”When I survey the wondrous cross – see from His head, His hands, His feet sorrow and love flow mingled down.”
”No human on this earth will ever be able to fully plumb the depths of the sorrow and love which flowed down from my head my hands and feet on the cross, where justice and mercy kissed. But all you need to do is to believe and accept this fact and the reason I did it so that you will be able to start realising the full height, length, depths and width of my love, not only for the whole of my creation but for you personally. As you believe and accept it you will grow into it and it will continue to change you.”
Romans 10:14-16 complete the teaching of last week, please read it. It is a quotation from Isaiah 52:7 which comes between the statement in 52:10 “the Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God”, which is set between the description of all the difficulties that God’s people were experiencing over time before that and the prophecy of the “Suffering Servant from 52:13. So the Good News of Isaiah is that God is sending His servant to save His people. This explains the immediate statement in Romans 10:16, “But not all Israel…… as Paul returns to the subject of the equality of the Jews and Gentiles in the church.
We take as our reading today 10:14,15, it is a simple passage to understand and easy to gloss over. However may I emphasize that as easy as it is to understand, at times how difficult it is to carry out and how important it is. There are and have been many fellow Christians who have taken this injunction to heart and spent their lives doing just that. Many others know the passage, but feel inadequate beacuse the perceive that they are not doing this and therefore failing as Christians.
Let me suggest that not all Christians are called to do this. Those that do are praised and described as having beautiful feet. They are also called and gifted to do this. But each of us is described as being a witness in the book of Acts. Once again we are not told to “go out and witness”, our role is to be a witness. To be a witness is to live an authentic Christian life which shows in various ways as God changes one supernaturally eg in Romans 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful. In prayer and bless those who persecute you. These are not natural actions and require that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. It stand out in our “barren society”. This authentic way of life leads people to want to get to know what is different about you. It is far more effective than going to someone and pouring out a lot of words, which may also be necessary from time to time as well.
Next week I am going to deal with the rest of this teaching on the Jews and Gentiles. This teaching doesn’t affect us personally so I am not going to try and unravel Paul’s whole argument. I will mainly deal with the statement in 11:26 “And so all Israel will be saved”. It is a verse that has caused some controversy and wrong views as to Israel’s role in the world to day.
In the meantime enjoy the winter cold and be warmed by God’s word every day, till next week.