What is saving faith? (Rom. 10:1-4)
 |
| The Hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees, Illustration in the Bowyer Bible |
Let me begin with a question: what is saving faith? Well, one could respond to that be asking, does it even make sense to call faith saving? The answer of course is, yes, for our Lord told the woman who was a sinner, “Thy sins are forgiven,” and “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Lk. 7:48, 50). Clearly there is such a thing as a faith that saves for this is the language that our Lord uses. And the salvation there had to do with the forgiveness of sins. This faith has to do with salvation in the sense of being saved from the guilt and grip of sin.
In the same way, Paul was praying for his kinsmen to be saved, and as the context makes clear, they were unsaved because they were unbelieving. Paul praying for them to be saved was Paul praying for them to believe that they might be saved, and, like the woman in Luke 7, by that faith to have the forgiveness of sins.
But we could ask this question from another direction: does it make sense to speak of saving faith, or is all faith saving? Is faith in and of itself saving? The answer of the Bible is, again, no. There is such a thing, as the apostle James reminds us, as a dead faith. Such a faith may make claims to belief in God, sincerity and devotion in religious practice, but even so it is a useless faith, a faith of devils. The apostle writes, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (Jam. 2:17).
Hence, it is a legitimate question: what is saving faith? Since not all faith is saving, it therefore becomes important to know what are the distinguishing characteristics of saving faith? What is that faith which is the true evidence of election and redemption and regeneration? What is that faith by which we receive the righteousness of God? What is saving faith?
I believe that we have an answer to that question here in the first four verses of Romans 10. Actually, it is answered throughout the tenth chapter, a chapter in which Paul is continuing to wrestle with the reality that so many of the Jews are lost and outside the church. Why is this the case? Well, one answer is that they are not chosen by God. That’s the answer of chapter 9. Election explains why some Jews believe and others didn’t. But at the end of chapter 9, and throughout chapter 10, we see that Paul is giving another answer from the point of view of faith. Why are they lost? Why are they outside the church? It is also true to say that it’s because they didn’t believe the gospel. Chapter 9 gives us the reason from the standpoint of the sovereignty of God. Chapter 10 gives us the reason from the standpoint of human responsibility to put our faith in the saving promise of God in Christ to be saved.
In light of this, we can divide chapter 10 into three basic parts. In the verses which we will be looking at this morning, verses 1-4, the apostle address the salvation Israel lacks. In verses 5-17, the salvation Israel needs, and in verses 18-21, the salvation Israel rejects. In the first part, we’ve already looked at verse 1 and Paul’s prayer for Israel that they might be saved. Then in verses 2-3 he shows us why they are not saved, why they lack salvation. There are three reasons: first, they are ignorant of the righteousness of God; second, they are going about to establish their own righteousness; third, they are not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God, which is Christ (4).
In the second part, verses 5-17, the salvation that Israel needs, Paul argues that salvation is by faith and not by the works of the law. It is not by the works of the law, since it is only in the doing of them that we can be saved, which is clearly impossible (5). But then the apostle goes on to argue that salvation is by faith, which is not a way of works. It’s not by our effort but Christ’s (6-7). The confession of saving faith is not a confession of our doing and achievement but of the Reigning and Resurrected Lord Jesus (8-10). And the promise of the gospel is that all who believe on him will have no disappointment (11), because there is no distinction for those who believe (12), and that there will be no dismissal for those who come to Christ in believing prayer (13). This prayer is then traced back through faith to the hearing of faith to the messenger who gives the gospel (14-17). Indeed, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (17).
Finally, the apostle speaks to the sad reality of the salvation that Israel rejects. Though they have heard the gospel (16, 18), and though they were warned (19-20), yet they were hardened (21) and rejected the gospel. Hence they are unsaved (1). This will set up Paul’s topic in the eleventh chapter, for though the present reality of Israel was such a sad story, Paul teaches that the future of Israel is bright and full of hope.
