ROMANS 10: 1-7
STANDING RIGHT WITH GOD
Travel back with me to your high school days in English class. Do you recall a poem by Robert Frost titled, The Road Not Taken? Listen to the poem:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost talks about living life in two different ways. He chose to live a different way than most people: perhaps a more challenging way, one requiring more of a personal investment and commitment than the other.
Our Bible Lesson explores two ways of knowing and discovery, two ways of trying to develop a relationship with God. One way is a legalistic way. It's the way of zeal for traditions of law and man. It is a way that follows rules, of faithfulness to the expectations of men and religion. The other way of having a relationship with God involves faith. It involves believing in the Son of God and receiving His love and righteousness. It involves basing your right standing with God on the righteousness of Christ instead of our own righteousness (CIT).
The Jews refused to submit themselves to God and receive His righteousness. The Jews refused the Way of God because they were:
I. MISINFORMED, 1-2.
II. MISDIRECTED, 3-4.
III. MISGUIDED [MISSING THE MARK], 5.
IV. & MISTAKEN [MISUNDERSTOOD], 6-7.
In verse 1 Paul again expresses his concern for the salvation of his people. "Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation."
You may remember this heart's desire from chapter 9, where Paul said he would be willing to be separated from Christ if it meant his brothers in Israel would be saved. This reflects the heart of God, which is willing to give up anything for the salvation of others.
Now the Jews didn't think they needed saving at all. They were trusting in family heritage, traditions, and works. But they were not trusting in Christ.
What will happen to the Jewish people who BELIEVE IN GOD but not in Christ? Since they believe in the same God, won't they be saved? If that were true, Paul would not have worked so hard and sacrificed so much to teach them about Christ. Because Jesus is the most complete revelation of God, we cannot fully know God apart from Christ; and because God appointed Jesus to bring God and man together, we cannot come to God by another path. The Jews, like everyone else, can find salvation only through Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
As a converted Jew, Paul grieved over their lost spiritual condition. So great was his burden he even expressed the wish that he himself might be "accursed from Christ" if that would result in their salvation (Rom. 9:2,3). How he longed that they might be saved! For all the hard-headed, hard heartedness of the Jew, Paul would not stop praying for them.
We still think Jewish people are highly resistant to the gospel, and for the most part they are. But God's Spirit can penetrate their spiritual blindness. According to Sam Nadler of Chosen People Ministries, Jews in Russia are responding to the message of salvation.
Many of us know very little about today's Jews, the descendants of the people we love to read about in the Bible. There are an estimated 19 million Jews in the world, less than 1 percent of the earth's population. And about 8 million of them live in North America.
Bible-believing Christians are to reflect the attitude of the apostle Paul, who had a deep love for his fellow Jews. He longed for them to discover, as he had, that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Savior of people of all nations. Perhaps we need to share Paul's burden by adding the people of Israel to our prayer list and pleading with God "that they may be saved."
Paul was broken and burdened over his kinsmen he had desire to see them saved, to see them born again, by God's amazing grace. I ask you do you have that desire to see your family and friends come to know Christ?
In Raymond C. Ortlund's book, Lord Make My Life a Miracle, there is a story about A. B. SIMPSON, founder of the CMA. A guest in Simpson's home arose early one morning and walked down the hill to the study. There he saw a sight that deeply moved and impressed him. Simpson sat alone at his desk with his arms encircling a globe of the world. Tears were running down his cheeks. He was literally weeping for a world lost in sin.
Paul prayed for people to be saved. Paul wept and he also witnessed to the unsaved. I ask you have you told some one about Jesus this week?
God Himself is the highest example of love for fallen mankind. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." (John 3:16). Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How much do we care about people who are separated from God? Enough to witness? Enough to give of our means? Enough to give ourselves? Enough to die to self and live for God? Give us a passion for souls, dear Lord. For a passion for Jesus should become a passion for telling others about Jesus.
Paradoxically we find in verse 2 that it is Israel's zeal for God which has created the great barrier to God. "For I testify about them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge."
Paul understands their state of mind. Paul also had a lot of zeal after God. But like so many in the church world today, that wonderful zeal, that great desire to follow the law of God had Paul or Saul totally misdirected.
Yes undeniably Saul/Paul had had a great zeal for God. He had stood by, holding the coats of those who stoned Stephen who followed that heretic Jesus. I wonder what he thought as he heard Stephen and watched him die from the rocks crushing his body when Stephen said, "I see the Heavens opened and Jesus is standing at the right hand of the Father."
How could anyone die so peacefully and be so certain of the truth? Was this Stephen a madman, or was there something really true about all of this talk about Jesus being the very Son of God?
It was about this time that Saul, seeking to continue his work of eradicating the followers of Jesus, started out with great zeal on another of his trips, this time to Damascus. He had gathered letters of approval for his actions from none other that the High Priest of Israel. He marched out to carry out his duties as an enforcer of Jewish tradition.
Acts 9:1-2 state; "And Saul, yet breathing out threatens and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem."
