness (cf. Rom. 1:17; 3:21).  It’s God’s righteousness because it’s Christ’s righteousness (5:18).  He has come from heaven and finished the work and now is ascended back up to heaven victoriously seated at the Father’s right hand.

That is the news that the gospel brings.  “But what saith it?” says Paul.  This is what it says: “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (8).  Christ has come and this is what is preached and announced in the gospel.  Now the question is, what will we do with it?  We must believe it (for it is the word of faith).  And this brings us our next point.

Response 

The news of the gospel demands a response, and the only appropriate response is outlined for us in verses 9-10: “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. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”   The response demanded is the response of faith and confession.  

Faith and confession are put together because a true faith will confess Christ.  Paul is not saying that a person is not justified until they mouth the words, “I believe in Jesus.”  What he’s saying is that we are justified by faith and justifying faith is a confessing faith.  As our Lord put it, “Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Lk. 12:8-9).

Now I want us to pay particular attention to what is believed and what is confessed.  Note, first, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus.”  This is parallel to believing that Jesus rose from the dead, and in the NT we see one as the evidence of the other (1:4; Acts 2:36; Eph. 1:19-21).  Resurrection proves lordship (14:9).  This is very significant.

First of all, it is a recognition of the divinity of Jesus Christ.  The word here (kyrios) is used more than 6000 times in the ancient Greek OT to translate the Tetragrammaton (Yahweh, the covenantal name for God, translated most often in our English translations as LORD).  In Phil. 2:9, “Lord” is the “name which is above every name.”  In verse 13 of our text, Christ as Lord is the object of prayer, and this is also significant since prayer to anyone other than God was to a Jew, as someone put it, “utterly repugnant” (also note the OT context of the verse 13, which is Joel 2:32).  C.E.B. Cranfield puts it this way: “We take it for granted that, for Paul, the confession that Jesus is Lord meant the acknowledgment that Jesus shares the name and the nature, the holiness, the authority, power, majesty, and eternity of the one and only true God” (Cranfield, Romans [ICC, vol 2], p. 529).  In other words, you cannot believe and be saved if you cannot confess Jesus as the eternal Son of God who is Lord over all.

Second, it is a recognition of ownership, of belonging to Jesus as a servant belong to his master, so that mere confession with no regard to the claims of Christ on the life is spurious and absurd.  Remember Paul’s confession in 1:1; it must be the confession of every one who claims the name of Christ. 

Sometimes you will hear well-meaning Christians put down “Lordship salvation” as if it is introducing a new kind of legalism into Christianity.  But my friends, it is not.  There is no other kind of salvation; if you do not receive Christ as Lord, and if your life does not bear out that relationship, then you are not saved.  For the stunning announcement, “you will be saved” (9,cf. ver. 10, 11, 13) is only given to those who receive and believe in Jesus as the risen Lord.

This is where a good understanding of the total picture the Bible gives us of salvation is so important.  Faith does not come out of nowhere.  It is the gift of God, created in the heart by the Holy Spirit who regenerates us and brings us out of a state of spiritual death.  In doing so, he makes us new creatures, gives us new affections, and begets in us new desires.  Faith is born in that context, so saving faith is also a holy faith.  Now it is true that it is not the nature of our faith that saves us, it is its object; but there is only one kind of faith that will receive the righteousness of God in Christ and that is a faith which is holy and which would never demur to receive Christ as Lord and to bow the knee to him in love and trust.  Is that true of you?

This faith that is called for in the gospel is a faith that believes that Christ is risen from the dead.  Of course, this assumes that Christ became incarnate, lived, and died, and then rose from the dead.  In other words, this is a faith that really does believe the message of the gospel.  It believes the facts about the life of Jesus.  It is not simply faith in Jesus; it is faith in Jesus as he is revealed to us in the Bible.

I say this because there are a lot of people want to take the name Christian who have invented a Jesus out of their own imagination.  For example, the Jesus of James Talarico is an invention of the progressive Christianity that he represents.  But it is not the Jesus of the Bible, and he is not a Christian on any Biblical standard.  The faith that he has is not Biblical faith, and it is not saving faith.  The promises that we see here and in the following verses are not promises given to people who believe in their own version of Jesus.  You must take him as he comes to us in the NT, or take him not at all.

The bottom line is that if you believe in this Jesus, you will be saved.  To be saved here means to be justified before God. It is faith unto righteousness. It means to have your sins forgiven and to have an eternal inheritance that will never be taken away.  It means to be adopted into the family of God and to have the right to call God your Father.  My friends, to have that kind of salvation is the best thing that can happen to anyone. And that brings us to our last point.

Promise 

The promise that those who believe will be saved is a breathtaking promise.  I just want to pause here for a moment and let us read those words again – this is the promise of God – “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” (9).  Thou shalt be saved.  My friend, that is God speaking.  Do you need a priest to tell you that?  Isn’t God’s word enough?  

However, we are frail creatures beset by doubts.  Often we find that our consciences assail us, and the devil piles on.  Sometimes, like poor Job, we also have miserable comforters that accuse us.  And so, thank the Lord, he also piles on promise after promise, and that is what we have here in verses 11-13.  There are three here.  The first is here in verse 11: “For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.”  This is a promise that Paul has quoted from the Septuagint translation of Isa. 28:16.

Shall not be ashamed of what?  It means that we shall not be ashamed of the trust we put in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. I think Paul expresses this perfectly in his words to Timothy: “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).  There are so many things (and people) in this world who will let you down.  But the Lord Jesus will never let anyone down who puts their trust in him.

Second, “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him” (12).  You may wonder if you can claim this promise, or is it just for some people who put their faith in Christ and call on his name?  And the answer of this verse is, yes, you can claim this promise.  The Lord is rich to all who call on him.  He bestows the riches of his grace and glory to who place their trust in him.  Jew or Greek, all may come and find welcome at the feet of Jesus.

And then finally, in verse 13: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Isn’t this a precious promise?  There are no limitations here: “whosoever”!  Anyone who truly calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.  Here, my friend, there is a firm foundation for assurance.  Not in your good works but in the gracious promise of Christ to all who come to him.

And this is the message that we are to preach.  This is the message given to the church.  This is the message we are to tell the world.  This is the message we are to preach to ourselves!  We never outgrow this.  We never get to a point where we do not need the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ.  Every day we get up, we need the gospel.  When we go to bed, we need the gospel.  We need it on Sunday and on every other day of the week.  And thank God, the grace of God in Christ is inexhaustible.  The salvation that we find in Christ is not something that we will come to the end of.  It is enough to bring you through life and to get you to heaven.  

So trust in him.  Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, believe that he has finished the work of redemption, and rest in his promises.