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Chapter 10

[a]Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God on their behalf is for salvation.(A) I testify with regard to them that they have zeal for God, but it is not discerning.(B) For, in their unawareness of the righteousness that comes from God and their attempt to establish their own [righteousness], they did not submit to the righteousness of God.(C) For Christ is the end[b] of the law for the justification of everyone who has faith.(D)

[c]Moses writes about the righteousness that comes from [the] law, “The one who does these things will live by them.”(E) But the righteousness that comes from faith says,(F) “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) [d]or ‘Who will go down into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).”(G) But what does it say?

“The word is near you,
    in your mouth and in your heart”(H)

(that is, the word of faith that we preach), for, if you confess[e] with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.(I) 10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

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Footnotes

  1. 10:1–13 Despite Israel’s lack of faith in God’s act in Christ, Paul does not abandon hope for her salvation (Rom 10:1). However, Israel must recognize that the Messiah’s arrival in the person of Jesus Christ means the termination of the Mosaic law as the criterion for understanding oneself in a valid relationship to God. Faith in God’s saving action in Jesus Christ takes precedence over any such legal claim (Rom 10:6).
  2. 10:4 The Mosaic legislation has been superseded by God’s action in Jesus Christ. Others understand end here in the sense that Christ is the goal of the law, i.e., the true meaning of the Mosaic law, which cannot be correctly understood apart from him. Still others believe that both meanings are intended.
  3. 10:5–6 The subject of the verb says (Rom 10:6) is righteousness personified. Both of the statements in Rom 10:5, 6 derive from Moses, but Paul wishes to contrast the language of law and the language of faith.
  4. 10:7 Here Paul blends Dt 30:13 and Ps 107:26.
  5. 10:9–11 To confess Jesus as Lord was frequently quite hazardous in the first century (cf. Mt 10:18; 1 Thes 2:2; 1 Pt 2:18–21; 3:14). For a Jew it could mean disruption of normal familial and other social relationships, including great economic sacrifice. In the face of penalties imposed by the secular world, Christians are assured that no one who believes in Jesus will be put to shame (Rom 10:11).