THE BOOK OF ROMANS
Lesson 24, Chapter 10 continued
Sometimes it is important to pause and take in the panoramic view of the landscape that we
have wandered by much too quickly. So as we all take a deep breath, it is my fervent hope that
by now in our study of the Book of Romans, even if you haven’t yet fully embraced the Hebraic
Heritage approach to understanding the Bible, that it has become clear that the more standard
way that Romans has been taught over the centuries has a number of shortcomings. Sadly it is
not because the fine scholars who wrote these commentaries were not sufficiently educated or
because they intended to pass along incomplete or incorrect information. Instead it is that
some of them (sometimes without even realizing it) held a deeply ingrained anti-Jewish and
anti-Law worldview that was and remains as a fundamental belief and core doctrine of Western
Christianity; and it greatly colors not so much the details of their Scripture research but rather
their conclusions.
Thus most of what I have presented to you as Bible history and as proper translation of the
original Greek and Hebrew Bible manuscripts would in no way bother these great scholars and
commentators; however my conclusions would, of course, cause passionate disagreement
because these conclusions necessarily confront Church doctrines that they consider long ago
decided, untouchable, and sacrosanct. It takes much courage and fortitude on the part of
Believers like you to be open to hearing God’s Word with some of the filters removed, and
thereby adding back in the natural Jewishness that was the inherent culture of the Bible; a
Jewish culture that has been intentionally downplayed and filtered out in order to impress upon
Christians that our faith is (allegedly) a thoroughly gentile one.
Because of our venture into the New Testament after spending so many valuable years in
God’s Old Testament, we have many new listeners and readers so I want to reiterate a couple
of points so that no one misunderstands my intention or goal for how and what I teach. For
those who have studied the Torah and other parts of the Old Testament with me, I ask your
patience as you are already well aware of what I’m about to say. Seed of Abraham Torah
Class insists on a Hebraic Heritage approach (or Jewish Roots as you may prefer to call it) to
teaching the Bible because without it the all-important societal backdrop of the events it
records, and the mindset of the writers of the Bible who did the recording, is lost; and all the
writers except for probably Luke, were Hebrews. After being a rather garden variety
Evangelical Christian for the first 4 decades of my life, I became fully convicted that if one
reads and believes the Bible as God’s divine Word to mankind, one cannot help but be led to
love Israel, recognizing God’s limitless faithfulness and concern for them, and to embrace the
Jewish people as our elder brothers and sisters in the faith. Also it is immensely helpful to
finally comprehend that the Bible is a 100% Hebrew source-document. But when we accept
that then we must wrestle with just what that means for those of us who are gentiles.
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Because of that reality (and more) Israel and the Holy Scriptures cannot be separated; they are
fully and permanently intertwined and dependent upon one another. Remove Israel from the
Holy Scriptures and they are gutted of context and humanity. Remove the Holy Scriptures from
Israel, and they are just another nation of people like all other nations; gentiles, worshipping
gods that don’t exist and taking their cue from whatever despot might be leading them at the
time.
Yet God asks no gentile to become a Jew, or any Jew to become a gentile in order to partake
of His Word, of His covenants, and to worship Him as the one true God. And so that is the
position of this ministry. While we spend much of our funds and efforts and time comforting,
teaching and tangibly helping the people of Israel, and we spend a modest amount of time
studying the Judaism of Yeshua’s and Paul’s day along with learning about its colorful
traditions, by no means do we advocate Christians turning to Judaism or to living a modern-
day Jewish lifestyle in order to attain some hoped-for higher level of spiritual growth. That said
we have no issue with Judaism or Jewish lifestyle other than its blindness towards the advent
of their Messiah, Yeshua the Christ. In fact, we have adopted some Jewish traditions that we
find lovely, highly symbolic and meaningful, and most appropriate for celebrating many of the
Biblical holy days in light of the coming of our Jewish Savior.
So as we continue in our study of Romans, keep this in mind. The reason that I teach
somewhat different conclusions than most of the other Bible commentators is because we
have dared to unearth the authentic Jewish ways, meanings, understandings, and common
everyday expressions of 1
st
century Jewish society, and how they studied and worshipped in
Christ’s era and how all of this shaped what they meant by what they said. These ways and
meanings both Yeshua and Paul would not only find familiar, but in fact they too operated
mostly the same. I maintain that with such understanding perhaps we can be ambassadors of
our Messiah who can help our brothers and sisters in the Church to repent of its anti-Semitism
and insistence upon maintaining ancient traditions created by gentile Bishops; traditions that
the writers of the Bible actually taught against.
