Well, today we will continue our study of Romans. We will read Romans 10:1–13, from the Darby Translation.
Brethren, the delight of my heart and my supplication, which I address to God for them, is for salvation.
For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
For Christ is the end of law for righteousness to every one that believes.
For Moses lays down in writing, The righteousness which is of the law, the man who has practiced those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness of faith speaks thus: Do not say in thine heart, Who shall ascend to the heavens? that is, to bring Christ down;
or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ up from among the dead.
But what says it? The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach:
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart is believed to righteousness, and with the mouth confession made to salvation.
For the Scripture says, No one believing on Him shall be ashamed.
For there is no difference of Jew and Greek; for the same Lord of all is rich towards all that call upon Him.
For every one whosoever who shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Shall we pray?
Lord, we are always grateful for Your words. We are so grateful that we have this Bible. Where would we be without the treasured Word of God? We bow in Your presence and ask You once again, as we consider these thirteen verses, that You would grant us light and revelation.
May Your words, which alone are spirit and life, be made alive to us this morning. We ask all these things in that wonderful, precious, and only name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, I think you know we have been spending some time together in Romans. I hope Romans is precious to you. It is probably the most fundamental and foundational book in all of the New Testament. Without Romans, we cannot live the Christian life.
Paul has given us this masterpiece to understand God’s ways, God’s works, and God’s will. So, I think this is a very precious book that we should all love and treasure. We should know it, think about it often, and meditate on it.
Today we are going to look at Romans 10:1–13—just these verses. Now, I am going to repeat some things, and I hope they will stick. One thing my professors told me in school is that, if you repeat things enough, people will get them. So, if you are upset with me over my repetition, that was my training. If you repeat it enough, eventually it will stick up here. Most hopefully, it will stick here. That is more important.
These three chapters in the middle, so to speak, are the ways of God. You might wonder where I get that from. It came to me one day when I was reading the end of these three chapters, in Romans 11:33:
O depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
That is what we are looking at: these untraceable ways of God—untraceable to the human mind, but not to the spirit.
There are two dominant things in this short section of thirteen verses. You must see them if you are going to understand the ways of God, see His ways, and walk in His ways.
There is only one righteousness acceptable to God. There is only one way of salvation that can lead to eternal life. Those are the two things with which Paul is dealing: the one and only righteousness that will satisfy God, and the one and only salvation that God has made available to bring us to the Father.
It is essential that we understand this. It is not our righteousness, and it is not our salvation. It is the divine way—God’s way. That is the secret of entering into the Christian life, living the Christian life, and being a living testimony among the people of God.
You remember John 14, when the Lord was about to go to the cross and return to His Father. He told them, “Believe in God, but also believe in Me.” He spoke of His Father’s house, with its many abodes, and said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I shall come again and bring you to Myself.”
Then He said, “You know where I go, and you know the way.” Of course, doubting Thomas could not get that. Spiritually, he was a little too thickheaded, like many of us. He said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and we do not know the way.”
The Lord Jesus gave those famous words in John 14:6:
I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but by Me.
I think that is tremendous. Compressed into this one answer of the Lord Jesus is the whole of the Christian life. There is no other way than Christ. There is no other truth than Christ. And there is only one true life.
There are not two alternatives. Well, there are in one sense: you can still have your own life and seek to save your own life, but it will not be a good ending. Or you can have that life which is forever, that life which is eternal, that life which is the life—the life illustrated in the first words of the Bible by the tree of life. That is what the Lord Jesus was talking about.
We will look at four points:
Something as grand as God’s righteousness may seem difficult—too difficult, perhaps incomprehensible, for you and me to enter into. But the Bible teaches otherwise. We need to understand the nearness of God’s righteousness and the simplicity of God’s righteousness.
Then, we need to understand the two essential elements of God’s salvation. Finally, Paul ends these thirteen verses on the note of the full assurance of salvation. There are particular words in these verses that caught my eye, caught my heart, and convinced me that this is the fullest divine assurance.
Let us begin with Paul’s desire. You remember verse 1:
Brethren, the delight of my own heart, and my supplication which I address to God for them, is for salvation.
Now, “them” there refers to Israel. His burden, desire, heart, and passion for his own brothers and sisters according to the flesh—the Jews—was so great that some versions describe it as a consuming desire.
I think that is rather remarkable. If you remember Paul’s history, the Jews sought to destroy him and kill him. Once, they left him for dead outside the city. They went against him, followed him, and tried to shut down his ministry throughout his life. The Judaizers tried to destroy him at every hand.
Now, if I were Paul, I would not have written this verse. I would not say that my consuming desire was for them. I think I would be praying for God’s judgment. But we see the difference in Paul, right? What a difference.
