Jewish Unbelief Analyzed

Romans 10:1-4 speaks about the problem of Jewish unbelief. This is also the problem of the vast majority of the Gentiles. The question Paul is dealing with is why most Jews are not saved. The answer is that they failed to believe in their Messiah.

Jesus Is the Messiah

In his article, “Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus,” Rabbi Shraga Simmons asks this question: “For 2,000 years Jews have rejected the Christian idea of Jesus as messiah. Why?”¹ His answer is that Jesus did not fulfill the messianic prophecies, especially in not embodying the personal qualifications of the Messiah.

Unlike Rabbi Simmons, the blind Bartimaeus did believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God (Mark 10:47). The brilliant rabbi Saul of Tarsus, the famous student of Gamaliel, also believed. The center of Christianity is Jesus Christ, and the entire New Testament witnesses to the truth that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Jesus himself said so, putting out the challenge: “Who can convict me of sin?” (John 8:46).

Jesus declared that he had testimonies outside of himself that he is the Messiah. Of John the Baptist, Jesus said, “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth” (John 5:33). His own works testified to this truth: “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36). Jesus said that the Father himself also testified: “And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me” (John 5:37). What was his testimony? “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matt. 17:5).

Moreover, the Scriptures themselves (i.e., the Old Testament) witness that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus told the Jews, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40).

What about Moses? Rabbi Simmons says that the Messiah is going to be second to Moses. But Jesus told the unbelieving Jews, “Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:45-46). Not only that, the risen Lord declared that the entire Old Testament-the law, the prophets, the writings, the psalms-spoke of him as Messiah: “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).

Unless Jesus opens the eyes of men who are blinded by the devil, they will not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in the gospel. The greatest sin in the world is not the murder of the Messiah; it is unbelief in Christ. So Jesus said, “When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me” (John 16:8-9).

Paul identified this Jewish unbelief in Romans 9:30-31, where he says that Israel pursued the way of justification, the way of righteousness, the way of salvation, the way of life, by their own works (ex ergôn) and not by faith (ek pisteôs).

In Romans 9:1-29, Paul deals with the salvation of sinners on the basis of divine sovereignty and election. In Romans 9:30-10:21, he deals with it in terms of human responsibility. No one is saved unless he or she believes savingly in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s Intense Burden for Souls

After Paul’s conversion, the unbelieving Jews reviled and persecuted Paul, opposing his preaching and planning to kill him. Paul writes of this:

For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. (1 Thess. 2:14-16)

Anyone who does not believe in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, is heaping up his sins to the limit. Yet Paul loved his fellow Jews and earnestly desired their eternal salvation. Their salvation was his heart’s intense desire. Elsewhere Paul says, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. . . . To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:20, 22). He also explains that he made much of his ministry to the Gentiles “in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them” (Rom. 11:14).

Not only did Paul earnestly desire the salvation of the Jewish people, but he also prayed for them. His prayer was for the one thing needful: their eternal salvation. The greatest need of fallen man is not more money, a bigger house, or newer cars. Our greatest need is salvation, as Jesus said: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36, NASB).

Paul prayed continually and exhorted us to do so also. Even Jesus, the Son of God, prayed to the Father “with loud cries and tears” (Heb. 5:8). Prayer is the means to God’s ordained end. God ordains the end as well as the means to that end. God ordains the salvation of elect sinners, and so he ordains that someone will preach the gospel to them. He ordains that we eat daily bread, and so ordains that we work six days a week and make money to buy our bread.

Paul desired the salvation of his brothers, so he prayed continually for them. God wants us to do the same. George Müller prayed for sixty years for two of his friends to be saved. One came to a worship service a year before Mí¼ller’s death and was saved; the other was saved one year after Mí¼ller’s death.

Do you have an intense desire for the salvation of your children, your spouse, your parents, your in-laws, your siblings? They are hurtling down to hell itself. Do you pray for their salvation? Do you witness to them?

