a heart of empathy for them because
he had been right where they are. Everything he's talking
about here about them having a zeal of God, but not knowing
God and needing for God to save them and to reveal to them the
end of the law, the purpose of the law, the goal of the law
was not to measure up to God's holiness. We could never do that.
in our own selves, by our own deeds, by the deeds of the law.
No flesh can be justified that way, but to see that the goal
of the law was to drive sinners to the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the only man who ever kept God's law, the only man who could
ever be called good or holy, and who also, his own self bear
our sins in his own body on the tree. That's the purpose of God's
law. to show us our need of the one who is the goal of the law. So here in Romans 10, that's
how he opens and he talks about the gospel here, how God saves
sinners. He shows the need of salvation
for those that he loved and that he had prayed for it. And then
he begins to describe where they're at and to declare and reveal
where they're at, the same place he was. In verse 5, Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth
those things shall live by them. The law says this do and live. By the obedience of the law,
no flesh can be justified. That's where Paul was before,
and he said, I count all that but dung. All of my personal
so-called righteousness, my religious heritage, all of the things that
I counted dear and had hope in before, I put behind me and count
but dung that I may win Christ. And that's what he's teaching
here, these ones that he cared about. Moses by the by what Moses
said concerning the law no flesh can be justified But then in
verse 6 and I want us to look at this again. I know we've been
over these next few verses, but We kind of hurried over them.
And this is this is key. This is important gospel teaching.
So I wanted to look And spend some more time looking at these
but but the righteousness which is of faith as opposed to the
righteousness Which is of the law? which has only been accomplished,
fulfilled, measured up to, done by one man, and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ, no other man. But there is a righteousness
which is of faith. Faith in the one who kept it
by the deeds of the law, had righteousness by the obedience
to the law. And it speaks differently than
what Moses said when he was declaring the terms of God's law. It has
a different voice. It speaks different things. The
righteousness which is of faith speaketh this way, he said. Don't
say in your heart who shall ascend into heaven. That is to bring
Christ down from above. or who shall descend into the
deep, that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. The righteousness
which is of faith forbids you to do that. It says, say not,
don't say that. And it says, opposed to that
which is of the law, justification by faith is personified here. It's given a voice by Paul. It's
saying something to the sinner. And it's contrasted with that
righteousness which is of the law. The righteousness of faith
is speaking now. That which is of the law, as
we said, requires perfect obedience to the law. The law cannot let
you live unless you do it perfectly, thought, word, and deed, and
every jot and two. Disobedience equals death. Obedience
is life, only obedience. the righteousness which is by
the free grace of God through faith. And remember, when we're
talking about righteousness by faith, faith is not a substitute
for doing the law. It's not, well, I can't keep
God's law, but what I can do is have faith, and that's just
as good. No, Christ is the object of our faith. He's the author
of our faith. He's the finisher of our faith,
the Spirit of God, is the one who bears the fruit of faith
in our hearts. This is salvation by grace. Remember
what Paul said in Ephesians 5, by grace are you saved through
faith. So when we talk about righteousness
by faith, we're talking about salvation by grace when we're
talking about that. And that's what he's talking
about here. That gospel of free grace through faith in Christ
has something to say, and it says it to every sinner, every
sinner. And what it says leaves sinners
without excuse. It forbids you to say, who shall
ascend? Who shall descend? Who's gonna
make this happen? It's already been done. It forbids
you to say things like that. Christ has already come down
from above and died for sinners. You've got no excuse. You can't
start saying, well, who's gonna, you know, make this happen for
me? Somebody already did it. You've got no excuse. And me
neither. Paul said, how should we escape
if we neglect so great salvation? The way you miss the salvation
of God is by neglect. You got no excuse. How inexcusable
we are to remain in our sins when Christ has come down from
heaven and died for sinners. Why will you die? And as Paul
later in the context explains, the word of salvation, the gospel
we preach, is navi. It's right here in your ears
this morning. And that's why he says it's in
your heart and in your mouth, because it first comes to your
ears, doesn't it? Faith cometh by hearing, and
then faith is a heart work. It's in your mouth and in your
heart because it's ringing in your very ears this morning.
In the case of those who believe it, to whom Paul is primarily
addressing this letter here, it's in their heart and in their
mouth. But it's in everybody's ears,
and you got no excuse for neglecting it. The means by which it comes
to the heart is shown in the context, as I said, faith comes
by hearing. And it's in the mouth because
it's in the heart. From the heart proceeds everything
that comes out of your mouth. Not what's going in the mouth
that defiles a man, it's what's coming out, because it's coming
out of your heart, Christ said. And so a mouth confession is
worthless without heart faith. But where there is heart faith,
there is always sincere heart confession of Christ. Always. And neither can there be one
apart from the other. And neither one of these, neither
the heart Belief nor the mouth confession can be apart from
the free, sovereign, electing grace of God. For by grace are
you saved through faith, through the hearing of faith, faith coming
by hearing and through believing on the heart and through confessing
with the mouth. That's the way God bestows his
grace upon you. He gives you faith in his son.
