AT A GLANCE

No matter how hard we try, you and I can never live a perfect life. We cannot stand before God on our own merit. Thankfully, there is another way to stand in the day of God’s judgment. And it’s not by doing all sorts of things to elevate ourselves to heaven. Paul tells us in this passage that it is not at all about what we do for God, but what God has done in Christ for us! 

INTRODUCTION

5  Norway For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.  6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

A SIMPLE PREMISE

5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. (Leviticus 18:5) To explain what he said in verse four, that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,” Paul goes back to the source, the human author of the Law. 

Simple premise: the Law requires obedience. “Ok, what’s your point? What’s wrong with obeying the Law?” That’s what the Jews were doing. Or so they thought. Here’s the problem: ain’t nobody ever done it! No mere human has ever obeyed the Law the way the Law must be obeyed! 

To be justified by the Law, what Paul calls righteousness that is based on the law, requires perfect obedience to the commandments of the law. To live by the law, one must obey all of it. 

To understand this concept, we must dismiss the concept of relativism. You and I have been so accustomed to relativizing the law that it’s hard to truly appreciate the kind of obedience required. For instance, I suspect that most, if not all, of you have broken the laws of the land. You speed, even if you just “keep it to five over.” You jay-walk when you don’t wait for the traffic lights to change, or you don’t cross the street at intersections. You rip the tags off your mattresses. Ok, that’s a joke. But, you get my point. 

Most of us either have, or could have, received citations for breaking the law. But hey, at least we haven’t robbed a liquor store! That’s the rationale. Of course, jay-walking and armed robbery are very different and should be treated that way. But when it comes to being justified by God through obedience of the Law, close doesn’t count. 

Consider the rich young ruler who told Jesus that he had kept the law perfectly his whole life! And Jesus went straight for the heart and said there’s one thing you lack, sell everything you own and give to the poor. Would that earn his way into heaven? Nope. Jesus was proving a point because He knew the man’s heart was not devoted to God. Jesus watched him walk away. 

To those who think they can achieve their own righteousness because they obey the Law, James warns, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” James 2:10 All of it! 

And that’s the point of the Law. See while the Law points us in the direction of righteousness, setting the standard of perfection, it does not supply us with the power to achieve it. Praise the Lord for Romans 10:4, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.” 

A SIMPLE MESSAGE

The Law points us to Jesus just as Paul has already said, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” Romans 3:21 The righteousness based on the law is unattainable. Thankfully there is another way!

Verses 6 and 7, But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). (Deuteronomy 30:12,13)

This is one of those confusing verses that you might miss the forest for the trees. Paul is saying that it is not about climbing up to Heaven, nor plumbing the depths of the sea to find salvation. It’s not about going to all sorts of trouble to get closer to God. That was the Jewish mentality, and it is the mentality of most world religions. Elevate oneself; bring God down. 

The point is this: righteousness is not about what you have done, but about what God has done! You don’t need to climb to heaven and bring Christ down because “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And you don’t have to journey to the center of the earth to bring Christ up, because “He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead…” It’s already done. Christ has already done everything necessary for your salvation. As Jesus said, “It is finished.” All one has to do to benefit from Christ’s finished work is receive it by faith.  

Verse 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); (Deuteronomy 30:14) The gospel is the word of faith that we proclaim and it is the key to your righteousness. It is the power of God for salvation to all who believe, the Jew first but also the Greek. Why do I preach and teach the gospel every opportunity I get? Because the gospel is essential, and you and I are prone to forget it. We tend to get lost, and we need to continually do an azimuth check to gain our bearing and remind ourselves. 

There’s a major difference between obeying Jesus because we love Him, knowing we love Him because He first loved us, and obeying Jesus in order to cause Him to love us. We might very well do the same things, but with completely different motives. I think we can forget that our faith journey is not climbing a mountain or plumbing the depths. It’s receiving and resting in Jesus who is right there in front of our face. 

Verse 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. This is as simple as it gets! Consider the lengths people have gone to in search of peace with God. Yet, peace has evaded them because it was never about an expedition. It was always about a confession. 

TWO SIDES TO THE SAME COIN

Notice the two components here: confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You must bring yourself to proclaim Jesus’ lordship over your life personally. It is one thing to concede something generally and quite another to acknowledge it with your own lips. 

Kent Hughes cites C.E.B. Cranfield, “the confession that Jesus is Lord meant the acknowledgement that Jesus shares the name and the nature, the holiness, the authority, power, majesty and eternity of the one and only true God…There is expressed in addition the sense of his ownership of those who acknowledge him and of their consciousness of being his property…”

Those who have come to saving faith acknowledge that they have placed themselves completely under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Remember that the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden, the very first sin Satan tempted mankind with, was rebellion against the authority of God expressed by the Word of God. Now here we are reading that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God. 

Lord is the same name ascribed to Yahweh over 6000 times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX). Salvation requires a confession of Jesus’ preeminence, his supremacy, his unlimited authority over your life. 

He has complete control and can do whatever He deems best in your life, and you will do, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in you, what He tells you to do. And we have 100% confidence in wholly submitting ourselves to the Lordship of Christ because we know who He is, what He’s like, and He’s never let anybody down. Amen?! 

If you cannot say that Jesus is Lord of your life, you are functionally denying that He is Lord at all. If you acknowledge He is Lord at all, you must embrace that He is Lord of your life. There’s no way that Jesus is somehow Lord universally, and not Lord personally. 