I pray that even if you aren’t certain that you can agree with what I just said you would give me
an opportunity to prove to you the merit of such an approach to God’s Word. And the proof will
be this: what I tell you will be backed up with the Scriptures, in context, and it will glorify
Yeshua as our Lord and Messiah. If I’m telling you the truth it cannot help but do that. This is
because as an honest and informed reading of Romans has already shown us, Christ and the
Law of Moses cannot be seen as anything but two closely related and connected entities. Paul
insists that Christ is the goal, the essence, the underlying and overarching substance of The
Law of Moses. Why is this? Because Christ is the Word: the logos. And while since the
mid-3
rd
century the Bible has been expanded (at least for Christians) to include the New
Testament, prior to that time no such thing existed; only what we typically call the Old
Testament. When Yeshua, the Apostles Paul and John, and others referred to Messiah as the
Word, the only entity they knew as God’s Word was the Old Testament that included the Law
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of Moses.
John 1:1-5 CJB

CJB
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God.
2
He was with God in the beginning.
3
All things came to be through him, and
without him nothing made had being.
4
In him was life, and the life was the light of
mankind.
5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not suppressed it.
14
The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh'khinah (glory),
the Sh'khinah (glory) of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.
And just to make clear His personal position on the continuing relevance of The Law and the
Old Testament Prophets, during His famous Sermon on the Mount Christ said this:
Matthew 5:17-19 CJB

17
"Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to
abolish but to complete.
18
Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or
a stroke will pass from the Torah- not until everything that must happen has happened.
19
So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be
called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will
be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I will tell you with just the tiniest bit of a devilish pride that as I led Israel tours I have asked
many an unsuspecting Pastor to read those words aloud while the tour group visited the Mount
of Beatitudes and watched as a deer in the headlights look came across his face. The Pastors
realized what they had just said and it is as though being in that place somehow made it alive
and real to them for the first time; and it opened their ears to hear and comprehend something
that they had never understood before. For some it lifted a huge burden; for others it caused
them to be faced with a painful choice: stick with the purely manmade doctrine of “The Law is
dead and gone” for Believers in order to satisfy their denominational leadership, or believe
what Christ plainly said at the very spot where they stood. You can make that same choice
exactly where you are sitting, and I think you know what you ought to do. But will you? I can
assure you that if you are still wavering, to believe Christ in this will lift a huge burden and set
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you off on a path to a stronger and more beautiful relationship with Him and His Father than
you ever imagined.
As we delved into Romans chapter 10 last week, we found ourselves submerged in deep, but
yet rather fundamental, theology. First we learned that zeal for God does not equal, or
necessarily result in, salvation. Rather such zeal must be based upon correct understanding.
And that correct understanding begins with accepting God’s Word as true, and culminates with
acknowledgment that Yeshua is our Lord and Savior. If we can’t do that, then it is like revving
your engine at a stop light; it sounds impressive but you’re going nowhere.
Next we learned that there are essentially two different kinds of righteousness; both kinds are
legitimate and both kinds are to be present in us. One kind is the saving kind and it is superior
to the other kind; it is the kind of righteousness that is given to us as a free gift from God. It
comes not by anything we can physically do; it doesn’t involve our human deeds or works.
Rather it comes from our trust in God’s Son as Messiah. It is the kind (the only kind) that gives
redemption and eternal life and it is based upon God’s great mercy and grace. The other kind
of righteousness comes from our physically doing things, our behaviors, that please God. That
is, it indeed flows from our deeds and works. It comes from our being obedient to The Law of
Moses. It would not be incorrect to call it a self-righteousness; but self in a positive and not a
negative sense. Even so this kind of righteousness, while good and pleasing to God, does not
save because indeed it is something that we do and thus it cannot be pure enough or perfect
enough or even achieve the proper requirement to be saved. We cannot substitute one kind of
righteousness for the other; and as Believers, we cannot just strive for one kind or the other
kind of righteousness. Our obedience and doing righteous deeds in God’s eyes is the
expected response for Him having given us the gift of a saving righteousness.
