We Are Responsible for our Response to the Message of the Gospel...

Yesterday, we looked at a section of a letter in the Bible called the book of Romans that revealed that just as the Jewish people of Moses day and of the Old Testament had no excuse for missing God’s will and message, the Jewish people of Paul’s day had no excuse for missing God’s will and message. Paul’s point here was that Israel and the Jewish people were responsible because they trusted in what they did for God instead of trusting in God’s promise.

Now, Paul’s statements here provoked three specific questions and objections when it comes to the issue of the Jewish people’s responsibility. We see the first question and objection revealed for us in Romans 10:14-15. Let’s look at it together:

How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!"

Now, if this letter was being written in the language that we use in our culture today, this question would sound something like this: “Well how can the Jewish people be held responsible? I mean the Jewish people really never had the opportunity to believe? Who went and proclaimed God’s promises to them? Did God even send someone to proclaim God’s promises to them? How can God hold them responsible if they were never given the opportunity to believe the message of the gospel?” In verse 15, Paul affirms this potential objection as being a legitimate question by quoting from a section of a letter in our Bibles called the book of Isaiah.

In Isaiah 52:7, God announced to the Jewish people, who were in exile as a result of God’s judgment for their selfishness and rebellion, that there would be a future deliverance for the Jewish people from exile and back to Jerusalem. Paul applies this deliverance of the Jewish people from physical captivity to the deliverance from spiritual captivity that comes from the message of the gospel. After affirming that this question was a legitimate question, Paul provides an answer to this question in Romans 10:16-17:

However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, "LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Paul points the readers of this letter to another section of the book of Isaiah, this time Isaiah 53:1. Isaiah 53 is a section of the Bible that we often read from during the Easter season, as it predicts and proclaims that the Messiah would come, but would be rejected by the Jewish people and suffer and die. Then, in verse 17, Paul agrees that faith, or believing and entrusting one to the claims of Christ comes, from having the opportunity to hear the message of the gospel. And the Jewish people had the opportunity to believe the message of the gospel, because the message of the gospel; the promise of the Messiah, had been around for over 700 years.

And just as Isaiah had predicted the Jewish people did not heed and believe the good news of the Messiah; they did not place their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. And for that the Jewish people were responsible. They were responsible because they had an opportunity to believe. But that raises a second objection, which we see in Romans 10:18:

But I say, surely they have never heard, have they? Indeed they have; "THEIR VOICE HAS GONE OUT INTO ALL THE EARTH, AND THEIR WORDS TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD."

This objection, simply put was “You cannot hold the Jewish people responsible because they never had the opportunity to hear the message of the gospel. Paul responds to this objection in the form of a question by quoting a section of a letter in the Old Testament called the book of Psalms. In Psalm 19:4, the Psalmist declares God’s glory as revealed in the creation. And while one could argue that the Jewish people had heard because God had revealed Himself through the created world, I do not believe that was Paul’s point here. Paul here is using hyperbole to explain that just as God’s general revelation through His creation is proclaimed over all the earth, God’s special revelation, through the message of the gospel has been proclaimed over all the earth.

Now an almost immediate reaction and objection to this statement is “well that’s not true. The gospel has not been proclaimed in some parts of the world today, so how can Paul say that the gospel has been proclaimed across the world back then”. It is important to remember that Paul is speaking about the Jewish people of his day and their exposure to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel, not the entire world here. Paul’s point is that the Jewish people of Paul’s day had access and had heard God’s promises of a Messiah in the Old Testament and had heard the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel.

And the Jewish people were responsible because they had an opportunity to hear the message of the gospel. And in the same way today, as followers of Jesus, we have a responsibility to share the message of the gospel with those who are far from God, because the message of the gospel is the means God uses to reveal Himself and rescue humanity from selfishness and sin. And in the same way today, humanity is responsible because they have had an opportunity to hear the message of the gospel. But that raises a third objection, which we see in Romans 10:19:

But I say, surely Israel did not know, did they? First Moses says, "I WILL MAKE YOU JEALOUS BY THAT WHICH IS NOT A NATION, BY A NATION WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WILL I ANGER YOU." And Isaiah is very bold and says, "I WAS FOUND BY THOSE WHO DID NOT SEEK ME, I BECAME MANIFEST TO THOSE WHO DID NOT ASK FOR ME." But as for Israel He says, "ALL THE DAY LONG I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE."

This objection, if raised in the language we use in our culture today, would sound something like this: “You cannot hold the Jewish people responsible, because they did not know. The Jewish people were not able to wrap their minds around the gospel and its implications so as to understand it”. Paul responds to this objection by pointing the members of the church at Rome, and us here today to two different sections of the Old Testament to show that the Jewish people knew and understood. First, Paul points to Deuteronomy 32:21 to reveal that the Jewish people knew of God’s promises and could be held responsible for their rejection because of Moses.

Paul here is quoting a part of a song that Moses taught the Jewish people in order that they would remember the consequences that would come from rebellion and rejection of God. That song includes a word picture of God as the owner of a vineyard, removing the rebellious Jewish people and giving the vineyard to Gentiles. Paul uses this quote to reveal that God would hold them responsible for knowingly rejecting Him.

In verses 20-21, Paul points the members of the church at Rome to Isaiah 65:1-2 to reveal that the Jewish people knew of God’s promises and could be held responsible for their rejection because of Isaiah. God through the prophet Isaiah had predicted and proclaimed that the Gentiles, who were not looking for God or for Jesus and who had no knowledge of God’s promise of a Messiah, would respond to God’s promise through the gospel. However, the Jewish nation, who knew and understood God and His promises, responded to His pursuit of them by opposing and rebelling against Him. Paul’s point is that the Jewish people had a knowledge and understanding of God’s promises. Therefore the Jewish people were responsible. The Jewish people were responsible because they had an opportunity to know the message of the gospel and chose to reject that message.

And it is in this history lesson of the Jewish people that God provides for us a timeless truth that is necessary to embrace that provides clarity and enables us to balance the two truths of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. And that timeless truth is this: We are responsible for our response to the message of the gospel. Just like the Jewish people in Paul’s day, we are responsible for our response to the message of the gospel because we have had the opportunity to believe the message. We are responsible for our response to the message of the gospel because we have had the opportunity to hear the message. And we are responsible for our response to the message of the gospel because we have had the opportunity to know the message.

When we respond to the message of the gospel by trusting in what we do for God instead of trusting in what God has done for us through Jesus Christ, we are responsible for that choice that separates us from God. When we respond to the message of the gospel by ignoring, opposing and rejecting that message, we are responsible for that choice that separates us from God.

However, when we respond to the message of the gospel by placing our confident trust in that message by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader, we receive the forgiveness of our selfishness and sin and enter into the relationship with God that we were created for. Because we are responsible for our response to the message of the gospel.

So, how are you responding to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel?