Romans 43 The Five Steps of Salvation (Rom 10:14-21)

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Rm 10:14-15, 17)

The righteousness of God is one by faith, and the righteousness by works is the one by the law. Even though it was right for them to obtain righteousness by their works, the problem was that no one on earth was able to perfectly keep the law because of their sinful nature.
 
So, even though God gave His people His law to make them righteous, it wasn’t the ultimate way to righteousness. In fact, it was merely a way that would lead to righteousness by faith until Jesus.
 
As Paul said,
“The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” (Gl 3:24-25)
 
Therefore, since Jesus came and made a perfect way for us to be justified by faith, we don’t need to achieve our own righteousness which is imperfect and impossible. What we need to do is simply believe in Jesus and accept the perfect righteousness He made through His death and resurrection.
 
In that sense, we’re no longer under the law, but under God’s grace. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we no longer need the law. We still need it. But, the biggest difference is that we no longer have to seek righteousness through our works. In other words, we uphold God’s law not to become righteous but because we were already credited as righteous through faith in Jesus.
 
What It Means To Believe In Jesus
So, regarding the true way for us to achieve righteousness, Paul concluded, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rm 10:9)
 
That’s the only condition needed for our salvation. It’s very simple. We can just believe what Jesus did to save us and declare, “Jesus is Lord.”
 
But, we also know that this truth seems very simple but is very hard to live out in our lives. What I want to say is that it’s very easy for us to be saved, but it’s actually hard for us to keep our salvation.
 
So, it’s very important for us to keep a balance between two extremes. One extreme is that it’s so easy for us to obtain righteousness that we don’t need to do anything. The other extreme is that we can live as we please because how we live has nothing to do with our salvation since only faith is important.
 
These extremes overlook, misunderstand, and reduce the true meaning of salvation. The reason Jesus freely gives us His righteousness is so we can become God’s holy people and live righteously, following His righteous way of life.
 
Some people believe that it’s hard for us to be saved because we can’t live perfectly righteous lives, but we should reject that idea because it excludes the ministry of Jesus on the cross.
 
I think true Christian life is between the two extremes. It’s easy for us to be saved because we can just accept what Jesus did by faith. But, it’s hard to keep our salvation because in order to follow Jesus, we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily as Jesus said.
 
Paul suggests declaring, “Jesus is Lord,” and believing in Him as the way to salvation. That’s true. But, we also need to think about what it means for us to declare “Jesus is Lord.”
 
It seems that Paul says our inward faith and outward profession are essentially combined. This means that if we fail to outwardly profess our faith, we should check whether or not we have true faith. On the other hand, it means nothing if we only profess outwardly while we don’t actually believe in our hearts. Profession without faith is in vain. Likewise, faith without profession will seem insincere.
 
What’s important is to do both—believe in Jesus in our hearts and declare who He is outwardly through our words and our lives. What we should proclaim is “Jesus is Lord.” I don’t know if Paul intentionally wrote,” Jesus is Lord”, and not “Jesus is Savior”, but by doing so, he stressed that Jesus being our Savior and our Lord can’t be separated.
 
As I’ve emphasized many times, if we believe in Jesus correctly, we must acknowledge Him as both our Savior and Lord. There are many Christians who are grateful for Jesus’ amazing sacrifice and call Him ‘Savior,’ but it seems that not many of them truly profess that He is their Lord.
 
They want to enjoy all the blessings of Jesus and relieve anxieties about their uncertain life after death, so they go to church, but they don’t receive Jesus as their true Master.
 
I’m sorry to say this, but that kind of faith can’t be regarded as true faith in the light of the Bible. True, saving faith makes us live as if Jesus is our Lord. That’s one of the ways we can check whether we have true faith.
 
One more thing to take note of is that in the Hebrew worldview, believing something must be directly related to one’s life. Today, when we say we believe something we mean that we recognize something in our heads. But in the Hebrew way of thinking, you can’t say you believe something until you really live it out.
 
So, I think that part of declaring “Jesus is Lord” includes reflecting His sovereignty over our lives. Jesus also says,
 
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 7:21)
 
In chapter 10, Paul talks about the conditions for us to be saved—it’s to believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead and declare with our mouth, “Jesus is Lord.” Paul summarizes these into one verb in verse 13.
 
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Rm 1:13)
 
Paul wasn’t the only one that used this sentence. It’s quoted from the book of Joel. And, this sentence was probably used by many early evangelists. Peter also used it in his first sermon in Acts chapter 2. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21).
 
So, we can infer that calling on the name of the Lord is included in faith and profession.
 
5 Steps of Salvation
After that, Paul explains the procedure for a person to reach salvation. Let’s read today’s passage again.
 
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Rm 10:14-15, 17)
 
In this passage, we can find five verbs that are related to salvation—call, believe, hear, preach, and send. To be saved, they must call on the name of the Lord. But, to call on His name, they must believe in Him. And, for them to believe in Him, they must hear the good news about Him. For them to hear it, someone must preach to them. And, to preach the gospel, that person must be sent to them.
 
I believe that You are here because you already went through the first 4 steps. Someone must have preached the gospel that You heard and believed. I have also experienced the first four steps.
 
If we reverse the order of the 5 verbs, we know what Paul’s point is. Christ sends His people. They preach the good news of Jesus to others. The others hear the message and are saved by calling on the name of Jesus out of their faith in Him.
 
So, Paul makes it clear that the One who initiates our salvation is Jesus. This point is continually repeated in Romans—God’s sovereignty in our salvation.
 
We may think that we’re saved because ‘we’ decided to believe in Jesus, which is true, but we must also be able to see how God is working for our salvation. The fact that God takes the initiative in our salvation is good, comforting news for us. That’s because we know that God, who saved us when we were sinners because He so loved us, will never stop working for our salvation and that He will ultimately achieve it.
 
As Paul said, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Php 1:6)
 
One more thing we should know from these verses is that we’re not only called to call on the name of Jesus, but also sent to preach the gospel to those around us. I said that we’re here because we all experienced the first four steps. And, they must lead us to the final step—to be sent by Jesus.
 
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples and declared peace to them when they trembled with fear. Then, He said to them, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (Jn 20:21)
 
Even though this verse is really short, it provides the strongest grounds for Christian missions. We must remember that the reason God made us hear the good news and saved us first is so that we can also deliver the gospel of Jesus to others in order for them to also hear it and believe in Him. For this reason, Jesus is sending us now. That’s how we can join in God’s mission to reconcile His people with Him and to His kingdom on earth.