CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 10
It is very important to observe in these two parts of Romans the concord of grace and purpose, in that they bring about the same result. In the first part of the epistle God approaches man by the testimony of the blood, all is of grace. God’s righteousness is unto all and upon all them that believe. But there is another line of truth — the purpose of God, which He has been working out from the time of Abraham down, and in this connection Christ became the object of faith to the gentiles. The law worked positive blindness with the Jew, for by it he connected God’s purpose of blessing with this present world. Abraham [p. 109] had no law, and what God presented to him, the world of which he was to be heir, was not this world but that to come. Hence with him righteousness was the righteousness of faith. The Jews in not submitting themselves to the righteousness of God showed that they did not recognise that the judgment of death was upon man. They might have learnt it from the sacrificial system. They had, further, in the tabernacle, the witness of the world to come, setting forth the ground and means by which God would place Himself in connection with the whole creation. The mercy-seat is that from which God addresses Himself to man. The mercy-seat is founded upon the ark, that is, on Christ, in whom God has been glorified in regard of the law; there was the holy place, and the most holy, and the court without, these together figured the universe. We are taught this in Hebrews 3, “He who built all things is God”. The tabernacle presented the way in which God would come out to man; and while the sacrificial system showed the way by which man could go in, it made evident how extremely laborious it was for man to get to God. Man indeed could not go in because God had not come out, but the tabernacle foreshadowed that a way was coming by which man could go in. Faith now gets the benefit of what has been accomplished in Christ, but God has not come out in a public way yet. When the Lord comes we shall be received into the Father’s house, there will be no going in then.
The righteousness of God here in chapter 10 connects itself both with chapter 3 and chapter 4. There is not only the declaration of God’s righteousness, but the resurrection of Christ connects itself with our righteousness, hence faith is in the Lord Jesus raised from the dead. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness”. Christ is righteousness for every one that believes; that settles every question for the believer; there may be many things inconsistent [p. 110] about him, and the enemy might use them to trouble him if he is not conscious that Christ is his righteousness; he is not only clear of every reproach, but resurrection carries him a point further, he is approved for the presence of God and for the world to come. You do not get a positive status nor a new place apart from resurrection. Christ is in the presence of God, and He is our righteousness.
It is remarkable that we get the germs of the gospel in the early books of the Bible. We have a quotation here from Deuteronomy, and what is quoted is in connection with the restoration of Israel in the future; but the principle cannot be different for them from what it is for us. Divine principles always remain true. The thought is prohibited to them, “Who shall ascend into the heavens?”, and it is prohibited to us. The literal application is to Israel in their trouble in the future. “Say not in thy heart” shows that God will have the people silent in the consciousness of failure and ruin. Man has to be silent in the sense of having deserved death, and God will bring about what He sees fit. He quickens out of death. Israel in the future will have to accept where they are under the hand of God, buried in the dust of the earth. Those that believe will not make haste, all their hope will then be in Christ’s coming again. God will work in them, but there will be no hope apart from Christ’s coming. “Who shall descend into the deep” really belongs to Israel’s future, when they will be conscious of the position into which sin has brought them. All this is connected with the “secret things” of which Moses speaks, and with the divine wisdom which will work out God’s purpose, though faith gets the light of it now. Israel will have to wait for the glory of God, as we read in the passage, “After the glory thou wilt receive me”, Psalm 73: 24. The testimony of the glory has come in and the Jew has been stumbled, but the testimony is that by which the gentile is saved.
[p. 111] The glory is in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4: 6). The God of glory appeared to Abram, and it is noticeable that we begin where Abraham left off. We begin with resurrection, and Abraham’s history in a sense closed when he had reached that — when he offered up his son and received him again. There is no difference in principle between Abraham’s faith and ours; to believe that God can, and to believe that He has, are alike in principle; in either case resurrection is beyond man’s experience. One can understand man commemorating the death of the Lord, but to commemorate His resurrection and ascension, by the setting apart of days, is folly, for they belong to another world; the testimony of God does not connect itself with the things of this world. Commemoration of days belongs to a clerical system, and brings everything down to a human level. The clergy assume priesthood, not seeing that all believers are priests and that priesthood is on the ground of resurrection. It is as you are risen with Christ that you are a priest. A separate class who, because they are ministers, claim to be priests, is the rebellion of Korah and his company.
Salvation in Romans 10 must be regarded as present from the christian point of view, whatever may be the literal bearing of the quotation. Peter takes the ground of the latter in Acts 2, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved”, but he evidently had a strong idea of a present salvation. He says, “the like figure whereunto, baptism, doth now save us”. Peter’s idea was that they had been brought into the church where the Holy Spirit was, and so to a present salvation. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation”; we must give that a present application; it means that you have left the order of things in which you are naturally — Egypt — where the god of this world has sway, and have come out into the wilderness where you are with God, and have Jesus as [p. 112] Lord, and the Holy Spirit given. By faith you enter that sphere, and it is a sphere of salvation. In verse 10 the former part is faith, and the latter the consequence of having the Holy Spirit. Man never confesses “Lord Jesus” except by the Holy Spirit. Salvation is consequent upon righteousness, nobody can really come into salvation until the Holy Spirit is received. The salvation now is in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads to the confession by the mouth, as Lord, of the One who has been rejected by the world but has been accepted above. It is the habit of the soul to confess Jesus, Lord. There is a history with souls, as in the case of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, and afterwards came and fell down before Him, and told Him before all for what cause she had touched Him; there is a lack in a soul until it takes that place; you cannot have any living sense of Christ as Lord save by the Holy Spirit come down from heaven. The gospel itself was a proclamation, the apostles were heralds. People had to accept the proclamation, but the soul confessing Jesus as Lord is by the Holy Spirit. Righteousness is reached by faith, but salvation by confessing Jesus, Lord; the moment Christ is confessed as Lord you are morally out of this world, it is characteristic of true christianity so to confess Him.
Urging anyone to confess Christ as Lord, if this goes beyond where the person is in the faith of his soul, would only hinder. It is better to leave God to do His own work, and for the servant not to go beyond his measure. The real function of the evangelist is to enlighten; he is not sent to enlighten simply the elect, but everybody. The light of God is capable of affecting every man.