CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 10:1.—That the apostle speaks not in the preceding chapter of the absolute reprobation of Israel is evident from this prayer and vehement desire. ἡ εὐδοκία.—The good-will of my heart and my prayer on Israel’s behalf is for salvation, and thus he assumes the possibility of salvation for the rejected.
Romans 10:2. A zeal for God.—Hence some were called zealots, taking the name from those who were zealous for that which is good.
Romans 10:3.—They not knowing, not considering the righteousness of God. The way for man to attain unto the position of the righteous.
Romans 10:4.—Refers more especially to Christ’s active obedience: “The man that doeth them shall live by them” By doing men were accounted righteous under the law; while the gospel says, Believe, and live—believe, and do as the fruit of faith.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 10:1-4
Mistakes rectified.—In previous Chapter s St. Paul had described the sad condition of his countrymen. And now he pours forth the ardent longings of his soul: “Brethren, my heart’s good pleasure and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” Here is the utterance of the Christian patriot. Spiritual salvation is the highest good for the individual and the community. This secured, other needful good will follow in its train. Earth’s patriots begin at the surface and work downwards; the Christian patriot begins at the root and works upwards. Civilise, then Christianise. Spiritual salvation is the true civilising force. Salvation in every sense is the dream and the aim of every true Christian. His soul is in heaviness because of the unsaved; he sighs over the lost; he weeps over the guilt and the impending doom of a great city; he prays for his kinsmen that they may be saved.
I. The relationships of life suggest solemn thought.—Israelites were St. Paul’s kinsmen according to the flesh. Love of kin is the surest basis for love of kind. The man who does not care for his relations is not likely to care for the world beyond. St. Paul was by pre-eminence the apostle of the Gentiles; and may we not suppose that this broader office arose out of his love to Israel? Love is expanding. Love to Israelites feeds love to Gentiles. However this may be, we have here St. Paul’s deep love for his kinsmen according to the flesh, and it suggests to him solemn thoughts.
1. Israel is unsaved. Brethren after the flesh, aliens after the spirit. “That they might be saved “opens out a wide domain of thought to the apostolic mind. The spiritual mind of the apostle would scarcely content itself with the idea of the salvation of Israel as a temporal power. He was anxious, not for the restoration of David’s throne as an earthly monarch, but for the establishment of the supremacy of David’s greater Son and Lord. “That they might be saved” is the apostle’s great goal for the human race. He walked through the earth oppressed with the thought that its millions were unsaved; but he did not give place to despair, nor lose himself in generalities. He set himself to the work near at hand. He prayed and worked for his kinsmen.
2. Israel had a false zeal. St. Paul could bear witness to the zeal of the Jews. He himself had been most zealous. The men without fire and glow are the men to cumber the earth; the men with enthusiasms are the men to exalt the race. Lofty ideas stirring the nature dignify humanity. Religious ideas are the loftiest. False zeal is better than indifference. The Jews had zeal for the ceremonials. They tithed mint, anise, and cumin; they were punctilious about the letter of the Sabbath, about postures, and the shape of garments. Their zeal was not divinely enlightened. It was not a zeal from God. It was not pure, nor full of love.
3. Israel had a false method. They were going about to establish their own righteousness. Many of the sons of men are still going on this fruitless pilgrimage. The little words “their own” are suggestive. How much men will do for “their own”! What long and weary pilgrimages men will take to establish their own righteousness! They go up and down the earth, and their last state is worse than their first. Their own righteousness is flattering to pride. Submission unto the righteousness of God is possible only to Christian humility.
II. Solemn thought prompts intercessory prayer.—St. Paul prayed that Israel might be saved. Prayer is a relief to the solemnity of our thought; prayer throws light on the deep problems of existence. Solemn thought depresses; intercessory prayer inspires and invigorates.
III. Intercessory prayer moves to outward action.—St. Paul did not pray in the monastic cell, and shut himself out and away from the sins and sorrows of a struggling humanity. He sought strength in prayer, and used that strength in action. He obtained divine light and teaching by prayer, and he used the blessings for the good of his fellows. The praying man is the best teacher. St. Paul can show the Jews the right method. “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The moral law discloses the wounds sin has made. The ceremonial law shadows forth the remedy. The law given as a tutor to conduct us to Christ. Its authority as a covenant terminates in Christ. “He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The law of works is killed by the law of love. Moses laid down rules, but he did not thereby render humanity upright. Christ inbreathed a loving spirit, and the glorified nature had no need of precise enactments. He that believeth in Christ has both a justifying and a sanctifying righteousness.
