Rescued!

 

Text: Romans 10:5-15

Focus: salvation

Function: to see how God’s salvation is a rescue from the evil of the world.

⁵Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” ⁶But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷“or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say?

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

(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), ⁹because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. ¹¹The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

¹⁴But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? ¹⁵And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

When people have come to me with the desire to be baptized, or to make a formal confession of their faith because of a life changing event, I have often referred them to this verse when we pray a prayer of confession together.

The prayer has always been along the lines of verse 9 where he says if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved. The prayer is something like: “Lord Jesus, I believe that you died and rose again to free me from my selfish ways and I ask you to forgive my sins and heal me.

Now I want to be clear, the passage says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. In one way or another, people who sincerely pray are expressing their rest and trust in God and are included among the saved.

So, don’t write down my formula and pray it as if it is magik. God is looking for people who trust God, that is what salvation is.

I don’t like to distinguish between the saved and the unsaved because I am not sure that there are any who are unsaved. I believe that every knee shall willingly bow and willingly confess to the glory of God that Jesus is Lord.

But the bible refers to those who are in the Church as those who have placed their faith, or their trust in Jesus. Those are the people that I believe we can call the saved.

They rest in Jesus and in Jesus’ saving power.

Now this is significantly placed in the book of Romans. My Romans professor called chapters 9-11 the answer to “The Jewish Question” since Romans the epistle is considered by some to be the framework for the doctrine of the Gentile Church. Remember, we are the gentiles.

And Paul writes those words, Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved to remind the Jewish people that Gentiles can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved as well.

It is important for me to remind you that the word translated righteousness is best translated as just. Jesus died and rose again, I believe, so that he could send his Spirit into us and we will respond to the evil in this world with the love with which he fills our hearts.

I don’t want to consider myself among “the saved” as if I am better than others, but among the just because God has called me to serve and love the other.

And in this passage again, Paul is reminding the Jewish reader that Gentiles, people who were formerly cursed by God are now included in the family of God.

I find that God keeps opening up the circle of who has the power of the Spirit to be just and decent people.

So, again, let us examine the idea here behind the word “saved.”

We are saved and that leads us to think of what we are saved from.

I used to believe in a God that paid retribution in a place like hell and salvation was deliverance from the flames of hell fire.

But that isn’t correct doctrine or theology or a correct understanding of what it means to be saved.

To be saved is to be rescued. To be healed. To be restored to God and to wholeness. The plan of God for us is to heal and restore us.

Saved. Healed. Rescued from the evil of this world by Jesus, these are the terms that salvation implies.

I spoke earlier of a TV commentator who appalled me at his ignorance after the Pope was interviewed on public TV during a visit to the United States several years ago.

The Pope was extolling the virtues of Matthew 25 where Jesus says “I was naked and you clothed me, hungry and you fed me, sick and in prison and you visited me when we did it to the least of all people, we did it to him.

And the Pope reminded the audience that the ones who clothed, fed and visited the marginalized were given the reward of heaven.

And again, I used to think that salvation meant merely that we weren’t going to hell anymore.

The Pope also reminded the crowd that those who didn’t do those works lost their eternal reward.

He told them what Jesus said a just, or righteous person would act like.

That is important because I used to misuse this Romans passage into thinking that our actions didn’t count for anything since if we take this passage by itself without the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25 that tells us that we must actually do the works of justice toward the poor and marginalized if we want an eternal reward then our actions are covered by what we believe.

Belief without actions is not belief.

Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. It tells us what to do and it is three chapters long. Eventually the church came up with the Apostles creed which is reduced to a few paragraphs and it tells us what to believe.

And this passage tells us that if we believe the right thing, we are saved.

But remember, when Jesus and the scriptures are talking about salvation, they are not talking about rescue from Hell but rescue from the evil in this world.

Jesus said that he had overcome the world and then John said that we too, will overcome the world by faith in him.

Jesus has rescued us from the evil in this world.

I see the death and resurrection as a potent example of this.

Evil says that we must pay back evil for evil. Jesus said we must forgive and let God be the judge. God will judge, in God’s love.

And God will judge the world in the mercy that God has for all of his children, every one of us.

In the example of Jesus, we are delivered from retribution in justice to love and forgive others.

I believe that God places God’s hope in the power of Love to eventually overcome the evil in this world with the good. That, I believe, is part of the mission Jesus has given to us when he blessed us as peacemakers.