Living by Faith - Romans

Faith and Trust

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 44-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 044

Dictation Name: RR311W44

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let us pray. All glory, praise and honor be unto Thee, Oh God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We rejoice in Thy government, and we come to Thee today and every day, knowing that apart from Thee we have no hope, no life, no future. We beseech Thee our Father to undertake for us in these difficult days, to deliver us as a people from ourselves and from the enemy, to make us a strong people in Jesus Christ, and to renew us by Thy Holy Spirit, that we might be a people of power, of faith, of grace, and of witness to Thee. Bless us to this purpose as we give ourselves now to the study of Thy word, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture is from Romans 10:14-21. Romans 10:14-21, our subject: Faith and Trust.

“14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?

15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?

17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.

19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.

20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.

21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

As we saw last week, Paul makes clear that God hears all who call upon Him without qualification, without distinction; this is stated in verses 12-13 of this chapter. Now in verse 17 God’s qualification is added: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

What Paul does here is to strike at all pragmatic faith and prayer. In order to understand the kind of thing that is here intended, let us go back to the 18th century briefly, and see the situation there with regard to the churches, Protestant and Catholic. The kind of thinking that became most vocal in Voltaire was commonplace. Voltaire held that religion was an absolute necessity to civil order, that if men did not believe in God, then all kinds of criminality would take place. He also made it clear that no intelligent man could believe in the Christian religion, and what God was could not be defined, He might be nature, He might be somebody out there, and He might be a name for whatever tendencies and forces there were at work. All intelligent men knew this, but the forms of organized religion had to be maintained for the benefit of keeping the masses in line; since they could not be kept in line by reason, they had to be kept in line by means of faith, and for Voltaire, faith and superstition were very close. This was true in France, it was true in Germany, it was true in England, it was generally true.

As a result, wherever you went, the church itself was to all practical intent dead. The churches had very little to preach, they represented self consciously, an imitation of the philosophes, of the intellectual, of the elite; and therefore they echoed that which men from Locke, on through the deists and the French philosophes were teaching.

Now this type of pragmatic attitude towards religion is nothing new, it has recurred again and again in history, it certainly marked some of the medieval monarchs, most notably Frederick the Second, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Hohenstaufen.

It certainly marked the Roman attitude towards religion, and that of many countries in antiquity. We must remember that in Greece and Rome and elsewhere, the pagan cults used all kinds of frauds, talking images and the like, to convince the people of the reality of the images; and this kind of thing was felt to be justified, it maintained social order.

Now Paul is attacking all pragmatism, something that prevailed all around him, something that had even infiltrated Israel. And so he says emphatically: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

Paul makes clear that the forms of religion are worthless if there is not a living faith, and that faith grounded on the word of God. And so he declares that they cannot call on a God in whom they do not believe, their prayers, whether in an official church or a pagan cult, are worthless; they cannot call on a God in whom they do not believe, nor of whom they will not hear; and they cannot hear without a preacher, one sent from God.

“And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”

Neither Israel nor the church, nor the nations of Christendom can call efficaciously on the Lord if they have not believed in Him, nor are willing to hear Him. Many preachers, now and then, occupy pulpits; but only those have a valid message if God has sent them. How shall they preach except they be sent? Men cannot heart without a true preacher, and from ancient times God condemns all false prophets; and the word prophet is the Old Testament word for preacher, its primary meaning is ‘one who speaks for God.’

Jeremiah, for example, gives the word of the Lord concerning all such false preachers or prophets, thus in Jeremiah 14:14 “Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.”

Again in Jeremiah 23:21 “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.”

And again in Jeremiah 27:15 “For I have not sent them, saith the Lord, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you.”

The law always pointed to Christ, and now the fullness of that message was present in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection; and God requires us to call upon Him with faith, and that we hear His word.

Now the Biblical word for ‘hear’ means to believe and to obey. It is more than formal listening. Knowledge of the word is necessary, and faithful preaching is essential for such knowledge. We must remember that as we define faith and unbelief, we are heirs of the romantic era. We have falsified things, we have turned the whole world of faith and unbelief upside down; we think they have reference to us: “I believe or I don’t believe.” We have personalized it, but in scripture they have reference to God, they are acts of obedience and disobedience, and we bear the consequences of it. Because they are our response to God, belief and unbelief have their primary reference to God, not to our personal feelings. The romantic movement internalized the whole word of theology.