IV. Intercessory prayer conjoined with suitable action cannot fail.—Failure in the human thought and to the human estimate there may be, but it does not follow that there is a failure in the divine plan and purpose. “Fail” is a word for human weakness and human limitations. Fail cannot be a word for Omnipotence. Soul energy cannot brook the idea of failure. Is it to be supposed that the soul energy of the Infinite can admit failure? Man may fail, but a God must be ever victorious. It might be true that Israel was not saved, and yet that Paul’s prayer was answered. Divine answers do not move along human channels. Let us pray and work in faith. Prayer offered to God cannot be fruitless. Work done for God cannot come to naught.
Romans 10:4. The end of the law.—Two questions arise:
1. What is the “end” (τέλος) of the law?
2. How is Christ that “end”?
Answer
1. The “end “of a law is to make men righteous—teach what is right, what is wrong. Law does this by plainly declaring God’s will. Yet by this merely its end not gained. What is wanted?
Answer
2.
(1) An ideal life—to illustrate righteousness by perfect example.
(2) A gift of power—to keep the law. Christ led the life and gives the power. (Doctrine of sanctification.)
Mark: No other religious system supplies these two wants. Contrast Christianity with Buddhism and Mohammedanism. Neither claims
(1) to exhibit perfect life, or
(2) give sanctifying power.
The ideal life is near to us; the gift of power is near to us (Romans 10:6-9).—Dr. Springett.
Romans 10:4. Relation of the law to the gospel.—Now this spirit of legality, as it is called, is nearly the universal spirit of humanity. It is not Judaism alone; it is nature. They are not the Israelites only who go about to establish a righteousness of their own; the very same thing may be detected among the religionists of all countries and all ages. If a man will persist, as nature strongly inclines him, in seeking to make out a title-deed to heaven by his own obedience, then that obedience must be perfect, else there is a flaw in the title-deed which is held to be irreparable. In defect of his own righteousness, which he is required to disown as having any part in his meretorious acceptance with God, he is told of an everlasting righteousness which Another has brought in, and which he is invited, nay commanded, to make mention of. It is thus that Christ becomes the end of the law for righteousness—that is, for a justifying righteousness, or for a righteousness which gives a right to him who possesses it. There appears to be the very strength and spirit of a moral essence in that doctrine which they hold, and it seems the fruit of their more adequate homage to the law that, under the feeling of their own distance and deficiency therefrom, they have laid hold upon Christ as the end of the law for righteousness. Obedience for a legal right is everywhere denounced in the New Testament as an enterprise, the prosecution of which forms the main business of every disciple, and the full achievement of which is that prize of his high calling to which he must press forward continually. Human virtue hath ceased, under the economy of grace, to be the price of heaven; for this power is lost, and lost irrevocably, by its ceasing to be perfect. But human virtue is still the indispensable preparation for heaven; and we, helped from the sanctuary above to struggle with all the imperfections of our corrupt and carnal nature below, must, by a life of prayer and painstaking and all duteous performance, make way through the frailties and temptations of our sinful state in time, to a meetness for the joys of that endless inheritance which is beyond it. First, then, know that the legal right is what you cannot work for, but that in the gospel of Jesus Christ it is freely offered for your acceptance. But, secondly, having thus secured what the apostle in one passage calls “the end of the law,” count it your unceasing business to labour for what the apostle in another passage calls “the end of the commandment.” Though the law has ceased as a covenant, it has not ceased as a rule of life. Oh, let us then do honour to the faith that we profess by our abounding in those fruits of righteousness which emanate therefrom, and never let gainsayers have to allege of that holy name by which we are called that it is prostituted by those who wear it into a licence for iniquity! Let the faith of the gospel approve itself in our hearts, to bring along with it the charm and the efficacy of a new moral existence.—Dr. Chalmers.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 10:2-4
Zeal for God.—I desire, it may be observed; that zeal of God in general—that is, a hearty and passionate concernment for religion—the apostle here finds no fault with. On the contrary, he approves it as a commendable thing; for you see he represents it as a piece of virtue in his countrymen, and speaks it to their commendation that they had a zeal of God. A man will have but small comfort, when he comes to die, to reflect that he has been zealous of the privileges and property and rights of his countrymen, but it was indifferent to him how the service of God and the affairs of religion were managed. The apostle’s carriage to the unbelieving Israelites, who, though they were zealous for God, yet were in a great mistake as to their notions of the true religion. He thinks them the more pitiable and the more excusable in that this their opposition proceeded from their zeal of God, though it was misinformed, irregular zeal. Our tenderness to mistaken zealots must always be so managed as that the true religion or the public peace suffer no damage thereby. The apostle’s tacit reprehension of the Jewish zeal upon this account—that it was not according to knowledge. For be our zeal of God never so great, yet if it be not a zeal according to knowledge it is not the right Christian zeal. And though we see others never so fervent and vehement in pursuing a religious cause—and