13. Israel’s fault: God’s dismay over her disobedience
Chapters 9–11 of Romans all address the problem of Jewish unbelief. In chapter 9 the emphasis was on God’s purpose according to election; the emphasis of chapter 10, however, is on the human factors: on the need for an understanding of the gospel (5–13), for the proclamation of the gospel (14–15) and for the response of faith (16–21). With chapter 10 Paul turns from the past to the present, from his explanation of the Israelites’ unbelief to his hope that they will yet hear and believe the gospel. He will explain this vision for the future further in chapter 11.
1. Israel’s ignorance of the righteousness of God (10:1–4)
Paul begins this chapter, as he began the last, with a very personal reference to his love and longing for the Israelites. There are several similarities between the openings of the two chapters. In both Paul mentions his heart: his heart’s sorrow and anguish because the unbelieving people of Israel are lost (9:2f.), and his heart’s desire and prayer to God . . . that they may be saved (1). At the beginning of chapter 9 he expresses the theoretical wish that he himself might be cursed if thereby they could be spared (9:3); at the beginning of chapter 10 he expresses a fervent, prayerful wish for their salvation. Moreover, as his pain is increased by their combination of privilege and prejudice (9:4f.), so his longing is increased by their combination of zeal and ignorance (2).
Paul has no doubt of their religious sincerity. He can testify about them from his own experience that they are zealous for God. And he knows what he is talking about, because he himself in his pre-conversion life was ‘extremely zealous’ in his religion, as seen in his persecution of the church. Indeed he was ‘just as zealous for God’ as any of his contemporaries, and could even describe his zeal at that time as an ‘obsession’. So he is obliged to say of the Israelites that their zeal is not based on knowledge (2). Sincerity is not enough, for we may be sincerely mistaken. The proper word for zeal without knowledge, commitment without reflection, or enthusiasm without understanding, is fanaticism. And fanaticism is a horrid and dangerous state to be in.
Having asserted their general condition of ignorance, Paul now uses two specific negatives: they did not know the righteousness of God and they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Instead, they sought to establish their own (3). Recent commentators who have accepted Professor E. P. Sanders’ thesis of ‘covenantal nomism’ offer an interpretation of this verse which is very different from the traditional understanding. Professor Dunn, for example, argues that the Jews were right to see ‘righteousness’ as obedience to the law and so loyalty to the covenant (the meaning of ‘covenantal nomism’), but wrong to construe it in terms of circumcision, sabbath observance, dietary regulations and ritual purity. This understanding of the law was not only ‘too superficial’ but also ‘too nationalistic’, because it excluded the Gentiles whom God wanted to include. ‘Their own righteousness’, therefore, meant a righteousness which was peculiarly and exclusively their own, and was being contrasted not with God’s but with other people’s. And their attempt to ‘establish’ this righteousness of their own was an act not of creation (producing something out of nothing) but of confirmation (preserving what was already in existence, namely their covenant membership and righteousness). What Paul objected to was ‘Israel’s attempt to maintain a claim of national monopoly to that covenant righteousness’. What then does it mean that Christ is the culmination of the law (4)? What Christ terminated was not the law as the way of attaining a righteous standing before God, but ‘the law seen as a way . . . of documenting God’s special regard for Israel, of marking Israel out from the other nations’.
What disturbs me about this attempted reconstruction, I confess, is not so much what is being affirmed (for the Jews were ethnically exclusive), but what is being denied. For example, the statement that ‘their own righteousness’ is not being contrasted with God’s is plainly not so in 10:3, and more plainly still in Philippians 3:9. I think the Jews (like all human beings) were more self-righteous than Professors Sanders and Dunn allow. As Calvin justly commented, ‘the first step to obtaining the righteousness of God is to renounce our own righteousness’.
To other commentators the assertion that the Jews did not know the righteousness of God means that they had not yet learned the way of salvation, how the righteous God puts the unrighteous right with himself by bestowing upon them a righteous status. This is ‘the righteousness of God’ which is revealed in the gospel, and is received by faith altogether apart from the law, as Paul has written earlier (1:17; 3:21). The tragic consequence of the Jews’ ignorance was that, recognizing their need of righteousness if they were ever to stand in God’s righteous presence, they sought to establish their own, and they did not submit to God’s righteousness (3).