After that we found that in John 5:46 & 47 Christ said something rather dramatic that can catch
us off guard. It is so amazingly foundational and yet equally amazingly overlooked; it is that we
are incapable of believing Him fully, because we can’t possibly understand Him fully if we
have not FIRST believed Moses. What did Moses record for us to believe? The Torah; and the
Law of Moses within its pages. For Jews this meant that to properly believe Moses (an
expression that means The Law of Moses) they must see that Messiah is The Law’s goal and
aim. If they can’t comprehend that they will not be capable of believing Christ (and that is
precisely what happened with the bulk of the Jewish people). On the other hand, for gentiles it
means that while we might THINK we can fully understand Yeshua by never venturing outside
the Gospels and the New Testament, Christ says that’s not possible. If you can’t believe
Moses, then you can’t believe Him. And you can’t begin to believe Moses if you refuse to
even know what he said. As a personal witness I can verify the truth of that. I have learned
more about Christ and how to live a redeemed life from knowing the Old Testament than I ever
knew before I did. And I have heard the testimonies of countless Believers who say the same
thing. This is because The Torah and The Law are the foundation for understanding the need
for, and the teaching of, Messiah. The Torah, The Law, and the Prophets provide the
prerequisite context for understanding what we read in the New Testament about Messiah.
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Without that, we may be self assured that we understand what Yeshua, Paul, John and others
are telling us; but we don’t. We can’t. And with a far more elegant simplicity than I could ever
construct, Christ said this exact thing in John 5:46 and 47.
John 5:46-47 CJB
46
For if you really believed Moshe, you would believe me; because it
was about me that he wrote.
47
But if you don't believe what he wrote, how are you going
to believe what I say?"
Believe it and act upon it for your own good.
And finally in our last lesson Paul taught us that true belief must reside within us, and yet it
must be confirmed with what comes out of our mouths. So there must be a sincere inner belief
accompanied by an equally sincere outer belief. The location of our inner belief is our heart
(meaning, actually, our mind since the heart organ was in that day thought to be where our
intellect resided). The location of our outer belief is our mouth. And from our mouth we profess
our inner belief to others. But listen again to what Paul said about what happens when we
profess with our mouth.
Romans 10:10 CJB ….while with the mouth one keeps on making public
acknowledgement and thus continues toward deliverance.
For Paul this outward verbal expression of our faith was not an option; or as I hear often today
from Christians that when it comes to salvation there are Biblical commands that are a “non-
essential” (so why do them?). Confession with our mouths that Yeshua is Lord is not a “non-
essential”. But there is something else as well: there is something powerful about speech and
the spoken word. A passionate speech can move a nation to better things. Or a passionate
speech can move people to war. A well spoken word can transmit light into the dark recesses
of people’s minds. God spoke the Universe into existence. So never underestimate the power
of the spoken word. The idea that our faith is so private and personal that we have no
obligation to speak it to others is a false notion. For Paul, if you won’t confess your faith
publically, you are not the Lord’s. And if you won’t confess it publically, you are not fulfilling
your calling as one of God’s elect to tell others about the Good News that saved you.
Let’s continue with Romans chapter 10.
RE-READ ROMANS CHAPTER 10:9 – end
Let’s spend some time with yet another theological principle that Paul presents us with that on
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the surface sounds straightforward enough, but actually it is not at all. It is complex but it is
also worth the time to explore because there is more to it than meets the eye.
In verse 9 Paul says that in order to be saved we have to acknowledge that Yeshua is Lord;
simple enough. But what does it mean to Paul that Yeshua is Lord? Is Yeshua His master? Is
Yeshua his boss and activity director? In Greek the word that is being translated as lord is
kurios. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word adonai, and in its simplest sense it means
master. Kurios, adonai, master and lord are equivalents. Your master, your lord, is someone
who holds the power of deciding over you. It is also a generic term of respect and honor, and
of itself it has no connection to religion or deity. However for Paul it meant something special.
But what? This has been a debate within Christianity for hundreds of years. What I want to do
rather than giving you the several alternatives (which could take a very long time) is to get to
the bottom line (which itself isn’t a short discussion). It is this: in the Tanach (which is the
Hebrew word for what gentiles call the Old Testament) God’s formal name, which is formed by
the Hebrew letters Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, and which I pronounce Yehoveh but it is more widely
pronounced as Yahweh, is used over 6000 times in the original text. And yet, that is not
actually how our English Bibles read. The English equivalent or translation of Yud-Heh-Vav-
Hey is Jehovah. And at best you’ll find Jehovah in an English Old Testament a handful of
times; a few dozen at most. Rather, because of a Jewish superstition against saying God’s
name out loud (or even writing it) that began around 300 B.C. Jews started saying HaShem
(the name), or Eloah (God), or Adonai (Lord) or a couple of other Hebrew words in place of
saying His formal name.