So while chapter 9 of Romans helps us to remember that all our salvation rests upon the sovereign purpose of God, chapter 10 reminds us of the pressing necessity of faith in Christ as he is revealed to us in the gospel. You could say that the theme verse of chapter 9 is verses 16: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” At the same time, you can say that the theme verse of chapter 10 is verse 17: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
We return then to the question: what is this saving faith that comes by hearing? Praise God that he does not leave us to work this out for ourselves. He has spoken in his word in a very direct way as to what constitutes Biblical, or saving, faith. Isn’t the Lord good? He hasn’t just spoken to us in nature; he is speaking to us in his clear, authoritative, inerrant, and sufficient word. That’s what the book of Romans is. This is not just the musings of a philosopher or scholar. These are the words of an apostle of Jesus Christ and who bears his authority in the things that he writes. And the Lord has preserved his word for us through the years and given us the Holy Spirit to understand it. So that’s how I want us to hear this. Let’s not just hear this as a lesson. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ to his church through his apostle. He summons us to trust in him. He calls us to exercise a faith that pleases him. And like a faithful Shepherd and teacher, he not only gives us a positive picture of faith, but also a negative one. He shows us both what it is and what it is not.
So let me address the question in two parts. First, what it is not, and then second, what it is.
What saving faith is NOT
Now I am going to say some things that true, saving faith is not. But I don’t want you to think that Biblical faith lacks these things. Rather, it is that Biblical faith is not defined by these things. The things I am going to mention are actually things that faith has, but they are also things that you can have without having true faith. As in, humans are bipeds, but not every biped is a human. The problem is that people can rest in these things without ever coming to reckon with the fact that they have never truly believed in Christ. The three things I’m going to talk about here, because they are in the text, are zeal, knowledge, and good works. Now I believe that Biblical faith is a zealous faith, is a knowledgeable faith, and produces good works. But they don’t define it. You can have zeal, knowledge, and do good stuff, and still be lost. So we must not characterize true, Biblical faith by these things. We must beware that we do not rest in a false sense of security, thinking that we have Biblical faith when we don’t.
First of all, we see from this text that faith is not defined by religious zeal. Note what Paul says here: “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:1-2). Here were people that have zeal for God, but these are the very same people that Paul is asking God to save! Religious zeal in itself is not an evidence of election or grace. It is not an evidence of a true and saving faith. You can possess a sincere, religious zeal, and still be on your way to hell.
There are examples of this in the Bible. Paul was such an example before he was converted to Christ. He reminds us “how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:13-14). He tells us that his zeal was evident most in the persecution of the church (see also Phil. 3:6). Our Lord tells us that the Pharisees were zealous for God, even though he pronounces a woe upon them for it: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Mt. 23:15). I mean, that’s zeal! And yet, it would have been better if they had just stayed at home!
It is probably worth saying that zeal is not necessarily a good thing in and of itself. We can sometimes think that as long as we’re doing something for the Lord and zealous for him and his cause and kingdom, it must be good. That’s not necessarily true. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing the wrong thing. I mean, the word of God does say in fact that there are times we need to just be still and know that he is God. Now that doesn’t mean that we use this as an excuse to do nothing at all. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be zealous for the Lord. But neither should we think that zeal in and of itself is good. Sometimes it’s bad.
We need to have discernment here. You shouldn’t measure the genuineness of someone’s faith by how busy they are for the Lord. There are some people who are very busy for the Lord, but they are basically just wrecking balls in the church. They are like fire that has gotten out of control. As Lloyd-Jones points out in his sermon on this text, zeal, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master, and when it gets out of control, it can actually do damage. There are examples of this even in the church. For example, there are people who have portrayed the Christian life as if you’re not worth much if you’re not praying seven hours a day or preaching on a street corner or giving your life in some war-torn African village, when the fact of the matter is that maybe a non-descript life in the suburbs quietly caring for your family is the way God has called you to be salt and light in this world. Be careful how you wield zeal in the service of God and especially in terms of how you measure the faith of someone else. Remember that it’s a good servant but a bad master!
So zeal for God is not evidence of election. Its presence doesn’t mean that true faith has been wrought in the heart. However, let me just say that true faith ought to be zealous for God. But we’re not zealous in order to please God; we’re zealous because it’s the natural response to the generosity and goodness of God’s grace to us in Jesus Christ. Listen to the way the apostle puts it to the Romans: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). Now that phrase, “not slothful in business” means “to be not slack in zeal” (see ESV for example). On the other hand, we are to be “fervent in spirit” as we are “serving the Lord.” How do we serve the Lord? Not with slackness, not with a lack of zeal, but with a fervency of spirit, given to us by the Holy Spirit.
Now there is another reason why we need to hear this. It is because so many Christians are sloppy in the way they think of the work of God in the hearts of people. We are so ready to think that just because someone is zealous for God they must be right. No, the fact of the matter is that they may be wrong, and so wrong as to need to be saved!
