A Sermon of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Romans 10:3
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God."
"Saving Faith" An Exposition of Chapter 10, published by The
Banner of Truth Trust: 1997 1.800.263.8085 (pp.28-39).
"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going We have,
so far, been dealing with the first two verses, and have seen that certain
general lessons are taught there by the Apostle. These not only concern
his contemporaries, the Jews, but are of universal application in the
life of the church up to the present time.
We have seen that the Apostle's particular concern here is to explain
why the Jews were, in the main, outside the Christian church, whereas
the Gentiles had been coming in. The general trouble was that the Jews
had a zeal for God but it was 'not according to knowledge'. Now the word
that Paul uses here which is translated 'knowledge' is very interesting.
It is the strongest word used in the Scriptures with regard to knowing.
It does not merely mean a general acquaintance with something. It goes
beyond that. It means a full, a correct, a precise and a vital knowledge,
and the trouble with the Jews, says the Apostle Paul, is that they lacked
it. And there is one further idea in the word. It refers to a knowledge
which has been arrived at as the result of a good deal of investigation
and effort. So then, Paul says, the Jews lacked that full apprehension,
that certain knowledge which is the result of a careful and a thorough
examination of a teaching. They had a zeal, but not such a knowledge.
Here, then, Paul again puts before us a most important principle, Which
is that an exact knowledge of the truth is essential to salvation. The
Jews had not got it, so they were outside; they were lost and he prays
and longs for their salvation. Now this matter of knowledge is most important.
I am of the opinion that the greatest danger confronting the Christian
church and every individual Christian at this moment is to fail to understand
and appreciate the absolute necessity of a precise, clear knowledge of
the truth. I say this because we are living in days when there is a powerful
reaction against all this.
We are living in an age that dislikes precision and definitions. It is
an age that is anti-theological, anti-doctrinal and which dislikes propositions
and exact knowledge. It is a lazy age in every respect, a sentimental,
sloppy age, an age that wants entertainment and dislikes effort. In the
whole of life today the principle is 'something for nothing'. We are ready
to take but we are not ready to work; we are not ready to give ourselves.
It is true all round and it accounts for most of our problems. It is particularly
true in the realm of the Christian church. We must therefore deal with
this very carefully.
This tendency shows itself in many ways which are generally very plausible.
One way is to say that Christianity is something that is so wonderful
that it cannot be defined, that it baffles analysis or any attempt to
state it in propositions. I am sure you are familiar with that particular
view. People say you might as well try to dissect beauty, or an aroma,
as to define the Christian faith. It cannot be done, they say. You experience
it marvelous and wonderful! But if you try to analyze it, then you destroy
it, there is nothing left. You must not bring the rude hands of analysis
here.
Another way in which it is put is this: that Christianity is only a matter
of one's spirit. What makes us Christians is our spirit, and if we have
an appropriate spirit, then we are Christians. Christianity is an attitude,
a view of life, a general statement concerning our personality and our
being. There was a slogan not so long ago which said, 'Christianity is
caught, not taught'. You catch the spirit. You feel it in the meeting
and you get it. But what is it? Well, you do not know, but that does not
matter. You have got it! That is the great thing and you feel much happier
and much better than you did before.
Then a third way in which it is put is this: that after all what matters
is our general reaction to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this
is one of the most popular views of all. People say, 'You read the Gospels
and there you see this portrait of Him and, as it were, you meet Him.
Now what decides whether you are a Christian or not is this: Do you like
Him? Do you want to be like Him? Do you try to imitate Him? What is your
reaction to Him?' You must not come and dissect, and bring your propositions
and your theology and say you have got to believe this and not believe
that. What matters is your total response to Him, and if you react favorably
to Him, then you are a Christian.
The fourth way is the approach that describes Christianity in terms of
living. What does it matter what people believe as long as they are living
good, Christ like lives, as long as they are generous, ready to make sacrifices,
ready to help others, and concerned about the uplift of the race? That
is what makes people Christians.
Now this dangerous attitude takes one other form. I put this in a category
on its own because I am beginning to think that in some ways it is the
most subtle form of all among evangelical people. It is the tendency to
estimate whether or not people are Christians, not by what they actually
say about their beliefs but by what you feel about them. Now, I do want
to make this clear, because I have encountered it a great deal. We attach
greater importance and significance to this 'feeling' that we may have
about them than to the very words that the people themselves use about
the Christian faith.