I happen to believe that this is what God is working in every man and woman. This is the divine desire. This is God’s way. He can be hated, disobeyed, and turned away from. We can be given to idols, yet His heart and His consuming desire toward us will never change.
This is what we see in these verses. The Wuest translation uses the phrase “consuming desire.” This is a God-given burden. It is not simply saying, “Well, they did not really mean it. I will give them a little slack. I will think about them and pray for them every once in a while.” It was much greater than that. It was a God-given burden.
Paul enters into this with the thought of his natural brothers and sisters. I believe we see something wonderful here. I call it the heavenly heartache—the divine desire.
Do we have such a heart for the lost in this world? Do we have such a heart for our brothers and sisters? We have recently been speaking about having a gospel meeting here in Richmond. We can plan a gospel meeting and conduct a gospel meeting, and it may or may not be successful.
But one thought came out in our fellowship that I believe was wisdom: what we ought to pray for is for the spirit of the gospel to come upon us. Here, in Paul, you see the spirit of the gospel. You see it in depth. You see it in consuming passion.
If we are going to be effective in praying for others and leading others to Christ, it will be because we have something of the spirit of the gospel upon us. That is what this first verse is about. Pray that the Lord would open our eyes and give us such a spirit.
Verse 2 says:
For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
Zeal is the trademark of every religion in this world. If a devotee is full of zeal for the things he or she believes, that person is considered faithful. Zeal is the earmark, the trademark, of religion: religious zeal.
Paul said something tremendous about Israel: “I bear them witness that they have zeal for God.” Then he added, “but not according to knowledge.” That is the problem in the world today.
We live, in many ways, in a religious world. There are different belief systems, sects, and peoples all over the world who have great faith in what they believe. They are zealous. They are filled with zeal. They make their message known. But it is zeal not according to knowledge.
That is the vast difference between religion and the Christian life. Paul came by this honestly, because this was who Paul was. He knew that he had zeal. He knew that he had been blinded by his Jewish religion.
He was a student of Gamaliel and one who had advanced beyond his contemporaries. In Galatians 1:13–14, he said:
For ye have heard what was my conversation formerly in Judaism, that I excessively persecuted the assembly of God, and ravaged it;
and advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, being exceedingly zealous of the doctrines of my fathers.
That was Paul’s description of himself: “I was exceedingly zealous.” He also spoke of the Jewish people in 2 Corinthians 3:15:
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, there is a veil upon their heart.
They were zealous, but not according to knowledge.
Paul’s eyes had been blinded, but one day on the Damascus road, the Way, the Truth, and the Life—in the person of the Lord Jesus—met him and knocked him from his steed. Paul said, “Who are You, Lord?”
I always think that is a good answer. A brother told me the other day about his salvation experience. He was not saved, but he told me about his prayer. He prayed, “Lord, if You are real, reveal Yourself to me.”
That is a good start. If someone, out of his mouth, not knowing the sovereign Lord Jesus, begins a prayer as an unbeliever with, “Lord, who art Thou?” that is progress. Do you get it?
Paul turned around on the Damascus road. He began to be delivered from his religious blindness. He began to see a righteousness different from the righteousness of the law, and a salvation different from that afforded through religion—temporary at best and worldly at most.
Verse 3 tells us even more clearly what the problem was:
For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Their problem was that they thought they could attain righteousness through their God-given law. You might ask, “Why was this law God-given if it could not produce righteousness?” That is a good question.
But Paul says that, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, they were seeking to establish their own righteousness. There is a lot of light in that verse. They had not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Brothers and sisters, this tells us everything we need to know about religion in this world. People are seeking righteousness, but not righteousness of God. It is their own righteousness. They may seek it with all their heart, but they have not submitted to the one and only righteousness that can produce real righteousness.
There is one righteousness—only one. These verses place two things before us:
You know my infatuation with twos in the Bible. Here again, when it comes to righteousness, there are only two choices: your own righteousness, which many people in the world are trying to produce, or God’s righteousness.
We either seek our own righteousness, or we submit to the righteousness of God. Remember those two words: seek our own righteousness, or submit to God’s righteousness.
The law of Moses was never intended to produce righteousness. You might ask, “Why did God give it in the first place? Why did He say, ‘Do all these commandments, keep all My statutes, and keep all My ordinances’?”
Some people think it must mean that righteousness by the law is possible. “If I am devoted enough, if I work enough, if I desire Him enough, if I read enough, if I seek enough, it is possible.”
But what we must understand is that the righteousness which comes by the law is wholly impossible. The law was given to expose unrighteousness. That was its purpose.
The divine law, written by the finger of God—at least the Ten Commandments, upon tablets of stone—was given not to produce righteousness, but to expose unrighteousness. This was God’s way.
The Jews were in the divine laboratory. They had more privileges than any nation ever had on the face of the earth. They were given divine presence, divine law, and divine protection. If any people seemed to have the possibility of being righteous, it would have been them.