Paul witnessed to his kinfolk because faith comes by hearing the gospel. In every city he visited, Paul would first go into the synagogue to preach to the Jews. In Acts 13 we read, “On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: ‘We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.’ . . . So they shook the dust from their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium” (vv. 44-46, 51). Even when testifying before King Herod Agrippa II and other dignitaries, Paul’s burden was for the souls of his hearers: “Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me [the king, the big man] to be a Christian?'” Hear the answer: “Paul replied, ‘Short time or long-I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am [a Christian], except for these chains'” (Acts 26:28-29).

The Nature of Jewish Unbelief

The nature of Jewish unbelief is also the nature of Gentile unbelief. It is also the nature of our unbelief.

First, Paul commends the Jews, saying they are a zealous people who did things wholeheartedly. May God help us all to be zealous as we study and work. The Scripture says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might,” or as Paul says, “Do it as to the Lord.”

But then he says that their zeal was without epignôsis, “precise knowledge” of the gospel. This is true today also. In many churches, one will not get epignôsis, but only a man-centered word.

Paul spoke often of the days when he himself was zealous without knowledge of the gospel. To the crowd in Jerusalem he said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison” (Acts 22:3-4). He was zealous in persecuting, zealous in opposing Jesus Christ, zealous in murdering people. Before King Agrippa he declared, “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them” (Acts 26:9-11).

That is the problem when we have zeal without precise knowledge of the gospel. We must be zealous for the gospel truth. Fanaticism does not save. The tradition of the elders cannot save. Luther’s zealous piety did not save him. The gospel saved him. All the religions of the world cannot save a single person.

The zeal of the Jews lacked precise knowledge of Jesus Christ. Paul answered the question, “What must I do to be saved?” by saying, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30-31). Jesus and the apostles said the same. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, the resurrection, and the life. Miss him, and you will drift into hell.

Miss Jesus, and you miss heaven and eternal life. Edward J. Young, my professor and a leading Old Testament scholar, said that all the extra-canonical Jewish writings missed the Messiah whom the entire Old Testament spoke about. This is zeal without knowledge. “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way” (Prov. 19:2). Look at liberal Christianity. It has no Christ. Any Christianity that is empty of the preaching of the gospel is devoid of salvation.

Cults are empty of the truth of the gospel. Yet zealous cultists go all over the world to win converts so that they can take them to hell. They have zeal without knowledge. Look at the fanaticism of environmentalism, Marxism, belief in global warming and cooling, worship of mammon, and zeal for abortion. Over fifty million babies were killed in this country since 1973 for personal happiness. Evolutionary hypothesis brought about such destruction in terms of the rot of the culture of this country. All of this is zeal without knowledge. Paul says that his kinfolk were zealous, but they lacked knowledge of salvation as stated in Romans 3:21-26.

There is a zealous man we often hear on the radio who speaks without knowledge of the gospel. He declares that the rapture will take place on Saturday, May 21, 2011, at twelve noon Jerusalem time, and the world will end on October 21, 2011. He is destroying the lives of many gullible people with his zeal without knowledge. There was a man in seventeenth century England named William Naylor. He rode into Bristol, announcing that he was the Messiah. Such people are zealous, but also ignorant and arrogant. Run away from such people. Run away from churches that are zealous, but refuse to preach the gospel.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones spoke of visiting a London Christian bookstore and noticing a book by a man who virtually denied all the cardinal articles of the Christian faith. The owner, who loved money more than the gospel, defended his decision to sell the book, saying, “But I have never known a more devout man. You must hear him pray such pious prayers.”²

Zeal without knowledge is dangerous because it sends people to hell. It is so dangerous that Paul puts a curse on anyone who preaches a gospel that is different from the gospel of God concerning his Son, which he expounds in Romans and Galatians. “Let him be anathema!”

Away with ignorance and ignoramuses, subjectivism, irrationalism, emotionalism, and all false gospels! Away with all human religions and philosophies! Jesus said, “You err because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matt. 22:29). Truth sets us free. The Son sets us free. The gospel sets us free. But cults and human religions enslave us. Jesus alone saves us.

