The God(ness) of God: The God of Gospel - Week 2
May 25, 2008 2:33 pm Chapter 10, Romans
This sermon is week 2 of The God of Gospel section of our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. It is an exegetical treatment of Romans 10:5-13, addressing the themes of the law from Moses, the gospel from Moses, and how religion is not the gospel. This sermon was originally preached May 25th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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May 25th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets
Series: The God(ness) of God | Romans 9-11
I. The God of Glory 9:1-29
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
III. The God of Future 11:1-36
II. The God of Gospel 9:30-10:21
Week 2 - Romans 10:5-13
Introduction
Good morning everyone. So we are right in the middle of our “The God(ness) of God” sermon series. There are three main sections within this series, each focusing on a certain aspect of the character of God. The first main section about God’s glory, that he is trustworthy, merciful, compassionate, and just. The second main section, the one we are in, is about God’s gospel, that in Jesus God has done and offered something phenomenal to us.
A couple weeks ago I was talking to one of you who happened to get in a conversation with one of their friends about God and at some point in the conversation our church came up and the friend said he’d like to come to check it out. When I heard that I was kind of happily surprised until I heard the response…which was something like, “Okay man, you can come but I’m warning you, it’s hard core man.” J
I wasn’t sure how to feel about that until last night. Some of you know that I’m into UFC. Most of you probably don’t realize how much. I check the website daily and read all the fighter’s stats and everything. It’s probably a sin or something. But anyway, there was this big fight last night and we couldn’t afford to get it or anything, so I got on my 10-speed and rode my bike down to this bar that had the fight playing where I could watch it for free.
So I’m sitting in this bar filled with drunk college students, hoping none of them pick a fight with me because they’re all wasted and hyped up on UFC, and I’m sitting there watching the fights by myself and mostly I’m thinking about my sermon the whole time. And then this thought occurred to me. UFC is hard core. And people like it. That made me happy. So now I don’t feel bad at all about us being hard core. That’s awesome. Welcome to The Resolved Church, we’re hard core, we’re like really into God and we’re cool.
Well, that’s my introduction attention gettter. Hopefully now you’re all psyched now and ready to dig into God’s Word. So let’s read the text and pray over it.
Lord God, thank you for the Bible. Thank you for sending Jesus. May greatness of the gospel which can truly save us shine brightly today as we look at this text. May the word of faith be proclaimed today. May our hearts be changed and may our mouths confess that Jesus is Lord. May many hear call upon his name and say, “Jesus save me.” Holy Spirit would you overcome areas of resistance inside of us today so that we can hear what you have to speak to us through these words. Make us humble and teachable that we might grasp the wonderful mystery of Jesus Christ given for us. Amen.
The Law from Moses
Well, there are four main movements or points within this text that we are looking at this morning for the next 30-35 minutes. We’ll talk about the Law from Moses, the Context of Deuteronomy 30, the Gospel from Moses, and how Religion is not the Gospel.
First there is the law of Moses. Verse five says, “For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.” That part which says “the person who does the commandments shall live by them” is a quote of Moses from Leviticus 18:5, where Moses is laying down the law.
When Romans talks about law, there are always two different senses of it. For one people group, the Jews, it is the Jewish law, the 637 commandments that God gave through Moses, saying “the person who does all of them (perfectly), shall live.” That’s the first sense. The second sense is latent within the first sense but is the one which is present within every human heart and it is the law as a principle. It is the principle which says you do this and you’ll get this.
Right now, my wife and her sister are trying to get me and my brother in-law to go and sit through this 3-hour time-share presentation because they tell you if you sit through all that and just keep saying, no, no, no…that even if you don’t sign up, they’ll give you a free stay at one of their resorts as a reward for sitting through their presentation. Sitting through that does not sound fun to me, but that law principle is persuasive. Do this and you’ll get this.
When it comes to God, this is what every religion teaches. Do this and you’ll get this. It’s what makes a religion a religion. Do this and you’ll get this. You’ll be saved, or enlightened, or happy. You just need to empty your mind and meditate and become one with the universe and then you’ll have peace. You just need to do good deeds or these deeds according to our religion. Or you just need to be a good person and then you’ll have a good life and maybe a good afterlife. You just need this, or this, or this… It is all the principle of law.
Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King Jr., Martin Luther of the early 16th century Reformation, is famous for putting this on the table. He said the gospel is something different entirely from religion. Religion is law and what is offered in Jesus Christ is gospel. He said that central to understanding the Bible is understanding the difference between Law and Gospel and once you get that then you are a Doctor of Scripture and equipped to lead Jesus’ church.
The problem is it’s not easy for the human heart to get that. I’ll show you what I mean about our heart problem, but first I want you to see from the text where Martin Luther gets this distinction between Law and Gospel, so let’s go back to the text.
Now if you look at verse 5 just alone, it sounds like it might be saying Moses said you can in fact be saved through law or religion…the person who does them will live. But that is not the whole story. We ended last week by looking at verse 4, which says “Christ is the end of the law” because he fulfilled it and did it perfectly.
You see until him the problem was that nobody could fulfill the law perfectly. Just a few verses earlier, Paul wrote “Israel pursued a law that would lead to righteousness, (but) did not succeed.” Whether it is the 637 Jewish commandments law, or the principle of law in the human heart…no one succeeds. No one does it perfectly all the time. If you could be saved by law that is what you would have to do.
So in order to teach us that Moses understood this, Paul goes on and quotes more of Moses here in Romans 10. In verse 6, he quotes a bunch of what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 30, to show us that Moses preached the gospel of righteousness based on faith. He wants us to understand that the law Moses gave was to lead us to the gospel.
The Context of Deuteronomy 30
I want to take you to Deuteronomy 30 but before I do I want to kind of set it up and tell you what is going on leading up to Deuteronomy 30. So here’s what’s going on…story time.
Israel, God’s people were slaves to Egypt for like 400 years, they pray and ask God to deliver them…so God raises up a man named Moses to be their leader and lead them out of Egypt. In order to get them out, God does all these crazy miracles…like turning the sea into blood, sending hail and insect storms, and parting a whole sea with some crazy wind, so that the people could have an escape route. You can read about the whole deal in the book of Exodus, it’s a whole book of the Bible devoted to that story.
After they get out of Egypt they’re in the desert. And they end up wandering around in the desert for 40 years. And during that time a lot of crazy stuff goes done. You got another whole book of the Bible devoted to those stories, it’s called the book of Numbers. Here’s some of the things that have happened…
Exodus ended with God giving the people the law through Moses. So one of the things the people do is build a big tent called a tabernacle. Amazingly when they set it up and gather together to worship, this cloud comes and rests on it. Pretty impressive. You’re like wow, God really is with these people.
But then the people get hungry. There isn’t any food. They’re in the desert. You can’t eat sand. So the people get mad at God for taking them out of Egypt, at least there they had food. God responds and sends manna. What’s manna? I don’t know. Even the word manna, means “what is it?” But God rains manna, this food down out of heaven.
Then the people are traveling through the desert on this journey to go to a land God promised to give them and they run into this group of people called the Canaanites and they’re big and strong and have an organized military. So the people of Israel start freaking out. Again they want to go back to Egypt…they get mad at God for taking them out of Egypt, at least there we were safe. God gets mad. I mean what else does he have to do to show the people they can trust him. He about wipes them out in judgment, but Moses prays and asks God to be merciful.
Not too long goes by, the people are trying to obey the law God gave them and worship him…and the people get thirsty. They’re in the desert and it’s hot. What do you expect happens. They get mad at God again. They say, why did we have to leave Egypt. There we not only had water but wine and juice. So Moses ends up getting mad at the people and he hits this rock with his staff and it splits and out comes flowing water to drink.
A little more time goes by, and now the people are sick of eating manna. They’ve been eating the same thing day in and day out and they just want a hamburger. They’re over the diet. In Egypt they had In-N-Out. God finally judges them for their disbelief and lack of trust in his provision and sends snakes to kill a bunch of the people and only those who repent are a saved.
More stuff happens…but all this is within a time span of about 40 years. The end of that time comes, the people are about to go into the land God promised, where things will be good, flowing with milk and honey. Moses is about to die but before he does he gives three sermons. Deuteronomy 30, is in his 3rd sermon. Now open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 30 with me. It’s the fifth book of the Bible from the front.