Yet the Jews had such pride in the law that it produced self-righteousness—their own righteousness.
We have a phrase in the West: a person is a self-made man or a self-made woman. That means that through effort, devotion, and application, someone arrives at success—sometimes through tremendous difficulties and problems.
But in the Christian life there is no such thing as a self-made man. It is a God-made man.
I will never forget the impression one verse made upon me in Matthew, when Peter and Andrew were called. The Lord said, “Come, follow Me.” Many of us stop there. But then He said:
I will make you fishers of men.
That one phrase changed my whole view of the Christian life. We are not to be self-made, self-righteous human beings, but God-made. Do you understand the difference? What an enormous difference.
This is what Paul is saying. Verse 4 states:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes.
Griffith Thomas says that the deliberate and willful attitude of the Jews was entirely inexcusable, since Jesus Christ, their Messiah, was the end of the law for righteousness. He is the object to which the law points—the goal and destination.
Newell says it even more bluntly: the law was designed not to bring about self-righteousness or self-hope, but, contrariwise, self-despair.
Is that not remarkable? The law was to drive us to Christ, as we read in Galatians. It was to be the schoolmaster, the tutor, that would drive us to the only One who was righteous. In Him, we find God’s righteousness.
That is the explanation of the whole Old Testament.
In Colossians 2:14, we read:
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances which were against us, which were contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.
Think about that. We often think of the Lord Jesus as being nailed to the cross, and rightly so. By that, our sins were taken away forever, because He bore our sins. He did not merely forgive our sins. Do not ever have such shallow theology. He literally bore our sins.
Second Corinthians speaks of this in its strongest words:
He was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
That is God’s righteousness. Not only were our sins dealt with at the cross in the person of the Lord Jesus, but the whole handwriting of ordinances was also taken out of the way and nailed to the cross.
Thank God, our sins are gone forever. As far as Christians are concerned, this verse says that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe.
The second point is the nearness of God’s righteousness. Surely something as wonderful as God’s righteousness must be the most difficult thing possible to obtain. Surely we cannot come by it in an easy manner. Surely it must be impossible—after all, it is God’s righteousness.
But Romans 10:5–8 shows us how near God has made His righteousness, and how He has made the impossible possible through His salvation.
Once again, Paul presents two righteousnesses. One is the righteousness of the law. The other is the righteousness of faith. There are only two choices. There is no third choice.
There is righteousness by law, which is impossible, and there is righteousness by faith, to which we are called.
Paul says:
For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law: The man that doeth those things shall live by them.
But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise.
Paul was quoting from Leviticus 18:5:
Ye shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.
That is the catch. You will live by them if you do them. Righteousness by the law is by doing. “You shall do them.” You do not merely read them, memorize them, or share them in fellowship. You shall do them. Indeed, you shall live by them.
How terrible. How impossible. Unless we understand this, we will never understand the grace we have received in God’s righteousness.
But the righteousness of faith is one word: believing. That is all it is. It is not doing; it is believing in the One who has done it all.
When you believe in the Lord Jesus, the One who has done it all, you obtain God’s righteousness. That is the simplicity of the story.
James 2:10 shows us how impossible the law is:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
That is impossible. You might want to argue with God and say, “I have kept three out of ten.” But God’s Word is precise. If you offend in one point, you are guilty of all.
What if your professor said that you either receive an A-plus, one hundred percent, or else it is all an F? That is what the law says. It is impossible.
I was thinking of The Man of La Mancha, and its famous song, “The Impossible Dream”:
To dream the impossible dream;
To fight the unbeatable foe;
To reach the unreachable star.
That is having your own righteousness. It is impossible—an impossible dream. All of us in the world who seek to have our own righteousness instead of God’s righteousness are like that flailing knight, in confusion, seeking the impossible.
There is an enormous difference between attaining and obtaining. Attaining is something we do in our own energy, strength, and zeal. We attain something, and the world looks at us and says, “Look at what he attained in life.”
But God’s righteousness is obtained. In other words, it is given to you as a gift. When you believe in the Lord Jesus, you are given the gift of righteousness.
How easy, how close, how near, how wonderful. It is not by your own efforts. It is simply God’s gift in God’s grace.
All we have to do is believe. First Corinthians 1:30 says:
But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption.
This is the secret. This is what Paul is getting at.
I remember reading about Martin Luther years ago in Miller’s Church History. The concept of God’s righteousness, rather than our righteousness, changed the world.
Martin Luther was called “a monk’s monk.” He was the epitome of devotion. He went to Rome to seek an audience with the pope, believing that he could obtain indulgences and receive forgiveness for his sins.