I can just see Saul, as he rode out of Jerusalem with blood in his eye. He was a man on a mission to right the wrongs of his day. Zeal is a wonderful thing, but only if that zeal is aimed in the right direction.
There was no one more zealous for God than Paul, but his was a self-righteous zeal and not a zeal under the control and direction of Scripture and the Holy Spirit. There was no one more zealous than Paul, but his zeal was misinformed and therefore misdirected.
Yes, zeal is a wonderful thing, but only if that zeal is aimed in the right direction. Otherwise, our zeal can become a deadly weapon to destroy the lives of other people.
The Jews were indeed zealous for God (Matthew 23:15). As the life of Paul so forcefully demonstrates.
Let me bring up a good point. There are many "religious" people in the world that have all kinds of "zeal" for God. Terrorists, in fact, give their lives in zeal for Allah. But their zeal is without knowledge – they are missing key information about God which makes their zeal worse than useless, it makes their zeal deadly.
Even those of us who know Jesus as our Lord and Savior can fall into this trap – we let our excitement and exuberance outpace our wisdom, knowledge, and the Spirit of God. That's how we get some of the cults we see out there today, that's how we get some of the strange doctrines that run around the church, and that's even how we get well intended Christians damaging other Christians in the church.
Now zeal is a good thing – Jesus said "zeal for my Father's house will consume Me." (John 2:17) Fervency, excitement, "on-fire" for God – these are good things. In fact, the word "zeal" means "to heat up." So how do you know if your zeal is running ahead of your [Biblical and spiritual] knowledge?
I would suggest applying one SIMPLE TEST – is what you propose based on the revealed will of God as found in His Word? One of the biggest mistakes Christians make is that they feel as if they should do something God has never authorized them to do in His Word. The other huge mistake is to think God has given them a "new revelation" that goes beyond the written Word and is even place above the Word of God. I say "baloney!" There is no higher authority than God's Word and revelation is closed. No more Scripture is being given or written.
Not only were they misinformed, the Jews refused the Way of God because they were:
II. MISDIRECTED, 3-4.
The explanation of Israel's failure and their misdirected and misguided zeal is continued in verses 3 & 4. If the Jews of Jesus day had looked to God with an open heart, He would have given they understanding into the Scriptures and they could have seen that Jesus was the Messiah – and many did – but verse 3 tells us what happened to many others. "For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God."
In presenting God's gracious offer of salvation in Christ and the provision of righteousness by faith, Paul first stated the contrast of the by-works approach to achieving righteousness.
The Jews obviously had knowledge of God but not full or spiritual knowledge. Otherwise they would not have stumbled over Christ by seeking to gain righteousness on the basis of works. All rightness comes from God. Christians are not self-justified. Our righteousness is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. If, however, we try to make ourselves right by how many rules we obey or how "good" a person we can be – or what we think we are doing for God - then what happens is we miss God's righteousness in Jesus.
The Jews did not really understand God's demand for perfect righteousness, which is why they thought they could establish their own (Isa. 64:6). Little wonder then that they did not submit to ("place themselves under") God's righteousness, that is, the righteousness God provides through Christ by faith.
According to the Chicago Tribune, [in the summer of 1994,] Marcio da Silva, a love-struck Brazilian artist, was distraught over the breakup of a four-year relationship with his girlfriend, Katia de Nascimento. He tried to WIN BACK her love by a gesture of great devotion. He walked on his knees for nine miles.
With pieces of car tires tied to his kneecaps, the twenty-one year-old man shuffled along for fourteen hours before he reached her home in Santos, Brazil. He was cheered on by motorists and passersby, but when he reached the end of his marathon of love thoroughly exhausted, the nineteen-year-old woman of his dreams was not impressed. She had intentionally left her home to avoid seeing him.
Some people try similar acts of devotion to impress God and earn salvation. Like Katia de Nascimento, God is not impressed. The only thing that brings the forgiveness of sin is faith in Jesus Christ, not sacrificial deeds.
Verse 4 indicates that the law has ended for those who have Christ's righteousness. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."
Jesus said concerning the law, "Not one jot or tittle shall pass away until all be fulfilled" (Matthew 5:18). Yet the law ended when Christ rose. Why? Because it was fulfilled in Him. Christ is the "end of the law" in two ways. He fulfills the purpose and goal of the law (Matthew 5:17) in that He perfectly-sinlessly live out God's will on earth (John 8:46). Second, Jesus gave His life in payment for the penalty of sin and the broken Law (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:13-14). The Law now points to Him as the Source of the God-provided righteousness which it could not supply (Gal. 3:24).
Which is great news because the law is powerless to save. In order to be saved by the law, a person would have to live a perfect life, not sinning once. [Why did God give the law when He knew people couldn't keep it? According to Paul, one reason the law was given was to show people how guilty they are (Galatians 3:19). The law was a shadow of Christ- that is, the sacrificial system educated the people so that when the true sacrifice came, they would be able to understand his work (Hebrews 10:1-4). The system of ceremonial laws was to last until the coming of Christ. The law points to Christ, the reason for all those animal sacrifices. [Life Application Bible. Zondervan. p. 2040.]