But second, this text shows us that saving faith is not defined by religious knowledge. Now you may be looking at the text and think that I have got it backwards! Paul doesn’t say that they have knowledge but that they are ignorant! Here is what he says: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:2-3). They don’t have knowledge; they are ignorant; that is their problem.
And indeed it was. But the thing I want to point out is that these were not people who were ignorant of the Bible. Paul is not talking about Gentiles here; he’s talking about Israelites. He’s talking about people like himself who were immersed in the study of the Scriptures. In his defense of himself after being arrested in the temple, he tells the Jews there, “I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day” (Acts 22:3). He tells us, “My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; Which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify, that after the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee” (Acts 24:4-5). All this education and upbringing involved a lot of study of the Scripture. Paul didn’t become Biblically literate after becoming a Christian. He carried that with him from his days as a Pharisee into his life as a Christian.
However, Paul was simultaneously ignorant! Here is what he says to Timothy: “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:12-13).
How do you put these two things together? Well, it is the product of the fact that knowledge of the Bible doesn’t necessarily mean that you understand it. Jesus told the Sadducees, “Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” (Mk. 12:24). Again, they knew the Scriptures in the sense that they read it and could recite it. They thought they understood. But our Lord looks at them and tells them that they did not know them or understand them. They missed the point of the Law!
And that is what Paul is getting at here. The whole Law pointed to Christ (Rom. 10:4), but the Jews couldn’t see that: “And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart” (2 Cor. 3:13-15).
So here’s the deal: it is possible to be very familiar with the Bible and yet be blind to its message. This is not just the case for Jews in Paul’s day; it’s also true for people in ours. Just because you can quote chapter and verse doesn’t mean you are saved; it doesn’t mean you have true faith. Be careful that you don’t judge yourself (or others) on that basis. Don’t rest in a head knowledge of Bible facts and doctrine. That in itself is not saving. You can have that, as Paul did before he was converted, and yet be ignorant! You can have that, like the Sadducees, and err, not knowing the Scriptures neither the power of God.
Now at the same time, I’m not saying that Biblical faith is some amorphous touchy-feely kind of thing. Biblical faith is inseparable from knowledge. There is something that has to be known before it can be believed. There is a message that is definite that faith is based on. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. There is content to that word. In fact, knowledge is a necessarily element of faith. But it is not the only thing about it. If you just have knowledge and that knowledge is not wedded to a heart-felt assent to the word of God which produces trust in Jesus Christ as he is revealed to us in the gospel, then it’s not Biblical faith. It’s not saving faith.
Third, this text shows us that saving faith is not defined by religious works. Note what the apostle says. He says that they were “going about to establish their own righteousness, [and] have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:3). Busyness for God is not proof that one is saved. Again, you have Christ pronouncing a woe on Pharisees who would circle the earth just to make one proselyte. Well, these people that Paul is talking about here were “going about,” that is, they were busy doing stuff for God. The stuff they were doing was seeking to establish their own righteousness. Now the way that they were trying to do that was by seeking to gain the favor of heaven by obedience to the law of Moses. So we’re not even talking about Muslims and Hindus here, who are seeking to establish their own righteousness too, but they’re not basing it on the word of God but on false prophets and fake scriptures. But Paul says that, nevertheless, even though these people were, they were not saved!
In fact, the word that Paul uses here, which is translated in the KJV as “going about” is a word which actually means to seek and to strive for something. They weren’t just casually trying to get this done. They were bending their whole souls towards this thing. If you want to know what this looked like, I would point you to the rich young ruler, who, when the Lord asked him if he had kept the Ten Commandments, he replied that he had kept them all from his youth up. And yet Christ goes on to say that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man (like the young man in the story) to enter the kingdom of heaven!
Now it is true that true faith produces good works. “Faith worketh by love,” says the apostle (Gal. 5:6). We are saved by grace through faith, not by works, and yet, “we are his [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). In fact, the apostle John warns us, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth” (1 Jn. 1:6), and “hereby we do know that we know him [the Lord], if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (2:3-4).
But we have to beware of trusting in our good works and looking to them as the basis of our relationship with God. The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, apart from Christ, all our “good” works are simply examples of our own righteousness. They do not have the righteousness of God that justifies. To come before God in our own righteousness, no matter how busy we have been establishing it, is only to come before God in filthy rags.
