The Path of Salvation—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 11A (Romans 10:5-15)
Romans 10:5-15 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness that comes from 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 one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. 11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
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At
least in some Christian circles, salvation is a major topic of conversation.
People ponder the path that leads to salvation, sometimes without asking either
why a person needs to be saved or what salvation entails. My co-author on two
previous projects, Ron Allen, and I are wrestling with this very question as we
work on a proposal for a sequel to our two Second Thoughts books about
the Second Coming and Hell. So, what does it mean to be saved? According to
Paul, it involves confessing that Jesus is Lord, believing that God raised him
from the dead. But is that all there is to it? Or, is there more?
We
continue our journey through Romans, having previously read from the opening
verses of Chapter 9, a passage that introduces a three-chapter reflection on
Paul’s part concerning the place of the Jewish people in relationship to the
Christian movement. For this reading, we jump from Chapter 9 to Chapter 10. We
begin in verse 5, but it is worth stepping back a bit to gain context. In verse
1 of Chapter 10, Paul tells his spiritual siblings in the Roman Church that it
was his “heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”
As we see here, Paul is interested in how righteousness is defined both by his
Jewish foundation and how it might be defined going forward. He writes in verse
4: “For Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness
for everyone who believes” (Rom.
10:1-4). This suggestion that Christ is the culmination of the law and
the foundation of righteousness for those who believe does hint at Christianity
replacing Judaism as the heir to the covenant promises. Michael Gorman
helpfully notes that “Paul means that the Messiah is the focal point of
Scripture, the goal of salvation history to which Scripture bears witness, and
thus the God-given means of righteousness” [Gorman, Romans, p. 226].
Again, we must be cautious in our interpretation of this passage so that we do
not cross over into supersessionism.
With
this preface, we can turn to our reading, which shows that Moses’ understanding
of righteousness as coming from the law is that it involves fulfilling the law.
As noted above, the means to salvation, and thus, righteousness, involves one’s
embrace of the Messiah, which involves faith. When Paul tells the reader that
righteousness doesn’t involve speaking of who will ascend to heaven or descend
to the abyss, such that by their actions/hubris, they diminish Christ’s actions
on our behalf. In support of his position, he tells the readers that Scripture
states: “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (vs. 8; Deut.
30:11-14). This is, Paul writes, the word of faith.
What is
the word of faith? It is the confession of faith in Christ that leads to
salvation: “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”
(vs. 9). Then, in verse 10, Paul continues, telling the readers that as one
believes with the heart, they are justified. Then, as they confess their faith
with the mouth, they are saved. We continue the practice, at least in most
churches, by inviting people, especially young people, to confess their faith
before the congregation, as a marker of their journey of salvation. Baptism may
precede the confession of faith (in churches that practice infant baptism) or
after confession of faith (in churches that practice believer’s baptism). Paul
doesn’t speak of baptism in this context but does so earlier in chapter 6. The
goal as Paul understands it leads to the inclusion of the believer in the
covenant people of God. He envisions both Jew and Gentile taking this step of
faith.
The
concept of salvation is complicated as it has implications for how we live now
and how we envision the future, including the afterlife. Confession of faith in
Jesus as Lord involves more than a simple statement of belief. To say that
Jesus is Lord is to say that we center our lives in Christ, following his lead
in the way we live our lives. Thus, Paul is interested in more than a shallow
cultural Christianity. At the same time, to make Christ the center is to avoid
setting boundaries that we guard. Martha Highsmith comments:
The Christian faith creates an entirely new geometry. The circle of believers that was once defined by its boundaries, the law, is now defined by its center, Christ. The attention to who is in and who is out is no longer the focus. Rather the focus is on the One who calls and claims, redeems and loves. We are called to start in the center and live as though the circle is infinite—which, of course, it is. [Martha Highsmith, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, p. 328].
