Trinity 10
Rom
9:30-10:4
8/25/19
I have a pad of them on my desk and
use them all the time. I have no doubt
that you also use them frequently at home or at work. I am referring to “Post-it notes” – the small
square piece of paper that has an adhesive strip at the top. This adhesive is sticky – but not too sticky. You can apply the
note to something and it will stay there.
But then you can easily pull the note without any damage to the surface
the note was on. Then, you can put the
note on something else and it will stick there until you want to remove
it. In fact you can repeat this action a
number of different times before finally the adhesive wears out.
We use Post-it notes all the time
and find them to be very helpful. But
the funny thing about them is that they are an invention that no was trying to
make. They are a solution that no one
was trying to find. They are an outcome that no one was seeking.
In 1968, Spencer Silver was a
scientist at the company 3M who was trying to develop a super-strong
adhesive. Instead, he accidently created
a “low-tack,” pressure sensitive adhesive that was reusable. Silver thought he had accidently created
something that was useful – he just didn’t know how it could be used.
For a number of years he presented
his “invention” to others at 3M, but no one saw any use for it. Then, in 1974 Arthur Fry who also worked at
3M was looking for way to hold bookmarks in his hymnal at church as he sang in
the church choir. He remembered Silver’s
adhesive and came up with the idea of using it on small pieces of paper. Silver wasn’t trying to produce a low tack
adhesive, and Fry wasn’t trying to find a use for it, yet nevertheless they
created a product that has been incredibly successful.
In our epistle lesson this morning,
the apostle Paul is taking about how we, the Gentiles, have attained and taken
hold of something we weren’t going after.
We weren’t looking for it. We
weren’t trying to find it. And yet by
God’s grace – completely unexpected as far as we are concerned - we have
received the righteousness of God. And
at the same time, Paul addresses the fact that many Jews who were trying to
obtain righteous – who were zealously seeking it – have missed it altogether.
In chapters nine through eleven Paul
take up a very challenging subject – something he had briefly introduced at the
start of chapter three. The question
Paul is addressing is why so many Jews are rejecting Christ, while at the same
time Gentiles are believing in the Lord.
After all, the Jews are the descendants of Israel, and Jesus is their Christ – their Messiah. Paul began this letter by speaking of the “gospel of God, which he
promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy
Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according
to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power
according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus
Christ our Lord.”
Simply
stated, Jesus was Israel’s Messiah, the descendant of King David promised to
Israel in the Scriptures that God had given to Israel through Moses and the
prophets. And yet while the original
group of believers in Christ were Jews, and certainly other Jews became
believers, for the most part Jews were rejecting Jesus. By the 50’s A.D. it was becoming clear that
instead Gentiles – non-Jews – were the ones who were going to be the majority
of the Church.
Paul
sets forth the basic and seemingly puzzling situation at the beginning of our
text when he writes, “What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not
pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by
faith;
but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to
righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.”
“Righteousness”
and its related word “justification” are central to Paul’s argument in
Romans. The apostle had begun by saying
in the first chapter: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the
Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The
righteous shall live by faith.’”
Coming
out of its Old Testament background, when Paul speaks of the “righteousness of
God” he means God’s saving action to put all things right. A crucial aspect of this was the fact that
God is going to judge all people on the Last Day. But the Gospel meant that
because of Jesus, God is going to – and already has declared us to be righteous
and innocent. Paul could say in chapter
five: “Therefore, since we have been justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now you will
notice how many times these verses from Romans have mentioned faith and
believing. And for Paul, this was the
key. The righteousness of God – his
saving action that gives us the status of being righteous before him – can be
received only by faith in Jesus Christ the crucified and risen Lord. It can only be received as a gift – as
something unearned and graciously given by God.
That’s the
explanation Paul gives in your text for why so many Jews were rejecting Christ,
even as Gentiles believed. He says, “Why? Because they did
not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled
over the stumbling stone, as it is written, ‘Behold, I am laying in
Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever
believes in him will not be put to shame.’”
Although
the Jews of the first century did not in any way ignore God’s grace, they also
had a positive view of their abilities to keep the Law – the Torah. An important part of the basis for their
confidence in salvation was that they had kept law.
Now
as good Lutherans that sounds hard to believe.
You have already been shaped by Paul’s argument earlier in chapter three
when Paul said that “all,
both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” You know that Paul went on to say, “For there is no
distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” You just confessed earlier that you are
“poor, miserable sinner.” And you are right.
Paul
says of the Jews in our text, “Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to
God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness
that they have a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and
seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's
righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone who believes.”
The
apostle gives credit to his fellow Jews that they do have a zeal for God. However, it is one that is misplaced because
it is oriented towards establishing their own standing before God. Again, it’s
not that they denied God’s grace, but instead they were focused on the role
that they had to play in achieving this righteous standing.
There
was a failure to recognize the very thing you know about your own life – that
such attempts must inevitably end in failure. But more importantly, there was a
rejection of the way God was giving
forgiveness – by faith in the crucified Christ. Quoting the prophet Isiah,
Paul writes, “They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is
written, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of
offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’”
Paul
says at the end of our text, “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of
God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's
righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone who believes.” Submitting to
God’s righteousness means receiving his forgiveness and salvation as a
gift. It means believing that God raised
Jesus from the dead, after he had died as the atoning sacrifice for our sin.
And because God has done this, the words of Isaiah are true for us: “whoever
believes in him will not be put to shame.”
In
our text, Paul genuinely credits the Jews of his day as having a zeal for
God. The problem was that it was not
according to knowledge – it was not directed in faith toward Christ. You have
this knowledge. What is more you have
been baptized into the saving death of the risen Lord. As Paul said earlier in
chapter six, “Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
But
for Paul this fact was not simply about the forgiveness of sins. Instead being in Christ – being linked to
Christ’s saving work in this way – creates a change in the way we live. He went on to say, “We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life.”
So
how is our zeal for God according to
knowledge? The Spirit who raised
Jesus Christ is at work in you so that you too can walk in newness of
life. And while Christ is the end of the
law – the end of the Torah or of any ideas about doing as the means of
salvation – that doesn’t mean we no longer know what this life looks like.
Paul
goes on to say later in chapter thirteen: “Owe no one anything, except to love
each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For
the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You
shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up
in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no
wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Zeal
for God according to knowledge is produced by what God has done for us in Jesus
Christ. It is produced by the work of
the Spirit in us. And it takes the form
of loving and serving our neighbor. It takes the form of forgiving. In chapter twelve, Paul provides a series of
brief statements that summarize and direct us towards what this looks
like. He says things like:
“Love one another with brotherly
affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. “
“Contribute to the needs of the saints
and seek to show hospitality.”
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with
those who weep. “
“Repay no one evil for evil, but give
thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
“If possible, so far as it depends on
you, live peaceably with all.”
This
is what zeal for God according to knowledge looks like. It is the life lived in Christ through the
work of the Spirit. It is our life because we have received the righteousness
of God – the saving work of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
by which we already now have the status of being saints in God’s eyes. Through
faith in Christ we are justified, and we now know that “whoever believes in him
will not be put to shame.
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