5 Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: "Whoever does these things will live by them." [a] 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?' " [b] (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?' " [c] (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," [d] that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 9 If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, "Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame." [e] 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." [f]
Dig Deeper“I can’t do it,” emphatically cried my then three-year-old son, breaking down into a whirlwind of frustration and tears. “It’s too hard and I don’t know how.” He was certainly not responding in the calm, obedient manner that we normally expect. He was sent into his descent of self-pity and self-defeat because I had asked him to hurry up and get dressed before I had to take him to school. Our usual routine was that I would go up to his room with him and pick out his entire outfit and then give it to him in order for him to get dressed, which he could do by himself. This particular morning, however, I was running a bit behind and had already run upstairs, picked his clothes out, and taken them downstairs, placing them in the living room, all while he ate breakfast. This way he could finish breakfast, brush his teeth, hit the living room and get dressed and we could be out the door in record time. But he was already feeling the pressure of running behind that morning so when I asked him to get dressed. He immediately got overwhelmed, thinking that I wanted him to go upstairs and pick his clothes out and then get dressed all by himself. What he needed to realize, though, was that all of the difficult stuff that he couldn’t do had already been completed. The task was down and it was now his to simply put on the clothes that had already been prepared.
Just as it’s not worth looking for something that has already been found, it is not necessary to do something that has already been done. It’s a waste of time and effort and usually signals that you either don’t know that the task has already been accomplished or you don’t think that it has been done very well. As we read through this passage we notice that not only does Paul feel that this principle holds true for the people of his day but he also wants to point back to the time when the law was given and show that God has already done the hard work. The work he did in Moses’ day pointed ahead to that which was done in the Messiah but the point in both cases is the same. There is no need to go and create their own avenue to obedience to God because it has been done already. All that we need do now is to embrace it and enter into it.
To fully grasp this dense passage it almost requisite that we read Deuteronomy 28-30. Deuteronomy is, in essence, a charge from Moses given to the Israelites before they enter into the promised land. It reminds them of who they are as God’s people, what is required of them as such, and what will happen to them as a result of straying from following the law and the covenant that God had given them. Chapters 28 and 29 are particularly stark in their promises of the consequences of the curses that will come upon them if they fail to live up to the covenant. Chapter 29 ends with the stark promise of an exile for the nation of Israel as they would be forced out of the promised land.
In chapter 30, a new tone is struck. Moses begins to speak of restoration. When God has a people that return to him with all of their heart and soul he promises that, “even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back” (Deut. 30:4). God himself, promises Moses, would come and rescue them from their exile. Indeed, Moses’ words would be fulfilled as Israel did stray from the covenant and were taken into exile. In fact, many Jews of Jesus’ and Paul’s day felt that they were still in the exile of Deuteronomy 29 in the most important aspects because they had returned to the land but they were still in subjection to foreign rulers and the obvious fact that God’s own presence had not returned to the Temple.
But Paul wants his readers to understand that this time of restoration that Moses spoke of was now being fulfilled. He refers to Leviticus 18:5 where Moses promises that those who do the law would find life but, says Paul alluding to Deut. 9:4, should remember Moses’ words to the Israelites: “do not say to yourself, ‘The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’” Paul said in 10:3 that the problem the Jews had was that they tried to establish their covenant status on their own, despite the fact that Moses warned against this. What God has now done was the time that Moses pointed to when God would bring Israel back from their exile. They would not have to ascend into God’s presence to bring Christ down by their own effort nor did they have to descend into the deep (the deep, the sea, and the abyss were all synonymous symbolic elements in ancient Judaism) to resurrect Christ from the dead. That work has been done and does not result in bringing about their own covenant status.
In other words, Paul is stating boldly that the promises to bring the exile to an end through the work of God, rather than their own righteousness or action, has been done in the Messiah. This might seem like an odd point to make but Paul is still speaking on the thought he began at the beginning of this chapter concerning his desire that his fellow Jews would find salvation, the end from their exile. But the end would not come in following the law and gripping the works of the law even tighter. That, as he has shown, would simply drive a further wedge between Jews and the Gentiles and would work against God’s promises. The promises of the end of exile have come but it has to be embraced.
Rather than saying in their heart that they could bring about their own covenant membership by holding to beliefs outside of God’s promises they must realize that the Messiah is the fulfillment of the law. All of God’s promises are “yes” in the Messiah (2 Cor. 1:20). This is seen in the Christian practice of baptism, says Paul, where people believe in their heart and declare that Jesus is Lord (see Acts 22:16; 1 Cor. 12:3; 2 Cor. 4:5; Phil. 2:11; 1 Timothy 6:12). When the early Christians stood in the presence of witnesses at their baptism and boldly declared that Jesus was Lord, they were submitting to his life and God’s ability alone to bring them into the covenant family. They were also dangerously declaring that Jesus was Lord but Caesar was not. They had a new king and a new hope.
When they took hold of the necessary resurrection faith and believed in their heart, the seat of their will, that Jesus had resurrected from the dead and that the long exile of man from God would be ended by entering into the life of the Messiah, then their hearts were changed, just as God had promised (Ezek. 11:19; 18:31; 36:26). When this takes place, they were justified or declared to the people of God in the present, a status that anticipates and guarantees a synonymous verdict in the coming age. But they also declared with their mouths that Jesus was Lord bringing salvation, the rescue from sin. When Jews, or anyone else for that matter, declared their belief in Jesus as the only object of their trust they would be rescued. Thus, faith and confession are complimentary items but both necessary as one descends into the waters of baptism. Jesus is both savior and Lord. This is particularly key in a time when people are often more than happy to think of Jesus as savior but want little to do with him as Lord.
Those who believe and confess will not be put to shame at the final judgment. They will not be shamed. Paul is not ashamed of the gospel (1:16) because he knows that it is the only means through which people can truly be unashamed eternally. Paul has made clear, though, that the belief of which he speaks differs vastly from the empty idea of mental agreement that is so embraced today as the sum total of the meaning of belief. Those who “believe” according to Paul are those who recognize that the life of the Messiah is their only means to life and who have willingly and counter-culturally made the decision to lay their life down and to commit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, or as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
This is all a fulfillment of Joel 2, another passage that spoke of the promises of how God would bring an end to the exile. In verse 29, quoted by Peter in his epic sermon in Acts 2, God says that he will pour out his own Spirit. At that time, says Joel 2:32, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” But what does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? In Acts 2:38, after referencing this very passage in Joel, Peter says that the proper response is to “repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” In the Old Testament, the phrase “call on the name of the Lord” loosely meant to worship God in truth and in the manner which he has prescribed. In Acts 22:16, Saul is told to come in contact with the promised salvation and justification offered by God as Ananias says, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.” To call on the name of the Lord was to submit to his Lordship publicly, to believe with all your heart that his life would bring you into the covenant family, and to be baptized into the life of Christ.
The mission of those of us who will never be shamed, then, is to be equally unashamed of the gospel and to announce it boldly that because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, all mean and womoen can have their sins washed away and end the long exile caused by sin between humans and God.
Devotional Thought
Do you embrace the Lordship of Jesus just as vigorously as you embrace his salvation? What areas of your life have been difficult for you to consistently submit to Jesus as Lord?
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