Our Responsibility - What is Saving Faith?

[audio]

Romans 10:5-17

Preached 2/10/19 (previous)

INTRODUCTION

Just this week the announcement was made that a large inter-faith council has been held to promote religious peace in the world.  Certainly this is not a bad goal – the world is plagued with religiously based violence (not the main reason for war and violence in the world but we will use any excuse for a fight and religious differences are as good of an excuse as nationality, money, skin color, language, personality, or any other reason.  In Abu Dhabi a document was signed by many “faith leaders” including  Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmen al-Tayeb (considered to be the most important imam in Sunni Islam), who stood “hand in hand in a symbol of interfaith brotherhood”.  The audience included “a global audience of religious leaders from Christianity, Islam, Judaism and other faiths”.  While I celebrate anything that reduces the evils of terrorism and human brutality, I was appalled to read that the document, signed by the supposed representative of Christ upon Earth, says that the God of the Bible and Allah of Islam are the same God, and that “the diversity of religions” that we see in the world was “willed by God”.  In so many words these people have declared their agreement with the postmodern view that conflicting truths can all be true at the same time and that it is divisive to believe that any truths are universally true.  In common parlance all religions are true and valid and all religions lead to the same God – all methods of salvation are therefore true, even if some lead to heaven and some don’t (in their own views).

Can we support this?  Do all roads lead to God?  How does salvation work anyway?

The weak churches of our modern day have fallen in many ways and lost their strength.  Some are like the Sadducees of New Testament times – having worldly comfort, fame, and social prominence but lacking any belief in the spiritual world or heaven at all. Others are like the Pharisees, lost in long lists of “do’s” and “don’ts” to earn their smug practitioners the assurance that they alone are good enough to merit salvation from God as a personal reward for being to awesome.  Even in evangelical circles some churches have become a big-tent circus of showmanship or spiritual oddities, and even those who were once biblical many have deteriorated into establishments whose only goal is to get people (often without understanding) to “go forward” in a meeting to say a rote prayer so that they can count how many they have gotten “saved”, even if they never see the people in a church again.

What is salvation?  How does it work?  How much do we need to “do” and how much does God “do”?

As we narrow our focus to only those churches that are biblical, evangelical and which affirm the doctrine of salvation not by works but by faith in the finished work of Christ, there are still doctrinal battles.  Terms that cause churches to divide from each other include ones like “Lordship Salvation”, “Calvinism vs Arminianism” and “predestination vs freewill”.  I myself have been on various sides of those issues as I have studied – even different churches in our own fellowship have differed on these.  I believe that today’s passage will give us illumination on all of these points to some degree.  Certainly Paul wrestles with them mightily in Chapters 8-11 of Romans.  The topics that these chapters talk about are WAY TOO HUGE for one sermon – I am thinking that perhaps they would make a good series for some future time – I certainly don’t want to try to address them in an impromptu sermon with less that one day’s notice!

What I would like to do instead is to talk briefly from the middle of Romans 10 on the subject of the human responsibilities in salvation and what is the basis for the kind of faith that saves.

 

I. God’s Responsibility - Everything  (Rom 8-11)

Last week at Communion a thought struck me as we were discussing a part of Romans chapter 8 which is sometimes called “the golden chain”. It is a very familiar passage – certainly we like to quote verses 28 and 31 for assurance, but these four verses form a cohesive whole that must be taken together.

Romans 8:28-31  ²⁸ And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹ For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. ³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

This paragraph outlines what God’s part of our salvation is.  We see that it is defined by his “call”, and that all who are “called” will end up “glorified”.  The security of our eternity flows from the amazing truth of this passage, and if we read the passage carefully one thing is completely absent from the mention of God’s foreknowledge to our eventual glorification in heaven. What is missing?  WE ARE MISSING.  There is literally NO mention of anything that we must do or accomplish or pay for this salvation. NOTHING.

Think about that for a while.  This is what is known as the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in salvation.  We might say it this way – our salvation solely a work of God which started before the creation of the universe and will culminate in our being holy before Him.  Jude describes Him as "… him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,” (Jude 1:24).  Romans 3 says that NOBODY (that includes us) seeks after God.  If nobody seeks Him, how is He ever found? 2 Cor 4 says that we had our  minds blinded by “the god of this world … to keep [us] from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ…” but that to get us saved, God “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  Elsewhere we are taught that God has “allotted to us a measure of faith”, that he “chose us before the foundation of the world”, that he “he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”.  In Acts 13:48 we read that when Paul and Barnabas preached in Antioch that “…as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”  The golden chain of Romans 8 is not an isolated scripture.

The doctrines of Sovereign Grace are some of the most difficult in scripture, but the fact that they are difficult to understand (or at least hard to accept) should not blind us to the fact that scripture clearly teaches them.  But that leads us to several practical questions.  It is not insignificant that Paul spends three chapters in Romans dealing with the implications of God’s sovereignty.  He deals with many questions, including:

• If the majority of Israel reject Jesus, is God’s plan broken?  Did his promises fail or is it part of his plan?
• If God chooses to give more grace to one person than to another, does that make Him unjust?
• If God is sovereign, how is his judgment righteous?
• If people are sincere in doing religion, why aren’t they the ones chosen first to receive grace from God?
• Why do people reject the gospel?
• Has God rejected his people, the Jews? (answer: no)
• Why did Israel reject Jesus?  Is it permanent?
• How can God be considered kind if not everyone receives Christ and salvation?