Deuteronomy 30 starts out by saying look, you’re going to go into the land, but even then, you’re still going to disobey and not fulfill the law and so I’m going to drive you out of it at some point (which we know from history actually happens). But a time will come, verse 6 of Deuteronomy 30 says, when I will circumcise your heart so that you will truly love the Lord your God. When that happens then, pick up in verse 11 with me, then. “…this commandment (the law) that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it (Deut 30:11-14).”
The Gospel According to Moses
Okay. Here is the deal. I told all those stories from Numbers for two reasons. One because of the power of story. Have you ever wondered why there is all this stuff in the Bible about the Jews or Israel? The reason is because their story as a people is as John Piper says, “the historical theatre where the drama of every human soul is played out for all to see.” When we read or hear about their story, we hear our individual story.
Think about it. How many times have you tried and tried and tried and got frustrated with life and you call out to God and ask him for help and he does but then that wears off and then things get hard again and then you get pissed and frustrated and think the whole God thing is worthless? That’s the story of the book of Numbers and it’s every one of our stories. Law cannot save.
The second reason I told all those stories from numbers was to put Deuteronomy in context, so that you would see that Moses knew the law could not save and that the only hope was that like the manna, like the water, God would provide and do something about our human inability to save ourselves. If humans could, then yes, it would save them. But they can’t because they have a heart problem. So Moses preaches the gospel and Paul picks up on that and quotes it in Romans 10. Let’s go there and see how Paul takes this passage from Deuteronomy and sees how what Moses was pointing to was God’s provision in Jesus.
Watch this. He’ll quote part of Deuteronomy and then interpret it for us. Jesus said all the law was fulfilled in him, Romans 10:4, Jesus is the end of law, Jesus himself opened all the Scriptures and showed how it was all pointing to him. Now Paul does that for us here.
Verse 6, look at it. “But the righteousness based on faith (the gospel) says, Deuteronomy 30, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?” Interpretation, “(that is to bring Christ down)” or (Do not say) “Who will descend into the abyss?” Interpretation, “(that is to bring Christ up from the dead).” “But what does it (Deuteronomy) say?” The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” Interpretation (that is, the word of faith [the gospel] that we proclaim).” What word? “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.”
Now that’s cool, just from a Christotelic hermeneutics standpoint, which means learning how the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. But, conceptually is this weird to any of you? I mean I have to admit, the first thing I do when I prepare for a sermon is to sit down and ask a bunch of questions. And when I read this at the beginning of the week I was like, “what the heck is this talking about, ascending into heaven, going into the abyss?”
So let me break it down for you. First, on the plain, most basic level, this is just proverbial wisdom being used. What do I mean? I mean I can’t go to heaven right now and come back. Nor can I go to the abyss, death, and come back right now. I don’t have the human ability to do that.
One I don’t even know where heaven is and I suspect it is outside of the universe. Sometimes the pompousness of man is comedy. There is one story in the Bible about a people who thought heaven was up in the sky and so they had a great idea. Let’s build a huge tower with bricks and mortar up into the sky. That didn’t work. But the principle is still true. Now we have a NASA space program and we have big strong powerful building size telescopes and we know a lot more about the universe and we think now that we know it all and that there can be no God because we’ve found out all this stuff. But we already knew heaven wasn’t in the sky. You can’t ascend into heaven.
Likewise we can overcome death. Sure people have been resuscitated…but no one can go to wherever you go when you die, and then come back here and tell us what it was like for real. You can’t go to the abyss and come back.
So that’s the basic plain level. But there something deeper going on here isn’t there? The deeper thing is this. That’s what we want and that’s what we need. If there is a heaven, and I believe there is, who wouldn’t want to go there? Everyone wants to go to heaven. And what about death? Isn’t death what everybody wants to avoid. Nobody wants to die, unless they are so miserable that they think death would be better. But even then they are still motivated by a desire for a better happiness.
But there is even a deeper level. We in a sense know we need some provision to get to heaven and we need some provision to conquer death. We have a heart problem and this inability to fulfill the law. Heaven is not for lawbreakers. That’s who hell is for. And death is hell, and I need something in order to escape it.
Now the gospel. “Who will ascend into heaven?” No one. We can’t save ourselves and we can’t get to heaven much less make God just give us heaven. But what has God done? He has become a man in Jesus and come down into the world for us to save us and fulfill the law for us so that we might be pure enough for heaven by getting Jesus purity, his perfect fulfillment of the law.