In Hebrew Bible study when dealing with Scripture passages there is a technique called kethiv
and qere. Kethiv means “what is written” and qere means “what is read”. That is, the
kethiv of a Hebrew word is to pronounce it just as it is written in the original Scriptures. But the
qere is to move around some of the letters for the original word, or even to substitute a
different word altogether for what is written in the original Scriptures rather than pronouncing it
as written. So whenever Jews come to the letters Yud-Heh-Vav-Hey in the Bible (God’s formal
name), they do not use the kethiv (which would be to pronounce Yehoveh, just as it is written);
instead when they see those 4 Hebrew letters they pronounce the words HaShem, Eloah,
Adonai, or something else. It is not that any of those is an alternative way to pronounce Yud-
Heh-Vav-Heh; they represent authorized substitutes (all manmade of course). Thus, while
Hebrew speakers know this and follow this principle, non-Hebrew speakers or novices do not.
So in most English translations, what we see is that the Bible translator more or less follows
the Hebrew qere and uses a substitute word when he translates God’s formal name.
That means that when we look in our Old Testaments and (when referring to God’s name) we
see “the Lord said this” or “God did that”, 99% of the time the original text uses God’s formal
name: Yehoveh (the letters Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh). The Greek translation of the Bible does the
same thing. The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible is called the Septuagint, and it was
created 250 years before Christ was born. What the Septuagint does is to substitute the word
kurios every time God’s formal name appears. While the Hebrews did not disturb the
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Scriptures and instead left God’s formal name intact where it was found in the original, often
they wrote the preferred qere word (HaShem, Adonai) in the margins of the page or scroll,
thereby telling the reader what word he should use instead. However the Greek Septuagint
took a different approach. The Septuagint went ahead and removed God’s formal name from
the Scriptures and substituted the word kurios (Lord). So when reading the Septuagint (the
Greek Old Testament) the word Lord (kurios) is used over 6000 times when referring to God.
Often we can tell by Paul’s Scripture quotes when he is quoting the Hebrew Tanach versus
when is quoting the Greek Septuagint (and at times when he is just paraphrasing) because of
differences in how those same passages were transmitted over time in the Septuagint versus
the Tanach. And so the evidence is that when Paul uses the term Jesus is Lord, he means
Lord in the same sense as it is used 6000 times in the Septuagint; he is equating Yeshua to
God. So the evidence is that Paul, as did most Diaspora Jews, used the Greek Septuagint as
his personal Bible rather than the Hebrew Tanach. Thus when Paul says to confess that
Yeshua is Lord he means Lord in the sense of how it is mostly used in the Septuagint: as a
substitute for the name of God. And yet, clearly Paul differentiates Yeshua from God the
Father. That is, Paul does not see Yeshua as God the Father. To use C.E.B. Cranfield’s
definition, Paul intends to communicate that Jesus is Lord meaning that Yeshua “shares the
name and the nature, holiness, the authority, power, majesty and eternity of the one and only
true God”. It is Paul’s way of emphasizing the divine essence of Yeshua. This is important;
because the Hebrew term messiah (Christ or Savior in English) in no way indicates a divine
nature. Messiah in the 2
nd
Temple period is both a person and a function; it is the one who is
anointed by God to rescue Israel from its oppressors and to restore Israel’s fortunes. So in the
Jewish mindset (Paul’s mindset) saying that Yeshua is the Messiah (Jesus is the Christ)
merely means that He is the deliverer of Israel, but only in a physical and political way. Not as
a superhuman or as a god, but rather as a highly effective human warrior leader. To be clear:
Jesus is Lord versus Jesus is Messiah is two entirely different things; Paul sees Yeshua as
both. By Paul adding the attribute that Jesus is Lord to the equation means that on the one
hand Yeshua is the human being that leads Israel out of its physical and political oppression to
Rome; but on the other hand it also means that He is divine and bears the substance and
authority of the God of Israel. Paul’s meaning was well understood within Jewish circles. So
Jesus is Lord is not a throw-away or an extra high degree term of respect; it is a critical
theological assertion about who Yeshua is, and His purpose. He is divine and of essentially the
same substance as Yehoveh: God the Father. And He has come to deliver His people.
For most, but not all, forms of Christianity, this concept of who Christ is is taken for granted.
But for Judaism in Paul’s day, such a possibility was controversial. However the idea that the
Messiah of Israel could be both human and divine (something that modern Jews say is
idolatry) was accepted by a significant segment of mainstream Judaism in Paul’s day. So he
wasn’t alone in this belief nor did he invent the idea. What kept Paul in hot water with the
Jewish community was his constantly rubbing elbows with gentiles and even offering them the
benefits of the Jewish Messiah…..without them converting and becoming Jews.