As I said, this would make a great, long series of sermons, but even over several weeks we would only scratch the surface.  But important to today’s topic, we find that smack dab in the middle of this section Paul deals with the human side of the equation.

 

II Our Responsibility – Faith (Rom 10:5-13)

But what is saving faith? Paul explains in both the negative and the positive.  He is specific but brief and he also limits the scope of our part.  These few verses are simple, just like the gospel, but profound.  We really don’t need to complicate the message of salvation with a lot of deep philosophical baggage.  God has designed his plan of salvation to be simple enough for a child to understand.

1. v5-7 What it is not: Be good enough (live by the commandments) - it is impossible.  (This is a summary of chapters 3-7.)

Romans 10:5-7  ⁵ For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. ⁶ But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷ "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

I daresay that the wording here seems strange to us – certainly it always has to me – and Paul’s parenthetical comments don’t seem at first read to help, but actually this is very straightforward.  Paul is using absurd examples to say the same thing that he says in Ephesians 2:8-9 and Titus 3:5 (to mention a few examples – you could also include large sections of Galatians for that matter). For instance, in Philippians 2:8-9 Paul says “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  Verses 6 and 7 here in Romans 10 say the same thing, but by way of illustration, and the illustrations are actually very powerful. 

In the first example, he points out the obvious fact that even if we did realize our need for a messiah, we would be utterly powerless to travel up to heaven and drag him back down to Earth with us.  Who did that for us?  God did, of course.  As John writes in his first epistle: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ... And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” (1 John 4:10, 14)  What we could not do, God provided, because of his love for us.  The Messiah came to us.  Otherwise we would be lost.

But Paul does not stop there.  In the second example, the Messiah was resurrected without any help from us. Paul said in the introduction to this book that  (declared) and Jesus himself said that “… I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father." (John 10:17b-18)  If someone had told us “I am going to die for your sins” and then died … but stayed dead, we would have no assurance of the success of his or her mission.  We would have no basis for faith at all.  Anybody could say that – but if the curse of death (that has been on the entire world since the fall) still held sway over our potential savior we would have to assume that, as Paul summarized in 1 Corinthians:

1 Cor 15:14  And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

 

2.   v8 What it is: Faith – (or Righteousness by Faith)

 Romans 10:8  But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);

 “Near you” here means that it is at hand, readily available.  It does not come from us, per se, but is given by God.  While not everyone will accept the offer and respond by faith (we are unable to in our natural self as we see in Rom 3 and 2 Cor 4), the offer of salvation is given to the world (John 3:16 is the most famous example but not the only place).  In verse 8 two things are clear:

1. It is not a human work (it is made available by God not based on our “awesomeness” or anything like that) and
2. It is knowledge based, which means it is appraised and accepted by the mind in response to a proclaimed word.  This latter concept is integral to the rest of this passage so don’t miss it here.  It is this gospel that Paul described back in chapter 1 of Romans:

Romans 1:16  For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

We must be absolutely clear about this.  There was a quote made famous during the Jesus Movement that was attributed to St Francis of Assisi that said “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”  Not only did Francis never say this,  he was a dedicated evangelist of the actual gospel.  And not only is the statement unbiblical, based on Romans 10 it is decidedly anti-biblical in that it directly contradicts the rest of this chapter (as we will see).  If you are a nice person, people will be much more likely to listen to what you say about the gospel, but it is the message of the gospel itself that is necessary to save us.  As James writes:

James 1:21b  … receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

 

3.   v9-10  What saving faith does: believes in the gospel (1 Cor 15:3-4) and confesses Jesus as Lord.

Romans 10:9-10  ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

This is one of the most concise descriptions of saving faith in scripture.  It has two components, one internal and one external.  It has one object, which is the Lord Jesus.  So much is said in these two verses:

• Saving faith is all about Jesus and what He did for us
• Saving faith is personal. We must have our own to be saved – we cannot have faith that saves someone else and nobody else’s faith will save us.
• Saving faith is not just our public words – if it doesn’t involve belief in the gospel it is an empty profession.
• Saving faith, while internal, must manifest publically. (Remember Jesus’ warning in Matthew 10:32-33 “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
• Saving faith involves submitting to the lordship of Christ.

(Note that there are some theologians who deny this, even though this verse is clear that we need to acknowledge Jesus is Lord as the fundamental profession of Christianity.  They do this because they reason that even a veteran Christian has still not fully submitted to Christ – it is part of our sanctification, which is a work that comes from salvation and salvation is not by works.  The answer to this is that even our faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8, 2 Cor 4:6, etc) because even believing is a work, according to Jesus in John 6:29 "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.")