Paul’s kinfolk were ignorant of God’s own righteousness. They knew about it, because Paul had preached the gospel to them. But they refused to embrace salvation through Christ. They refused to embrace the Messiah Jesus, as Simeon had done: “Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: ‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel'” (Luke 2:28-32).

They were blinded by the devil. As natural men, they did not receive spiritual things. They were responsible for their unbelief. The Jews knew who Jesus was. They knew he was the Messiah. They knew he had died and rose again, as he predicted. But they would not trust in him. They went about trying to establish their own righteousness, based on their own good works. Isn’t that the problem with all of us? All unbelievers would say, “I am not that bad. In fact, I am pretty good.” They say to God, “Don’t bother sending your Son to accomplish redemption based on his preceptive and penal obedience to the law. We will save ourselves. Your standard is not that high. We have our own righteousness-heaps of filthy rags!” The problem with self-salvation is that its adherents have a low view of sin as well as a low view of holy God.

Paul was once like his fellow Jews. He rejected the Messianic salvation because he thought he was “perfect” (Phil. 3:6). He was like all other self-righteous Pharisees who refused to submit to the Messiah and the salvation he accomplished. Jesus described such people: “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get'” (Luke 18:11-12). What did God say to him? Go to hell! It is implied in what Jesus said about the publican, who went home justified.

Most people hate grace; they want to take pride in their own achievements. They reject the doctrine of total depravity, asserting that man is okay and can handle himself in spite of the fall. They affirm that man is getting better and better all the time; in fact, soon he will become superman, able to conquer all wars and diseases and death itself. They would declare that man must therefore believe in himself and in his infinite potential. Such people will say, “I am my own savior. I refuse to be saved by grace through faith.” So they will not submit to God and to God’s righteousness and God’s Messiah, the only Savior.

So the Jews opposed God and his Messiah. They crucified him with the help of the Gentiles. To them, Jesus was a blasphemer, a cursed one. They needed no messianic mediator. They were very proud, justifying themselves and trusting in themselves.

The Hebrews writer warns us to pay very careful attention to the gospel, lest we drift (Heb. 2:1). Either God in Jesus Christ saves us by the righteousness of God and we go to heaven, or we will try to save ourselves by our own good works and go to hell. That is all there is to it. The vast majority of people choose the latter: a self-salvation by a self-righteousness that stinks in the nostrils of God.

The psalmist asks, “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. ‘Let us break their chains,’ they say, ‘and throw off their fetters'” (Ps. 2:1-3). But then he says, “Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:10-12).

Professor Charles Hodge of Princeton writes, “A sinner is never safe, do what else he may, until he has submitted to God’s method of justification.”³ The Jews, the people of the Book, studied the Scriptures diligently and yet missed the message of the righteousness of God. (PGM) They missed the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Savior of both Jews and Gentiles.

Friends, kiss the Son. Believe in Jesus Christ. Surrender to him. Submit to the righteousness of God and throw away the dung of your own righteousness. It is appointed that man die once and then comes judgment (Heb. 9:27). You are not going to be a superman; you are going to die. Make your calling and election sure by submitting to the righteousness of God, freely offered to us, to be received by faith.

Christ Alone Saves

Verse 4 has been called the charter of Christianity: “For the end of the law is Christ unto righteousness for everyone who believes.” Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.

Since the fall, everyone is conceived in sin, born in sin, and practices sin. Since the fall, each man is under sin, law, Satan, death, and hell. Since the fall, man is a slave to his lusts and thus unable to do anything that pleases God.

By nature, man is dead in trespasses and sins. He is a slave of the devil. The devil controls his thoughts, words, and actions (Eph. 2:1-3). There is none righteous, not even one (Rom. 3:10). This biblical doctrine humbles us and cuts us down, so that we may be lifted up. So true churches will preach the law. They will bring us to Sinai and then to Calvary. We cannot go to Calvary unless we first went to Sinai. A true minister will confront us with God’s moral law first.

Every man is under the law of God and is obligated to obey God’s law, the Mosaic law, the moral law, all law, always perfectly. He must obey it to be justified. This is impossible, but God demands that we do so. Arrogant man pretends to be righteous, so God says, “All right. Then obey my moral law, every law, always, perfectly.” It is an utter impossibility because of man’s total depravity.

