Romans 10:14-21

The main theme of Romans is the righteousness of God. Romans 1-8 deal specifically with how the righteousness of God can become our righteousness, how man can be right with God and become like God, how man can find justification and transformation--to sum it up in a single word, Romans 1-8 deal with salvation. Now, in this passage, Paul lays out a sequence or process by which this salvation is actualized; in order to understand his point, we will look at the individual pieces of the sequence.

What Paul has spent the last eight chapters establishing is that salvation comes by faith. Romans 11:13 summarizes the matter: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Anybody who recognizes their need and calls out to God will receive an answer. We can put it that calling leads to salvation.

We have an example of something like this in the story of blind Bartimaeus. “And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” (Mark 10:47) Bartimaeus was literally calling upon the name of the Lord for deliverance from his blindness. And he received that deliverance. He called upon the name of the Lord and was saved—not because of any special merit or achievement, but simply because he did call on the name of the Lord.

But what is that would make a blind man call out like that?--call out even against the protest of the crowd, as we see in verse 48? We find the answer in Mark 10:52a: “And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.”

Bartimaeus called out to Jesus because he had faith that Jesus could cure him. That, and that alone, is the reason why he called out to Jesus. And all this applies to salvation as well. We would only go to God for salvation if we have faith that He can save us. Faith leads to calling.

We can note here that faith and calling upon God imply repentance. Can you imagine Bartimaeus trying to explain why he was calling out to Jesus if he didn't want to be cured of his blindness? Asking in faith to be saved from sin implies a recognition of and desire to be saved from sin. However, that is not the main focus here.

Faith leads us to call upon God for salvation.  But how could anyone have that kind of faith in God?

We can get a picture by looking at the story of Rahab and the spies. Rahab risked her life by protecting the spies when they entered Jericho. It seems that the reason why she took this risk was that she believed the Israelites (because they were under God's protection) would defeat Jericho and her only hope for survival was by putting herself on their side. In other words, she was saved from the destruction of Jericho because she called upon the Lord which she did because she had (at least in some sense) faith in God. (And yes, this is another example of how faith and works are interconnected; but that is not the point here.) The question: why is it that Rahab had this kind of faith in God?

In Joshua 2:10-11 we have her own answer to this:  “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

Rahab had heard of God's power and because of that, she had faith that God would also be able to overthrow Jericho. And that is why she risked everything in order to throw herself on God's mercy. Her knowledge of God does not seem to have been all that complete, but it was enough to convince her of His power. In other words, hearing leads to faith.

I think we can argue that hearing here means understanding. To say that faith comes by hearing doesn't mean that a deaf man could not be saved. Many people have been led to faith by reading about God's working. And conversely, there are many people who hear the gospel message without actually understanding it enough to even disbelieve it; they are like the hardpacked dirt on which the seed could not take root. 

In order to have faith in God we have to know about God. That doesn't mean we have to know everything about God—assumably both Rahab and Bartimaeus had very limited knowledge about God, but they knew enough about God to believe in His power and call upon Him.

Now, let's think of another story like Bartimaeus of someone calling upon God for healing. This is the Syrian captain Naaman who went to the prophet for healing. He understood God's power and so had faith and called upon God and was therefore healed. (And, once again, in his case faith and work were interconnected.) But the question is: how did Naaman ever come to know enough about God and God's prophet in order to seek healing? “And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.” (2 Kings 5:2-3)

Someone—in this case Naaman's wife's slave—told him about God, bringing him to the point where he could understand God's power and have faith in Him. In other words, preaching leads to hearing.

I realize that it may feel strange to refer to something like the conversation of this slave girl as preaching since in modern Christian language we have come to use the word preaching to mean a 35-40 minute address given by a man with a tie standing behind a short oblong wooden object while holding a Bible and a notebook. But I think in general in the New Testament—and specifically in this passage—the word preaching means something more than that. And the reason I say that is because of verse 17, where Paul repeats the main points of this outline. Faith cometh by hearing—just as in verse 14. But in this verse, Paul says that hearing comes by the word of God.

It is God's word—the revelation of, the truth about God—which brings men to the point of understanding and then faith. We have to know who God is in order to believe in Him and call upon Him—and we learn who God is through His revelation. And when we present that revelation to others, that is (in this context, anyway) preaching even if it is not performed in the way that we usually think of as preaching. And conversely, if the words of a preacher do not bring people to God's word, then it may not be truly preaching even if done within the church—but that is outside the scope of this lesson.

