Romans 10 — The Word Is Near

Today’s Passage: Romans 10

Paul’s argument about Israel, begun in chapter 9, now turns into prayer. “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is for their salvation.” He names their tragedy with great tenderness. Here was a real zeal for God, but a zeal not on the basis of knowledge, a people striving to build a righteousness of their own while refusing the one God freely gives. We must be careful, as we read, not to hear two gospels where there is only one. Christ as the end of the law, and the open door of calling on His name, are not some second way of salvation. They are the nearness of the same word already settled in chapters 3 through 5, where a sinner is justified by faith. Romans 10:9–13 does not open a new door. It lays that same door down at the mouth and the heart. The word is near, and faith comes by hearing.

As you read, hold this: The word is near, and faith comes by hearing.

Romans 10:1–4 (BSB)

¹ Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is for their salvation. ² For I testify about them that they are zealous for God, but not on the basis of knowledge. ³ Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. ⁴ For Christ is the end of the law, to bring righteousness to everyone who believes.

The chapter opens not with a thesis but with a heartbeat. The hard doctrine of the previous chapter has not dried up Paul’s longing; if anything it has watered it. He names the tragedy with careful fairness. There is zeal here, real and costly, but it is not founded on knowledge. The fatal turn comes in verse 3, where they sought to establish a righteousness of their own and so would not submit to the righteousness of God. A self-built righteousness is not a smaller version of the gift; it is the gift’s rival, for to clutch your own is to refuse His. Then verse 4 brings the resolution. Christ is the telos of the law, its finish line and its goal, and the whole law had been running toward Him all along. In Him the race to be righteous by doing is finished, and righteousness comes instead to everyone who believes. This is the same gift already given back in chapter 3. The word has come near.

Romans 10:5–8 (BSB)

⁵ For concerning the righteousness that is by the law, Moses writes: “The man who does these things will live by them.” ⁶ But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷ or, ‘Who will descend into the Abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” ⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:

Paul sets the two righteousnesses side by side and lets each of them speak. The righteousness that is by law makes a demand: do these things, and live by them, every one of them, perfectly. The righteousness that is by faith asks for no such climb. Borrowing Moses’ own words, Paul gives it a voice. Do not say, “Who will ascend into heaven?”, as though you had to drag Christ down, nor, “Who will descend into the Abyss?”, as though you had to haul Him up from death. Both of those things have already happened. He has come down, and He has been raised, and there is nothing left to fetch. So the word is near, resting in your mouth and in your heart, and Paul names it plainly as the rhēma (ῥῆμα) rhēma, pronounced HRAY-mah. Strong's G4487, spoken word, utterance. Rhēma is the uttered word, the saying as it is spoken aloud and heard, and it stands apart from logos, which can mean word or reason or message in the broader sense. Paul chose rhēma on purpose. The righteousness of faith does not say the word is out of reach, up in heaven or across the sea. It says the rhēma is near you, something spoken, near enough to rest in the mouth and the heart. And in verse 17 the same word returns, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the rhēma of Christ. Faith is not generated by searching within or climbing to some height. It is born when the spoken word about Christ lands on a listening ear. This is why preaching matters so much. Salvation travels on a rhēma. The word is near, and faith comes by hearing. of faith that they are proclaiming. Salvation is not an expedition to the heights or a dive to the depths. It is a word laid down at your feet.

Romans 10:9–13 (BSB)

⁹ that if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved. ¹¹ It is just as the Scripture says: “Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no difference between Jew and Greek: The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him, ¹³ for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Here the nearness is made astonishingly concrete. Confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and you say the very thing heaven says, aligning your tongue with the truth that the risen One is Kyrios, the name the Greek Old Testament used for YHWH. Believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, for the resurrection is the Father’s public verdict that the sacrifice was accepted. Inward trust and the outward word are not two separate stages but two faces of one faith. True belief does not stay silent, and true confession is never merely words.

We must not read verses 9 through 13 as a second gospel. Scripture has already settled the matter: a sinner is justified by grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone. What Paul does here is show how near that same word has come. Heart and mouth, Jew and Greek, there is no difference; the same Lord is Lord of all and gives richly to all who call on Him. When he writes, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” he is quoting Joel 2:32, and in Joel the name is YHWH. Paul lays it upon Jesus, so that to call on Him is to call on the LORD. The door is as wide as the whole human race, and it is the very same door that chapter 3 had already opened.

Romans 10:14–17 (BSB)

¹⁴ How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? ¹⁵ And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” ¹⁶ But not all of them welcomed the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” ¹⁷ Consequently, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

If salvation comes by calling, Paul reasons backward to ask how such calling ever becomes possible, and he forges a chain. Calling depends on believing, and believing on hearing, and hearing on someone preaching, and preaching on being sent. The chain runs from a sinner’s cry all the way back to the God who commissions the herald. The open door of verse 13 stays unentered unless the rhēma is carried to those who must hear it. So Paul crowns the chain with Isaiah’s runner: how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. The feet are lovely not for themselves but for the cargo they carry, for the gospel walks to the lost on the shoes of those who are sent.

Paul is honest that the word goes out and not everyone welcomes it. Isaiah’s lament, “who has believed our message?”, was already the prophet’s grief, and now it is Paul’s grief too. Hearing does not force faith, and a herald can be perfectly faithful and still be refused. Yet verse 17 draws out the principle we cannot do without: faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the rhēma of Christ. Faith is not self-generated, not summoned up from within, not earned by seeking. It is born from a word that is heard, and that word is of Christ, both about Him and sent from Him. Wherever faith appears, a rhēma has been spoken and received.

Romans 10:18–21 (BSB)

¹⁸ But I ask, did they not hear? Indeed they did: “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” ¹⁹ I ask instead, did Israel not understand? First, Moses says: “I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation without understanding.” ²⁰ And Isaiah boldly says: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me.” ²¹ But as for Israel he says: “All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.”

Paul closes by removing every excuse and laying bare the heart of the tragedy. Did they not hear? Indeed they did, for the message went out far and wide. Did they not understand? Moses had warned long ago that God would stir His people to jealousy by a nation without understanding, the Gentiles now streaming in. Isaiah says boldly that God would be found by those who never sought Him. And then the chapter ends upon an image of almost unbearable tenderness and grief, “All day long I have held out My hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” See the hands of God, stretched out the whole day long, not a clenched fist but an open and pleading embrace, and refused. The problem was never any reluctance in God. It was a people’s resistance to a word that had already come near.