Dear Friends,

  “In the mouth of two or three witnesses….”  Scripture requires corroborating evidence in matters of fact, and the God of Scripture who issued this requirement lives up to His Word.  In various New Testament passages we read of more than one witness to the truth of God as revealed in Scripture.  First and foremost God not only gave us His testimony in Scripture, but He also promised to preserve it.  Then prior to His crucifixion Jesus promised that when He ascended He would send the Holy Spirit to serve as the same kind and quality of faithful witness that He had been to them during the Incarnation.  With rather sad frequency in our time certain groups of professing Christians will claim that the Holy Spirit gave them a personal and private revelation regarding matters of truth, but, when the fact that their claimed “revelation” contradicts Scripture, they have no qualms about rejecting Scripture and claiming that their revelation supersedes Scripture.  As a matter of Biblical and logical fact, the Holy Spirit will never contradict the testimony of Scripture that He inspired.  If He in fact did so, He would de facto lose all credibility as a witness to us of any matter, much less the ultimate truth of God.  In addition to the testimony of Scripture and of the Holy Spirit Scripture affirms that God writes His law in our hearts and minds, affording further corroborating testimony of His truth.  It is my belief that the voice or testimony of the “righteousness of faith” that Paul discusses in the ninth and tenth chapters of Romans grows out of that divine law written within.   

  In all of these testimonies God assures us that true testimony from Him to us will always bring the same testimony.  He will never contradict Himself or change His mind about the truth that He reveals to His children.  

  Praise God for consistent testimony to harmonious truth,
Joe Holder

The “Righteousness of Faith” and Paul Agree:

They say the same thing

 
But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  ( Romans 10:8-13 )  

              After giving voice to “Mr. Faith’s” negative convictions, “Say not…” Paul now moves to the affirming truth that the “righteousness of faith” speaks.  In the verses before us Paul focuses on a message that is communicated “…in thy heart….”  Those of us who listen to Christian radio or television are often bombarded by the discordant theology of our day that, behind its façade of truth, is wholly man-centric, even in matters of eternal salvation.  We are told that the Holy Spirit is “wooing” the sinner to make the right decision, to believe the right thing, to do the right thing, but strangely we are also told that the Holy Spirit becomes deaf and dumb—He can neither hear nor speak—apart from one human preaching or witnessing to another.  Apparently these people believe that God must wholly rely on humans to communicate His will and to purvey His saving power to those who are not presently born of God. 

            Paul’s message, here depicted as the voice of “the righteousness of faith” speaking in and to the heart of someone, does not urge its hearer to reach outside of self to another human who communicates the message of God to the heart.  Rather Paul’s message affirms that the “righteousness of faith” has both voice and clarity in the message it communicates.  Paul further affirms that this “righteousness of faith” presently resides within the individuals to whom he addresses these words.  “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”  If we hold to the basic doctrines of grace, we can hardly consider such people in whom God’s “word” resides and speaks to be unregenerate and depraved individuals.  Rather they are regenerate, born again, individuals who are urged by the apostle to listen to this inner testimony rather than to their corrupted and distorted interpretation of either the Mosaic Law, or any “Do and receive the benefits for doing” kind of law that they might consider. 

            In the last study we examined Paul’s dialectical rhetoric literary style of reasoning and writing.  As we examine this chapter and Paul’s carefully framed reasoning in it, we shall discover that he is in fact engaging his unseen, but quite real, audience in a hypothetical conversation.  He gives voice to this audience and interacts with their ideas. 

            If we fully grasp Paul’s affirmation of the inner voice of the righteousness of faith that has occupied our study for some time now, we cannot but notice the contrast that will surface in Romans 10:14 , “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?  And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear without a preacher?”  These words are not Paul’s but his critical audience who intensely disagrees with what he has just written regarding the inner voice of the “righteousness of faith.”  These words not only ignore the effect of such an inner testimony; they contradict that testimony.  While Paul affirms that God’s “righteousness of faith” speaks within regarding the presence and kind grace of God to the individual, the voice of the critic challenges Paul with this battery of questions, all of which presume that unless a person hears someone preach, they have no “voice” or influence to which they might respond toward God.  Paul affirms that God’s voice communicates to His regenerate elect in rather precise words, while Paul’s critics, beginning in Verse fourteen, reject his teaching and affirm that an individual is suspended in hopeless oblivion to God apart from the voice of a preacher.  Their idea is that man remains “incommunicado” with God till the speechless god of their false theology convinces a preacher to preach to them. 

