Notes on Romans 10

What is the purpose of communication?  It represents our attempt to convey to another person's mind the thoughts, intents, beliefs, and motives of our own.  Science fiction and the claims of psychics notwithstanding, none of us can directly read the thoughts of another person.  Our existence is such that each of us is isolated inside the shell of our bodies, and the only we have of trying to close the gap between ourselves and others is the external organs of our bodies.  The only Person capable of discerning our inmost desires and needs is the Holy Spirit.  Salvation occurs within us, in the seat of our will and emotions that the Bible calls the heart.  To be complete, though, what happens inside us must be communicated to the world outside, with our mouths.  There is no such thing as a secret Christian, or a closet Christian; a faith we are unwilling to share with those around us in no faith at all.  Not to confess Christ, to acknowledge him as our Savior and Lord, is to deny him.  The act of confession is so important that Jesus said if we confess him before men, he will confess us to his Father, but if we deny him, he will deny us as well (Matthew 10:32-33).

Believing in Christ is not simply a mental affirmation that he is who he says he is; even the demons believe on that level (James 2:19).  The Greek word used here, pisteuo, means to have faith in, to trust, to commit to.  If we have faith in Christ as our Savior, our Redeemer from the bondage of sin, and also confess our belief with our mouths, we will be saved.  There is no complicated formula, no mysterious ritual, simply these two acts of trust and obedience.  The righteousness that pleases God comes, not from our own futile efforts, but the faith ti trust to him every detail of our daily lives.  We don't have to work to be good; if we seek, as the Jews did, to find salvation through obedience to the Law, the commandments recorded in the first five books of the Bible, it is by that standard we will be judged,  The inevitable result is failure, and the resulting guilt, the very bondage from which Christ has freed us.

Zeal, or sincerity, do not carry with them the assurance of being right.  Followers of cults and false religions are capable of great zeal and sincerity, to the point of willingly throwing their own lives for their cause.  One and all, such counterfeit religions worship gods of their own imagining, trying, as the passage says, to bring their savior down to earth, or up from the depths,  The object is to control their own fate, the very pride that saw the downfall of Lucifer.  If I can perform certain acts or rites that guarantees my god's approval, then I can control my relationship with him, or her, or it.  With our God, nothing we can do, within ourselves, can please him.  The only thing that gains his approval is our acceptance of the free gift he offers us.  That is the great distinction between Christianity and all other belief systems that call themselves religions; they seek redemption by their own works, but we through grace alone.

Here, again, the emphasis is on communication; though the natural man is bound by the natural law that exists within, no one can ever know about Christ unless they're told.  Christ himself brought the Good News first, and he passed it on to his disciples.  He can still speak directly to mean through the record of his Word, an advantage the early church did not yet possess.  The Great Commission to "go tell" has never been rescinded, even with the wide availability of the printed Word.  God placed no restrictions or boundaries on the command, not of class, gender, race, or nationality.  To be saved, we must first "call" on the Lord, or ask him into our lives as Savior, with the repentance of our sins.  We assume, rather blithely, that in this day and age, especially, there couldn't possibly be people who haven't heard about Jesus Christ, or the simple message of the Gospel.  The truth is that many people who are saved ask the plaintive question, "Why didn't someone tell me about this before?"  The far sadder truth is that multitudes die without ever being told, and the responsibility begins and ends with us, God's own people.

Not all of us can be missionaries, and not are called to be evangelists or preachers.  The rest of us, without those gifts or callings, assume we have fulfilled our responsibilities when we write a check for missions, or invite a friend or family member to a revival service.  It's not these are not important things to do, but to stop there is the height of hypocrisy.  There is no possible way, statistically, for the pastors, evangelists, and missionaries in a given area, even if they devoted all their time to soul-winning, to reach even a majority of the people who need Christ.  We see people every day, at work, at home, and in the business of daily life, that we never bother to tell about Jesus.  Rather than wringing our hands over lost opportunities, though, we need to decide to obey what Christ's commandment - go tell.  If we're timid or fearful, or just uncertain what to say, there's good news -- we don't have to do it alone.  That's what faith is about -- trusting God to do, in and through us, what we can't do ourselves.  Faith begins with the experience of God's love in our lives, in the fellowship of prayer and the instruction of the Word.  God will equip us to do what he wants us to do; we are not alone, and he does not expect to rely on our own strength to accomplish his work.  We are all his witnesses; the only question is what kind of witness we offer.