We have to remember all this for a reason. If we think of some of these stories, this preaching feels a little random. Naaman just happened to capture a slave girl who was able to tell his wife about God's power. Rahab and Bartimaeus seem to have heard more gossip than gospel. So is it just a coincidence that some people happen to proclaim God's word to others? Does this entire sequence depend on happenstance? 

No; in verse 15 Paul gives us the foundation, the starting link of this chain: sending leads to preaching. Usually, when this passage is quoted, people use sending in the sense of the church ordaining and sending out preachers or missionaries. And while there is a sense in which that is true, I don't think that's the main thing on Paul's mind. 

There are too many times when the gospel has been spread without the church as an organization sending out anyone. As we talked about back at the beginning of our study, we don't know who founded the church at Rome and there is no indication that the church specifically sent any missionaries there; instead, it seems more likely that it was just ordinary Christians who carried the gospel with them to Rome. In the same vein, it is unlikely that Naaman's slave girl had been specifically commissioned by the Israelite religious establishment to preach to Naaman.

I'm not denying the importance of the church sending out certain people to preach the gospel; what I am saying is that the church is just recognizing the more primary reality which is that God sent them. It is God who sends out people to preach the gospel, whether that means giving them a specific call (as God gave Paul) or through the providential arrangement of circumstances as in the case of Naaman's slave. 

In this section Paul quotes Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” The idea here is that there is something very welcome and attractive about good news. Imagine in the days before long-range communication, seeing a messenger in the distance and hearing the far-off cry of: “Good news!” 

There is a case to be made that passage in Isaiah is prophetic and refers to the preaching of the gospel. But I think the general truth is simply this: the proclamation of good news is something good, something recognized as good. Again, imagine in ancient times, there was some good news—say the end of a long war—and the king just decided not to send messengers out to inform everyone. Still more imagine if the news was something people needed to know; and nobody just bothered to tell them. That would be a sign of poor leadership. Even on a human level, people know that it's good to bring good news and that it's important to get it out. So it's only natural to expect that God would send out people to proclaim the good news.

So we have this sequence. It begins and ends with God. God sends out preachers; the preachers preach the word; people hear the word; they believe in God; they call upon God; and, in the end, they find salvation in God. The end, the purpose, the goal of the whole process is salvation; the whole purpose is for mankind to come into a relationship with God, to enter into the provisions of the gospel. These verses encapsulate God's plan to save mankind. Given this process, there should be salvation for everyone.

 But the problem is the beginning of verse 16: “They have not all obeyed the gospel.” If every link in this chain held, everyone would be saved. But not everyone is saved. Many people do not enter into this covenant of salvation. This is true of both Jews and Gentiles, but for Paul's argument here, the focus is on the fact that so many of the Jews were lost; that so many of the Jews (who, based on all external evidence, should have had the best chance) failed to obtain salvation. For them, somewhere, there was a missing link in this chain.

So the question is this: why? Where was the problem? And since most of these steps depend on the work of God, could the Jews blame God for their lost state? William Barclay titles this section: “The Destruction of Excuses” because, in summary, what Paul is saying is that the Jews had no excuse for failing to obtain salvation. And, by extension, neither does anyone else.

Paul proves his point by quoting a number of Old Testament passages. 

Psalm 19 begins with the with the famous words: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” This sets the tone for the next several verses, where the Psalmist describes God's creation—particularly the sun—as proclaiming God's glory, showing forth His power and wisdom. The main focus in these verses is the universality of this revelation. Nothing can hide from the sun and there is nowhere it does not go. The world is divided into many different language groups which do not understand each other, but the voice of the heavens is one which can be heard in any language. And in the middle of this passage, we have the verse which Paul quotes. “Their line (that is, their teaching, their sound) is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

All of this may remind you of a verse we looked at previously in Romans when discussing the sin of the Gentiles. Romans 1:20: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” The foundation of Paul's argument in the opening section of Romans is that the Gentiles had enough of a revelation of God to be guilty of turning away from God.

The sending and the preaching in this sequence are actions of God—God sends out His word; He may use human instruments; He usually uses human instruments; but He is not dependent on them. God can send out His word without our help. We are just today reaching a point where the church can be said to have preached the gospel in all the earth. Thousands of years ago, the sound of the Heavens had already gone out into all the world.  Therefore, no one can claim the excuse of ignorance. 