A qualification is attached to Christ being the end of the law. He is only the end of the law for everyone who believes. This suggest that the law is still applicable for those who do not believe. [Everett Harrison. The Expositors Bible Com. Vol. 10. Zondervan. p. 111]
III. MISGUIDED [MISSING THE MARK], 5.
Verse 5 teaches the impossibility of justification through keeping the law. "For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness."
On the day the law came down from Mount Sinai, three thousand died (Exodus 32:28). On the day the Spirit descended, three thousand were saved (Acts 2:41). Legalism in your life, in our churches, or in our communities will always lead to death because no one can fulfill its righteousness. The Spirit in your life, in our churches, in our communities, on the other hand, will always lead to life because of the finished work of the Cross. [Courson, Jon: Jon Courson's Application Commentary. Nashville, TN : Thomas Nelson, 2003, S. 958.]
Plain and simple – if you want to get rightness by the law you have to obey the law – every single bit of it. Lot's of luck. Only one person's been able to do it so far – and you won't be the next!
IV. & MISTAKEN, 6-7.
Paul takes Moses' farewell challenge from Deuteronomy 30:11-14 and applies it to Christ. To verify the place of faith in God's eternal plan for man's redemption, verses 6 & 7 remind us that righteousness is by faith in Christ alone. "But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: "Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down), (7) "or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)."
[The stern prohibition is against making your own way, even to Christ. All noble, pious and heroic attempts to demonstrate our own righteousness is only active unbelief. We cannot save ourselves no matter what we do. There is no need whatever to scale the heights or plumb the depths in search of Christ. We cannot raise ourselves to Christ much less raise Christ. We cannot establish our selves. We can't save ourselves. Christ has already come, died, and risen again. He is readily accessible to us.]
Christ has provided our salvation through His incarnation [coming to earth in the flesh (John 1:14)] and resurrection (coming back from the dead). Therefore there was no need for anyone to ascend the ramparts of heaven to gain some knowledge or acceptance to bring Christ down (in His Incarnation). Nor do we need explore the underworld [the deep refers to the grave], the place of the dead, or dig a hole to hades to bring Christ up from the dead. Christ has already come and proclaimed salvation to the world, and then bled and died to provide forgiveness and been resurrected to forge the way to God. He and His salvation are now immediately accessible to faith. We do not need to do anything. Everything necessary for our salvation has been done. [John Stott, Romans, IVP, 1994. 284]
The righteousness of faith does not require some mystical, perplexing, and incredible journey or search through the world or universe to find Christ. No matter what form it takes, righteousness which is based on human achievement falls short no matter what journey man took trying to find or attain it. God has done it all. Our part is to believe the saving message.
In other words – faith means we admit we can't save ourselves. No one on earth could go up into heaven and say, "Yo, Jesus – come on down and help out!" nor could any of us do what Jesus did in dying and taking our punishment for sin.
God's salvation is right here, right now. For Jesus will come to us wherever we are. All we need to do is to respond and accept His gift of salvation. Have you done that?
IN CLOSING,
Rather than living by faith in God, the Jews established customs and traditions (in addition to God's law) to try to make themselves acceptable in God's sight. But human effort, no matter how sincere, can never substitute for the righteousness God offers us by faith. The only way to earn salvation is to be perfect - and that is impossible. We can only hold out our empty hands and receive salvation as a gift.
Paul is concerned for people like himself. They come from the same heritage he does. They have the same religious practices he grew up with. Paul tells them they are making a grave mistake - the same one he did. They are doing all kinds of religious things for the wrong reasons. They failed to see what is missing - knowing God with their heart.
We know people like that too. They are like a hamster on a wheel in cage. They spend a lot of time and energy trying to get life right, trying to be good, honorable, upstanding people, trying to make life count.
What is missing though is the right purpose and reason for living. They are running on the wheel, but getting nowhere. They're missing what we have come to know by heart - the love of God revealed to us in Jesus.
How are they going to realize their mistakes before it is too late? Some one must share the love of God , the righteousness of God available to them in Chrsit Jesus and in Christ Jesus alone. The divine obligation of witnessing rest, without exception, upon every child of God. Regeneration demands reproduction in kind & the fruit of a Christian is another Christian. (Shepherds don't make sheep. Sheep make sheep.)
Every Christian is called in the hour of their salvation to witness for Jesus Christ.
Let's all remember to pray regularly for our unsaved family and friends. WHY? BECAUSE JESUS STILL SAVES !
[Charles Spurgeon said, "Saints are so righteous in Jesus Christ that they are more righteous than Adam was before he fell, for he had but a creature righteousness, and they have the righteousness of the Creator. He had a righteousness which he lost, but believers have righteousness which they can't lose, an everlasting righteousness"]