Paul
continues by stating that if we put our faith in Christ, we’ll not be put to
shame. Having said this, he then speaks of the distinctions we often make as
humans. In this case, the distinction between Jew and Greek (Gentile). This is
because Christ is Lord over all people, and who is “generous to all who call on
him. 13 For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved’” (Rom. 10:12-13). We humans find ways of creating
distinctions so that we might claim power/supremacy over others. In the
situation Paul is addressing, the focus is on the Jewish/Gentile distinction
that had been roiling congregations as the Christian movement, which had begun
as a Jewish sect, had seen increasing numbers of Gentiles join the community. Paul
believes that the distinctions between Jew and Gentile needed to be set aside.
This is why faith rather than the law as the foundation of righteousness was a
matter of concern. As we see in the Galatian letter, Paul found himself dealing
with a group of Jewish Christians who wanted to impose certain practices,
mainly circumcision, on the Gentile converts. Paul had rejected that
requirement, a requirement that had kept Gentiles from embracing the new
message about Jesus.
Inclusion
is a difficult goal to implement. Humans have been adept at setting up
boundaries that divide us from one another. It can be ethnicity/race, gender, or
social/economic class. Paul responds to this tendency in a well-known passage
from Galatians, where he declares: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is
no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.
3:28). To say this, however, doesn’t mean that we ignore our diversity.
When the “Black Lives Matter” movement appeared after several African Americans
were killed by police and others, some responded (mostly white folks) that “All
Lives Matter.” While this is true, to say this is to ignore the fact that too
often we define “all lives” rather narrowly. That reality is revealed by the
anti-DEI movement that has taken hold of the current administration and among others
who support it. The message of this movement seems to be that we should ignore the
barriers to inclusion that exist in society, so that the “majority,” which is
white, can continue to control the levers of power in the country. According to
Paul in the Galatian letter, baptism dissolves those barriers, which leads to
inclusion. I would add that Paul’s message of inclusion should also apply to
the Eucharistic Table (see my book Eating
with Jesus: Reflections on Divine Encounters at the Open Eucharistic Table).
Our
reading concludes with an invitation to share the good news of Jesus with those
who haven’t heard the message. Paul asks the Roman believers how people are
going to call on the name of Jesus, whom they haven’t believed in, if they’ve
never heard the message, that is, if they’ve never encountered someone who had
proclaimed the message of Jesus (Rom. 10:14). The reading concludes with a paraphrase
of Isaiah 52 that speaks to the need to share the news. Paul
writes: “How are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How
beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” The actual verse reads:
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (Is. 52:7).
The full quotation speaks of the messengers of peace and
salvation, including the proclamation that God reigns. As we ponder this passage,
we need to address the way the good news gets proclaimed. Too often, in
history, evangelism has been accompanied by and defined by colonialism. This
was not something Paul envisioned, but as time passed, missionaries worked hand
in hand with those who sought to conquer people they saw as their inferiors. In
addition, in the context of Paul’s discussion of the place of the Jews in God’s
purposes, we need to be aware of the way we interact with Jews. Do we engage in
dialogue in our conversations with Jews or do we seek to convert them? Sarah
Heaner Lancaster suggests that “dialogue allows Christians to bear witness to
faith in Jesus Christ as we explain what we understand to be the significance
of Jesus for ourselves and the world, but such witness is made without a
feeling of superiority or attempts to coerce belief. Dialogue also requires
listening to Jews express their own convictions and insights. It includes being
willing to listen as pain and fear from centuries of persecution or personal
discrimination are expressed” [Lancaster, Romans, p.
181].
As tends to be the case when
reading Romans, this passage is challenging. It raises important
questions about the nature of salvation and the path that leads to salvation.
Paul places a lot of stress on the confession of faith in Jesus, but in doing
so, he speaks of Jesus as Lord. What does that mean for Paul? Surely it means
more than simply saying “I believe in Jesus,” as if it is a simple intellectual
declaration that requires nothing of a person. As we see here, Paul is
suggesting that salvation involves placing Jesus at the center of one’s life,
not just the religious part but the entirety of one’s life. This is not a
cultural version of the Christian faith that equates being, for instance, an
American with being a Christian. Since this passage sits in the middle of this
longer conversation about where Paul’s own Jewish siblings fit into his view of
salvation, we need to keep our eyes on that question as we move forward from
what Paul writes here about salvation.
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