There used to be a Jewish tradition that said if one single Jew would keep the whole law perfectly, just for one day, then God would send down the Messiah. In John Milton’s book, “Paradise Lost” there is a scene where Satan, who does not want to accept that he is a creature and God is the creator, Satan decides he is going to storm heaven and declare war on it and try and force heaven’s gates open and enjoy it’s pleasures. But he and all the demons quickly run away scampering once they see the holiness of the Lord.
The gospel again. “Who will descend into the abyss?” No one. Everyone dies, no matter whether it is from cancer, an accident, or old age. My grandpa died one week ago today, last Sunday afternoon. He lived to be 100 years old. And he’s not coming back. He can’t conquer death and neither has anyone else. Except one person. In Jesus God became a man and he lived the life we couldn’t and then he died not just a physical human death but a divine eternal death to cover the eternality of hell and then he came back to life to tell us about it.
You see in Jesus what we need and what we want gets fulfilled. And when that grabs a hold of you, you give up on counting on your own attempts to fulfill the law and you cling to Christ and his fulfillment of it. That’s how Deuteronomy 30 gets fulfilled, then “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” Then it’s near. It’s possible. It’s doable because our hearts get cut, or circumcised, because we realize our failure and inability and give up. Here’s a statement on law from Jean Calvin. “In order to teach what means of life is acceptable to God…to instill love of righteousness by implanting a hatred of wiickedness and a punishment for it…it (is) duty of the people to consider in how many ways they drew curses on themselves, and how far they were from deserving anything at God’s hand by their works…” Then we “hear the word of faith” being proclaimed, that Jesus did what we can’t and we get hope that in him we can receive the righteousness the law requires.
You see there is still confession, that’s a sort of work, but it is no longer a work attempting to earn or fulfill law. All works now become an outward display of an inward trusting in Jesus and his work. Let’s read verse 8-10 all together, “But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is the word of faith we proclaim); because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
Religion is not the Gospel
Now, well spend some more time on this next week and finish with the rest of the words in this passage. But for my last point today, I want to return to where we started out, with Luther and law and gospel and return to us attempting to grasp how the gospel is something completely different than religion.
I went to see Prince Caspian at the movies this last week. I unashamedly admit it, I am a huge Narnia fan. Now maybe it was seeing that movie, maybe it was some stuff going on in my heart this week, maybe it was this sermon text…but I kept thinking about something that happens in the 5th Narnia book, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.”
In it, there is a boy named Eustace Scrubb. Eustace is pretty self-absorbed and self-centered. He is lazy, doesn’t like to work and rather than repairing a sailing ship like he was supposed to he wanders off. When he’s wandering off he’s stumbles upon a dragon’s lair and all the treasure the dragon is keeping.
He is elated and climbs on top of the pile of gold and jewels and diamonds starts thinking about how great it is and what fun and how his friends will be enthralled with him and his great find. Eustace lays down on top of a pile of coins and falls asleep thinking these thoughts. When he wakes up, he immediately sees a claw of a dragon and hears his breathing. Frightened he runs out of the cave. He runs toward a pool of water hoping to jump in to hide and be safe.
But before he jumps in he looks at his reflection and in shock sees that he himself is the dragon, while he slept he transformed into a dragon. His inner character became exposed for what it really was.
One night Eustace is lying awake, “wondering what on earth would become of me.” He sees a huge lion coming towards him. The lion looks straight into his eyes and tells Eustace to follow him. The lion leads him to a well with clear clean water bubbling up from the bottom. Eustace thinks that maybe if he can bathe in the water he’ll be cured. But the lion tells him he must undress first. So Eustice starts scratching himself and all the scales fall off. Then he scratches deeper and his skin comes off. When he is going to put his foot in the water he looks down and sees that it is hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before. He thinks there’s another smaller suit underneath and scratches it and tears it off, well exactly the same thing happens again. He’s still an ugly dragon.
Then, the lion says, “You will have to let me undress you.” Eustace later describes the event to his cousin and says, “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt…he caught hold of me and - I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on - and threw me into the water.” He says the pain then went away and he turned into a boy again and when he got out of the water the lion dressed him in new clothes.