Verse 15 quotes both Isaiah 52:7 and Nahum 1:15 “How beautiful are the feet” or how marvelous, how welcome “is the coming of all who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things.” This is a messianic prophecy, it has reference to Christ, and this was recognized from Old Testament times. It had reference first of all to the release from captivity of the exiles as a type of their release in time to come by Christ at His coming. The welcome ones are those who proclaim Christ, whatever their sufferings, those prophets who set forth the cosmic victory, the victory in Christ.

Now we saw last time that contrary to the general impression of many, but not all; and contrary to the modern interpretations, the earlier part of this chapter did not contrast law righteousness and faith righteousness, both have Moses as their vindication, and the word ‘but’ does not mean but, but rather ‘truly;’ and therefore, Paul is saying, citing Moses, “Law righteousness and faith righteousness are one, faith without works is dead.” And he continues in this passage to develop that, that faith requires not only works but trust; trust.

It is a sad fact that in the modern era so many commentators have gone astray on this chapter. Luther went wildly astray, dividing the law and the gospel, he said and I quote: “For the law shows nothing but our sin, makes us guilty and thus produces an anguished conscience. But the gospel supplies a longed for remedy to people in anguish of this kind. Therefore the law is evil, and the gospel good. The law announces wrath, but the gospel peace.”

The law given by God is evil? The sad fact is, this kind of thinking has permeated the church in the modern era, so that Catholic scholars today sound very much like Luther. For example, Father Joseph Lilly, in a confraternity commentary says and I quote: “The function of the law was to guide its followers to Christ; when it reached that end when Christ came, the law ceased.”

Late Medieval religion was pietistic and antinomian. This influenced Luther more than many have realized; and its influence spread thereafter in both Catholic and Protestant circles. The message of the preacher, Paul tells us, is the end of the captivity of sin, not the law. It means salvation and freedom to serve the Lord in His promised land, the whole earth to be brought into Christ’s kingdom and made the promised land.

Then in verse 16 Paul quotes Isaiah 53:1 “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?”

Now, this quotation from Isaiah is the first verse of the great chapter dealing with the suffering servant, with the atonement; with Christ as our substitute making atonement for our sins. And Isaiah tells of the unbelief and disobedience, the willful rejection of God’s suffering servant by the peoples. The words ‘have not obeyed’ “But they have not all obeyed the gospel” must be linked with verse 3: “They have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.”

Verse 17 then sums this up: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

As Calvin said, faith is grounded on nothing but the truth of God. This verse tells us of the centrality of the Bible to faith.

Then in verse 18 Paul continues: “But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.”

Paul says as far as the words being heard, the knowledge being made known, it has gone to the ends of the earth. He quotes Psalm 19, which declares that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork, that the whole of creation knows the truth of God. Paul has already said in the first chapter as his starting point, that all men know the truth of God, everything about it, but they hide it, they hold it down in unrighteousness, in injustice. They refuse to acknowledge it. And so Paul says, they have heard; the whole world knows the truth, but the truth which is written in every atom of their being and which cries out in all their being, they refuse to acknowledge in their injustice.

Then, having made this point of God’s universal revelation, he goes on to deal with another objection: “But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.”

Did Israel not know? Did they not know who Christ was? Yes, and he cites Moses again, because Moses had made clear that a great prophet was to come, the messiah; but Moses also said that as these people become hard hearted, as they become self righteous, pharisaic, “I will provoke you,” he said to Israel, “to jealousy, by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.”

There are two terms here that are important, first to deal with the second of them, ‘foolish nation.’ That was a term for all those outside the covenant, used commonly in Israel. But the more important one is ‘no people.’ No people. This is God’s term, and what does it mean? God says that any people who are outside His covenant are not a people in His sight. Any nation that has rebelled against the covenant of God is in His eyes no people, has no status, is entitled to nothing from Him, and will get His judgement.

So what was Moses saying? He was saying to Israel: “You shall be no people. You who are the people now, shall be no people.” And what is Paul saying, because he is leading up to this in the next chapter, and has been laying the foundation, to the churches, to Christendom, to the nations that call themselves Christians; to the converts who had come out: “You are people now, but not because of anything in yourselves, but because of Christ. And if you forsake that faith you are then no people, you are cut off, you are cast out.” God defines a people as those in covenant with Himself. All others are lawless and not a people, they are criminals before God, they have no standing.