I want to give an example or two of this, because I confess that I am
becoming alarmed about it; indeed, I am almost discouraged because it
seems to me that if we proceed much further along this line, the evangelical
faith is going to disappear. Let me give you an illustration. On a visit
to London some years ago, I went into a certain bookroom which was managed
by an evangelical organization in one of the major Christian denominations.
To my astonishment, I found that they were selling there a secondhand
book by a man who was notorious at that time. He was no longer alive,
but he had written this well known book about Christianity in which he
virtually denied all the cardinal articles of the Christian faith. As
I was looking round, the secretary of this society came to speak to me,
so I called his attention to this book and expressed my amazement.
'Ah,' he said, 'wait a minute. You know, we must be very careful.'
'What do you mean?' I asked.
He said, 'Have you ever met this men?' end when I told him I had not,
he replied, 'Well, I have. I stayed with him a few months back. I was
on deputation work and he entertained me for the night, and the next morning
we went into a little chapel attached to his house where he took family
prayers. And you know, I don't think I have ever been in such a spiritual
atmosphere. It was a blessing to my soul to hear him taking family prayers
on that occasion.'
'Yes, but my dear sir,' I said, 'what does he say in this book?'
'Oh, I know that,' he said, 'but you see, if you had heard him taking
those prayers! I have never known a more devout man. I have never been
in a more devotional atmosphere.'
My reply was this: 'But I don't care what you felt. This is what the man
says about the Lord Jesus Christ and His work and it is a denial of the
Scriptures!' But I found it very difficult to persuade him.
Then recently, a speaker was about to give an address on a certain religious
book which had achieved some notoriety, and he prefaced his remarks by
saying something like this. 'Now I am going to criticize this book, but
I must say this. A friend of mine who saw this man on television said
to me, "If ever I have looked at a born again man there he was."'
You see, he was suggesting that what is said in the book does not matter!
Though the writer denies the teaching of the Scripture and the creeds
of his church, though he denies the being of God, the deity of Christ,
and all the essentials of Christianity, in spite of that, what is being
put first is our subjective feeling 'The man looks to me to be a born
again man.' So in spite of what he says in his book 'I therefore have
a feeling, somehow, that the man is all right after all'!
This is happening in other ways, too. A few years ago there were various
campaigns at which all kinds of people had come together who had never
been together before. And evangelical Christians were saying, 'You know,
these others are such nice people, they are much nicer people than we
ever thought.' Why they should ever imagine that people who are wrong
in their doctrine are of necessity not nice I do not know! But the argument
had reached the point at which it was being said that, because they were
so surprisingly nice, it did not matter very much, after all, that they
were so wrong in their doctrine.
Or, to give one final illustration, I once had a lengthy discussion with
an evangelical Christian in which I asked him why he had used a certain
man in connection with his work. 'Well,' he said, 'I know what you mean,
I know what he has written in his books, I know what he preaches, but
I have got to be honest. I find that I can have more fellowship with him
than I can with many conservative evangelical Christians.'
I said, 'What you really mean, of course, is that he is a nicer man by
nature than many evangelical Christians. But,' I went on, 'you must not
call it fellowship. You find that he is more affable and that you can
get on more easily with him. But that is not spiritual fellowship!'
Now that is the kind of thing that is being said at the present time.
It does not matter what people may teach. Though they may deny the very
essence of Christianity, if I like them, if I am attracted to them, if
I can talk easily to them, then that is what counts. It is what they are
that is important and thus they make an appeal to you.
Here, then, is the very thing to which our attention is being drawn by
this statement of the Apostle Paul. So what do we say about this modern
tendency? Here is the answer.
First, that Christian people are mistaking natural qualities, niceness,
a cultural veneer or politeness, for true Christian grace. It seems that
we are no longer capable of differentiating between the two. How often
today is affability mistaken for saintliness! 'What a gracious man he
is,' they say. What they really mean is this: he never criticizes and
he agrees with everybody and everything. I know of nothing more dangerous
than that. These so called gracious men are, of course, altogether nicer
than John the Baptist or the Apostle Paul! I do not hesitate to go further
they are very much nicer than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who denounced
the Pharisees! Affability is not saintliness. A mere intellectual, moral
flabbiness, is not synonymous with graciousness and with the possession
of grace!
Secondly, the fact that people are devout tells us nothing about the truth
of what they believe. There are very devout Jews, devout Muslims, devout
followers of Buddha, Confucius, and so on. A devout attitude in and of
itself tells us nothing.
Thirdly, the moment we begin to talk in these terms, it means that we
have abandoned all objective standards. We are now judging only by our
own subjective feelings, by our impressions and reactions. Is there anything
so dangerous?
