Romans 10:5-13 and the Justification that Comes by Faith

"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,
on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because if you confess with your lips 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 and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. 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.’"

This confusing passage illustrates the grandeur and difficulty of Paul's method of interpreting not only the Old Testament but also the Jewish law. If we understand the problematic with which he is dealing, first in his life of faith in general and then in the context of the Epistle to the Romans, the argument above makes some sense. However, as one commentator has said, Paul, in his use of the OT (Lev. and Deut. in this instance) here, strikes out in a unique direction.

I. Paul's General Approach to Faith

Paul was a devoted Jew before coming to faith in Christ. As a devoted Jew he firmly believed that his religion presented both a world view and way of life that was sufficiently complete to provide him with guidance on all important issues of life. However, once he met the risen Christ on the Damascus road, he had to make "room" for this new Christ. But the old system (his Judaism) really had no need for Christ; its sacrificial system and sacred texts provided a full explanation of life. So, what was he to do? He had a "complete" explanation of life that was now strikingly "incomplete" for him. He had to develop an understanding of his old religion that showed its inadequacy and incompleteness. The principal way he could do this was to point to the central defining characteristic of the religion (i.e., the Jewish law) as something that was good but was fundamentally incomplete. The law, therefore, could only get you "so far" in faith. It was a tutor to lead to Christ, a sort of schoolmaster or disciplinarian to prepare the way for the fuller revelation in Christ. Christ would be, in the words of Rom. 10:4, the "end" of the law. This word "end" could be taken in two ways, as the goal towards which the law was reaching and as the situation which would put an end to the importance of Jewish law. Paul's new situation in life after meeting the risen Christ, then, was to show the inadequacy of that which he had long believed was completely adequate. Law, or attempts to establish personal righteousness/salvation through law, became the culprit.

Paul's Theology in Romans

The Epistle to the Romans addresses, among other things, the question of what advantage it is to be Jewish if the law only points to its own inadequacy. What advantage is it to be a Jew? In Rom. 9-11 Paul takes up this question specifically. Has the Word of God failed because Jews were not flocking to the emergent Christian movement? How can the Savior who came to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, really be a Savior of the Jews if so few of them recognized him? In Rom. 9-10 Paul gives two answers to this question. On the one hand, the Jews didn't join the new movement because God had hardened their hearts. As Rom. 11 shows, however, Paul believed that this hardening would be temporary. The Gentiles would be grafted onto the "tree" of Israel; the Jews would become jealous; and then "all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). On the other hand, the Jews didn't join the new movement because they pursued their justification in the wrong way. They pursued a righteousness through law rather than one based in faith in Christ. Or, in the words of Rom. 10, "For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God's righteousness" (10:3).

I think it is important to say at this point that Paul's argument is a real stretch. There is no evidence that Judaism in his time was so dessicated and legalistic that it had lost its spirit, lost its sense of trust in God as the central principle of its operation. Paul had, in a sense, painted himself into in an intellectual corner; he had to explain the importance and necessity of Christ when, from the perspective which he had adopted for years, a Christ figure was neither important nor necessary. When one religious expression breaks off from its predecessor (such as Protestantism from Catholicism in the 16th century), it must needs paint its predecessor in terms that the long-existing tradition would say are tendentious and, in fact, untrue. Often it is an idiosyncratic or highly personal experience of the new person (Paul; Luther) that convinces them that the "old" is inadequate. Then there must follow the intellectual backfill--why the old was inadequate. For Paul it is that Judaism pursued a righteousness based on law rather than faith. It is a dichotomy which probably would not have convinced anyone who didn't already accept Christ.

The "Flow" of Rom. 10: 5-13

The lectionary passage for today tries to explain the difference between the righteousness based on law and that which is founded on faith. Paul's quotations in these verses come from Lev. 18 and, especially, Deut. 30. When Paul speaks of the righteousness that comes from faith in v. 6, he quotes a lengthy passage in Deut. 30:11-14. He reads the passage as speaking of the righteousness of faith. However, if you read Deut. 30:11ff., you see that it begins, "Surely, this commandment that I am comanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away." In other words, Paul has taken a passage that explicitly refers to law (commandment), says that it refers to the righteousness of faith (his new system), and then dismisses the righteousness based on law as incorrect. No wonder most exegetes of Paul are a bit nonplussed as to what he is doing here. What ultimately concerns him is the importance of confessing Christ with the lips and believing in him in the heart, which leads to justification. This is the central point of Paul's Gospel.

Conclusion

I feel towards Paul's explanation of the righteousness of faith, in contrast to that of law, a little like St. Augustine felt when trying to understand the concept of time. When he didn't try to understand it, it was clear to him; when he tried to explain time, he got confused. The same may be said about Paul's explanation here. When we don't probe very deeply the notion of justification by faith, it makes perfect sense; when we want to try to link it to its Judaic past and think about it in quite some depth, we get terribly confused. Just preach the vitality and centrality of faith today; forget the attempt to connect it with the purported weakness or inadequacy of Judaism. You just will get yourself into trouble if you do the latter.

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