Romans 10:1 - Meaning and Application

Paul’s aim in this part of the chapter is to show the great difference between law-righteousness and faith-righteousness, and how much better righteousness by faith is. He wants to persuade the Jews to believe in Christ, expose the sin and foolishness of those who refused him, and show that God is right to reject such people. Here, Paul also shows his deep goodwill toward the Jews, and he explains why he feels that way (Romans 10:1, 2).

First, he gives a good wish: that they may be saved (Romans 10:1). He means saved from the ruin and destruction that were coming on them in this life, and from the coming wrath of God, meaning eternal judgment. This wish also assumes that they would be convinced and turned to Christ, because he could not pray in faith that they would be saved while still clinging to unbelief. Paul preached against them, but he also prayed for them. In that, he was like God, who is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), but wants sinners to turn and live.

Paul says this was his heart’s desire and prayer. That shows how strong and real his desire was. It was not a polite words-only wish, as many people give from the outside only. It was in his heart before it became his prayer. True prayer begins with a real longing in the soul. But Paul also brought that desire to God. A desire is not yet prayer unless it is carried to God. Merely wishing for something is not the same as praying for it.

Second, Paul gives a good witness about them, and this is another reason for his wish (Romans 10:2). He says, “I can testify that they have zeal for God.” The unbelieving Jews were among Paul’s fiercest enemies, yet he speaks of them as fairly and truthfully as he can. We should speak as well as truth allows, even about our worst enemies. Charity teaches us to think the best we can of people and to judge their words and actions in the kindest fair way possible. Paul notices what is good in them, even though they are wrong in a serious way.

They had zeal for God, but it was blind zeal. Their opposition to the gospel came from respect for the law, which they knew came from God. Yet zeal can be very mistaken when it is not guided by truth. The Jews hated Christ’s people and ministers, cast them out, and even killed them, while saying, “Let the Lord be glorified” (Isaiah 66:5). They even thought they were doing God a service (John 16:2).

Paul then shows the deadly mistake that ruined them. Their zeal was not based on knowledge. God did give them the law they were defending, but they should have known that the coming of the promised Messiah meant the law’s old order had reached its goal. Christ brought in a new way of worship, and the former way had to give place to him. He proved himself to be the Son of God and gave clear proof that he was the Messiah. Yet they refused to know him and would not confess him. They shut their eyes against the light, so their zeal for the law became blind zeal.

This is seen further in Romans 10:3. They did not submit to the righteousness of God, meaning they did not accept the gospel terms or receive God’s gift of being counted right with him through faith in Christ. Unbelief is a refusal to yield to God’s way of making people right. True faith always includes submission. That is why Christ’s first lesson is to deny ourselves. It is hard for proud hearts to accept free grace and admit that they need it.

Their unbelief had two main causes. First, they were ignorant of God’s righteousness. They did not understand God’s strict justice in hating sin, punishing it, and demanding satisfaction, that is, a full payment for sin’s guilt. They did not think enough about their need for a righteousness that could bring them safely before God. If they had, they would never have resisted the gospel offer or expected to be justified by their own works. They were also ignorant of God’s way of justification, the way he has now appointed and revealed through Jesus Christ. They did not know it because they would not know it. They closed their eyes to the light and loved darkness instead.

Second, they were proud of their own righteousness. They were trying to establish a righteousness of their own, one made by their own ideas and their own efforts. They trusted the worth of their works and their careful keeping of the ceremonial law. They thought they did not need Christ’s merit, so they relied on their own obedience as enough to make them right before God. Paul could not speak that way. He had learned to reject dependence on his own righteousness (Philippians 3:9). The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable gives a clear example of this pride (Luke 18:10, 11).

Paul then shows how foolish this mistake was. It made no sense to keep seeking righteousness by the works of the law after Christ had come and brought in an everlasting righteousness. The law was always meant to lead people to Christ (Romans 10:4). The moral law was meant to expose the wound, and the ceremonial law was meant to point to the remedy. But Christ is the goal of both. The law’s purpose was to direct people to him for righteousness.

Christ is the end of the ceremonial law because he is its fulfillment. When the reality comes, the shadow passes away. The sacrifices, offerings, and washings under the Old Testament pointed forward to Christ. Their weakness in removing sin showed the need for one true sacrifice that could take away sin once and for all. Christ is also the end of the moral law in the sense that he did what the law could not do (Romans 8:3) and secured its great purpose. The law aimed to bring people to perfect obedience and so to justification, being declared right with God. Because of sin’s power and our corrupt nature, that path is now impossible for us. But Christ has met the law’s demand through his death, so the goal is reached, and we are brought into another way of being justified. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, that is, for justification, to everyone who believes.

When we believe, that is, when we humbly agree to the terms of the gospel, we come to share in Christ’s satisfaction for sin. Then we are justified, which means declared right with God, through the redemption found in Jesus.

Paul next shows the greatness of the gospel above the law by comparing the two. What is the righteousness that comes from the law? He explains this in Romans 10:5. Its message is, “Do this and live.” Even though the law points us toward a better righteousness in Christ, it does not, by itself, offer any righteousness that can justify a person except perfect obedience. Paul supports this with Leviticus 18:5, “Keep my statutes and judgments, and if a person does them, he shall live by them.” He also refers to Galatians 3:12, “The man who does them shall live by them.”

This “live” means more than life in the land of Canaan, Israel’s promised land. Canaan was a picture of heaven. The obedience required by the law had to be complete and without any sin, with no breaking of God’s command at all. The law given at Mount Sinai was not a pure covenant of works, meaning a system that promised life only for perfect obedience. If it had been, no one could have been saved under that time. Still, God gave it with much of the strictness and fear of the covenant of works, so it would drive people to Christ and make the covenant of grace more welcome. How foolish, then, for the Jews to cling so tightly to this hard way of seeking justification and salvation, especially when sin had made that way impossible, and a new and living way had been opened.