that too out of conscience—yet if this zeal of theirs be not according to knowledge it is a zeal that justly deserves to be reproved. And though both we and they may, “for our sincerity in God’s cause, expect some allowances both from God and man, yet neither they nor we can justify it either to God or man that we are thus foolish and ignorantly zealous. So that a right zeal for God implies that we do so well inform ourselves of the nature of our religion as not to pretend a religious zeal for anything that is not a part of our religion. If our zeal for God be as it should be, it must certainly express itself in matters that are good, about such objects as God hath made to be our duty. “It is good,” said St. Paul, “to be always zealously affected in a good matter” But if we mistake in our cause, if we take that for good which is evil, or that for evil which is good, here our zeal is not according to knowledge. The zeal that is according to knowledge is always attended with hearty charity. It is not that bitter zeal which the apostle speaks of, which is accompanied with hatred and envy and perverse disputings. But it is kind and sociable and meek even to gainsayers. Another inseparable property of zeal according to knowledge is that it must pursue lawful ends by lawful means, must never do an ill thing for the carrying the best cause. How many unlawful acts have popish zealots used to subject all the Christian world to their Lord and Master! How many forgeries for this purpose have they been the authors of and maintained them afterwards! How many disturbances have they given to the peace of Christendom in the most unjust and unnatural ways for the advancement of the papal cause! It was out of zeal for God’s service and the interest of holy Church that so many princes have been excommunicated and deposed, that so many tumults and rebellions have been raised, that so many crusades for the extirpating heretics have been sent out. By which and suchlike means it may justly be computed that as much Christian blood has been shed for the establishing popery as it now stands—nay, and a great deal more—than ever was during all the times of the heathen persecutions for the supporting of paganism.—Archbishop Sharpe.
False zeal.—“A zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” The faster a man rides, if he be in a wrong road, the farther he goes out of his way. Zeal is the best or worst thing in a duty. If the end be right, it is excellent; but if wrong, it is worthless.—Gurnall’s “Christian in Complete Armour,” vol. iii., p. 479.
It is better, according to Augustine, even to halt in the road than to run with all our might out of the proper path.—Calvin.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Romans 10:1. Cecil’s child.—“I see my child drowning,” says Mr. Cecil; “that child’s education lies near my heart. But what do I think of his education now? Bring him safe to land first. I will talk of his education afterwards. Paul’s first desire is that Israel might be saved. The great concern of preachers should be neither biblical criticism, nor the refutation of heresies, nor to be thought men of intellectual power, but that the hearers may be saved.”
Romans 10:2. The balance of the sanctuary.—In the reign of King Charles I. the goldsmiths of London had a custom of weighing several sorts of their precious metals before the Privy Council. On this occasion they made use of scales poised with such exquisite nicety that the beam would turn, the master of the company affirmed, at the two hundredth part of a grain. Nay, the famous attorney-general, standing by and hearing this, replied, “I should be loath then to have all my actions weighed in these scales.” “With whom I heartily agree,” says the pious Hervey, “in relation to myself. And since the balance of the sanctuary, the balances in God’s hands, are infinitely exact, oh, what need have we of the merit and righteousness of Christ to make us acceptable in His sight and passable in His esteem!”
Romans 10:3. The moral magnifying glass.—Some people carry about with them a moral magnifying glass. They are fond of using it. Through it they look intently at their own excellences. Their virtues seem so great that they fail to see their need of pardon. David Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, was an astronomer. He was skilful in measuring the size of planets and determining the distance of stars. But he found that, such was the distance of the stars, a silk thread stretched across the glass of his telescope would entirely cover a star. He even found that a silk fibre, however small, placed upon the same glass would cover so much of the heavens that the star, if a small one, would remain obscured several seconds. Our sun is 886,000 miles in diameter; yet, seen from a distant star, it could be hidden behind a thread that was near the eye! Is there nothing like this in the spiritual world? Alas! there is. Too often men allow a very slender, slight thread of virtue to hide from them the glorious Sun of righteousness. Paul tells us of such. “They, going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”
Romans 10:4. More grace wanted.—When Lord North, during the American war, sent to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher of Madeley (who had written on that unfortunate war in a manner that had pleased the minister) to know what he wanted, he sent him word that he wanted but one thing, which it was not in his lordship’s power to give him, and that was more grace. The place to lose self.—A person who had long practised many austerities, without finding any comfort or change of heart, was once complaining of his state to a certain bishop. “Alas!” said he, “self-will and self-righteousness follow me everywhere. Only tell me when you think I shall learn to leave self. Will it be by study, or prayer, or good works?” “I think,” replied the bishop, “that the place where you lose self will be that where you find your Saviour.”