When Eustace is talking to his cousin, he speculates of whether or not the whole thing was a dream. His cousin says, no because he has new clothes on, he’s different. So Eustace then asks his cousin, “What do you think it was, then?” What happened to me. And his cousin answers, Well, “I think you’ve seen Aslan.”
In this story, Eustace discovers his inner nature, that his heart was solely inclined to his own desires and pleasures, he was self absorbed, and evil deep inside and it transformed him into a dragon. Once he realizes he’s dragon and he is horrified, he tries to save himself. He in a sense gets religion and starts trying to claw off his skin, trying to do what’s right, but he can’t do it.
These two scenes depict two ways of salvation. One is being very bad, just seeking out whatever you want, regardless of rules or laws, regardless of who you hurt or effect. Just constantly pursuing the pleasures of the dragon’s lair. The other way is to be very good, act like you are following God, by keeping all the rules and become self-righteous. Trying to take off your dragon scales by yourself.
I want to quote Tim Keller here in his new book “The Reason for God.” He says this, “It is possible to avoid Jesus as savior as much by keeping all the Biblical rules as by breaking them. Both religion (in which you build your identity on your moral achievements) and irreligion (in which you build your identity on some other secular pursuit or relationship) are, ultimately, spiritually identical courses to take. Both are “sin.” Self-salvation through good works may produce a great deal of moral behavior in your life, but inside you are filled with self-righteousness, cruelty, and bigotry, and you are miserable. You are always comparing yourself to other people and you are never sure you are being good enough. You cannot therefore deal with your hideousness and self-absorption through the moral law, by trying to be a good person through an act of the will. You need a complete transformation of the very motives of your heart.”
Wow. You see churches are some of the hardest places to be at times because they are filled with self-righteous, insecure, angry, moralistic, highly judgmental, bitter people. Tons and tons of people have rejected Christianity because of these type of people from churches. So anytime they hear Christians talk to them, all they hear is a call to religion.
What do I mean? I mean this. Religion is law. It is the principle which says, “I obey and therefore I am accepted by God.” The Gospel is different. It says, “I am accepted by God through what Jesus has done, therefore I obey.” Two different people can do the same exact things, whether it be read their Bible, come to church, participate in service, give money, love their families…and they can do those exact things but be motivated by something completely different. One person is motivated by a desire to gain acceptance, the other is motivated out of gratitude for God’s acceptance.
So much spiritual competition can creep into Christianity. The looking down upon each other or sometimes even the putting down each other. But the Christian does not become a Christian by excluding anyone, but because Jesus was excluded for us and we confess out of our heart that he is Lord.
Here’s the deal, we’re all insecure! I’m not saved by how good I am, keeping the law, or how smart I am, how much of the law I know. I am saved because of Jesus. So it doesn’t matter if someone is morally or intellectually superior, because that is not what my identity is based on. I don’t need to be perceived as anything because the truth is if you peel back my layers, you’re not going to be impressed with what you find. I have a heart problem.
So here’s my point. The heart of Christianity is the heart and that differs than religion entirely. Every religion has some teacher that shows the way of salvation by telling you what you must do. Jesus is different. Only Jesus actually claimed to be salvation himself, by doing what we could not do for us. So Christianity is not religion, it is something else entirely…it is good news, it is the gospel.
Conclusion
Here’s my conclusion. The righteousness that is based on faith says Jesus came down for us and he didn’t just stop at earth in living the life we’ve failed at he went down further, into the abyss in order to conquer deathly things in us and the sentence of eternal death for sin.
Let that hit your heart. Stop trying to ascend into heaven and prevent your death. Lay down all your guilt stricken failed attempts at keeping the law and give up your self-security in thinking that you are mature or have it all together. Let the greatness of Jesus as Lord permeate your heart and out of that let your humility and dependence on him shine.
It is painful to admit you are a failure. To allow God to touch you and convict you and peel off the layers of sin. We try so hard to hide it from each other and from God but ultimately it always comes out and God has seen it all along. The beauty of the gospel is that the approval of Christ who knows that and sees that despite that means more than anyone else’s acceptance. I am a poor sinful helpless needy pastor, and Jesus loves me and died for me and rose again and lives today. That’s why Jesus is my Lord. Is he truly yours? Embrace him today.
Let’s pray.