Faith-Righteousness

¹My beloved brothers and sisters, the passionate desire of my heart and constant prayer to God is for my fellow Israelites to experience salvation.

²For I know that although they are deeply devoted to God, they are unenlightened.

³And since they’ve ignored the righteousness God gives, wanting instead to be acceptable to God because of their own works, they’ve refused to submit to God’s faith-righteousness.

⁴For Christ is the end of the law. And because of him, God has transferred his perfect righteousness to all who believe.[#10:4 Or “Christ is the goal of the law.”]

⁵Moses wrote long ago about the need to obey every part of the law in order to be declared right with God:

⁶But we receive the faith-righteousness that speaks an entirely different message:

⁸But the faith-righteousness we receive speaks to us in these words of Moses:

⁹And what is God’s “living message”? It is the revelation of faith for salvation, which is the message that we preach. For if you publicly declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will experience salvation.[#10:9 Or “word of faith.”]

¹⁰The heart that believes in him receives the gift of the righteousness of God—and then the mouth confesses, resulting in salvation.

¹¹For the Scriptures encourage us with these words:

“Everyone who believes in him will never be disappointed.”

Good News for All People

¹²So then faith eliminates the distinction between Jew and non-Jew, for he is the same Lord for all people. And he has enough treasures to lavish generously upon all who call on him.

¹³And it’s true:

“Everyone who calls on the Lord’s name

will experience new life.”

¹⁴But how can people call on him for help if they’ve not yet believed? And how can they believe in one they’ve not yet heard of? And how can they hear the message of life if there is no one there to proclaim it?

¹⁵And how can the message be proclaimed if messengers have yet to be sent? That’s why the Scriptures say:

How welcome is the arrival

of those proclaiming the joyful news of peace

and of good things to come!

¹⁶But not everyone welcomes the good news, as Isaiah said:[#10:16 Or “obeys.”]

Lord, is there anyone who hears

and believes our message?

¹⁷Faith, then, is birthed in a heart that responds to God’s anointed utterance of the Anointed One.

¹⁸Can it be that Israel hasn’t heard the message? No, they have heard it, for:

The voice has been heard throughout the world,

and its message has gone to the ends of the earth!

¹⁹So again I ask, didn’t Israel already understand that God’s message was for others as well as for themselves? Yes, they certainly did understand , for Moses was the first to state it:[#10:19 Paul is confirming that God’s plan from the beginning was to give the message of salvation to all the nations.; #10:19 Or “First Moses . . . then Isaiah (v. 20) confirms it.”]

“I will make you jealous of a people who are ‘nobodies.’

And I will use people with no understanding

to provoke you to anger.”

²⁰And Isaiah the fearless prophet dared to declare:

“Those who found me weren’t even seeking me.

I manifested myself before those

who weren’t even asking to know me!”

²¹Yet regarding Israel Isaiah says:

“With love I have held out my hands day after day,

offering myself to this unbelieving

and stubborn people!”