Read: Romans 10:5-13 - STEP Bible, Bible Gateway
The reason for St Paul’s reputation as someone who knew the Old Testament inside out becomes startlingly clear in this passage. In vv. 5-8 he quotes from Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 30. Both passages in their original contexts were intended to encourage their readers that keeping the Law wasn’t too onerous a task (in its original setting, the impossibility of ascending into heaven and descending to the abyss was set up as a contrast with the easiness of keeping the Law). But here Paul asserts that righteousness is not an onerous task purely because righteousness isn’t really about your or my keeping the Law, but rather about Christ keeping the Law. To be righteous – to be saved – all we have to do is recognize that Christ is the Lord and believe in his death and resurrection as the fulfilment of all righteousness.
If that’s the case, then in order to be held righteous by God, what we have to do is confess through our words and our lives that Jesus Christ is the righteous one, the true Israelite who fulfils the Law in ways the rest of us – Jew or Gentile – never could. St Paul zeroes in on the importance of confession of faith here: that we say and demonstrate in our lives that Jesus is Lord and that he is the righteous one of God is the sole requirement for our salvation. It’s therefore critically important for us, this Lent, to ask ourselves: how can I confess that Christ is my Lord the better? How can I live, and what can I say, so that I confess the lordship of Christ better?
These devotions were originally written for the parish of All Saints, Ascot and we are grateful for permission to republish them on Fulcrum.
Patrick is curate of All Saints’, Ascot in Berkshire. A musicologist by training, he is married to Lydia, a university lecturer, and dad to Madeleine. He writes (sporadically) at benedixisti.wordpress.com and tweets (even more sporadically) as @patrickgilday.