{IB_4} Jews and Gentiles are Saved on the Same Basis, Faith

{IB_4} Jews and Gentiles are Saved on the Same Simple Basis, Faith (10:9-13)

ὅτι ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃς ἐν τῷ στόματί σου κύριον Ἰησοῦν, καὶ πιστεύσῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου ὅτι ὁ θεὸς αὐτὸν ἤγειρεν ἐκ νεκρῶν, σωθήσῃ·
(hoti ean homologēsēs en tō stomati sou  kurion Iēsoun, kai pisteuēs en tēn kardia sou hoti ho theos auton ēgeiren ek nekrōn, sōthēsē)
—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. (10:9).

• Paul is not teaching a strange and counter-intuitive order of salvation here, confession before faith. “Mouth” comes before “heart” in the Deuteronomy quotation, so that’s the order Paul follows, but no time sequence is implied in Deuteronomy, and none is implied here.
• Notice the second person singular pronoun “sou” here and the second-person singular verbs. Much as it may be beneficial to explore the idea that election and with it salvation was more corporately viewed in the first century than in our individualistic era, Paul’s words leave no doubt that it is the individual who believes, confesses, and is saved.
• In an epoch when the confession “Caesar is Lord” was demanded, it was no easy thing to say that Jesus is Lord. Paul is proclaiming justification by faith, but not easy-believism.
• The faith that leads to salvation is also a faith that is tied to the historic fact of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

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A Digression Concerning a Wrong View of the Resurrection

Compare Paul’s words with what the Very Rev’d Dr John Shepherd said in his Easter, 2008, sermon about the resurrection²: “…Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. They are symbolic images of the breaking through of the resurrection spirit into human lives.”

Dr Shepherd’s assertion does not stand up well when thought about in relation to this passage.

• Paul makes belief in the resurrection a core determinant of salvation.
• He is writing to a congregation of (mostly) ordinary people, Jews, Greeks and Romans, who are not philosophers or theologians.
• It is bizarre to suppose that Paul is saying to this motley group of (mostly) non-intellectuals, “If you haven’t ‘got’ it yet, this notion that the accounts of post-resurrection ‘appearances’ were symbolic, not historical records, you really need to work harder at it—your salvation depends upon believing it!”.
• We also have the evidence from 1 Corinthians 15 that the historical reality of the post-resurrection appearances was just as important to Paul as the empty tomb. Even though the Roman church probably hadn’t seen the Corinthian letter, it is unlikely that the resurrection story had been presented to them in a dissimilar way.
• Dr Shepherd has since affirmed his orthodoxy in respect of the empty tomb. Nevertheless, his 2008 sermon replaces apostolic certainties with sophistry that seems to be saying something important but isn’t. It would have better been left unpreached.

² As quoted by “Archbishop Cranmer”

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καρδίᾳ γὰρ πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην, στόματι δὲ ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σωτηρίαν·
(kardia gar pisteuetai eis dikaiosunēn, stomati de homologeitai eis sōtērian)
—For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. (10:10).

• Paul is not splitting salvation from justification as though they are two states, entry into which can be separated in time. Paul was emphatic in chapter 8 that, when God has declared you righteous by faith, condemnation cannot touch you, and nothing can separate you from the love of God. You are, indeed, saved.
• Even Gentile-background hearers therefore should not have drawn any implication of time-different states from Paul’s words, but his Jewish-background hearers would also have recognised Hebrew parallelism in the two clauses of 10:10 and so would have understood that Paul’s words were looking at one and the same event from two perspectives.
• Paul’s words contain an important implication for our doctrine of salvation, one which the Romans would also have recognised: faith that justifies contains within it, from the very outset, the will to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Once again, we see that Paul is not teaching easy-believism.

λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή· Πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐπ’ αὐτῷ οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται.
(legei gar hē graphē, Pas hō pisteuōn ep’ autō ōu kataiskunthēsetai.)
—The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” (10:11)

• Paul adduces yet another Old Testament Scripture (Isaiah 28:16) to support his case that faith is the basis of salvation.
• It doesn’t matter that Paul quotes the Septuagint version of Isaiah 28:16, which differs from the Hebrew. Our purpose here is to understand what Paul meant, not to argue with him, and what he meant is clear.
• The same comment would also apply in other places where Paul quotes from the Septuagint, and the Hebrew says something different.

οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολὴ Ἰουδαίου τε καὶ Ἕλληνος, ὁ γὰρ αὐτὸς κύριος πάντων, πλουτῶν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους αὐτόν· Πᾶς γὰρ ὃς ἂν ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα κυρίου σωθήσεται.
(ōu gar diastolē Ioudaious te kai Hellēnos, ho gar autos kurios tantōn, ploutōn eis pantas tous epikaloumenous auton, Pas gar hos an epikalēsetai to onoma kuriou sōthēsetai)
—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. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (10:12-13)

• The quotation is from Joel 2:32.
• In this passage, Paul has reiterated what he first said in 1:16 and repeated in 3:23-24 and 3:29-30. Jews and Gentiles are on exactly the same footing before God as regards salvation, and those who are saved are saved by faith.

Paul’s words in 10:5-13 serve to expound 10:3. Most Jews have indeed rejected Christ, but they have rejected a salvation that was attested by the prophets and which God has not made difficult to understand or enter into. Those nine verses have therefore served to underline the Jews’ own responsibility for their failure to believe.

Next: {IB_5,6} Israel Heard and Rejected the Gospel that was pre-told in the Prophets

Image attribution:”Pilgrim” flickr photo by Thomas Hawk https://flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/11887885654 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license