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Sermon for the week of Trinity 11
2 Samuel 22:21-29 + Romans 10:4-18
In tonight’s first lesson, you heard King David saying a lot about his own righteousness. The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness. I have kept the ways of the LORD. I did not depart from His statutes. I was blameless before Him. Therefore the LORD has repaid me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in His eyes.
On the other hand, you heard Paul speaking very differently in the second lesson, about a righteousness that has nothing to do with our deeds, but that is given to us by faith in the Lord Jesus.
How do we reconcile these two apparently contradictory ways of speaking? We recognize that they’re not contradictory. They’re just talking about two different things, two different kinds of righteousness. There is one kind of righteousness that we receive by faith in Jesus Christ, the kind that allows us to stand before God forgiven and saved. And there’s another kind of righteousness toward which we strive, as believers, that our dealings with men may reflect the righteousness that is ours by faith. David speaks of one, Paul speaks of the other.
Let’s start with David. He composed the song you heard from 2 Samuel on the day when the LORD had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. Now, remember how David had behaved in all his dealings with Saul. Everything he did in Saul’s service was honorable and sincere, from the time he was first enlisted to play the harp for Saul’s troubled mind, to his volunteering to fight Goliath, to the many battles he fought against the Philistines in Saul’s army. As David’s popularity grew, so did Saul’s jealousy, to the point of madness. And yet, David was not guilty of any of the accusations Saul hurled at him. He had not sought to rob Saul of the people’s praises. He had not tried to kill Saul, or steal the kingdom away from him. On the contrary, on two separate occasions, while Saul was chasing David, hunting him down in order to kill him, David spared Saul’s life. David was not guilty of sedition or rebellion, not guilty of murder, not even guilty of speaking ill of Saul while Saul was trying to kill him. In all his dealings with Saul, and with his enemies, David was not guilty, blameless, not only in his own eyes, but in God’s eyes. In that context, David was righteous, and God rewarded him accordingly, delivering David from those who pursued him and causing him to prosper as king. In that context, God gave him what he deserved.
But in another context, God gave David what he most surely did not deserve: pardon, forgiveness, justification. As David wrote in Psalm 32, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. In the context of his standing before God, in the context of God’s holy law, David did what the tax collector did in Sunday’s Gospel: He confessed his sins and his unworthiness to receive anything good from God, and yet, trusting in God’s promise to be merciful, David sought the Lord’s pardon and received it. He sought, not his own righteousness, but the Lord’s righteousness, and he found it.
That’s the righteousness Paul is talking about in Romans 10. That’s the context, the context of the sinner’s standing before God, the question of how sinners can be justified before God and accepted into His favor in the first place.
Paul starts out in Romans 10 explaining why the Jews who rejected Jesus were not justified in God’s sight, because they refused to submit to God’s righteousness, to the righteousness that He gives to all who look to Him for His promised mercy for Christ’s sake. They were like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable that we heard on Sunday, who stands before God, holds up His law to Him, and says, “Look here, God! Look how righteous I am! Judge me by how righteous I’ve been according to the law!” No, that way doesn’t work, Paul says. They “have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes,” like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable who found righteousness, not in Himself, but in God; who found pardon, not by working off his own sins, but simply by looking to God for His promised mercy.
Paul goes on to explain: For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, “The man who does those things shall live by them.”That’s a quote from Leviticus. In order to be declared righteous before God on the basis of the law, a man has to actually do the things the law requires. All of them. Flawless obedience to all the commandments, from the heart, all the time. If a person could do that, then he could hold up God’s law to Him and rightly say, “See? I’ve done everything You commanded. I’ve kept my end up the bargain. Now You keep Yours and declare me righteous according to the Law!” But no man, no one descended from sinful Adam and Eve, can make such a claim. If we appeal to the Law, if we appeal to our works, we will never be justified.
Now, before we consider Paul’s next words, we need to know where he’s quoting from. He adds another quote from Moses, from the end of Deuteronomy, where Moses summarizes the Law and the commandments that God had given to Israel. For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply. That’s how the Law speaks. It lays out the things God forbids, and the things He commands, and it says, “You don’t have to go searching for what you must do. God has spelled it all out for you. Now do it, keep the Law, and you will live!” That’s the righteousness of the Law—which no one has ever achieved.
But the Gospel speaks differently than the Law did. The Gospel says, “You don’t have to go searching for what you must do. God has spelled it all out for you: Believe in what God has done and promises to do for you!” So Paul takes Moses’ own words about the “simplicity” of law-righteousness and re-explains them in the context of faith-righteousness. But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Believing in the Lord Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead to be your Savior—that’s what leads to righteousness, what leads to justification. The “confessing Him with your mouth” part goes hand in hand with the “believing in your heart” part. It isn’t a “second thing you have to do” to be saved, in addition to believing. Again, it’s like the tax collector who went to the temple. He didn’t just sit at home believing God would be merciful to Him if he sought God’s mercy in the temple. No, since he believed, He actually went to the temple and sought it. Or, it’s like the ten lepers who believed that Jesus would have mercy on them if they asked Him for it. They believed, and so they went to Him and asked.
So it is with us. For example, if the Gospel convinces you that God truly offers the forgiveness of sins, for Christ’s sake, through Holy Baptism, then you will go to be baptized. That’s your “confession.” And, having been baptized, if you continue to believe, then you’ll continue to go to the ministry Christ has established and confess both your sins and your faith in Christ for forgiveness on a regular basis, to call upon Him continually. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
In the rest of these verses from Romans 10, Paul walks through the steps that lead up to a person being able to “call on the name of the Lord” in order to be saved. It starts with the sending of a minister to preach the Gospel of Christ. The sending produces preaching. The preaching produces believing hearts. And believing hearts lead to believers calling upon the name of the Lord for the salvation He promises through Christ. Not that everyone who hears believes. Most of the Jews didn’t. Most Gentiles don’t, either. But the only way for a person to believe is to hear, so that the powerful Holy Spirit may work through what is preached to turn unbelievers into believers.
And then, as believers are justified—declared righteous—by faith, we are immediately guided to that other kind of righteousness, the kind that David showed in his interactions with Saul. We’re instructed to be honorable men and women, to do good in the world and not evil, to speak true and kind words, without deceit and without malice. This kind of righteousness will not be perfect in this life, but it must have a beginning, and a continual growth.
But even after pursuing such righteous, saintly lives in the world, we dare not approach God to boast about how well we’ve done. No, we’ll approach Him, instead, as the tax collector approached Him, in humility, seeking His promised pardon for Christ’s sake. And, as David approached Him, with glory and praise to Him alone for doing such good works in us and through us, and for granting us the promised rewards, in this life, and in the next. Amen.
