“Romans 10”

Friday, February 10, 2017

Having established in Chapter 9 that the Jews, for the most part, had rejected Jesus as the Messiah, this chapter shows that Paul still loved his people and wanted them to be saved. He prayed for the Jews; their salvation was his heart’s desire. The problem was that they were ignoring God’s plan for their righteousness and trying to make their own plan. God’s plan for the salvation of the Jews is the same as His plan for Gentiles. They must be obedient to the gospel, not the Law of Moses.

In verse 4, Paul shows that Jesus was the “end of the law for righteousness.” That doesn’t mean that He ended the Old Law, although He did. But, in this case, it means that Jesus was the end result, or the fulfillment, of the Law of Moses. The Law was described as a “tutor” (schoolmaster, KJV) to bring people to faith in Christ (Galatians 3:24-25).

Therefore, the greatest need of Israel was to recognize Jesus as the Savior and to obey His new covenant. That’s why the book of Romans begins with a reference to the gospel as “the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek (or Gentile, rh)” (Romans 1:16). And in the gospel is revealed “the righteousness of God,” that is, God’s plan for making both Jew and non-Jew righteous (Romans 1:17).

Jews needed to hear and believe and obey the Lord’s New Testament in order to be saved, as they called upon God for salvation (Romans 10:13). In general, Gentiles were more open to the gospel than were the Jews (verse 16).

Verse 20 describes the Gentiles as those who found God as they accepted Christ. Verse 21 describes the Jews as “a disobedient and contrary people.”

--Roger Hillis

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