Paul then describes the righteousness that comes by faith in Romans 10:6 and following. He does this using Moses’ words from Deuteronomy, the “second law,” which gives a clearer picture of Christ and the gospel than the first giving of the law. From Deuteronomy 30:11-14, he shows first that this way is not hard or difficult. The way of justification and salvation has no deep puzzle or impossible task that should discourage us. As Isaiah said, it is a highway (Isaiah 35:8). We are not told to climb up to heaven for it, or to dive into the deep for it.

We do not need to go to heaven to search its records or discover God’s secret counsel. Christ is in heaven, but we do not need to go there to bring him down for our salvation. We also do not need to go into the deep to bring Christ up from the dead. This shows that Christ’s descent into the deep, or Hades, means only that he went into the state of the dead, in the way Jonah’s experience foreshadowed it. Christ was in the grave, and now he is in heaven, but we do not need to puzzle over imagined difficulties or turn salvation into something impossible. God did not place salvation far away from us.

The truth is very plain and near: “The word is near you.” When we speak of seeing Christ, receiving Christ, or feeding on Christ, we do not mean Christ in heaven or Christ in the deep. We mean Christ offered to us in the promise and set before us in the word. Christ is near because the word is near. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so there is no great difficulty in understanding it, believing it, or openly owning it. The work you must do is within you. The kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). From there you must take your evidence, not from heaven’s records. The promise says it shall be in your mouth and in your heart (Isaiah 59:21; Jeremiah 31:33). God has already done what needed to be done for us. Christ has come down from heaven, so we do not need to fetch him. He has come up from the dead, so we do not need to struggle to bring him up. What remains is a work within us, and that is where our care must be, in our heart and mouth.

Under the law, people had to do everything themselves, “Do this, and live.” But the gospel shows that most of the work is already finished. What remains is made short and plain in righteousness, and salvation is offered on very clear and easy terms, brought near to us in the word. It is in our mouth, because we read it daily. It is in our heart, because we are, or should be, thinking about it daily. This is the “word of faith,” the gospel promise. It is called that because faith is its subject, because it teaches faith, and because it is the usual means by which faith is worked in us.

What is this word of faith? Paul gives its substance in Romans 10:9-10, the heart of the gospel, and it is clear enough. First, it promises, “You shall be saved.” The gospel offers salvation, salvation from guilt and wrath, the saving of the soul, eternal salvation, the kind Christ brings as a full and complete Savior.

Second, it sets out the terms. Two things are required for salvation. One is confessing the Lord Jesus, openly admitting that we belong to him and depend on him as our King and Savior. This means owning Christianity in front of the world, no matter its temptations or threats, and standing with Christ in every season. Our Lord gave great weight to confessing him before people (Matthew 10:32-33). This confession grows out of many graces, and it shows real self-denial, love for Christ, contempt for the world, courage, and steady resolve. It was especially costly in the early church, when confessing Christ could cost a person property, honor, advancement, freedom, life, and everything dear in this world.

The other requirement is believing in the heart that God raised him from the dead. A spoken profession of faith, if the heart does not truly believe, is only an empty show. The root of faith must be a sincere agreement with the gospel’s message about Christ, especially his resurrection. That resurrection is the chief truth of the Christian faith, because by it Christ was shown to be the Son of God with power, and God gave clear proof that he accepted Christ’s satisfaction for sin.

Paul explains this further in Romans 10:10, and he reverses the order because faith in the heart must come before an acceptable confession with the mouth. Faith happens with the heart. That means more than agreement in the mind. It includes the will as well, a sincere, inward, whole-hearted, and strong consent.

It is not true faith unless it comes from the heart. That faith leads to righteousness. There is the righteousness of justification, which means being counted right with God, and the righteousness of sanctification, which means being made holy in life. Faith has a part in both. It is the condition of our justification (Romans 5:1), and it is also the root and source of our sanctification. Faith begins that holy work, and by faith it goes on (Acts 15:9).

The profession of faith comes with the mouth. This includes confession to God in prayer and praise (Romans 15:6), and confession to people by openly owning God’s ways before others, especially when we are called to do so in times of persecution. It is fitting that God should be honored with the mouth, since he made the human mouth (Exodus 4:11). At such times, he has promised to give his faithful people words and wisdom (Luke 21:15). It is also part of Christ’s honor that every tongue will confess him (Philippians 2:11). This is said to lead to salvation because it carries out the condition of that promise: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father” (Matthew 10:32).

Justification by faith lays the foundation of our right to salvation. Confession then builds on that foundation, and at last brings us into full possession of what was promised. So here we have a short summary of the terms of salvation, and they are very reasonable. In short, we must give ourselves to God, soul and body, our souls by believing with the heart, and our bodies by confessing with the mouth. Do this, and you will live.

For this, in Romans 10:11, he quotes Isaiah 28:16: “Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” That means, first, he will not be ashamed to own the Christ in whom he trusts. The one who believes in the heart will not be ashamed to confess with the mouth. Sinful shame is what makes people deny Christ (Mark 8:38). “Whoever believes will not be in haste” means he will not run away from the suffering that comes with duty, and he will not be ashamed of a religion that the world despises. Second, he will not be ashamed of his hope in Christ. He will not be disappointed in the end. It is our duty not to be ashamed, and it is our privilege that we shall not be ashamed, of our faith in Christ. He will never have reason to regret trusting so fully in the Lord Jesus.