November 3, 1996
by J. David Hoke
A little boy was studying synonyms and antonyms. His teacher said, "What is the opposite of lost?" He answered, "Saved." The teacher said, "No, that is not right. The opposite of lost is found." The little boy responded with, "I’ll tell you this: When you get saved, you’ve been found!"
The word "saved" is a tremendous word for us as believers. It is a very descriptive word that depicts our being found by the Lord Jesus Christ. For, in fact, whenever we are saved, we have been found. It is God’s initiative, God’s effort, God’s action that brings us to Himself. We are lost and need to be found. The Lord, in His mercy, searches for us until He finds us. This is the process by which He presents to us the realities of our lost situation of being without Christ, and the alternative; the surrender of our lives to Christ. This is what we refer to as salvation.
But contrary to popular opinion, there are not many roads that lead to salvation. There is only one way to heaven. Tragically, many do not travel that way. That is the subject Paul addresses in this section of Romans.
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. (vv. 1-4)
Outlined before us are two avenues which we can choose. The first is a righteousness which is generated by our own action, by our own initiative. What Paul is trying to emphasize is that righteousness does not come by human endeavor. He said that Israel had sought righteousness, but the righteousness they sought was their own righteousness. It was a righteousness which was attained by human endeavor. He said that they had a zeal for God, but that zeal was not grounded in knowledge. What did he mean?
Israel loved God in their own way. They loved the Law. They loved the righteous requirements outlined in the Law of Moses and went about trying, by their own human endeavor and initiative, to fulfill that Law. They were very zealous, but Paul says that it was a zeal without knowledge. He was not talking of a zeal without knowledge of the Law. In fact, Israel had a great knowledge of the Law. God’s expectation was known down to the most minute detail. They also had added to that body of literature a great many other inferred requirements which were to be lived out.
Many of those requirements were not what the Law meant at all. Some of them were absolutely ridiculous. For instance, in their interpretation of the Law, it stated that on the Sabbath day you could not do any work. Work amounted to lifting a burden equivalent to the weight of two dried figs. You could doctor a person who was sick on the Sabbath day in order to maintain his health, but you could not make him better. Today there are Jews who set automatic timers for their lights so that the lights will turn on and off on the Sabbath by themselves. It seems ridiculous to us as Gentiles. In the Fourth Book of Maccabees, there is a story about a Jew who was brought before Antiochus Epiphanes and commanded to eat pork. He refused to do so, so he was ordered to be beaten. The account tells us that his flanks were laid open by the wounds inflicted on him by the Roman soldiers. The Roman soldiers took such pity on him that they brought him other meat which was not pork and asked him to eat it and just say he had eaten pork. He refused. In the end, he was tortured and ultimately died clinging to the fact that he had not been disobedient to the Law of his God. What was it over? It was over eating pork! It was ingrained into the mentality of the Jewish psyche that they must not, could not, under any circumstances, violate the Holy Law of God. Brethren, that is a zeal for God. That is precisely the zeal Paul is referring to here. But he says that it is not a zeal according to knowledge, because the way of righteousness is not by human endeavor.
The way of righteousness, rather, is by divine initiative. He says that Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. God gave Israel the Law, not so they could keep it in every aspect, but so that the Law could reveal to them their inability to keep the righteous requirements of the Law. Israel knew they could not keep it. But they didn’t see the Gospel when it came in the person of Jesus Christ.
Paul did not simply say, "Christ is the end of the Law." Many Christians today like to say that we are "not under Law but under Grace." By that many take this Scripture and wrest it out of context to mean that we do not have to take the commandments of the Old Testament seriously. It is as if the Old Testament does not count any more. Some Christians don’t even read the Old Testament because they think that it is Law and the New Testament is Grace. But the Law has never been done away with, in terms of its application to Christianity. All of the ceremonial law and all of the extra-biblical interpretation that Jews placed on the law is gone. That was never to apply to us anyway. But laws like, "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not murder," "Thou shalt not covet," still apply today. The Law is an expression of the heart of God. The Law was never unrighteous. Man was unrighteous in that he could not keep the Law. The Law is righteous, and holy, and just. Paul has already made that point previously in Romans.
There is nothing wrong with the Law. And today, we have the power to keep the Law in the Person of Jesus Christ. As Jesus Christ is allowed to live His life through us, He will cause us to keep the righteous requirements of the Law. He will cause us to love God with all of our minds, all of our souls, all of our strength. He will cause us to love one another as well. These are the two Great Commandments. Jesus said that upon these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets. If you are doing these two, you are going to be keeping the Law. You are not going to be coveting, stealing, bearing false witness, or murdering if you are really sold out to God. But it will be Jesus Christ keeping the Law in you and through you.
What Paul is saying is that we don’t attain heaven through keeping the Law any more. We attain heaven through coming to Christ. The way of righteousness is not by human endeavor, but it is by our response to divine initiative.