This ignorance of the true way, and this tragic adoption of the false way, are by no means limited to Jewish people. They are widespread among religious people of all faiths, including professing Christians. All human beings, who know that God is righteous and they are not (since ‘there is no one righteous, not even one’, 3:10), naturally look around for a righteousness which might make them fit to stand in God’s presence. There are only two possible options before us. The first is to attempt to build or establish our own righteousness, by our good works and religious practices. But this is doomed to failure, since in God’s sight even ‘all our righteous acts are like filthy rags’. The other way is to submit to God’s righteousness by receiving it from him as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ. In verses 5–6 Paul calls the first ‘the righteousness that is by the law’ and the second ‘the righteousness that is by faith’.
The basic error of those who are seeking to establish their own righteousness is that they have not understood Paul’s next assertion: Christ is the culmination [telos] of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes (4). Telos could mean ‘end’ in the sense of ‘goal’ or ‘completion’, indicating that the law pointed to Christ and that he has fulfilled it. Or it could mean ‘end’ in the sense of ‘termination’ or ‘conclusion’, indicating that Christ has abolished the law. Paul must surely mean the latter. But the abolition of the law gives no authority either to antinomians, who claim that they can sin as they please because they are ‘not under the law but under grace’ (6:1, 15), or to those who maintain that the very category of ‘law’ has been abolished by Christ and that the only absolute left is the command to love. When Paul wrote that we have ‘died’ to the law, and been ‘released’ from it (7:4, 6), so that we are no longer ‘under’ it (6:15), he was referring to the law as the way of getting right with God. Hence the second part of verse 4. The reason Christ has terminated the law is so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. As far as salvation is concerned, Christ and the law are incompatible alternatives. If righteousness is by the law it is not by Christ, and if it is by Christ through faith it is not by the law. Christ and the law are both objective realities, both revelations and gifts of God. But now that Christ has accomplished our salvation by his death and resurrection, he has terminated the law in that role.
2. Alternative ways of righteousness (10:5–13)
Paul has already stated three contrasts: between faith and works (9:32), between God’s righteousness to which we should submit and our own righteousness which we mistakenly seek to establish (10:3), and between Christ and the law (4). Now he draws out the implications of the last by contrasting the righteousness that is by the law (5) with the righteousness that is by faith (6). He does so by appealing to Scripture, quoting a text on each side. He thus sets Moses against Moses, that is, Moses in Leviticus against Moses in Deuteronomy.
On the one hand, Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: ‘The person who does these things will live by them’ (5). The natural interpretation of these words is that the way to life (i.e. salvation) is by obedience to the law. This is how Paul himself understood the sentence when he quoted it in Galatians 3:12. But ‘clearly’, he added in that context, ‘no one who relies on the law is justified before God’, because no-one has succeeded in obeying it. The weakness of the law is our own weakness (8:3). Because we disobey it, instead of bringing us life it brings us under its curse, and that would be our position still if Christ had not redeemed us from the law’s curse by becoming a curse for us. It is in this sense that ‘Christ is the culmination of the law’. Righteousness is not to be found that way.
So, on the other hand, the righteousness that is by faith, which Paul now personifies, proclaims a different message. It sets before us for salvation not the law but Christ, and assures us that unlike the law, Christ is not unattainable, but readily accessible. The passage Paul quotes (from Deut. 30) begins with a stern prohibition, which the righteousness by faith endorses: ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?”’ (that is, to bring Christ down) (6) ‘or “Who will descend into the deep?”’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead) (7). To ask such questions would be as absurd as they are unnecessary. There is no need whatever for us to scale the heights or plumb the depths in search of Christ, for he has already come, died and risen, and so is accessible to us.
What, then, is the positive message of the righteousness of faith? What does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, Paul explains, the message concerning faith [the message requiring a response of faith, i.e. the gospel] which we [apostles] proclaim (8). Taking his cue from the reference to the people’s ‘mouth’ and ‘heart’ in Deuteronomy 30:14 just quoted, Paul now summarizes the gospel in these terms: that if you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ [the earliest and simplest of all Christian creeds], and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (9). In this way heart and mouth, inward belief and outward confession, belong essentially together. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved (10). The parallelism is a reminder of Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament, and the two clauses in verses 9–10 are to be held together rather than separately. Thus, there is no significant difference here between being ‘justified’ and being ‘saved’. Similarly, the content of the belief and that of the confession need to be merged. Included in the good news are the truths that Jesus Christ died, was raised, was exalted, and now reigns as Lord and gives salvation to those who believe. This is not salvation by slogan but by faith, that is, by an intelligent faith which lays hold of Christ as the crucified and resurrected Lord and Saviour. This is the positive message of ‘the righteousness that is by faith’.