Fourthly, and much more important, it is a complete denial of what the
Apostle is teaching at this very point, and indeed in the whole of his
Epistle. The Jews, he says, are lost and they need to be saved. Why? Because
they are lacking in exact knowledge of the truth. This is the reason for
their condemnation. So we must never put anything before exact knowledge.
It is the most important thing of all.
My fifth argument is this: to speak like that is a violation not only
of what the Apostle teaches here, but also of the whole of the New Testament
teaching with regard to the way of salvation. What does it teach? Well,
it talks about coming 'unto the knowledge of the truth' [I Tim. 2:4].
Everything in the New Testament is put in terms of truth. What is preaching?
Preaching is a proclamation of the truth. And it is an exact proclamation.
Preaching is not talking about a vague feeling, but is the presentation
of a message, of a case. Preaching is something that is reasoned and argued
from the Scriptures. It is truth, and therefore it must always be in the
first position.
The Apostle says this clearly and specifically in 1 Timothy 2:35: 'For
this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will
have all men to be saved' he means all types and kinds of men 'and to
come unto the knowledge of the truth'. That is salvation, this exact knowledge
of the truth. 'For there is one God' there it is! 'and one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus.' There is the truth specified. And
yet the whole tendency today is to say, 'It doesn't matter!'
Furthermore, this is a truth that can be defined in detail, indeed, it
must be defined in detail. The first chapter of Galatians brings out this
point. 'I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you
into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another. .
.' [Gal. 1:67]. But how can Paul say that? You can only make a statement
like that if you know what the gospel is. There must be some objective
standard, and he says that these people have departed from that. They
say they are preaching a gospel. But it is 'not another', he says, there
cannot be, this is the one and only gospel.
In other words, you can tell whether a man is preaching the gospel or
not, or whether he believes the gospel or not, by what he says! It does
not matter what he is in his appearance or in his personality-what does
he say ? Is it the gospel, or something that is passing as gospel, which
is not the gospel? Then Paul makes it still more explicit: 'But though
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed' [v. 8]. Could anything
be plainer or stronger?
Or take it again in 2 Timothy 2 :78: 'Consider what I say,' says the Apostle,
'and the Lord give thee understanding.' that is what people need; it is
understanding. Get rid of this sloppy sentimentality that talks about
'niceness' and lives on its feelings. 'Remember,' he says, 'that Jesus
Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.'
What did he mean by my gospel? Well, he goes on to tell us. He contrasts
it with the false teaching in which some people were indulging. They taught
that 'the resurrection is past already' and they 'overthrow the faith
of some' [v. 18].
I once read a printed sermon on Paul's words, 'my gospel', in which the
preacher put forward this erroneous view. He said, 'The Apostle says,
"My gospel", and the question for you, friends, is: Can you
say, "My gospel" ? Of course, it may not be mine, it may not
be somebody else's, but the whole point is, can you say, "My gospel"
?'
The whole purpose of that sermon was to show that the Apostle did not
mean to suggest that he was right and everyone else was wrong. The preacher
argued that such a thing would be unthinkable for a Christian man to say.
What Paul meant, said this preacher, was that he had not got a secondhand
faith but had found something which had made all the difference to him,
and all he was concerned about was that everybody else should have something
that made all the difference to them something about which they could
say 'my gospel'. It would not be the same thing in every case, of course.
It would be one thing for one person and another for someone else. One
would believe in the deity of Christ, and another would not; one believes
that Christ bore his sins and was punished, someone else believes He was
just dying the death of a pacifist. But what does it matter? We all get
a good deal out of that death. 'My gospel'! And this is, of course, nothing
but a complete denial of what the Apostle was teaching!
The Apostle's case was always this: there is only one gospel. It had been
committed to him and he preached it. Any departure from it was a lie,
and whoever preached a lie deserved to tee 'accursed'. And, of course,
this teaching is not confined to the Apostle Paul. In Jude 3, we read
this:
'Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation,
it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once [and forever] delivered
unto the saints.' The faith is something that you can contend for and
if you do not know what it is, or if people can believe what they like,
then you cannot contend for it. The New Testament denounces heresies;
and there would never be such a thing as a heresy if you did not have
a truth that can be defined and stated in the form of propositions. So
this modern idea which puts personality, or niceness, or 'whet I feel'
about a person, before exact propositions and definitions, and precision
in knowledge, is a denial of the whole of the New Testament teaching.
