S
Steadfast
Guest
That was what I was talking about.Hi,
I was wondering how would you explain the verses I put out above–2 posts up about Romans? Also how do you think God saves us? At some point we have to believe and confess we believe–right? I was just slightly confused by your statement.![]()
The Letter of Paul to the Romans is concerned with explaining the relationship of Christianity to Judaism.
In the passage you related Paul’s point is not to provide a how-to instruction on “getting saved”.
He is talking about the essential unity of the Jewish and Christian testimony about Christ and the stubbornness of some Jews in not accepting it.
In verses 2-4 Paul points out the problem Jews have if they do not believe in the Messiah God has sent:
His point then in the portions you bolded is that it is the same for Jews and for Gentiles, they must believe that Christ is the Messiah, the one God sent to save them.For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
So, the point is not “how to get saved” so much as “Christ is the way for Jew and Gentile alike”. Confessing with the lips and believing with the heart are not given as a magic formula but as the logical and therefore necessary result of acceptance of the fact of His work.
And this “acceptance” is not something we do, it comes by hearing (v. 17).
Paul is consistent throughout all his writing that our salvation is from the wrath and judgement of God by faith in Christ (something we receive when we hear the Gospel preached) and rests not in ourselves or our works but in what He has done for us in Jesus. So any talk of accepting and receiving and choosing to believe must be pressed under the more clearly articulated biblical truth that faith comes by hearing that that we are saved not by works but by Grace.
What this leaves us with is the conclusion that our accepting, choosing, receiving are the consequences of our being born again, not their cause.