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This belief of Paul’s that both Jews and gentiles could benefit equally from Yeshua’s position
as Lord and Savior is expressed in verse 12 when he says that there is no difference between
Jew and gentile; that everyone who calls on Him will be delivered (saved). Most of that verse is
a quote from the Book of Joel. We find in Joel chapter 3 these words:
CJB
Joel 3:5 At that time, whoever calls on the name of ADONAI will be saved. For in
Mount Tziyon and Yerushalayim there will be those who escape, as ADONAI has
promised; among the survivors will be those whom ADONAI has called.
Do not let something slip past you; notice the context of this Old Testament statement. It
concerns a time when Jerusalem is under siege and a great conflict is underway that precedes
the dreaded Day of the Lord. It equates to what Christians call Armageddon. While Joel, on the
surface, applies this to Israel, Paul says it means that and something deeper. So using the
rabbinical derash method of Bible interpretation Paul says it applies not only to Israel but also
to all human beings; all human beings, Jew or gentile, who call on the name of God will be
saved from the great conflict. Remember what we have learned: for Paul this apocalypse was
imminent…..it could happen tomorrow. In fact he certainly expected it before his life span
ended, which no doubt is why he chose this particular Scripture reference to make his point.
However the larger point was that gentiles were perfectly capable of trusting, as much as were
Jews. And thus gentiles are as perfectly capable of receiving God’s mercy and grace as is
Israel, and being saved.
Paul then sets up a fascinating series of 4 questions that act like consecutive links in a chain.
But before we discuss them, we have to ask the question: who is Paul addressing this to? That
is when verse 14 begins: “But how can they call on someone if they haven’t trusted in
him?” Who is “they”? So is “they” the Jews that Paul has been primarily talking to since
chapter 7? Or has he switched and is now addressing gentiles? Or is “they” entirely general
and he is addressing Jews and gentiles? A fair argument can be made for any of these
viewpoints so Paul has made himself quite unclear to those of us who live hundreds of years
after his time. However he wasn’t thinking about 100 years into the future, let alone 2000
years. He was addressing people in Rome and dealing with specific issues that existed in his
day, in the context of current events. Therefore I think it is most reasonable to see him as
continuing to aim this primarily at the Jewish members of the Rome congregation.
Paul returns then to the typical rabbinical method of creating a straw man to debate a point.
These 4 questions are brought by Paul’s straw man to try to show that Israel cannot be saved
by Messiah due to their lack of faithfulness to God, and Paul will refute each question more or
less one by one. What the straw man wants to prove is that it isn’t really Israel’s fault that they
aren’t recognizing Yeshua as their Messiah, and thus are not calling on His name, because
they didn’t have a fair opportunity to do so for several reasons. Paul pushes back by saying
that Israel has had all the opportunity needed, along with all the advantages attendant to being
God’s chosen people, to hear the message and be saved but they wouldn’t do it. Even so
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fault and blame are beside the point; God is so perfectly faithful that He is merely following
through with His promise to save Israel despite their hard hearts, deaf ears and rebellion, and
that’s what Yeshua’s purpose is.
Each of the straw man’s questions basically says that in order for Israel to call upon Christ to
be saved, 4 things needed to happen first. And then he implies that these 4 things never
happened. First, says the straw man, it is self-evident that Israel could only have called on the
name of Messiah if they had already believed in Him as the Messiah. But, second, they could
only have believed in Him as Messiah if they first had the opportunity to know about Him. And,
third, how could they have known about Him if no one was sent to tell them about Him? And,
fourth, since this message of deliverance was from God, how could there be someone sent to
announce the Messiah if God Himself didn’t appoint a special person for the task and give him
the message, the means, and the authority to deliver it? The straw man even draws upon
Scripture to make his case that somebody had to deliver the Good News or no one would
know about it. No doubt this passage also makes a strong case that the only people who are
authorized to carry the message from God about the Good News (the Gospel) are those whom
God has called. And whom has God called? The seed of Abraham. And who are the seed of
Abraham? Believers in the Messiah Yeshua, Jew and gentile. Folks, it is us who are being
referred to. We have been commissioned by God, through the means of our own salvation, to
tell those who are waiting for someone to bring the Good News to them.
Next time we’ll see how Paul responded to each of these questions from his straw man
opponent.
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