Romans 10

Read Romans 10

So Romans 10 begins by concluding Romans 9. Paul again shows his great desire for all Jews, his kin, to come to faith. And he writes, we can assume given the message, to the Jews in Rome saying, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."  What Paul is saying here, is that the Law will not bring you righteousness (either faith in the Law or performing the Law depending who you ask), but Christ will. He is the end of righteousness through the Law and the beginning of righteousness through faith, which is the main point of Romans 10.

Before Jesus the mentality was that Moses gave the Law, and through the Law one could be made righteous, and therefore be saved. Jesus then came on the scene and said that through faith in him can you be righteous, and therefore saved. This righteousness says that the word has come near to us. If we think in terms of John 1, the Word, the Logos, Jesus, has come near to us, and we have faith in him that we proclaim. And because we confess him as our Lord, King, Savior, Messiah, Christ; and because we proclaim his resurrection and defeat of death, we are saved. Paul writes that with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. What I see these things mean is this.

I trust my girlfriend with all I got. I love her and love brings risk, the risk of being hurt. I can't make a logical decision about this, I can't think about it, weigh the options, look at facts and statistics because human nature is too spontaneous and unpredictable for facts and statistics to be of use, which is why I don't believe in evolution, but that's for another time. So If I trust my girlfriend it must be a trust from the heart, I believe with/through my heart that she will not hurt me. I cast my chips with her, and I hope she plays wisely with them so that I don't lose. We do the same with Christ, we give him our chips and say, "I trust you. There's no previous game between us for me to go off of, so I'm going with my gut feeling, my heart, and trusting in you." Through that we become justified, he gives us a return for our chips, and that is his righteousness (as seen in the beginning of 8). Then we confess with our mouth, meaning we thought about it then. We have tested this, it proved true, so we stand before others and confess all about Jesus and ourselves, telling what wretches we are and how perfect he is, and through this confession we are saved. Just as if we stood before a jury and confessed that we are guilty of a crime and because of the judge's mercy, we are then given a pardon, despite our guilt, because we were willing to confess our sin before him.

Because of this salvation, this justification, we come into one big family, one body, one Church, and there is no distinction between race, nationality, culture, or social status, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Because the God that saved is us God of all and gives each and every one of us the same riches that he gives to all who call upon his name.

But how can someone call on a person they don't believe in? And how can they believe in him if they never heard of him? And how can they never hear of him if we never proclaim him? And how are we to proclaim him if we are never sent? Faith in Jesus comes through hearing about Jesus, and hearing about Jesus comes through the word of Jesus.  So let's sort this out.

Let's say I had a grandfather who was alive while I was a child. But I never heard about him, from him, or saw him. So how could I ever call him? I don't even know that he exists, and sure don't believe that he does. And how can I believe that he exists if my parents never talk about him, or proclaim him? And how can they ever talk about him if they never knew him, or were sent into the world by him? In the same way, how will anyone believe in Jesus if we never proclaim him? Now some of you who try to weasel their way out of telling others about Christ because you think your only duty is to sit in a pew on Sunday will probably be saying, "Well it's not my job to tell others about Christ." What about in Ephesians 4.11ff Paul writes that God gave many different types of people to equip the saints (all those saved) for ministry (service and proclaiming Jesus) and building of the Body (evangelism). Lazy Christians...irk me. Anyways, We see throughout scripture that we all are to proclaim Jesus so that all may hear and have a chance for salvation. And this salvation comes through faith, which can only come through hearing.

Paul is still writing about Jews at the moment though, and he says that God had stretched out his hand to the Jews who have been disobedient the entire time, and finally God was found by those who didn't seek him because he had shown himself to them even though they didn't ask him to.

This reaffirms that God is a God who chases after man. One of the big problems with reading the Bible a lot is that when you do, you get a lot of stuff out of it, but forget where you read what even though you made notes about it. I know that recently I've read a lot about God chases after man, but currently I can't remember where it's at. But the main point is this of chapter 10. God is chasing after all of us. He has extended his hand and many turned away, but he still extends it despite that. He makes it easy for salvation, by making it through faith in his son. By casting our lot with Jesus we are given justification in return, trusting that he'll take care of us. Because of this awesome and simple salvation we should tell others about it, just as when you get an awesome Christmas gift and want to brag to others about it.