            Does this idea render Paul, or those of us who agree with his teachings here, in any way “antinomian” or “anti-evangelistic”?  This “straw man” criticism is commonly hurled against both Paul and those who hold to his teachings.  Both in words and in actions Paul refuted such a false “straw man” claim.  We who believe Paul’s teachings should carefully and faithfully follow his example and by both words and deeds expose this straw man for the false claim that it is.  Rather than retiring to a passive “God does it all—we can’t do anything unless He does it in and through us” false belief, both Paul and those who have believed his teachings refuse to either diminish or reject the powerful testimony of the “righteousness of faith” with which God communicates His Person and moral convictions to His regenerate elect. 

            Here is an outline of the interaction that Paul has with his hypothetical audience in this chapter, the heart of Paul’s dialectical rhetorical style of writing and reasoning.

1.         Paul affirms the testimony of the righteousness of faith ( Romans 10:6-13 ). 

2.         Paul’s critic responds in an attempt to refute Paul’s teachings, effectively seeking to neutralize the inner testimony of the righteousness of faith and to make the gospel the exclusive testimony of God to man ( Romans 10:14-15 ).  Even the gravest of error must appeal, however wrongly or falsely, to some element of truth to give the appearance of credibility to the error.  Paul’s critics cite Old Testament Scriptures, but they interpret them so as to seek to refute and contradict Paul’s teaching regarding the inner testimony of the righteousness of faith. 

3.         Paul responds to his critic’s ideas with a “But they have not all obeyed the gospel…” ( Romans 10:16 ). 

4.         The critic responds, attempting to further his claim that the only way God has of communicating with man is by the gospel ( Romans 10:17 ). 

5.         Paul answers the objection with “But I say…” ( Romans 10:18 ).  Think about these words.  If Verse seventeen were Paul’s own words, why would he need to introduce his thoughts in Verse eighteen with “But I say…”?  If he “said” the words of the seventeenth verse, “But I say…” becomes redundant and senseless. 

6.         Beginning with the nineteenth verse to the end of the chapter, Paul provides one Old Testament passage after another to affirm his teachings and to refute the errant view of his critic.  Each verse begins “But….” 

We shall examine these verses and the intense conflict of ideas that are exchanged between Paul and his critics, between Mr. Faith and Mr. Legalist, in future studies.  For the moment let’s anchor our minds firmly in the content of the testimony we receive from the righteousness of faith.

            …that is the word of faith which we preach….  Paul here affirms that his gospel message teaches the same thing that the righteousness of faith teaches within his hearers.  He affirms that God is quite capable of communicating directly in and to the hearts of His children.  Furthermore, Paul’s gospel and this inner testimony never contradict each other! 

            …That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus….  Here to “confess” is to come to the same conclusion, to say the same thing about Jesus that God and Scripture say about Him.  Paul is here dealing with precise reasoning.  He is presenting his “legal brief” to his audience, in fact his “judge and jury,” for his intense desire is to convert them from their error to the glorious and liberating truth of his gospel, a message that corroborates with the inner testimony of God’s grace within them.  In our legal system, as with any civilized legal system, confession of something does not create the facts behind the confession.  Rather the confession merely truthfully acknowledges a prior truth.  Paul did not here suggest that confession or belief would create the new birth in these people.  He rather seeks to convince them to listen to the testimony within and to give audible voice or “confession” to its testimony in their spoken and believed words.   