We have a remnant of this usage which is an ancient one, in that no matter what your family background or status, when you commit a crime and are convicted, you lose your citizenship. You are not a people, you are not of the people any longer.

Then in verse 20 Paul continues: “But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.”

Paul is very clear here, he is telling his gentile readers, because the church was made up of Jews and Gentiles: “Look, you didn’t find God, He found you. This is the predestination I have been talking about, you are not a people, God in His grace chose you. Therefore, unless you avoid pride, you too will be not a people in due time, because you did not ask after me, you did not seek after me, and you will be judged if you depart from me.”

This is a quotation from Isaiah 65:1-2, and what Paul is telling Israel, that they are responsible for God’s coming judgement on them. Our Lord spoke of this with grief in Matthew 23:37-38.

Now in verse 21 Paul concludes: “But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”

A gainsaying people, that is a people determined to contradict God. This is its meaning. And Paul goes into this because he is warning the church and he is laying the ground work for it, “do not become a people who contradict God, a people who are proud.” If we read these verses therefore only as Paul’s indictment of Israel, we miss the point. In Romans 11:13-34, Paul stresses the fact that if Israel was not spared, why should God spare the gentiles if they become proud and self righteous? Israel developed into a people stressing their natural privileges, and the results were disaster. And today the same Phariseeism is in the church and in Western nations. They identify civilization and culture, the future of mankind, with themselves. They forget what God said through the prophets to Israel: “Do you not think that I can call the Ethiopian out of Africa to be my chosen people and set you aside?” It is faithfulness to the triune God, not our past or our present status that matters, and to identify civilization, culture, and the future of mankind with ourselves is to invite judgement.

A return to faith is necessary, but faith is not faith unless it is grounded on God’s truth. Pietism and antinomianism use material from the Bible to create a system of doctrine alien to the Bible. They reform God to meet the beliefs of the church today. Such faith is no faith, Paul says, and such people are not a people.

Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, recall us as a people unto Thee, we have become not a people, but covenant breakers; despisers of Thy word, a gainsaying people contradicting Thee, and doing it with pride. Oh Lord our God, bring judgement upon all workers of iniquity, and in judgement remember mercy. Purge us and make us strong by Thy word and Spirit by Thy grace, that as a nation we may be again a people, a beacon light of grace, and Thy church may again show forth the wholeness of Thy truth, Thy gospel. Bless us to this purpose we beseech Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience Member] It’s not about the lesson, something else; Jesus gave another commandment, ‘love thy neighbor as I love you’ I am not quoting right; would you comment on that, you said it was the most important as I understand it?

[Rushdoony] Yes; our Lord said that the whole of the law could be summed up in two commandments, so that He didn’t say either was important over the other, but that the two made a unity: “Thou shalt love the Lord with all Thy heart, mind, and being;” and then because it depends on the first: “Thou shalt love Thy neighbor as Thyself.” And He said these two sum up the whole of the and the prophets, because the whole of the purpose of the law is to enable us to love God and to love our neighbor, and we love God and we love our neighbor, not by emotional displays, but by the keeping of the law. Love is the fulfilling, the putting into force of the law. So with our neighbor, if we keep the law in relationship to him, we are loving him. We do not commit adultery, we do not destroy the sanctity of his home, we do not kill, we respect his life, we do not destroy or rob him of his property or of his reputation in word, thought, or deed; then we love our neighbor.

What we have done in the modern era since romanticism is to internalize everything, so that we reduce love, forgiveness, everything to a feeling; and we forget its law reference. And so by internalizing we say: “Well, our feelings are one thing, and the law is another.” So we divorce everything from the law, we divorce everything from the word of God, so that people can take off on a flight of fancy and call it spirituality. So our Lord didn’t intend for the second of these two commandments which sum up the law to be separated from the first, or the first to be cut off as though it didn’t require a second. Yes?