Romans 10 7 now look at verse 7 or who shall descend into the
deep that is to bring up Christ again from the dead that's part
of what we were already saying but let's say this about that
the righteousness which is of faith neither makes any excuses
nor does it allow for any Christ is risen from the dead no one
else need to ascend or descend nothing else needs to happen
for the salvation of sinners the work is complete and finished
nothing additional is required Christ has come, he's lived,
he's died, and he's risen. The work of salvation is complete.
God has sent his word concerning that salvation to sinners. And
Paul said in verse eight, that's the gospel that we preach. That's
what we're preaching, that Christ came down and rose. That's what
we're telling you. There's nothing to be done. He's
done all that's necessary for the salvation of his people.
And this gospel word that he has done that, who he is and
what he did is now, it's right before you. Paul said it wasn't
done in a corner. He said, King Agrippa, I know
you know what I'm talking about, because this thing didn't happen
in a corner. It's in the mouth of his preachers,
his witnesses, it's in the hearts of his redeemed ones, sooner
or later, going to put it in your heart. All who have truly
heard it with those ears to hear that the Lord gives. And this,
as I said, Paul, this is the gospel that he declared. He said,
this is the gospel that we're preaching to you. The word of
faith, which we preach. Romans 834, he said this, listen,
is this the gospel? What's he saying when he's saying
this is the gospel in verse eight there? The word of faith which
we preach. Well, what he just got through
saying that Christ came down from above. He came into this
world to save sinners. This is a faithful and worthy
saying, worthy of all acceptation. No excuse, again, it's worthy
of all, everybody to bow to it and receive it and acknowledge
it as the truth of God. that Christ Jesus came into this
world to save sinners. And the way he did that is by
dying and rising again from the dead, by laying down his life
and taking it up again. Okay, let's see if Paul is being
consistent when he says that's the gospel that we preach. I
believe he is because he turned around and preached it in Romans
8, 34. Listen to this. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. It's the Son of God that came
down here. It behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren,
that through the suffering of death He might make them perfect
before God. And who is He that condemned
that is Christ, that died yea, rather, that is risen again?
That's just what He said in our text. This is the word of faith
that we've been preaching to you. And He's kept on preaching
it to them. who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. That's the word of faith
right there, and it's near you. And so now he exhorts in the
voice of the righteousness which is of faith, say not that anything
is left undone. Christ has done all, as this
verse in 834 said, he did it all in those last two words. He died, he's risen again, And
he's at the right hand of God making the intercession, all
of that for us, for us. Now, what's your excuse? What's
your excuse for disobeying? Remember the obedience of faith.
Faith is submission to the truth of God. What's your excuse? How
shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? We couldn't
live up to the perfect standard of God's holy law. He came down
from heaven and did that for us. That's the word we preach. We could not honor God with a
life of true love for God and true devotion to God and true
service and worship of God. He lived it for us. That's what
we preach. And he came down here and did
that for us. We could not pay the incalculable debt of our
sin. He paid it for us and rose victorious. And now this is God's command
to us. Believe and confess. Believe. He that believeth on
me shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And if you
confess me before men, I'll confess you before my father. If you
deny me before men, I'll deny you before my father. I'll tell
you this, if you believe on him, you'll confess him. It'll be
obvious. This is not, as I said already
now, this is not a substitute for full obedience and payment
for our sin. This is not a substitute for
righteousness and sin offering, faith. Christ is our righteousness
and our sin offering. And by faith, we lay hold of
him. He's my righteousness, he's my
sin offering. And by grace, through that faith,
he becomes that for me. You want to know, and we preach
freely and without reservation that Christ didn't die for everybody.
That's a lie from hell. He died for his people. Everybody
that he shed his blood for is going to be saved. He redeemed
them with that precious blood. Maybe you're asking this morning,
does that include me? You know how to answer that question?
Believe. Believe. If you don't believe on him,
then you've got no reason to think he died for you. None.
I've got no comfort for you this morning. But if you're a sinner
and you need an effectual savior, if you need the Christ who came
down and whose blood is effectual and whose blood did obtain eternal
redemption for his people, lay hold of him. lay hold of him
that's that's the commandment to you not to figure out whether
you're elect or not the way you find that out is by believing
on him what sayeth it verse eight and let me let me reiterate this
before we go to verse eight faith is not the best I can do and
God just accepts it. Our faith doesn't merit anything.
Christ is our righteousness. We just end Him by faith. We
lay hold of Him by faith. That's the means. The faith itself
is full of unbelief. But if God gives it, it has one
object, the Lord Jesus Christ. But but this this what faith
is is what I wanted to I told you what it's not what it is
is it's a gift of God's grace that faith is not of yourselves.
