Faith Comes by Hearing
Romans 10:8–17 NKJV
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!”
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
We now have come to the season of Lent in the Christian year. Lent is a time of prayer and reflection in which we consider how we are saved and how we should respond to God’s gracious offer to save us by the sacrificial death of His Son, Jesus, on the cross. The season of Lent properly started last Wednesday in which many have ashes from the previous year’s burnt palm branches from Palm Sunday. Ashes are a sign of repentance. The Jews would show their contrition by sitting in the dust and ashes. Ashes are the sign of the futility of our works and dust the decomposition of our physical bodies. We come from dust and return to dust. Our works are destroyed by fire. This means we have no hope in ourselves. This would lead one to despair. It is necessary we arrive at this conclusion, However, this is not the end of the story but the means to a new beginning. The same God who created us from dust and gave us constructive purpose is able to do what we cannot do. Only God can take this dust and ashes and recreate them. The God who created the universe out of nothing is certainly able to reconstruct us from the dust.
Salvation is entirely the work of God, a God who is Sovereign. Because God is all-mighty, He is able to save. He is not just the Most High. It is not enough that God is bigger than we are. Some people might be big and powerful. I remember hearing the story of one powerful knight named William Marshall. He was strong and brave. No one could take him in single combat. Perhaps he could fend off several enemies. But could he fend off an entire army. It would not be enough to be the most powerful knight in these circumstances. Besides this. William Marshall grew old and died just like any human. But the immortal God does not age, die, or weaken. The entire universe is unable to withstand Him. As Paul notes in Romans 9:18-20:
Romans 9:18–20 NKJV
Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”
However, the power of God to save is not enough. God must be also willing to save or none would be saved at all. This willingness is told us in John 3:16-17 and other places in Scripture.
John 3:16–17 NKJV
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
So while we contemplate the ashes of our own works, we must also contemplate the fact that God desires to save us. But we must also remember that the Sovereign God has the right to create the means of salvation. How can anyone be saved if it were based upon our own works or keeping the commandments. As Paul tells us, the Law only shows our total lack of capacity. Thankfully, God did not make law-keeping the means of our restoration. He instead sent the Son to be our means of atonement. The Son became flesh and tabernacled among us. This Son who is fully equal in every respect with the Father and also the Holy Spirit became weak in the flesh. How the Sovereign Lord could weaken and die on the cross is the great mystery of the universe. Yet, God is God, and God can do anything. This is proved when Jesus was raised on the third day and then ascended after 40 days to the right hand of the Majesty on High.
Jesus will return with thousands of his saints to establish His rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Revelation tells us that all the armies of earth will come against Him, enough to fill the entire valley of Meggido with their blood. But it will not be a cooperation between Jesus and his saints. Instead, Jesus shall speak a single word and Armageddon shall be over. The same God who spoke creation into existence is surely able to do anything by simply saying a word.
Ephesians tells us how we are saved:
Ephesians 2:8–9 NKJV
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
It is entirely by the free grace of God we are saved, the grace which is demonstrated in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This grace is appropriated by the means of faith. We must believe that God sent Jesus to save us. We must believe in the promises of God. We have nothing we can boast in, We contribute nothing. We don’t even contribute faith or else faith would become a work in itself. It we read Ephesians in identifying faith with the mentioned gift of God, this is made clear. Some would take gift to refer to the grace of God which would place more emphasis on God’s sovereign grace than faith. But the two cannot be separated from each other.
Since faith is essential to salvation as the only means of saving grace, how can we come to this faith. If it is not worked up within ourselves, then how do we believe? Is it solely by God’s election? Does God choose who will be saved and who will be lost. The Sovereignty of God would conclude thus. But some may say that God would not be fair. Paul dealt bluntly against this accusation in the text we previously quoted. God is indeed free to save all, some, or none. This is the free will of God. We have all sinned and have no standing. Fair would mean the eternal condemnation of us all.