[Audience Member] In essence, when obeying the law, or saying that in obeying the law you are loving God, could be Phariseeism too, isn’t that right? Because love is of God, and it says he that is born of God loves… he that love is born of God, so that love has to come from God, the fruit of the Spirit is love, now there is a love you are speaking of, scripture speaks of, is God’s love incarnate in man, isn’t that right? And as we love God… we can’t love Him because we love ourselves, so if God comes into our lives, it is a gift, the life is a gift of God, then His love manifests that we love God, that is our first love, is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind; then if we love Him then we don’t have any love for ourselves or anyone else basically if it is all of God; however, because we love God, God is love, then that love stems, this is application of that love of God is to mankind, isn’t it? This is the evidence that we love God, is by loving man.

[Rushdoony] Yes, but let me amend that at a few points; first, the commandment is: “Thou shalt love Thy neighbor as thyself.” Scripture is clear that if we hate God then we hate ourselves, that “all they that hate me love death” so that we are not in love with God, or ourselves, or death; we may be selfish, but that isn’t necessarily loving oneself, it can be despising everything, God, man, and ourselves; it is going against the fundamental order of being, including our own being. Then, Phariseeism was not keeping the law, but keeping the regulations of the Pharisees, so that they set up a network of rules and regulations that were far more important than the very word of the law, so that it wasn’t law keeping, God’s law keeping, it was keeping their regulations.

Now this was the rift between Galilee and Judea in our Lords day, the Galileans who made up the bulk of the converts, and all but one of the disciples was Galilean; later on Jews were converted in great numbers, the Galileans were the northern tribes of Israel. The Galileans had become apostate and destroyed as a nation, but when they came back, another rift developed between them, and the rift was the Phariseeism of the people in Jerusalem, and we are told that one Rabbi who was sent up there to teach them, he was a leading Pharisee, and he spent most of his lifetime there, and didn’t find a single Galilean, any member of the northern tribes who was ready to listen to him. They despised the Phariseeism, because they didn’t regard it to be a true keeping of the law.

So, we cannot speak of them as keepers of the law, our Lord said that they make the word of God, the law of God, which is the Old Testament, of none effect through their traditions. Yes?

[Audience Member] You misunderstood what I said, because I am saying that one that does not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them, and they are obeying the law like so many today, you know, they are abiding by the law without…

[Rushdoony] Now, who does…?

[Audience Member] …to them, they are keeping the law, like the Pharisees thought they were keeping the law…

[Rushdoony] Yes, but who is there today that keeps the law that doesn’t have the Holy Spirit?

[Audience Member] Well… technically, yes, technically; I mean, what I am saying is a lot of them are religious, they think they are obeying the law…

[Rushdoony] But they are not.

[Audience Member] I know they are not, nobody really obeys the law anyway, altogether; what I am saying is that you cannot really obey God, obey the law, unless you have the Holy Spirit, that is what I am saying.

[Rushdoony] True… but…

[Audience Member] But if we don’t have the Holy Spirit, then if I am trying to obey the law, then it would be more for pride and for accomplishing something, rather than…

[Rushdoony] Yes, now this is where we disagree you see, I am saying you cannot obey the law unless you are in the faith, in the Spirit, so nobody outside that has any regard for the law, in fact they speak against it. Yes?

[Audience Member] In verse 16, Paul says that they have not all obeyed the gospel, is this to be taken to mean that the gospel encompasses the entire scriptures, Old and New? And does the Old Testament ever refer to the good news or a good news in terms of the gospel?

[Rushdoony] Very good. Well, of course, because in the previous verse: “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.” Now that is a quotation from Isaiah and from Nahum. So, it is not just a New Testament word. Moreover, the word ‘all’ there is to indicate that there were always people, a remnant, that did believe; and we must remember that by the end of the first century the estimates are that there were half a million Christians. Now, the greater majority of those were Jewish converts, so that the remnant that did believe was very sizeable, and the Hebraic influence of these people in the church continued for centuries. There were popes well into the Medieval era that were of Jewish families, and this is an aspect that we must remember; Paul qualifies it, “They have not all believe” because there were those who did. Is there another question?

Well, if not let us bow our heads now in prayer. Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that our times are in Thy hands, and that Thou art on the throne. We thank Thee that all the troubles of our times are but a step in Thy all-perfect plan to bring forth the fullness of Christ’s kingdom. Give us joy therefore in serving Thee, in waiting on Thee, and in walking day by day in terms of Thy most holy truth.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.