4.   V11-13 God does the rest, keeping his promises (vs 11-13)

 Romans 10:11-13  ¹¹ For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

 In the end Paul ties the story of our actions in salvation back into the overall theme of God’s sovereignty, and integrity.  The “whosoever” theme of John 3:16 is clearly echoed here.  Jesus is our Rock – the foundation of our hope, and the WORTHY object of our faith.  If we do the actions of verses 9-10, we have full assurance that He will keep his promises. 

We also see that it does not depend on our worldly situation – there are no second-class citizens in heaven.  Salvation is a bestowing of God’s riches on ALL who call on him.  We are reminded of  Eph 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” and Eph 2:7 “ so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

III The Dynamics and Source of Faith (Rom 10:14-17)

We have heard already that the word of God is the seed planted in our minds and hearts that gives rise to salvation.  We have read also that we must believe and confess Jesus - his lordship and his resurrection – and God does the rest.  Paul will now elaborate with another “chain” in verses 14 and 15:

Romans 10:14-15  ¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"

In these verses Paul asks four pointed questions, each of which implies a negative answer.  What they teach could be expressed as a series of implied statements:

1. If people do not believe in Him, they will not call on Him for salvation. But to believe…
2. People must hear the gospel before they can believe.  Those we don’t evangelize are being abandoned by us to condemnation.
3. The church must send missionaries into the world to preach the gospel. We can’t just sit and tell each other just in the church.  Our church is supporting missionaries, which is good.  But there was at one time a sign above the inside of the front door of the church that reminded us “you are now entering your mission field”.  In reality the main purpose of our church is not to collect money to support a few professionals who will work in our proxy.  The main purpose of the church is to train all of its members to preach the gospel.  It is never “someone else’s job”.  If you think that way, you should perhaps reevaluate your own salvation. And if your excuse is that you can’t explain the gospel, what are you doing to fix that?  If the gospel is simple enough for a child to understand it, why would anyone who had been a Christian for years feel comfortable with that excuse?
4. We must be willing to tell people about the gospel, and we must know and understand it and be able to articulate it, or nobody will hear it.  Think of a long-time friend or co-worker whose company you have enjoyed in this short life while you looked forward to heaven but whom you have not told of Jesus’ love for them.  When they stand before the Lord in unbelief, how will they feel about their relationship with you?  This is a thought that has some to haunt me a lot.  I have been under conviction myself about this – am I using people for social benefits while leaving them to the eternal wrath of God?  But Paul assures us that the bringer of good news has beautiful feet!  The mention of feet obviously implies that we are going and not just sitting on our behinds in a pew somewhere.

 Romans 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?"

Verse 16 gives us a warning: hearing the gospel does not guarantee that someone will receive it.  In fact, Jesus said “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:14)  We can see all through scripture that this has been true for all times in history.  God keeps a remnant of believers at all times, sometimes a small one and sometimes larger.  We do not know why (so don’t ask me!)  Back in chapter nine Paul deals with this fact and in the end says that it is God’s prerogative and his right.  It is a question that we may never fully understand, but not an unimportant one since Paul spends the last three chapters of the doctrinal part of Romans dealing with the issue.  It is well worth prayerfully reading chapters 9-11 many times as you grow in Christ.  You will gain knowledge of the mind of God, but never fully understand.

The application for us, is that we must accept the fact that our willingness to give the gospel includes the likelihood that most will reject it, and in doing so may reject us as well.  But it should be the hope that someone will receive it that motivates us.   We should want everyone to be able to share in the riches that God so willingly gave to us when we believed.

The final verse in this section reiterates what we have already read – that saving faith is based on hearing the gospel.  It is no a contentless faith, but has an object.  And that Object is a Person – the Lord Jesus:

Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Nobody will receive Christ because you are a good neighbor or lifelong friend.  Only the gospel of Jesus Christ can save anybody.  It is certainly true that being a bad neighbor may ruin your chances to preach the gospel, but by itself having a righteous witness will never save your family member, friend, co-worker, neighbor, or fellow traveler.  They must be presented with the risen Christ, the Lord, the King of Kings, and the lover of their soul.

  

Conclusion

In Romans we are called to respond to the gospel.  We are also told that we do so by God’s sovereign choice.  The only difference is one of perspective.  Like the doctrine of the Trinity, we have two truths that seem to contradict but which are unified in the infinity of the eternal God.  With the doctrine of the trinity we affirm that there is only ONE God, but that he exists in three distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).  If we try to explain it away with our finite minds we end up sacrificing one or the other of the truths (leading to all sorts of heresies). 

The same is true with sovereign grace.  Romans 8 very clearly establishes the sovereignty of God in our election, calling, justification and eventual glorification – no human input added in any phase.  But Romans 10 clearly calls us to believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, trusting in Him for our salvation.  Both are true.  There are two golden chains, one that details God’s responsibilities and one that details our responsibilities.  Romans 10 calls us to action (and condemns us if we do not act), but Romans 8 gives us the assurance that we would otherwise lack.  Because God is ultimately in control, Paul can end that chapter with the infinitely comforting words:

Romans 8: 37-39  ³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The question we must ask is: where do we stand in the Romans chapter 10 chain.  Is our chain secure, or does it have broken links?