However, there is another way to look at this. This brings us to this morning’s text which we read from Romans 10. Paul, who deals with the unbelief and failures of his fellow Jews is concerned about their salvation. Indeed, he would be forever accursed if it would save them. (Romans 9:3)This is not to say that chapters 9-11 are for the Jews alone. Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles and is clear that the message of Salvation of for the Jews first but also to the Greek. Salvation by faith in Jesus is for both. All [people are commanded to believe and obey the Gospel.
Let us now examine the words “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We just learned that saving faith is a gift from God. It is not something within ourselves. So, how, then, is this gift bestowed? Paul tells us here that it comes by hearing the Word of God. The Greek word here for hearing comes from the verb akouo from which we get the word “acoustics.” But we must understand this Greek word, like the Hebrew equivalent “shema” means more than hearing a sound. It has the idea of hearing with understanding. the noun form of akouo used here has the idea of a report or message. Not only should we understand that we are to hear with understanding, there is also the idea of obeying this message as well. When we say to a child, “Did you hear me Johnny when I told you to take out the trash, the parent is not just asking whether he heard r even understood the words he/she just said. there is obviously the expectation is that Johnny will act upon these words. So is this with the Gospel.
A great mistake is made in reading Paul if we reduce faith to mental assent to the message of the Gospel. We see this clearly in Paul’s words “unto the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5) (Romans 16:16). Note that the idea of the obedience of faith occurs at both the beginning as well as at the end of Romans. This is a literary form known as an “inclusio.” The call to obedience is the beginning and the end of faith and gives understanding to the words “from faith into faith.” (Romans 1:17) The entire life of the Christians begins and ends in active and obedient faith. This is why Paul so adamantly condemns the idea of “cheap grace” in Romans 6:1 where Paul’s opponents accused him of preaching that one should sin all the more seeing that grace would abound even more. We are saved by faith apart from the law, but this does not free us to the command to obey the Gospel.
It is the message of the Gospel which contains the seed of faith. first of all, no choice could be made for Christ unless that choice were offered. So, whatever we make of human free will, it would not be of any use unless God chose first to save those who believe through Jesus Christ. This, by itself, precludes all boasting. But faith is not in ourselves or else faith would be a human work. As we have noted, it is entirely a gift of God. If we contributed even one percent towards our salvation, we would spend 99 percent of the time glorying in our decision to follow Christ and only one percent to glorify God who made it possible. We hear statements like “I;m so glad I decided follow Jesus” or the like. Instead, we should, like Paul, praise God that He showed mercy to the chief of sinners.
Since saving faith is inherit in the Gospel message, it must be preached. This is at the center of this passage from Romans 10. It is by the hearing of the Gospel and believing it that we are saved. We remember these things at Lent. But part of the life of obedience to the faith is to share the Gospel. People outside the faith have no hope at all. their only hope of salvation lies in hearing the words of the Gospel. The text tells us that one cannot believe unless someone is sent to them by God with the message of the Gospel. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, were especially sent to proclaim the Gospel. God calls people today in a special way to be evangelists. But this does not mean that we leave the presentation of the Gospel to them alone. We must join in the work as well.
It is by hearing and believing the Gospel that anyone is saved, whether that person is a Jew or Greek. We are all saved the same way. One must confess with one’s mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in one’s heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. At first this verse seems to put confession of Jesus as LORD over believing in ones heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. If this were so, it would make confession a work. One needs to pair this with the following words: “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Here the order is reversed and belief is put first. Paul uses a literary device here called a “chiasm.” This is where two statements are paired together. The first part of the first statement correlates to the last part of the second. The word that sticks out is confession. The second part of the first statement correlates to the first part of the second statement and the word that sticks out is believe. In this construction, the major emphasis is to be placed in the middle of the two statements. The center of this chiasm is to believe on Jesus. This leads to confession which is the obedient response to saving faith. This might sound pretty complicated, but the simple meaning is that one is saved by faith alone which works itself out in obedience.
In conclusion, as we reflect this Lent, let us remember our responsibility as those saved by faith in Jesus Christ through he preaching of the word about Christ is to tell others the Good News. Note that the word “response” is part of the word “responsibility.” The other part of “responsibility” is the word “ability.” We are able to respond to the message by sharing it with others.
