Romans 11:5,6 - A remnant chosen by grace

So just as it was in Elijah’s day, so it was in Paul’s time, and so it is now. There are more who are saved than we imagine. As an aside, Elijah was prominent, taking on the prophets of baal, Ahab and Jezebel directly. Most of the seven thousand were presumably not prominent, otherwise Elijah would have known about them. So in any age there will be those who are at the forefront, but there will be many more who are saved but are not prominent.

Paul stresses again the works versus grace conflict. The means of salvation is by grace, not works. We need to view things from a grace perspective not a works perspective. If we view our own lives from a works perspective we will either delude ourselves or become despondent. If we view others from a works perspective we will reject people whom God has chosen. Grace can overcome all things. It can work miracles in our own lives, and in the lives of those to whom any rational assessment would write them off.

Now if we go back to the “those He foreknew” (v2). There are those of an Arminian persuasion (and what I am about to say probably applies to Molinism as well) who would say something along the lines of God knew who would put faith in Him, and He chose them. But if we take that line then salvation is getting close to being dependent upon the works of man, in this case faith being a work. The Calvinist view stresses that God actively chose the people He would save, and faith was the fruit of this choice. Whatever line you take you can easily run into difficulties. If we look at what Paul has said he stresses both the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. We find it very difficult, if not impossible, to see just how the two concepts can work together, but we must be careful that in seeking to reconcile the two we do not end up rejecting Biblical truth. We must not make an idol out of understanding.

Romans 11:1-4 - Did God reject Israel?

11:1

We now begin the culmination of Paul’s explanation of Israel and God’s plans. “Did God reject His people? By no means!”. This should be a corrective for any who think that Israel no longer has any part in God’s plans. To do so means ignoring countless promises in the Old Testament. It also means ignoring history and current events. How has Israel survived so long as a nation, when for so many years it had no homeland? How did it get back its homeland? Why is such a small nation so pivotal in international affairs? At the same time we should also remember what else Paul has said, and indeed what the Old Testament says. As Paul says in 9:6, not all Israel is Israel. Israel is, on the whole, a disobedient nation and suffers the consequences of this.

In Paul’s day there was evidence that God had not rejected Israel. The apostles were all Jews, Paul was a Jew above all Jews, and the church is built on the foundation of the apostles. Each day we read a book written by Jews, and, of course, Jesus Christ is, humanly speaking, a Jew.

11:2-4

“God did not reject His people whom He foreknew”. Paul’s prime concern is that God’s plans have not failed. Things are working out exactly as God intended. As always Paul backs up his argument with reference to Scripture. Elijah thought he was the only one left, God disabused him of this delusion. Things were not that bad, there were still several thousand who had not bowed the knee to baal. Note that it says God had reserved these people for Himself, and that they had now bowed the knee. So the sovereign choice of God and human responsibility are working together.

It is interesting to see Paul’s use of Scripture throughout chapters 9-11. He does use individual texts, but he also looks at the whole way in which God works with His people, drawing general lessons. We too should look at individual verses and also at the wider picture.

Romans 10:19-21 - Why did they not believe?

10:19

We now get the first hint of how God’s plan of salvation applies to Israel. This quote, Deut 32:21, comes from the Song of Moses. This is a passage of judgement on Israel for her perverseness. Paul is countering the claim that Israel did not understand and is therefore not guilty. Israel did not understand because she was hard-hearted, stiff-necked. When we chose to ignore God or to disobey Him we do not just do one thing wrong, but our hearts become a little harder. Israel was blinded by sin. So way back in Moses’ day God had said that He would make Israel envious by those who are not a nation, ie by the Gentiles. Paul will expand on this theme in the next chapter. Israel’s guilt is highlighted by the fact that a people, ie the Gentiles, who did not have the Law and all its benefits were able to see the light of the gospel.

10:20,21

This chapter closes with two quotes from Isaiah 65:1,2. Isaiah plays a big part in Paul’s theology. Isaiah “boldly” says that God was found by those who did not seek Him, ie by the Gentiles. What was now being worked out in the gospel, the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, the good news going out to the nations, and the good news being accepted by the nations, had all been foretold long ago. It was all entirely consistent with what God had revealed in the Old Testament. A corollary of this is that all that Paul will say in the next chapter will also work out. One day Israel will return to God and believe in Christ.

The final quote in this chapter re-emphasises the hardness of heart of Israel, her culpability in the matter. God gave them numerous chances, numerous opportunities, yet she refused to take them because she was disobedient and obstinate.

It has been pointed out that in chapter 9 there is emphasis on predestination, on God’s decree. In this chapter the emphasis has been on Israel’s culpability, her responsibility. Predestination and human responsibility go together, one does not exclude the other and any theology which leads to one excluding the other is a mistaken theology and is unbiblical.

Romans 10:16-18 - Faith comes from hearing

10:16,17

Some might argue that since most of the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah then He could not have actually been the Messiah. However, Paul quotes from the Old Testament, Isaiah 53:1, to remind them that rejection of God’s messenger was normal for Israel. They had a well established history of rejecting God’s prophets!

“Faith comes through hearing the message”. If we look at the Old Testament the “good” parts are when people hear the word of God and believe it. Noah heard God, believed Him and acted upon it. Abraham heard the word of God and acted, as did Moses, Joshua, David, Gideon and all the other heroes of the Old Testament. We do well to remember this today. It has been said “preach the gospel always, use words if necessary” (often attributed to St Francis of Assisi, but this is not proven). This sounds good but is actually nonsense. Words are always necessary. The actions must match, but the words are essential.

And God’s word to the world is Jesus Christ. The whole world needs to hear the message of Jesus Christ.