But still further: the Bible teaches us that continuation in the Christian
life is always as the result of truth, and knowledge of truth. Our Lord
prayed in His high-priestly prayer: 'Sanctify them through thy truth:
thy word is truth' John 17:17]. Or take what He said on another occasion
to those Jews who believed on Him, 'If ye continue in my word, then are
ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free' John 8:31]. It is the truth, not feelings, that makes you
free!
My final argument is this. The Apostle Peter, in the third chapter of
his First Epistle, verse fifteen, says, 'be ready always to give an answer
to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear.' A man comes to you and says, 'Look here, why are you
a Christian?' He wants you to give an explanation. If you adopt this modern
teaching, all you can say is this: 'Well, I don't know that I can tell
you but I just feel like this. I began to feel like this suddenly in a
meeting, and I am glad to say that I have been feeling like this ever
since. It is a wonderful feeling, though I don't know what it is.'
Then the man says, 'What is this "hope" you have?'
'Well,' you reply, 'I don't know, I am just hopeful, that is all. I have
taken a more optimistic view of life ever since I had this wonderful experience
and I feel happier and bright and cheerful.' You cannot give him a reason.
In that case, says Peter, you are no use to him; he will now, poor fellow,
try to get this 'feeling' that you have had and he will go the round of
meetings hoping that he is going to get it. That is not the way, says
Peter. Give him a reason for the hope that is in you. And that means a
detailed knowledge of the truth.
I am not saying, of course, that a Christian is someone who has a complete
understanding about the whole of the Christian faith. Of course not! Nobody
has that. We are all still learning. All that I am saying is that there
must be a clear understanding about an irreducible minimum. You cannot
be a Christian at all unless you have that. I am not, in other words,
saying that we must turn this gospel into a requirement, and that unless
we all agree in every detail about prophecy, or the mode of baptism, or
many other subjects, that we are not Christians. That is sheer legalism!
There are many people who have fallen into that error.
But that is not the danger today! The danger today is that we are so afraid
of legalism that we have become utterly nondescript. We have knocked down
all the barriers and the signposts; anything is all right. We are a happy
lot together and we have a wonderful spirit. Roman Catholics are suddenly
now changing. Everything is marvelous. We are going to have a great universal
church and there will be no more trouble.
But that is the very opposite of the New Testament teaching. No, I am
not arguing for a legalistic precision. All I am arguing for is what the
Apostle Paul is putting before us here in Romans 10:3. These Jews, he
says, are outside because they have not got this exact knowledge that
saves! There are implications and aspects of this great truth about which
we cannot and must not speak dogmatically. But about the thing that saves
us we must be as dogmatic as we can be This is absolutely essential to
salvation.
The Apostle's whole point is that the Jews are lost, and he is anxious
about them, concerned for them and praying for them. They are in that
position for one reason only their lack of a precise knowledge as to the
way of salvation. Therefore I do not hesitate to say that if you tell
me that such an exact knowledge is not essential, that people can be Christians
without it, then I say that you are denying the New Testament gospel.
I do not care what experience they have had, how much better or nicer
they are than they once were I am not interested. Men and women are saved
by coming to a knowledge of the truth!
The Apostle says all that to us in this word 'knowledge'. But in verse
3 he works it out in detail, and he has three things to say about the
Jews. The first is that they were 'ignorant of God's righteousness'. That
is the first respect in which this lack of knowledge caused their condemnation.
Now what does Paul mean here by the term 'God's righteousness'? There
is a slight difficulty about this. It is not important ultimately, but
we must look at it in order to get our minds clear. There are two views.
Most of the commentators are agreed in saying that by 'God's righteousness'
Paul means the righteousness that God has prepared for, and gives to,
the Christian. They say that it must be that because of what Paul says
at the end of the verse: 'They being ignorant of God's righteousness ..
. have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.'
Now there is no doubt about the meaning of 'the righteousness of God'.
It means that they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness
that God has prepared and gives, about which Paul has spoken in chapter
1:17 'the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith'. So, the
commentators say, it must have that meaning at the beginning of 10:3 also,
because if it does not, then the Apostle is using the same word in two
different senses in the same verse.
If that view is correct, the Apostle is saying that these people are lost
because they have a great zeal but it is not according to knowledge. They
do not know about the righteousness that God has provided and have not
submitted to it. Instead, they have gone about to establish their own
righteousness. That is the commonly accepted interpretation.