The fact of the matter is that all who trust in their good works are actually ignorant of God’s righteousness. That is, they really do not understand what God requires, what kind of righteousness is needed to be right with God. None of us have that righteousness. None of us do! We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. God is holy, perfectly holy, and cannot look on iniquity. God demands perfection, and his law curses all who do not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them (Gal. 3:10). Those who are zealously pursuing a path to heaven paved with their own achievements and good works will find that they are building a house that will not stand even a second under the gaze of a holy God. That is not an evidence of true faith; it is quite the opposite. It means they are not submitting to the righteousness of God. It means that they are lost and still in need of salvation.
What then is saving faith? What does it look like?
What saving faith IS
First of all, we see from this text that saving faith is submitting to the righteousness of God. What does that mean? Fundamentally it means that we evaluate ourselves before God, not on the basis of our feelings, not on the basis of what other people say about us, not on the basis of our own or society’s standards of righteousness, but entirely on the basis of how God’s word evaluates us. It means that we let the sword of God’s word penetrate our souls and expose our hearts and lives. It means that we look at ourselves from the perspective of God’s law. It means that we not only allow God’s law to measure our actions but also our words and the desires of our hearts. The righteousness of God is revealed in his word. We look to that and evaluate ourselves by that standard.
It means that we not only understand what God requires of us in his word and law but also submit to it. It means that we acquiesce in the fact that we have fallen short of the glory of God. It means that we stop making excuses for ourselves and stop telling ourselves that we’re okay, that we’re basically nice people and “God would never send someone like me to hell.” We submit to God’s righteousness which condemns us! It means that we don’t try to argue with God or contest his judgment of us. It means that we enter a “guilty” plea before the bar of God’s justice.
God’s law says that we have sinned, and we say yes to that. It says that all who sin are worthy of eternal destruction, and we say yes to that. It says that we have sinned, not only in terms of our actions but even more importantly in our hearts, and we say yes to that. It means that we don’t try to run from God’s word that exposes the evil of our hearts, but we are willing to be exposed, so that we can be saved in God’s way.
And this will lead to, secondly, a cessation of trying to achieve salvation by our good works. Verse 4 is one of the most important verses in all of the book of Romans. Note what Paul says here: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” Those who believe – every one who believes! – stops trying to use the law of God as a way to get righteous before him. That is, every true believer has stopped trusting in their ability to save themselves.
“The end of the law”! The law here is God’s law. It is the perfect standard; it is a true standard. True faith recognizes that our unrighteousness is not just due to the fact that we haven’t been properly informed or that we’ve been trying to measure up to an inadequate standard, but that even when we have God’s law, we fall short, and infinitely short at that! The person who has saving faith is not the person who looks at God’s law and says, “Well, I can do that.” No, they have come to the end of trying to save themselves. They see themselves as bankrupt sinners in need of the grace of God. They recognize that only the grace of God will save them. They recognize that if they are to be righteous before God, it is going to have to be a gift from God.
And then it means trusting in Christ for that righteousness. Christ in the end of the law for righteousness. Why? Because Christ is our righteousness! The person with saving faith is a person who has found a perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ. They no longer look to the law because they have found righteousness in him (cf. Rom. 3:20-21).
Jesus is the only one who can make us right with God and he does make right with God all who trust in him. This is what the Bible says repeatedly; this is what the book of Romans is all about. This is what justification is: it is being made right with God, not on the basis of what we have done, but on the basis of what Christ has done. Jesus Christ really did keep the law of God perfectly when we have broken it. He is the Righteous One! And Jesus Christ really did absorb in his own person the judgment due to sinners when he died on the cross so that all who believe on him can have the forgiveness of their sins. Salvation is therefore only through Christ. It is only in him that we can be righteous. As Paul put it to the Philippians, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:8-9).
There is a promise here in verse 4: it is that all who believe are righteous in Christ. All! Again, to quote Paul in another context, as he is preaching in a synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39).
Praise God for a perfect righteousness that is given to us as a gift of grace in Christ! We don’t have to stitch one up ourselves. We don’t have to rely on the tattered rags of our own “righteousness.” We are justified, declared righteous before God, by the righteousness of God, given to us in Christ. It is not earned by works but received by faith. There is rest to be found here, isn’t there? We can rest in Christ. Do you? Or are you constantly anxious because of your sins? My friend, “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:7-9). “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (2:1-2).
Let us all find that rest in Christ. May we all be able to say, with the hymn-writer,
Comments
Post a Comment