10:18

Paul is now starting the final phase of the argument that will be completed in chapter. How will Israel be saved? Here he is still dealing with the unbelief phase. The problem is not that the Jews did not hear the message. The Messiah Himself lived among them! And now the message has gone out to all the world. Paul is quoting from Psalm 19:4. There David speaking of the whole of nature declaring the glory of God. The whole world, Jew and Gentile, can see the glory of God declared in nature. Yet not all believe. In the same way, the gospel goes out to all the world. God is the Lord of All and declares His word to all the world.

Romans 10:14,15 - The need to preach

10:14

“How can they call ...” Why does Paul say this? Why was a Jew preaching to the Gentiles? Indeed, devoting so much energy to seeing Gentiles into the kingdom? Paul was fulfilling God’s mandate. He was fulfilling God’s general plan revealed in the Old Testament. God wanted all nations to be blessed through Abraham, there are numerous other promises of the kingdom being extended to all nations, especially in Isaiah. And Paul has demonstrated in earlier parts of Romans, and reiterated in the last chapter or so, that righteousness is by faith. So if they are going to need faith then they need to hear the message of the gospel so that they can indeed believe. So someone needs to preach to them. There is an increasing attitude in society that we should not proselytise, you may even find it in some parts of the church. This goes directly against God’s will. Even on university campuses there are those demanding that they have “safe places”, ie places where they will not hear anything that might make them question their current beliefs. There are those who say we should just accept gays as they are, that we should not evangelise Jews or Muslims. The problem we have in the church is that we do not evangelise enough or evangelise effectively (and I include myself in this). For the message of salvation is open to all who believe. If we do not preach to a particular group then we are not showing them respect, rather we are saying we are perfectly happy for them to go to hell.

10:15

So there is a general mandate to preach to the Gentiles. Paul also had a specific mandate, he had been called by God specifically to preach to the Gentiles. Paul then quotes from Isaiah 52:7. God sends His messengers with good news, and it is good for His messengers to proclaim His message. Paul could not be as effective as he was if he had not been sent.

There is a very practical problem for the church, at least in the West. We are not very good at evangelism. Most of us know and believe that it is an essential part of the church’s mission, even the primary part of the mission. Yet most of us feel pretty hopeless at it. There are some who try to use guilt to get the church into action. Such a strategy is bound to fail. If guilt could have been successful we would have evangelised the nation ages ago. Then there are those who say fear is the biggest problem. I do not believe this to be so. Rather I think the main problem is that we do not believe that what we do will make much difference to anything. Our society is increasingly inoculated against the gospel. We need God to break through. And He can break through, for there was no reason the Roman world should have been open to the gospel, yet it was. We should follow Jesus’ teaching and ask the Father to send workers into the harvest field, we need to be sent.

Romans 10:12,13 - There is no difference

There is one way of salvation, and only one way, and that is through faith in Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection. For there is one Lord and He applies the same principles to all (Rom 2:11). “And richly blesses all who call on Him”. We can make the means of salvation a battlefield. The Jews were doing this in Paul’s day. Secularists and the like do this today. We need to remember that the gospel brings blessing. The gospel is God’s chosen method of bringing blessing to people. Anyone who believes will be richly blessed. To the one who hears the gospel will deeply challenge their way of life, their world view. In today’s climate this perhaps best illustrated by the Bible and homosexuality because it is such a contentious issue. The first reaction can be that God is “against gays”, this is an understandable reaction because the Bible does clearly state that homosexual acts are sinful, and that God’s wrath comes upon all sinners (of which homosexuality is just one example in a very long list). So it declares that your lifestyle is wrong and is abhorrent to God, but of course the gospel declares this about every single human being. But then it says that if we repent and believe we will be richly blessed by God. The reason that the Bible declares that certain things are wrong is so that we can come into the true blessings of God.

Paul emphasises the universality of the gospel call by quoting Joel 2:32. It does not matter what your background is, what your circumstances are, what or who you are. If we choose to turn to Christ we will be saved.

Romans 10:9-11 - Declaring and believing

10:9

There are two central elements to believing the gospel. We confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our heart that He is risen from the dead. The version of the Old Testament used in New Testament times was the LXX, the Greek Septuagint, and in this version word Lord was used for God thousands of times. This is important for there are some who will claim that calling Jesus Lord did not signify His deity, that the deity of Christ is something that was added on by the church in later years. This is simply not true and is not supported by the evidence. Saying Jesus is Lord is saying He is God. Moreover, it was also a political statement. The mantra of the Roman Empire was that Caesar is Lord, so confessing that Jesus is Lord was not mere words but a bold statement that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. In some ways we face a similar situation today in our increasingly anti-Christian western culture. A current example is society's attitudes to homosexuality and transgenderism. Society is trying to promote a totally unbiblical view and demanding that everyone goes along with it. But society is not lord, Jesus is Lord.

Believing in your heart that Jesus was raised from the dead. The resurrection is central to the gospel. We worship the living Lord, not a dead prophet. In the Bible “heart” does not just mean emotions, rather it concerns the whole of the inner man, our emotions, mind, will and spirit.

So there is outward action and confession, and inner conviction of the truth.

10:10,11

This verse should not viewed in an overly mechanistic sense, inward belief and conviction and outward declaration in both word and deed go together. Remember also what Paul is doing here in Romans. He is proclaiming and explaining that salvation is by faith not by law. The importance of inward conviction is a common theme in the Old Testament. In places God complains that the Israelites only honoured Him with their mouths not with their hearts (eg Isaiah 29:13). The way of faith was not an alien concept to the Old Testament. In order to back up his point Paul then quotes from Isaiah 28:16. This verse stresses the importance of belief, the universality of the principle of faith, and the effect of faith. This promise of not being put to shame is increasingly important in an age when society is ever more anti-Christian. We can be confident in our God.