Romans 10:5-15 Commentary

One form of an old adage summons preachers to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” While Paul almost certainly wasn’t familiar with that invitation, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson suggests he was familiar with its underlying principle. He, after all, fills Romans 10 with both rich comfort and implied warnings.

We might argue that Paul is one of God’s dearly beloved people who feels afflicted. He, after all, follows Romans 8’s glorious “gospel in a nutshell” with chapter 9’s expression of his “unceasing anguish” over widespread Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah. The apostle mourns how many members of his extended family that is the Jewish race have pursued a righteousness that comes from trying to keep Torah.

We might say that the afflicted Paul’s primary purpose in writing Romans 10 is to “comfort” some of his Roman readers who are afflicted by something slightly different — a misunderstanding of the role of God’s law in God’s people’s lives. A misunderstanding that the apostle shared until God graciously knocked him off his high horse and into the kingdom of God.

Paul even quotes one of Judaism’s greatest authorities as inadvertently adding to the affliction caused by a misunderstanding of God’s law. “Moses writes this about the righteousness [dikaiosynen*] that is by the law,” Paul writes in verse 5. “’The person who does [poiesas] these things will live [zesetai] by them’.”

The apostle understands better than most that this offers an impossible command. While people try to can “live” by the law. no one can obey it well enough to satisfy God. Those who, in fact, seek life through the law live in the well-grounded fear that they can’t be “good” enough for God to consider them righteous.

I recently visited someone who was dying. She expressed both her faith in Jesus Christ and her uncertainty about her eternal wellness. She realized, after all, that while she had tried to love God and her neighbor, she had sometimes failed to do so. This person whom I’ll call Penny was, quite simply, “afflicted” by her fear that she hadn’t been good enough to please the God whom she loves.

I fear that some Christian preachers have accidentally stoked the fires of those fears. In our desire to apply God’s word to Christians’ daily lives, we’ve sometimes compiled grocery lists of ways we should live that show how much we love God and our neighbor. I worry that by doing so, preachers accidentally imply that “While we’re saved by grace, we also need to …”

To God’s adopted children who have been afflicted in those ways and more, Paul offers the comfort of God’s amazing grace. In verse 9 he sings, “If you declare [homologeses] with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord [Kyrion],’ and believe [pisteuses] in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved [sothese].”

Of course, in other places Paul emphasizes the obedience component of that faith that receives God’s grace. But in 37 years of parish ministry, few of the thousands of Christians I’ve met said something like, “Since I declare Jesus is Lord, it doesn’t really matter how I live.” I met far more who said, “I declare Jesus is Lord, but I worry that I didn’t do enough to show he is my Lord.”

Romans 10:5-15’s response to that fear is the relentless drumbeat of salvation not through obedience to God’s law, but through the faith that receives God’s grace. In verse 10 Paul insists “It is with your heart that you believe [pisteuetai] and are justified [dikaiosynen], and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith [homologeitai] and are saved [soterian].” In verse 11 the apostle professes “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame [kataischynthesetai].” And, to top it all off, in verse 13 he celebrates how “Everyone who calls [epikalesetai] on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Here is the beating heart of the gospel people are desperate to hear. God rescues each and every person who professes Jesus as Lord and believes God raised him from the dead. Any preaching that fails to emphasize that amazing grace misses the gospel mark and easily adds to God’s adopted children’s affliction.

Yet it’s always tempting for the afflicted whom God has comforted to become so comfortable that we add to others’ affliction. This temptation offers preachers an opportunity, perhaps even the responsibility to “afflict the comfortable.”

It is naturally tempting to add qualifiers to Paul’s profession that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Our listeners on both sides of theological and political debates sometimes infer preachers are claiming, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but be sure to also …”

It sometimes seems that those whom God has graciously received into God’s kingdom are quick to erect high “fences” around that kingdom. What’s more, those who profess Jesus is Lord are constantly tempted to pull those fences closer and closer to our beliefs. On top of that, it’s always tempting for Jesus’ followers to draw dark lines between those who are saved and those we assume only claim to be saved.

Of course, God calls all whom God has rescued to receive God’s grace with a faith that prioritizes loving God and our neighbor. What’s more some Christians seem to bely our profession of faith by our hurtful words and action towards especially vulnerable people. On top of that, Christians’ choices sometimes strip away the joy and purpose that God gives through submission to God’s will and plans for us.

If the Lord tarries, coming Sundays will offer opportunities to proclaim those truths. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers preachers an opportunity to emphasize the centrality and comfort that comes as a result of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. “God,” in the paraphrase The Message offers, “has set everything right between him and” us!

But in verses 14-15 Paul goes on to offer perhaps one more “affliction for the comfortable.” There, after all, it’s as if he wonders if the Holy Spirit has made Jesus’ followers so comfortable that we fail to share the gospel by what we say and do with people who haven’t yet heard it or seen it at work.

“How then,” the apostle wonders there, “can [people] call [epikalesontai] on the one they have not believed in [episteusen]? And how can they believe in the one [pisteusosin] of whom they have not heard [ekousan]? And how can they hear [akousosin] without someone preaching [keryssontos] to them? And how can anyone preach [keryxosin] unless they are sent [apostolosin]?”

This is what we might call God’s bridge from affliction to comfort, and from unbelief to belief. It’s a bridge erected and maintained, of course, by the Holy Spirit. On one side of it are people who can’t call on God because they haven’t yet believed in God. Yet not one of those stranded “travelers” can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because they’ve never even heard about him. What’s more, Paul insists, people can’t hear about the Lord unless someone proclaims the gospel to them. But only those whom God sends can preach that greatest of all possible news.

Of course, God can graciously produce faith by the power of the Holy Spirit without converts hearing someone proclaim grace to them. But the apostle is making a basic point: God graciously and generally works through its human heralds’ proclamation of grace received through faith in Jesus Christ.

This, however, points to two potential failures of gospel proclaimers. It’s tempting to act in Jesus’ name without sharing with our neighbors why we do so. We always want to tell people about Jesus with humility and care. But those who preach the gospel by what we do and say make every effort to communicate why we’re doing so.

The other temptation is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ without partnering with it a deep care for the whole person with whom we share this greatest of all news. We love our neighbors not only by summoning them to faith in Jesus Christ but also by showing them Christ’s love in concrete ways.

However, preachers want to be careful about summoning Jesus’ friends to share the gospel. That invitation can easily devolve into “Only Christians who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and preach the good news” will be saved. Preachers don’t want to disfigure our beautiful feet by even implying that those who don’t share the good news have no place in God’s kingdom.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

Illustration

In his book, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet Robert Moats Miller quotes Fosdick as once saying, “There are three sorts of folks. There are the utter disbelievers. They will have none of religion. It is to them superstition and credulity, and God is as much a myth as the devils of an African witch doctor. But there are not many such.

“There are the great believers, who have grown up into a luminous and convincing life with God like St. Theresa who said that in her heart she had an experience so beautiful that one drop of it, falling on hell, would turn it into Paradise. But there are not many such.

“Between these two groups are the mass of [people]. They are not utter disbelievers, and they are not glorious believers. Their faith is hesitant, uncertain, unsatisfying, [and] sporadic. ‘Lord,’ they say, ‘I believe; help my unbelief’.”