He went to what is called Pilate’s Staircase—supposedly the same stairs the Lord Jesus walked upon in His judgment before He was crucified. Luther began climbing those marble steps on his knees. Pilgrims still do that, climbing on their knees to display their devotion.
Then the heavens opened to him, and the Word of God spoke:
The just shall live by faith.
Three times on that journey, that word spoke to him: “The just shall live by faith.” In a moment, he saw that it was not his righteousness, but God’s righteousness. He was forever free.
The Christian world was turned upside down and inside out, and we know it as the Reformation. Thank God, we can know God’s righteousness. Thank God, it is near. Thank God, it is close. Thank God, it is no longer impossible.
Let me return to verses 6 and 7:
But the righteousness of faith speaks thus: Do not say in thine heart, Who shall ascend to the heavens? that is, to bring Christ down;
or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring Christ up from among the dead?
Then it says:
The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach.
Brothers and sisters, this is a quotation from the Old Testament. The word of faith that produces the righteousness of faith is so near, so possible. It is in our heart. This is the glory of the simplicity of the gospel of God.
We need to understand how near God is to everyone who calls upon Him. He does not penalize them and say, “Do these ten things, and then you can come to Me.” He is open-armed to receive everyone who will come to Him.
We only have to believe. And I believe that when we come to the Lord, God gives us the faith to believe.
I love Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.
Notice that Paul did not say, “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by my zealous faith in the Son of God.” He did not say that. This is the miracle.
How near is God to us? Do you want to produce your own righteousness? Ascend to the heavens. Can you do it? Do you want to produce your own righteousness? Descend to the abyss, or bring Christ down. Can you do it? It is impossible.
But if you want a different righteousness, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall have that eternal righteousness.
Job 11:7–8 asks:
Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know?
Christ accomplished these two things. Christ ascended to the heavens. Christ descended to Sheol. Only because He did this, and we believe in Him, are we able to obtain the righteousness of God and the salvation of God. It is that near to you.
The third point is the two essential elements of God’s salvation. Look at verses 9 and 10:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart is believed to righteousness, and with the mouth confession made to salvation.
These are well-known verses, often referred to as the Roman road. There are two things here:
We need heart believing. It is different from head believing. We have heard that from the first days of our Christian life. The other essential element is outward confession.
These two things are required to know God’s salvation. I do not believe there is such a thing as a secret Christian. Some people may disagree with me, and that is all right. But there is, first of all, heart believing, and then there is confession with the mouth.
If we believe in our hearts, we receive God’s righteousness. If we confess with our mouths, we experience God’s salvation. A believer ought to confess with his mouth, or he is not a believer.
That confession changed the world when we read the Book of Acts. It was a living confession and a living witness.
God’s righteousness is immediate. Do you understand that? You do not have to wait ten years as an immature Christian and then finally have God’s righteousness. It is immediate when you believe.
But God’s salvation is progressive throughout your Christian life, until you are with the Lord. That is what Peter meant when he said:
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Some evangelicals will say, “No, brother, you are not right about that. I received salvation the day I believed in the Lord Jesus.” And you did.
But salvation is also a lifelong process. We believe in the beginning. We continue to believe as we are conformed by the Holy Spirit into the image of the Lord Jesus. Then, at the end, we experience our full salvation when Christ is revealed to us.
That is what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said:
He is able to save them to the uttermost.
This is a lifelong process.
Finally, we come to the full assurance of salvation. It is only in the last three verses, but I think it is wonderful. Paul brings us to the end and says in verse 11:
For the Scripture says, No one believing on Him shall be ashamed.
Did you notice what he said? No one. That is the height of assurance. We may doubt it, and we may say it is not true, but Paul’s testimony is that no one believing in Him shall be ashamed.
I cannot think of a higher assurance or a better assurance. But Paul does not stop there. In verses 12 and 13, he says:
For there is no difference of Jew and Greek; for the same Lord of all is rich towards all that call upon Him.
For every one whosoever who shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
In biblical words, “shall” is an absolute word. It means certainty.
Paul not only says, “No one who believes in the Lord shall be ashamed.” He also says, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord.” Then he adds to the assurance by saying, “Whosoever.”
It reminds us of John 3:16. Praise the Lord. Brothers and sisters, we have this highest assurance. When we have God’s righteousness and God’s salvation, we have the highest assurance that can be given to men and women.
This is Paul’s testimony in Romans 10:1–13. This ought to be our testimony. May the Lord open our eyes.
Lord, we are so grateful for Your words. Make them living. Lord, we cannot do this, but we do not want to live in the impossible dream and spend our lives trying to be what only You can do in us.
We pray that You would open to us God’s righteousness, that with heart believing we would know that we are righteous in You.
Open to our hearts this nearness: that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved—not may be saved, not hope to be saved, not struggle to be saved, but shall be saved.
Lord, we thank You for Your words. Make them alive. Amen.