This is clearly articulated in the book of Job: “Who can bring what is pure from the impure?” (Job 14:4). The answer is, no one. “What is man, that he could be pure, or one born of woman, that he could be righteous?” (Job 15:14).

God demands, “Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD” (Lev. 18:5). The law kills us, but grace makes us alive.

If you want to justify yourself, try to obey every law always, perfectly. If you fail, try and try and try again. The law was not given so that a sinner could be saved by obeying it. The law is given so that we will humble ourselves, confess our own impotency, and turn to Christ. Let us examine a number of verses about the law and its purpose:

1. The law gives us knowledge of sin: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law [i.e., a sinner who refuses to believe in Christ] so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by keeping the law. Rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin” (Rom. 3:20). We receive knowledge of sin through the law. Sin is defined as transgression of the law. You feel pretty good and justify yourselves, and you say concerning the righteousness of the law, that you are perfect. But let me ask you: Can you go to the university and grade yourself?
2. The law increases our sin: “The law was added so that the trespass might increase” (Rom. 5:20).
3. The law convicts us of sin: “What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘Do not covet'” (Rom. 7:7). The unbeliever who never goes to church or reads the Bible will say that he is all right. So Paul is saying, “I came to know my sin through the law. I understood that I am a filthy sinner and the chief of sinners. I need a savior.”
4. The law is impotent: “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature [the flesh], God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man” (Rom. 8:3). The law was powerless to justify us because of our own sin.
5. The law cannot justify us: “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by [keeping] the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by [keeping] the law, because by [keeping] the law no one will be justified” (Gal. 2:15-16).
6. The law cannot make us righteous: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:21). The law was never given to fallen man, that he may fulfill it and be justified by his own righteousness. The law was given to shut our mouth so that we will turn to Christ. If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.
7. The law was added because of our sins: “[The law] was added because of transgression until Messiah comes” (Gal. 3:19).
8. The law cannot impart life: “For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law” (Gal. 3:21).
9. The law leads us to Christ: “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ” (Gal. 3:24).
10. Christ fulfilled the law: “But when the time was fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,” to obey all law, perceptive and penal, always perfectly, “to redeem those under law,” that is, us who are under obligation to God’s law.

What is justification, according to the Shorter Catechism? “Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.” We were under law. We were to fulfill the law perfectly for our justification, but we could not, because we are under sin. So we needed a Savior, the sinless Son of God, to fulfill the law in behalf of us that he may redeem us from under sin, from under law, from under death, from under Satan and hell and lusts, through faith in Jesus.

We need a righteousness apart from our keeping the law perfectly, a righteousness that comes by another keeping the law in our behalf. Paul writes, “For in the gospel a righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith'” (Rom. 1:17). He later says, “But now a righteousness from God apart from law [i.e., apart from our keeping the law perfectly] has been made known, to which the Law and the prophets testify” (Rom. 3:21). He then says, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Rom. 3:28). He who believes in Jesus Christ is no longer under sin or under law. We are under grace.

By faith we are united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. Therefore we died to sin and law (Rom. 6:2). In Christ, I am dead in my relation to them. Paul declares, “So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God” (Rom. 7:4).

In Christ, God no longer counts my sins against me (2 Cor. 5:19). But they should be counted against someone. Who is that someone? “God made [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). This is called the doctrine of double transaction. Our sins were imputed to him; his righteousness is imputed to us. The moment we put our trust in Christ, all our sins went to him and his righteousness came to us. That is justification by faith.

Isaiah speaks about this: “But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult” (Isa. 45:25). If we are justified, we will rejoice. Jeremiah speaks of “The LORD [is] our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). Paul says, “It is because of [God the Father] that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30), that is, justification, sanctification, and glorification. All are found in Jesus Christ. In Christ, all our needs are met: forgiveness of all our sins and being clothed with the righteousness of God.

