For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Romans 10:10 (Romans 9-12)
The Jews were zealous for The Law, but not the Messiah that actually came to fulfill it. They rejected Jesus at every point and were bitterly antagonistic toward all who delivered the Good News. This broke Paul’s heart to the point he would have given his own soul to change his nation’s behavior. As he writes to the Messianic Jews and Gentile converts in Rome, he addresses, works versus faith and God’s sovereign authority contrasted with man’s free will and righteousness of the heart.
In Chapters 9-11 two theologies collide. God is absolute and has complete control over His creation. It is His right to allow and disallow at His pleasure. However, man was created with free will and God does not restrict or interfere with this gift. Both doctrines are plainly taught and so, we must except we will not clearly understand until there comes a time of complete clarity we do not have today. Paul speaks of seeing in a glass darkly. In other words, as we look through a window into darkness, we see a back lit past of a world going on around us, and a mirror reflects an exact moment, but neither gives answer to the future. Forward we step in faith, knowing God is already there, for He is not bound by our limitations of time.
And just when it seems we will never understand…… BAM! Paul hits us with chapter 12! His words echo Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and ends the theological discussion by setting forth the manner of Christian Life. All we can and will do, depends on the Mercy of Christ and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
It comes down to humility of heart. We must become less so others can be more, as we are nothing but what God designed us to be, A Reflection of Himself to a dark and lost world.
Love,
Gretchen