But with considerable trepidation, because of the authorities, I feel
constrained to say that even if I do accept that, I cannot accept it as
being the total or indeed the adequate explanation of this term. What,
then, does it mean? Well, I suggest it means the righteousness that God
demands of me. Paul is saying that they were ignorant of this righteousness
that God demands. Why do I say that? Partly because, taking the other
view, Paul is guilty of tautology, and he is not normally guilty of that.
So it seems to me that in order to show how the argument advances here
we must accept this second interpretation.
But there is an even stronger argument. What was the main trouble with
the Jews ? Well, our Lord Himself has answered the question for us. It
is to be found in Matthew 5:20, part of the Sermon on the Mount: 'I say
unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven.' And then He goes on to interpret what He means by that. The
whole trouble with the Pharisees was that they had misinterpreted the
Old Testament teaching about the righteousness that God demands. That
is what the Sermon on the Mount deals with, especially in chapter five:
'Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time . . . But I say unto
you' [see, for example, w. 2122, 2728, 3132].
The Pharisees rejected Christ because they had misunderstood God's real
demands, the demands of God's law, the demands of God's righteousness.
So in the Sermon on the Mount our Lord preaches to them on the meaning
of the law that was given through Moses, and what He keeps on saying to
them, in effect, is this: 'You have misinterpreted it. You are taking
it only in the act, but God means it in the spirit, in the mind, in the
heart. You say, "I have not committed adultery." I ask you,
have you looked at a woman to commit adultery in your imagination? If
you have, you are guilty.' And so on with murder and all the rest.
In other words, our Lord's whole case against the Pharisees and scribes
was that they had got muddled about the meaning of God's demands upon
them in terms of righteousness. There are many examples of this very thing
in the Gospels, for in stance, what the Lord said about the support of
parents in Matthew 15 :39 and about tithing in Matthew 23:2328. The final
proof of this is the famous case of the Pharisee and the publican: 'Two
men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank
thee, that I am not as other men are' [Luke 18:1011]. Here is the picture
of a man who thought that he had completely satisfied the demands of God.
So I argue that when the Apostle says in Romans 10:3 that the Jews were
ignorant of God's righteousness, he means that they were entirely ignorant
of what God really was demanding of them.
This leads us to the word ignorant, which is a most interesting word.
It implies that they had some knowledge. Paul does not say that these
Jews were completely ignorant about the righteousness of God. No. Their
trouble was that they knew something about it but they did not have an
exact knowledge of it. In other words, 'ignorance' here is the exact opposite
of the full and precise knowledge of verse 2.
You see, you can have a certain amount of knowledge, but it is not enough.
You must have precise knowledge. The Jews had a knowledge. But they were
ignorant! It was not a full knowledge but was partial and vitiated. That
again, of course, was the trouble with the Pharisees and was it not also
the trouble with the Apostle Paul himself before his conversion? Take
Philippians 3:46:'Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If
any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe
of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;
concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless.'
That is what Paul used to think. He really did believe, like all the Pharisees,
that he had fulfilled the law of God, and was absolutely blameless. So
what was his trouble? It was that he had a knowledge of the law but not
an exact knowledge. It was all right up to a point, but then he ruined
it all by misinterpretation. He himself was a perfect illustration of
the very thing that he says here.
And then 1 Timothy 1:13, where Paul expresses amazement that he is in
the ministry. He recalls that he 'was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor,
and injurious', but he 'obtained mercy because,' he says, 'I did it ignorantly
in unbelief.' And when he says that he was ignorant he does not mean that
he knew nothing. He was a Pharisee, he knew a great deal about the law
and the Scriptures. But, he says, 'I did it ignorantly.' Yes, it is exactly
the same word.
The Apostle's own experience, therefore, and that of all the Pharisees,
I think confirms this exposition that I am putting before you. The whole
trouble with the Jews was that they thought that they knew what the law
of God demanded. But they did not. Their knowledge was so imperfect that
it had become a lie, and it was standing between them and the knowledge
of salvation in and through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
So you see the point at which we have arrived. This precise knowledge
is absolutely essential. Not only must you have knowledge, you must have
precise knowledge. Ignorance (a little knowledge) is the enemy; it is
the cause of the lost condition of Paul's fellow countrymen, the Jews.
May God once and for ever rid our minds of this dangerous, terrible tendency
to discount exact knowledge, definition, propositions, doctrine and theology.
And may the Lord help us to see that what passes as charity is at the
expense of denying precise knowledge of the truth and is not charity but
laxity. Ultimately, it is a betrayal and denial of the truth of God.