Away with all self-righteousness! Come to Christ, the goal to which the law pointed. Judaism misunderstood the law. They were blind to the law’s real meaning and intent. The Messiah is the goal of the law. He alone was able to fulfill the law to give us freely the righteousness of God. John Calvin says, “The first step to obtaining the righteousness of God is to renounce our own righteousness.”⁴

Also, what was the purpose of the sacrificial system? The Jews themselves should have asked: If one could save oneself by keeping God’s law, what was the purpose of the bloody sacrificial system in which millions and millions of animals were killed and their blood shed. The Old Testament says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life” (Lev. 17:11). Arrogant and ignorant men have no idea about the purpose of the law and the sacrifices. But listen to what John the Baptist said when Jesus came to him: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, KJV). Paul says, “For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). John writes, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Renounce your way, and embrace God’s way. Submit to the righteousness of God. Christ the goal of the law has come and accomplished our redemption. God has made a grand and heavenly feast for all the elect sinners of the world. All the nobodies of the world are invited: all who are undeserving, all the sick, all those who are unrighteous, all the wandering sheep, all publicans and harlots. All hungry and thirsty, come. All who have no money, come to the feast. Come as you are. He knows you are dirty and naked and sick and lost and hungry and thirsty. He knows it all. His blood will cleanse you from all your sins, and he will clothe you with the glorious garment of his own righteousness and feed you with the bread of life. He himself will quench your thirst with the water of life and will feast with you forever.

How do we come? Only believe! Only receive Christ! There is no discrimination here. Christ’s righteousness is for “everyone who believes.” There is a biblical universalism. This does not mean everyone without exception, but everyone without discrimination. Jews and Gentiles, come to the feast. But do not come in your own righteousness. If you do, you shall be identified by Christ and thrown outside (Matt. 22:12-14).

Jesus told his disciples, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:11-12). That applies to children who grew up in churches but did not want to have anything to do with Christ. They are thrown outside. It was the problem with the Jewish people, and it is now the tragic problem of the church.

The Importance of Obedience

Submit to Jesus the Messiah and believe in him alone. Be clothed with the righteousness of God. Throw away all human righteousness and feast with Christ forever. Jesus alone saves us and makes us able to obey him by keeping the law by the power of his Holy Spirit. Justification does not mean that we can sin.⁵

The proof of justification is sanctification. He who justifies us will also sanctify us. The proof of true faith in Jesus Christ is not lawlessness but obedience to King Jesus. If you do not obey Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian. You are not justified. Those who are justified are being sanctified. I am not saying that if someone sins, all of a sudden he loses salvation. But if a believer continues to live in the sphere of sin, there is a problem. He who is born of God does not continue in sin (1 John 3:6).

Paul was given the great commission: “Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith” (Rom. 1:5). Faith that justifies also sanctifies. Paul writes, “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (Rom. 6:17). The gospel demands obedience. Paul also says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done” (Rom. 15:18). Paul said, “First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds [by obedience]” (Acts 26:20).

As we said earlier, believers are no longer under sin and law. In Christ, they died to sin and law, and they are now under grace. But what is grace? Grace is a mighty king. By grace we have power to obey God and do every good work. By grace we reign with Christ. Grace teaches us to be holy (Titus 2:11-12).

Lessons from Paul

Look at your own family: your parents, your brothers and sisters, your children and grandchildren. Ask God to give you a burden for their souls. It is an intolerable thing to know that you are going to heaven while your children may be going to hell. If you are human, you cannot suffer it. May God give you a spirit of prayer.

Ask God to baptize you in the Holy Spirit that you may be fervent in spirit. God demands that we be zealous. Paul exhorted Timothy, “Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1:6). He was speaking about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). With zeal let us pray and proclaim the good news!

¹ Rabbi Shraga Simmons, “Why Jews Don’t Believe in Jesus,” http://www.aish.com/jw/s/48892792.html

² D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 10, Saving Faith(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 30.

³ Charles Hodge, A Commentary on Romans (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989), 344.

⁴ John Calvin, quoted by John Stott in Romans: God’s Good News for the World(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1994), 281.

⁵ For more understanding, read my sermon, “Antinomianism,” http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/gvcc/radio_trans/antinomianism.html