But is Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 30:11–14 valid? Or is he guilty of an unprincipled use of allegory, and of reading into the Bible what is not there? We begin by noting that his only actual quotation (as opposed to allusion) is Deuteronomy 30:14, which is reproduced almost exactly in verse 8: The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart. There Paul stops, for the Deuteronomy text goes on to say that the reason the word was near them was ‘so that you may obey it’, whereas Paul calls it ‘the message concerning faith’. How then can Paul take a verse about the law which is to be obeyed and apply it to the gospel which is to be believed? It sounds a basic contradiction, especially while he is commending ‘righteousness by faith’. But it is not.
How does Paul use the Deuteronomy passage? He is not claiming either that Moses explicitly foretold the death and resurrection of Jesus, or that he preached the gospel under the guise of the law. No. The similarity he sees and stresses between Moses’ teaching and the apostles’ gospel lies in their easy accessibility. He knows that Moses began this part of his speech (although he does not quote it) by telling the Israelites that his teaching was neither ‘too difficult’ for them nor ‘beyond their reach’. Moses went on, using dramatic imagery, that it was neither up in heaven nor beyond the sea – remote, unrevealed and unknown – so that they would have to find someone to ascend into heaven or cross the sea in order to bring it to them. On the contrary, his teaching was very near them. They knew it already. Far from being above or beyond them, it was actually inside them, in their hearts and in their mouths.
What Moses had said about his teaching, Paul now affirms about the gospel. It is neither remote nor unavailable. There is no need to ask who will ascend to heaven to bring Christ down or descend to Hades to bring Christ up. Storming the ramparts of heaven and potholing in Hades in search of Christ are equally unnecessary. For Christ has come and died, and been raised, and is therefore immediately accessible to faith. We do not need to do anything. Everything that is necessary has already been done. Moreover, because Christ himself is near, the gospel of Christ is also near. It is in the heart and mouth of every believer. The whole emphasis is on the close, ready, easy accessibility of Christ and his gospel.
Verses 11–13 build on this. They stress that Christ is not only easily accessible, but equally accessible to all, to anyone (11) and to everyone (13), since there is no difference (12), no favouritism. All three verses refer to Christ and affirm his availability to faith, although each describes in different terms both the nature of faith and how Christ responds to believers. In verse 11 we ‘believe in him’ and will never be put to shame. In verse 12 we call on him, and he richly blesses us. In verse 13 we call on the name of the Lord and are saved. Let us now consider the three verses separately.
First, verse 11: As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’ This is a second quotation of Isaiah 28:16, the first having been in 9:33. The description of saving faith as ‘believing in him’ shows that the ‘belief’ and the ‘confession’ of the two previous verses (9–10) are not to be understood as a mere subscription to credal formulae.
Second, verse 12: For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him. It is a marvellous affirmation that through Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Of course there is a basic distinction between those who seek righteousness by the law and those who seek it by faith. But between those who have been justified by faith and are now in Christ, all distinctions, not only of race, but also of sex and culture, are not so much abolished (since Jews are still Jews, Gentiles Gentiles, men men and women women) as rendered irrelevant. Just as there is no distinction between us because in Adam we are all sinners (3:22f.), so now there is no distinction between us because in Christ, who is Lord of all, all who call on him are richly blessed. Far from impoverishing us, we all receive his ‘boundless riches’.
In the third verse (13) both our calling on him and his blessing of us are explained. To call on him is, more precisely, to call on the name of the Lord, that is, to appeal to him to save us in accordance with who he is and what he has done. Everyone who thus calls on him, we are assured, will be saved (13). In the first place this is a quotation from Joel 2:32. But Peter cited it on the day of Pentecost, transferring the text from the Lord to Jesus, which is also what Paul does here. Indeed, this appeal to Jesus for salvation became so characteristic of Christian people that Paul could describe the worldwide community as ‘those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’.
What then, according to this section, is necessary to salvation? First the fact of the historic Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified, risen, reigning as Lord, and accessible. Second, the apostolic gospel, the message concerning faith (8), which makes him known. Third, simple trust on the part of the hearers, calling on the name of the Lord, combining faith in the heart and confession with the mouth. But still something is missing. There is, fourth, the evangelist who proclaims Christ and urges people to put their trust in him. It is of Christian evangelists that Paul writes in the next paragraph.
3. The necessity of evangelism (10:14–15)
In order to demonstrate the crucial necessity of evangelism, Paul asks four consecutive questions.