But there is more to this argument here. And it is because Paul is quoting Psalm 19 which is, well, part of the Bible. And it is specifically a Psalm about God's law. “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:7)

Paul reminds the Jews that God has revealed Himself to all mankind but that very fact also reminds them that God had given them a special revelation—something clearer and purer than anything given to the rest of the world. If anybody could claim the excuse of ignorance, it most certainly would not have been Jews.

And while you could say that they only had the Old Testament and not the gospel, we have the words of Jesus in John 5:39: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

Even ignoring for the moment the fact that the gospel, by this point, had been preached to most of the Jewish world, the fact was that the gospel had already been preached to them for generations throughout the Old Testament. Jesus' words seem to indicate that if the Jews had truly heard and believed the Old Testament, they would have believed Jesus. But even saying it that way isn't quite right, because we have to remember a point Paul will make later—that some of the Jews had believed in Christ. So at least for some—for some like say Simeon and Anna—it was that they believed the OT and so when Jesus came, they believed in him.

So we can say that God sent out His preachers—human, spiritual, and inanimate—and that the truth was preached to all the earth. And the Jews, certainly, had every reason to have heard and understood this truth. These links hold.

So could it be the problem had to do with God? Had the Jews called on God and God had simply failed to answer and provide salvation? No. Isaiah 65:1-2: “I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts.”

We see two things here. The Gentiles called upon God and God heard them—God heard them when, by all human reckoning, they had the least right to expect an answer. They had the least claim of anyone upon God and yet God heard them. So it just stands to reason that God wouldn't be deaf to the call of those who were His chosen. It is a poor sort of man who is tender and compassionate to strangers but hardhearted to his own family.

But such men do exist. So is God like them? No, because of what else Isaiah says. Rather than God ignoring the call of the Jews, it was exactly the opposite. God was the one who called out to the Jews and was ignored. And this isn't simply a single verse of scripture. Over and over throughout the Old Testament—especially during the time of the Major Prophets—we see God calling out to His people through the prophets and that message being either ignored or actively repelled and silenced. Certainly, it was not the case that God ignored the call of His people. These links of the chain hold.

But that very fact brings up another objection. Quite frequently, if you are taking some medicine it will come with the warning that if you experience unusual or unexpected symptoms, you should stop taking it and contact your doctor. If a machine starts behaving in some way that is different from its normal operation, that usually means it is in need of repair. Strange or unusual phenomena are often a sign that there is some problem in a process. There are cases where even something good can be concerning if it is unusual or unexpected.

So, with this whole thing of the Gentiles finding salvation. Surely that was something odd, something out of bounds—something that proved that God's entire sequence was flawed and not working as intended. Could this be the case?

No, because of Deuteronomy 32:21: “They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” All the way back at the time of Moses—at what is basically the beginning of Israel as a religious and political unit—God had prophesied that the Gentiles would be saved; that there would be a massive turn to God among them. This wasn't something strange or unexpected—no matter how strange and unexpected it might have seemed to the Jews. And not only was it prophesied but it was stated to be part of God's plan—God didn't merely observe that the Gentiles would be saved, but that this would actually be a part of his plan to minister to the Jews. This was not an unexpected side affect—this was part of the primary diagnosis and prescription.

God's sequence was still sound. And all of this enforces the fact the Jews could not claim the excuse of ignorance—because not only did they know about God and God's call, but they actually knew (or had every reason to know) the fact that the many of the Gentiles would come to God and that many of the Jews would reject God.

So then, where was the problem? What chain in this link was missing? Why had so many of the Jews failed to find salvation? 

In Isaiah 53:1 Isaiah is giving a prophecy of the Messiah. This verse may be telling of how people in Isaiah's own day reacted to his prophecies, but it also acts as a prediction of how people would react when the Messiah finally came. “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?”

This was the missing link in the chain. God had sent his preachers, and the preachers had preached the word, and the Jews had heard the word—but (by in large) they did not have faith, they did not believe the word. And therefore they did not call upon God and were not saved. God had done everything He could; it was man who failed.

And while Paul is talking here of the Jews, the same applies to the Gentiles—whoever is lost, regardless of their ethnicity and heritage, is lost because they failed to believe. God has done His part.