            …and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.  Again, as with the legal brief, Paul is not seeking to create something in these people, but to convince them to acknowledge a prior truth that presently resides within them.  Further he affirms that such confession and belief will in fact produce a desirable result or effect.  Being “saved” here does not refer to the new birth, but to deliverance, as specifically noted in this context by the inspired apostle, deliverance from error, from ignorant zeal, and from a sense of shame to a sense of joyful fellowship with God.  He is not trying to convince unregenerate people to effect their own new birth, but he is rather trying to convince errant people, in all likelihood people who were members of the church in Rome , but who had fallen back into their former Jewish legalism, that everything they had been taught about Jesus in the gospel was indeed the truth.  Repeatedly he writes these words with a first person pronoun.  He is speaking to them in the Roman letter.  Romans 1:7 specifically describes Paul’s understanding of their spiritual state, “…beloved of God, called to be saints….” 

            For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  The regenerate heart is urged to respond to the inner testimony of faith in them, thereby believing its testimony and confessing to its truth.  You can’t believe that you are saved prior to actually being saved, nor can you confess to a lie to make it true.  If these people believe and confess “unto salvation,” how can we make a case that they are actually not saved?  The idea is nonsensical!

            For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.  Here we have further affirmation of Paul’s exhortation to regenerate elect people.  He does not imply that their belief will effect their new birth or in some way prevent them from an eternity in hell.  He rather affirms that their belief shall “save” them from shame.  

            For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  Here Paul strikes at the heart of the Jew-Gentile conflict in the Roman church, indeed a conflict that appears throughout the first generation of churches (Compare the Roman problem with legalism with the same problem that Paul confronts in the Galatian letter.  Rome was located on the Italian peninsula; Galatia was located in the eastern portion of modern Turkey .  Paul and Barnabas also confronted a similar error at the church in Antioch , on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea in Acts 15 ).  These people were trying to convince the early Christians that they must first become faithful Jews, subject to all the external rituals and practices of their corrupted interpretation of Old Testament worship, before they could then become good and “true” Christians.  In other words they sought to impose an insidious form of external legalism onto Christians, a profound error that Paul and the other inspired writers of the New Testament consistently confronted and rejected. 

            Praise God for the incredibly liberating truth of Paul’s gospel and the testimony of the righteousness of faith that speaks within every regenerate elect person.  Regardless of your race, your culture, or your background, God’s message communicated by faith to your heart is always the same message.  It is not one message to a Jew, another message to a Gentile.  It is the same message.  Our God is rich and gracious to those who from the heart call upon Him! 

            I tend to avoid paraphrased Bibles or personal translations.  However at times it may prove helpful for us to consider a person’s personal paraphrase if they speak from an informed and truthful foundation.  I was delighted when I first read the paraphrase from the author of the quote in the last study from the Society of Biblical Literature. 

(9) Because if you confess with your mouth “JESUS IS LORD!”  and trust in your heart that “God raised him from the dead,” you will be all right.

(10) trusting in one’s heart results in genuine relationship and confessing with one’s mouth brings well-being.

(11) For the written tradition says: “Everyone who trusts in him will not be shamed.” 

“…you will be all right,” “…results in genuine relationship,” “…brings well-being;” all of these terms deal with a present sense of contentment or joyful “well-being,” not with where one expects to spend eternity.  And this point is precisely what Paul is attempting to affirm in his hypothetical critical audience.  Remember, the philosophical objective of dialectical rhetoric is to win the person from error to truth by ethical and convincing reasoning, not by deceitful sophistry as was commonly practiced prior to the advent in ancient Greek culture of dialectical rhetoric. 

            Paul affirmed this same truth to Titus.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. ( Titus 2:11-15 , KJV )

Notice Paul’s foundational premise in these verses.  It is the same “grace of God” that saves us that also teaches us to deny ungodliness and to live righteously in consideration of the reality and goodness of our God. 

            The two voices, Mr. Faith and Mr. Legalist, to which Paul gives voice in the tenth chapter of Romans, are diametrically opposite views of God and of the gospel.  May we carefully follow Paul’s inspired teachings.