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):  (9) 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.  (10) For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  (11) For the Scripture says “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”  (12) For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call on Him.  (13) For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul.  In our verses today Paul expresses his great love for the Jews and his best wish for them is their salvation. The foundational doctrine here is the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ. Israel rejected Christ;  rejected the gospel of grace and justification by faith. They thought they could earn salvation by works/keeping the law. Paul writes elsewhere in Romans that if one is to come to God by his/her own works, one has to be perfect – there is no one who is perfect;  the Law proves all are guilty and all need to be saved.

When preaching the gospel to the Jews, Paul used the Old Testament Scriptures to show that all history pointed to Christ.  Jesus, true God and true man, entered time and space and became sin; He bore our guilt for us.  This acceptable sacrifice provided righteousness for us as a free gift of grace in faith. The righteousness of Christ is not attained by works but only received by faith.  This good news applies equally  to gentiles and Jews – both the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ and the inclusion of the gentiles also proved/proves to be a stumbling block to the Jews.

Only God is inherently righteous – man falls far short.  But the gospel reveals that on the basis of faith and faith alone in Christ, God will impute His righteousness to man.  Man can never earn salvation through works.  This doctrine was the basis for the reformation.  Man is not sovereign – to believe in Christ means to stop believing in self.