Romans 10:5-13

The Gift We Could Never Earn

The heart of the Gospel message is found in these powerful words from Paul:

“If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

And again:

“Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.”
 (Romans 10:9, 13)

We cannot boast about something we had no part in accomplishing. Salvation is not earned through good works; rather, it is humbly received through faith. We can take no credit for what has been freely given to us.

Perhaps that is the rub. We want to feel as though we have earned our standing with God through our good works, but consider what Isaiah says:

“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”
(Isaiah 64:6 NLT)

And Isaiah would know! He was the very prophet who was given a vision of God's throne, and his response upon seeing the Lord was telling:

“Then I said, ‘It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.’”
(Isaiah 6:5 NLT)

Mind you, Isaiah was a good man by human standards, yet even he recognized that his own righteousness fell woefully short of God's glorious standard. In the presence of absolute holiness, there was no room for boasting—only humility and an acknowledgment of his desperate need for God's mercy.

That is precisely what the Gospel reveals to us.

The Gospel message is God extending His hand to us through Jesus Christ. Yet we must accept His help. We must reach out in faith and take hold of the salvation He offers.

Think about it. If you were falling into an abyss and someone extended their hand to rescue you, would you not grab it?

I think the difficulty for many is that they don't recognize they are falling into an abyss called hell without His intervention. They don't see the danger, and therefore, they don't recognize their need for a Savior.

Faith believes what is not yet evident to our natural senses. Scripture tells us that God has allotted a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). Consider how many people believe in heaven, even though they have never seen it. Yet have they seriously considered how they expect to get there?

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that our entrance into heaven is not based upon our merit, but upon Christ's.

As Paul stated in Ephesians 2:8–9:

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

This particular Scripture holds a special place in my heart because it was instrumental in my own salvation. I will forever be grateful to the one who shared it with me.

I was asked a simple question: “If you were to die, do you think you would go to heaven?”

My response was that I believed I would because I was a good person.

He then shared Ephesians 2:8–9 with me, and suddenly I realized that my confidence was misplaced. I had been trusting in my own goodness rather than in what Jesus had done for me. I had no standing before God based on my own merit.

That was a sobering realization, to say the least. But it was also the beginning of understanding the incredible gift God was offering me.

Solomon makes an interesting observation in Ecclesiastes 10:13:

“Fools base their thoughts on foolish assumptions, so their conclusions will be wicked madness.”

How often do we base our beliefs on assumptions rather than the truth of God's Word? We believe a lot of things and sometimes even attribute those beliefs to the Bible. Yet when confronted with what Scripture actually says, we have a choice to make:

Will we adjust our thinking to align with God's truth, or will we stubbornly cling to our assumptions and remain willfully deceived?

As Solomon so aptly stated:

“Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what he has made crooked?”
(Ecclesiastes 7:13 NLT)

We cannot argue with our Creator and expect to have the final say. He is God, and we are not. His Word establishes the standard, and we must be willing to bend both our knee and our heart to Him.

And that brings us right back to the beautiful simplicity of Paul's message in Romans 10.

God has not made salvation an impossible achievement reserved for those who can somehow measure up to His perfect standard. He has made it available to everyone who will place their faith in His Son.

It doesn't matter whether you are Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, or whether your past is marked by good intentions or terrible mistakes. The invitation is the same: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

What an incredible promise!

The question is not whether we have done enough to deserve heaven. None of us has. The question is whether we have humbled ourselves enough to acknowledge our need for the Savior and receive the gift He has so graciously provided.

After all, salvation is not about what we have done for God, but what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

And for that, we have every reason to be eternally grateful!