He said in Ephesians 5a it's the gift of God. It's the wonderful
powerful life-changing supernatural gift of God's grace whereby we
lay hold of that Savior that came down from above and lived
for us. and died for us, and rose victorious
for us, and sits at the right hand of God for us, and makes
intercession for us. Do you believe? Then you're his
elect. He died for you. But what saith
it, verse 8, the word is nigh thee. It's even in your mouth.
That's how near it is. And in thy heart, that is the
word of faith which we preach. And Paul, still here, he's personifying
the righteousness which is of faith. He's saying this righteous,
this gospel that we preach, this way of salvation that we preach
by Christ, in Christ, because of Christ, it has something to
say. And in verse 6, he says it speaks. And in telling the latter part
of verse six and in verse seven, that it forbids the sinner to
make these excuses that sinners are wont to make if left to themselves
in response to this gospel that we preach. Now, having told what
this message forbids and what it says, here's what you don't
do. You don't start looking around
for something else to be accomplished, for salvation, to be free to
sinners. Now he's going to exhort you
and tell you what it says to do. Verse 9 tells what the word
saith. Now in verse 8 he says, look
at verse 8 again, what saith it, he asks, question
mark, what saith it? the word is nigh thee, he didn't
say yet what it's saying. He's just saying, he asked the
question and then he says, this word that's saying something
to you, it's nigh thee, it's even in your mouth, it's even
in your heart. And in verse nine, he's gonna tell what it says.
Look at what it says. That, it says this to you. If
you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe
in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, Thou shalt
be saved. Thou shalt be saved. There doesn't need to be any
ascending or descending. That's already done. Or anything
else for that matter. There doesn't need to be any
owl walking or decision making on your part. Salvation is finished
and complete. The way it becomes yours is right
here. Faith and confession. Christ
has finished the work of salvation. Don't say in your heart, who's
gonna do some work. The work of salvation that the
father gave the Lord Jesus Christ to do, he said, it's finished,
it's done. The father gave it to him, not
to you, to do something about this. He laid help upon one who
is mighty, Psalm 89, 19, and that wasn't you, that's his son.
Because all of us have sinned and come short. Christ has accomplished
salvation for his people by what we say, that he came down here,
lived and died and rose again, victorious. Faith and confession don't add
to that work, anything at all. They just acknowledge that work,
claim it. Faith is a partaking of that
which is laid before you. You don't add anything to it.
You don't cooperate with it. You just partake of it. You just
eat his flesh and drink his blood by faith, the one who is salvation. They don't add to the work. They
merely acknowledge it. They embrace it. They rejoice
in it. And when I say it, I mean him
because it's the person and work of Christ is our hope. And then
verse nine, I've got one minute left. That if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thy heart
that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Where
true saving faith is present as we've already said there will
be outward confession with the mouth And everything else that
we have to to confess with our actions That's the outward Like
the woman at the well will go into the city and say come see
that's what she did An outward confession is meaningless, of
course, unless there's heart faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you're confessing a Jesus with your mouth, it may or may
not be the true Christ of the Bible. You have to believe on
Him, whom God raised from the dead in your heart. When He didn't
raise the Jesus of religion from the dead, He raised His Son,
the Sovereign Christ, revealed in this book from the dead. That's
the one you've got to believe on. The Pharisees are a perfect
example of this, of whom the Lord said, they draw nigh unto
me with their mouth, but they're confessing. They're talking about
God in heaven and the law and everything. They're confessing
with their mouth, but they haven't believed in the Lord Jesus Christ
in their heart. Their heart's far from me. The
heart is representative here of all the inward man and the
mouth, the outward. So inside and out. you're his
and he's yours. That's what it's saying here.
A saving encounter with the son of God affects the whole man,
inside and out. On the inside, we don't think
the same, we don't feel the same, we don't want the same thing.
Our ideas of God, what we know concerning him, ourselves, and
how he saves sinners is forever changed. Our affections, our
treasure is Him, not this world anymore. Our love is primarily
for Him and not ourself. You've got to deny yourself and
everybody else and take up your cross and follow Him or you're
not worthy of Him. Our desire is to please Him, not ourselves.
Paul said, I reckon that we ought to not live for ourselves, for
him who loved us and gave himself for us. We're made willing in the day
of his power, willing to submit to him, willing to serve him,
willing to worship him, and not this flesh, and outwardly also
utterly changed. We don't act the same, we don't
sound the same, we don't act like we ought to, never will
in this world. And we don't sound the same as
we did before when the Lord takes over. And all of this begins with a
heart work of saving grace performed by God when he gives us faith
in his son. And it's made manifest in our
outward confession of him. Let's bow in prayer.