I have heard people say they received Jesus as Savior, but not Lord. The confession of Jesus’ Lordship and heart belief are two sides to the same coin. I do not see a biblical precedent for coming to Christ as Savior while resisting His authority as God. Without His lordship, there is no salvation. 

Granted, your experience of submission will grow as you walk more closely with Him, but the basic starting point of every believer is a confession that Jesus is Lord. As the Lord brings conviction to your conscience, you respond with submission. That will go on your whole life. You’ll grow in your sensitivity to your sin and in your response time. But it is built upon the basic premise that He has the right to rule your life as Lord. 

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, And believe in your heart that God raised Him from dead. In the words of Robert Mounce, “Outward confession stems from a profound inward conviction.” This is more than mental assent, more than intellectual comprehension. It is not enough that you know the facts about Jesus’ resurrection. You must believe this with all your heart. 

Why does it matter? Why must this be a settled conviction for you? Two reasons. One, because the first act of the Holy Spirit in our regeneration is to give us faith to believe the gospel. Belief in the gospel, the literal life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the remission of your sin, is the foundation of our salvation. It’s the bedrock. It’s ground zero. Everything else in our transformation into the likeness of the Son is built upon this faith. 

Second, Paul said that if Jesus is not raised from the dead, our faith is futile. “…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17 Thus, if you do not believe in the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead, you have no hope for the remission of your sin. You will stand liable for that debt. 

To deny the resurrection is to deny the very essence of what God has done in Christ! Christ is not dead, He is risen from the grave and seated at the right hand of God! And because He lives, you who believe will live forever! 

SAVED FROM WHAT?

Verse 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Notice here that Paul reverses the order from verse 9. There it was confess then believe. Here it is believe then confess. Two sides to the same coin, not sequence. This further illustrates that without the lordship of Christ in your life, there is no salvation because there is no genuine saving faith. There is no “faith now, lordship later.”  

Notice, too, that Paul uses the terms saved and justified interchangeably. To be justified, or declared not guilty by God, is to be saved. Saved from what? 

Saved from God. As a sinner, you were at one time under God’s just wrath. The reality is we have all rebelled against our holy, merciful, gracious Creator God. 

We’ve snubbed our noses at Him. We’ve wagged our finger and clinched our fist at God when He didn’t respond like we thought He should have. When we couldn’t use Him like a genie in a bottle to get whatever we wanted, we pouted and shouted. 

Perhaps even worse, we lived in such a moralistic way that we thought we were good enough on our own; that we could earn our own righteousness by works of the law and stand on own merits. 

Either way, what we all deserve is the just punishment of this infinitely holy God. We deserve everything we get in eternal judgment. That’s the natural end of all mankind; except those He saves; those He has graciously chosen to be “vessels of mercy…prepared beforehand for glory.” (9:23) We will not get what we deserve. We will not get justice; instead, we will get grace. 

What are we saved from? We are saved from God, by God, through God, and in God. We are saved from the wrath of God, by the grace of God, through faith given to us from the Spirit of God, in the Son of God. We are justified, declared “not guilty” by the only judge who matters. 

We are made right, washed clean, born again, and given a new identity. We are no longer identified as sinners, but saints. We are no longer objects of wrath, but mercy. We are no longer at enmity with God, but at peace. We are no longer estranged from God but adopted as His beloved children. 

You might be thinking this seems too good to be true. But this is the good news of the gospel and He is the God we worship! And just to be clear, Paul once again goes back to scripture, like we all ought to whenever we hear something that sounds too good to be true.   

NOT JUST FOR INSIDERS

Verse 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Isaiah 28:16) To be put to shame is to face God’s judgment. But those who place their faith in Christ will not be put to shame. You will stand in the day of judgment covered in the irrefutable righteousness of Christ. You will answer that question, “Why should I let you into my perfect heaven forever?” with “Nothing that I have done, but only what Christ has done for me.” 

Verses 12-13 make it clear that this is not only for those on the inner circle. It is not only for those who have lived a clean life. It’s not only for those who have their act together, but for everyone who believes. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Joel 2:32

What say you? Have you called on the name of the Lord? If not, today is a great day to be saved! Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and you will be saved. 

And when you have called on the name of the Lord, don’t forget the gospel. Preach it to yourself daily. Remind yourself what God has done to make you His child. You need not climb to heaven, nor dive down deep. For Christ is in you; the Spirit of Christ in all who believe. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bruce, F. F. (2008). Romans: An introduction and commentary. Inter-Varsity Press. 

Doriani, D. M. (2021). Romans. P&R Publishing. 

Hughes, Kent R. (1991). Romans – Righteousness from Heaven. Crossway. 

Kruse, Colin G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans. W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Longenecker, Richard N. (2016). The Epistle to the Romans. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 

MacArthur, John. (1991). Romans 1-8. Moody Publishers.

MacArthur, John. (1991). Romans 9-16. Moody Publishers.

Moo, Douglas J. (2018). The Letter to the Romans, Second Edition. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Mounce, Robert. (1995). Romans. B&H Publishing.

Schreiner, Thomas R. (2018). Romans, Second Edition. Baker Publishing Group. 

Sproul, R. C. (2019). The Righteous Shall Live By Faith – Romans. Ligonier Ministries