Now, he moves from the way of righteousness to the way of relationship. That is where Paul wanted his people, Israel, to come. He wanted them to come to a relationship with the living God. They needed to give a fair consideration to Christ. Look at what he says here,
Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them.". (v. 5)
Here is the problem of Law. If you are going to base your salvation on keeping the Law, then you are applying to yourself a standard by which you will ultimately be judged and found wanting. That is what Paul meant here. If you practice the righteousness which is based on the Law, then you are obligated to live or die by that righteousness. You will be judged by how perfectly you kept the Law. But the judgement is based on whether you kept it in its entirety without failing in any one point. It only takes one sin to be a sinner. Are you a lawbreaker if you break even one law? Yes. And when you stand before Almighty God and present your case, if you are a lawbreaker, you stand condemned. Only Jesus Christ kept the Law perfectly, and the standard is perfection. That is the problem of Law.
But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). (vv.6-7)
Here he begins to outline several principles of faith. Paul is quoting from the Old Testament where Moses talks about the Law, applying it to the Gospel. Basically, he is saying that there is nothing you can do, there is absolutely no work you can accomplish, other than the work that has already been done in the person of Jesus Christ. Why would you want to ascend into heaven to bring Christ down when He has already come? Because of His great love for you, He left heaven’s glory and was made a man. That is the great incarnation of God Almighty. It has already been done. There is no need for you to try to do it. Will you go into the abyss in order to bring Him up from the dead? He has already risen. We celebrate that each year on Resurrection Sunday. Jesus Christ came forth from the tomb victorious over death, the grave, and hell itself. He is alive. The work has already been done. That is the point Paul is making here. Then he makes another point.
But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (vv. 8-9)
The principles of faith are extremely simple, yet exceedingly profound. Here are the principles of faith: Quit trying, and start trusting. Oh, how simple they sound, but how hard they are to apply to our lives on a daily basis.
There is something within us, perhaps we inherited it from the fallen nature of Adam, which makes us want to work. We feel that if we could just do enough good works or be good enough in ourselves, that we will somehow be worthy enough to inherit God’s promise of eternal life with Him. Perhaps there is within us a kind of self-righteousness that makes us want to do it on our own. We could then say that we got to heaven our way, we earned it.
I believe that we all have a desire to have salvation, but to have it our way. If I owe God my life, then I am obligated to give it to Him, not just in the life to come, but now! I want to be saved, but I want to do my own thing. I want to be saved, but I want to go my own way. I want to be saved, but I want to outline the terms of that salvation. And so, it is much more comfortable for me to work for it. If I can earn it, I won’t feel any real obligation to God. But if Jesus Christ had to die for me, and I have to surrender to Him in order to have eternal life, then I have to give Him my life and I can’t outline my own terms, and neither can you.
One of the things that makes the church so anemic today is Christians on membership rolls who are no more committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ than the average person on the street. What is at stake is the Lordship of Christ. He says, in verse 9, if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," That is the confession: Jesus is Lord. Jesus is my Master. Jesus is my Ruler. Jesus is the One who controls my life. Let me ask you, "Does Jesus control your life?" Be honest with yourself. Can you tell that He is in charge? Do you consult Him? And if you do, when He gives you his direction, do you follow Him? Do you do what He says to do?
Quit trying and start trusting—that is the call of faith. Quit trying to do it your way and start trusting in God’s way. Trust that He knows what is good for you. Be obedient whether you understand it all, be obedient whether you like it all, be obedient because He is Lord. Otherwise, to proclaim with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord is to be confessing a lie, insofar as you are concerned. He is Lord, whether you acknowledge Him as Lord or not. But what it means here to confess Jesus as Lord is to confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord. These are the principles of faith.
What Paul has been doing here is outlining a fair consideration of Christ. Next he calls us to a frank confession of Christ.
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." (vv. 10-11)
The believing heart results in righteousness and the confessing mouth results in salvation. This is the confession that we make of Christ. One of the things this confession of Christ does is give us a personal expression of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It means that with our hearts we come to faith in Christ. We believe there. That is where we experience the new birth. That comes first. Then something else must follow—an outward expression of that faith. It is not enough to be an inward Christian. You must be a Christian inside and out. Not only must you believe in your heart, but you must confess with your mouth the Lordship of Christ. Confession gives you an avenue of personal expression for your faith in Christ. You do that by positioning yourself before others as a believer in Jesus Christ. We give you many opportunities to do that. Jesus said, "If you won’t confess me before men, I won’t confess you before my Father who is in heaven." And so, we believe in a public confession of faith. When we immerse people in the baptismal pool, they are making a public confession of their faith in Jesus Christ. The reason we baptize after they believe is because it is meaningless to make a public confession of faith in Christ unless you have that faith in Jesus Christ. The New Testament principle is, "Repent and be baptized." And everyone who is baptized is giving public testimony to the faith they already have. So, confession is not only a personal expression of our personal faith in Christ, but it gives a public exposure of the Lordship of Christ to the world.
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (vv. 12-13)
The call is to everyone, Jew and Gentile alike. The call is to you. If you will come today, the Bible says, "Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Do you hear His call to you? Are you willing to respond to it? Are you willing to call on the name of the Lord and be saved? You have an opportunity to make a commitment to Christ today. You have an opportunity to respond to Him by calling on His name in prayer and surrendering your life to Him today. If you do so, you will be, not might be, but will be saved. That is the clear promise of His Word.
There is only one way to heaven. It is not the way of human effort. It is the way of responding to His divine initiative. It is the way of a personal relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ. It is the way of surrender. Quit trying and start trusting in Him today!
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