First, if, in order to be saved, sinners must call on the name of the Lord (13), How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? (14a). For calling on his name presupposes that they know and believe his name (i.e. that he died, was raised and is Lord). This is the only occasion in his letters on which Paul uses the term ‘believe in [eis]’, which is the regular expression in John’s writings for saving faith. Here, however, since saving faith is presented as ‘calling on’ Christ’s name, the kind of ‘belief’ Paul has in mind must be the prior stage of believing the facts about Jesus which are included in his ‘name’.
Second, how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? (14b). Just as believing is logically prior to calling, so hearing is logically prior to believing. What kind of hearing, however? ‘In accordance with normal grammatical usage’, the phrase the one of whom [hou] should be translated ‘the one whom’ and so means ‘the speaker rather than the message’. In other words, they will not believe Christ until they have heard him speaking through his messengers or ambassadors.
Third, how can they hear without someone preaching [kēryssō, to ‘herald’] to them? (14c). In ancient times, before the development of the mass media of communication, the role of the herald was vital. The major means of transmitting news was his public proclamations in the city square or the marketplace. There could be no hearers without heralds.
Fourth, how can anyone preach unless they are sent? (15a). It is not clear from the text what kind of ‘sending’ Paul has in mind. Because he uses the verb apostellō, commentators have tended to assume that he has himself in mind as an apostle (see 1:1, 5; 11:13), together with his fellow apostles, for they had been directly commissioned by Christ. There were also ‘apostles of the churches’, however, sent out as missionaries. The latter is a broader concept, for, although the apostles of Christ were appointed by him and required no endorsement by the church, the churches sent out only those whom Christ had chosen to send. The need for heralds is now confirmed from Scripture: As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ (15b). If those who proclaimed the good news of release from Babylonian exile were celebrated in this way, how much more welcome the heralds of the gospel of Christ should be!
The essence of Paul’s argument is seen if we put his six verbs in the opposite order: Christ sends heralds; heralds preach; people hear; hearers believe; believers call; and those who call are saved. And the relentless logic of Paul’s case for evangelism is felt most forcibly when the stages are stated negatively and each is seen to be essential to the next. Thus, unless some people are commissioned for the task, there will be no gospel preachers; unless the gospel is preached, sinners will not hear Christ’s message and voice; unless they hear him, they will not believe the truths of his death and resurrection; unless they believe these truths, they will not call on him; and unless they call on his name, they will not be saved. Since Paul began this chapter by expressing his longing that the Israelites will be saved (1), he must surely have had them specially in mind when developing his evangelistic strategy in these verses. His next paragraph confirms this.
4. The reason for Israel’s unbelief (10:16–21)
If evangelism is made up of a series of successive stages, beginning with heralds being sent and ending with sinners being saved, how is the unbelief of Israel to be explained? For not all the Israelites accepted the good news (16a) – a surprising understatement in view of what he has written earlier about ‘only the remnant’ (9:27). It is partly for this reason that some understand these verses as relating to Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. But it is surely right (as in verse 1) to supply the word ‘Israelites’, which is missing from the Greek sentence. The whole section is about the Jewish response – or rather non-response – to the gospel. Their unbelief, Paul now shows, was foretold by Isaiah in his rhetorical question: Lord, who has believed our message? (16b). Yet they should have believed. Verse 17 goes back to the argument of verse 14, although it reduces the five stages to only three: faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ, that is, ‘the word of which Christ is both content and author’. Thus preaching leads to hearing, and hearing to believing. Why then have the Israelites not believed? In answer to this perplexing question Paul examines and rejects two possible explanations (18–19), and then supplies his own explanation (20–21).
First, did they not hear? This is the right first question to ask, since believing depends on hearing. But Paul no sooner asks the question than he immediately dismisses it: Of course they did (18a). As evidence of this claim he quotes Psalm 19:4:
Their voice has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
Paul’s choice of biblical quotation is surprising, since what Psalm 19 celebrates is not the worldwide spread of the gospel, but the universal witness of the heavens to their Creator. Paul of course knew this perfectly well. It is entirely unnecessary to conclude that he misremembered, misunderstood or misrepresented his text. It seems perfectly reasonable instead to suggest that he was transferring eloquent biblical language about global witness from the creation to the church, taking the former as symbolic of the latter. If God wants the general revelation of his glory to be universal, how much more must he want the special revelation of his grace to be universal too!
