Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 3 Study # 5
October 14, 2018
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Paul's argument in Romans 10 is that God has turned the focus of His grace upon the nations as both Moses and Isaiah said He would.
Introduction: We have spent a lot of time among the "trees" of Romans 10, but always with the bigger picture of Paul's explanation of God's larger plan in mind. This plan, as the chapter begins, is rooted in Israel's primal resistance to the fundamental truth of man's bondage to The Sin. The chapter, then, progresses into a strong defense of the "oppositional" doctrine of "justification by faith" and its attendant thesis of the legitimacy of Paul's "apostleship to the Gentiles". Now, as we come to the end of this chapter we are going to see that God had a potent reason for His "new doctrinal focus" and "new directions".
- I. The Progression of Paul's Argument.
- A. He claimed that "any" (who call upon the name of the Lord) of the "all flesh" of Joel's prophecy in Joel 2:28 manifestly includes non-Jews.
- B. He then claimed that the "problem" was rooted in Isaiah's complaint in 53:1 that the Jews were not willing to "believe" his "report".
- 1. This could have, but did not, signal a reaction by God to simply give up on His previous plan to bless the nations through Israel.
- 2. Instead, as we will see in this study, it signaled a deliberate turn on God's part to a rather radical approach to Israel's determined resistance to Him.
- C. To make this part of his argument, Paul returned again to his "whiplash" technique.
- 1. He had said in 10:18, "But am I saying, 'They have not heard?'", and then strongly denied that was his doctrine by appealing to Psalm 19:4.
- 2. Now in this following verse (10:19), he again employs the "strong adversative" with the question "...am I saying...?"
- a. This turn of meaning is rooted in the ambiguity of the "they" that is involved in the question of 10:18, which, in turn, was addressing the reality of a "faith" that arises out of a "hearing" that is controlled by "Christ".
- 1) Since Psalm 19:4 declares the "reach" of the revelation to the outer boundaries of the inhabited earth, and it is the nations that live in most of that territory, Paul's detractors immediately assigned the revelation to the nations as the "they".
- 2) It is to this "jump to a false conclusion" that Paul applied his subsequent "whiplash".
- b. Paul's question has the same answer as his earlier question in 10:18, but he does not write it into his text: he simply assumes his readers can read and will understand his lack of need to literally repeat himself.
- II. The Major Issues in This Progression.
- A. First, the dismissal of the false conclusion.
- 1. Again Paul says, "But am I saying..." just as he did in the previous verse.
- 2. What he is asking is, "Is it my doctrinal position that because the natural revelation went to the 'uttermost parts of the inhabited earth' that, somehow 'Israel' was not included in my 'they'?"
- 3. This time (as noted above), he does not bother with the strong denial that is found in 10:18, he simply turns to the oracles that have been given over to Israel as one of Israel's most precious possessions.
- B. Then, the establishment of the truth.
- 1. At issue is the question of whether, in fact, God has turned His attentions to "others" from His previous fixation upon Israel.
- 2. The answer is given in the prophecies.
- a. First, Moses.
- 1) Moses told the people frankly that they were inveterate apostates and that that would make it necessary for God to take a rather radical approach to the problem (Deuteronomy 32:21 and context, particularly 31:29).
- 2) His "radical approach" is laid out.
- a) I will use the force of "jealousy" to turn you back to Me.
- i. I will turn my attentions to a "not-nation" to provoke your jealousy (the explanation of which is given in the new doctrine of building a church out of individuals within many nations).
- ii. I will turn this "not-nation" into a "nation" (of a different sort as explained by 1 Peter 2:9).
- b) I will use the reality of this "not-nation's" primary characteristic to provoke you.
- i. The Jews were inordinately proud of their "understanding" because of their possession of the oracles of God.
- ii. For God to turn from them to a "not-nation" that is built out of people who "have no sense" is a shocking and humiliating insult (like turning from a beautiful woman to the ugliest of the street).
- b. Then, Isaiah.
- 1) "And Isaiah plainly is saying..." (Isaiah 65:1).
- 2) God will be found by them who are not seeking Him.
- 3) God will make Himself manifest to those who are not asking for Him.
- 4) The reason: God got fed up with stretching forth His hands to people who refused to be persuaded and reacted with argumentative contradiction (Isaiah 65:2) [Note the argumentativeness of the whole of Malachi].
- a) This "stretching forth of hands" metaphor is that of one pleading for a beloved one to come to his/her senses and turn from their wicked ways.
- b) This "stretching forth of hands" metaphor does not exclude the reality of severe discipline (Isaiah 1:6-9, already quoted in Romans 9:29).
- III. Paul's "Point".
- A. As a presentation of God's larger plan, Paul is revealing the fact that the time of the prophecies has come and God is turning His attention elsewhere.
- B. That this is the outcome of prophecies indicates that Israel had this information before them from Moses' time onward.
- C. It is not, however, a declaration of a final rejection of Israel by God, but is, rather, a declaration of a final, and effective, change of methodology (a thesis immediately pursued in the next set of verses: Romans 11:1).