But is it true that the gospel has gone out into all the earth and to the ends of the world? As an understandable exaggeration I think it is, just as Paul was to say later to the Colossians that the gospel ‘has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven’, so that in consequence ‘the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world’. Since Paul is here referring to the spread of the good news among Jewish people, however, it may be better to understand Paul’s claim as what F. F. Bruce has called ‘representative universalism’, meaning that ‘wherever there were Jews’, and in particular wherever a Jewish community existed, ‘there the gospel had been preached’. So the Jews have heard; they cannot blame their not believing on their not hearing.
Second, then, did Israel not understand? (19a). For we take Paul’s point that it is quite possible to hear without understanding, as Jesus warned us in his parable of the sower. But no, Paul also rejects this explanation of Jewish unbelief, and backs up his position by quoting from Moses first. Perhaps he means that he will then quote Isaiah second (20), so that the Law and the Prophets constitute two witnesses. The verse from Moses he appeals to is this:
I will make you envious by those who are not a nation;
I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding.
This text indicates that there are people with no understanding. But they are not the Jews; they are the Gentiles, whom Moses also describes as not a nation, reminding us of God’s word to Hosea which Paul has earlier applied to the Gentiles, namely that they were ‘not my people’ (9:25f.). God reveals his intention to make Israel both envious of and angry at the ‘no-nation’, ‘no understanding’ Gentiles because of the blessings he would give them.
If, then, Israel’s rejection of the gospel cannot be attributed either to her not hearing it or to her not understanding it, she must be without excuse. This is the third possible explanation of her unbelief, which Paul now accepts. Israel is simply stubborn. It is true that the Israelites were ignorant of God’s righteousness (3), but this is now seen to be deliberate ignorance. They had ‘stumbled over the “stumbling stone”’, namely Christ (9:32).
In order to back this up, Paul now quotes what Isaiah boldly says. The prophet’s ‘bold’ words are those recorded in Isaiah 65:1f.; they prove to come from the lips of the Lord himself. In these two verses he draws a sharp contrast between the Gentiles and the Jews, his actions towards them and their attitudes towards him. Take the Gentiles first:
I was found by those who did not seek me;
I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.
Paul could have added the third clause of Isaiah 65:1:
To a nation that did not call on my name,
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’
Taken together, the three clauses complete the picture. God deliberately reverses the roles between himself and the Gentiles. It would normally be for them to ask, seek and knock (as Jesus was later to put it), and to show him the respectful attitude of servants at their master’s disposal, saying, ‘Here I am.’ Instead, although they did not ask, seek or offer themselves to his service, he allowed himself to be found by them, he revealed himself to them, and he even offered himself to them, saying humbly to them, ‘Here am I.’ This is dramatic imagery for grace, God taking the initiative to make himself known.
But concerning Israel he says,
‘All day long I have held out my hands
to a disobedient and obstinate people.’
God’s initiative to Israel is even more pronounced. He does not simply allow himself to be found; he actively holds out his hands to them. Like a parent inviting a child to come home, offering a hug and a kiss and promising a welcome, so God has opened and stretched out his arms to his people, and has kept them continuously outstretched, all day long, pleading with them to return. But he has received no response. They do not even give him the neutral response of the Gentiles, who decline either to ask or to seek. No, their response is negative, resistant, obstinate, dismissive. They are determined to remain a disobedient and stubborn people. We feel God’s dismay, his grief.
So Paul concludes his second exploration into the unbelief of Israel. In chapter 9 he put it down to God’s purpose of election, because of which many were passed by and only a remnant was left, an Israel within Israel. In chapter 10, however, he puts it down to Israel’s own disobedience. Their fall was their fault. The tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility remains.
One of the notable features of Romans 10 is that it is saturated with Old Testament reference and quotation. Paul cites Scripture here in order to confirm or illustrate eight truths: first, the ready accessibility of Christ to faith (6–8 = Deut. 30:12ff.); second, the promise of salvation to all who believe (11 = Isa. 28:16; 13 = Joel 2:32); third, the glorious necessity of evangelism (15 = Isa. 52:7); fourth, the unresponsiveness of Israel (16 = Isa. 53:1); fifth, the universality of the gospel (18 = Ps. 19:4); sixth, the Gentiles’ provocation of Israel (19 = Deut. 32:21); seventh, the divine initiative of grace (20 = Isa. 65:1); and eighth, the patient grief of God the evangelist (21 = Isa. 65:2). Thus Paul’s emphasis is not only on the authority of Scripture, but also on the fundamental continuity which unites the Old and the New Testament revelations.