Romans 10:5-17
We believe in a God who speaks. He is not a God who invites us to draw near to him through ecstatic experiences or feelings of enlightenment. We do not know God through emotions or mysticism.
Rather, it is God who first draws near to us, by speaking to us. And he wants us to listen to what he says, and to believe what we have listened to.
At certain times in ancient history, God did, in an extraordinary way, speak to people directly. Last week we recalled the time when God spoke directly to Cain, instructing and warning him.
On a few occasions during the earthly ministry of Jesus, the voice of God the Father rang out directly from heaven, such as at the baptism of Jesus, and at his transfiguration. So, this did happen.
But this does not usually happen. God’s ordinary way of speaking to people, is by means of speaking through people.
In the Old Testament era in particular, God spoke through specific men whom he raised up as his prophets. Through their preaching, God warned his people of the consequences of their sins.
He offered to forgive them if they repented and turned away from their transgressions. He instructed them in his ways.
To be sure, God’s words, even when they came to people through a human voice, still had great power: the power to crush and to heal, to kill and to make alive. When God was probing a man’s conscience through the divine words that a prophet was speaking to him, that man knew that this was God speaking, God warning, God judging, God condemning – and God calling him to repentance.
And also, when God, through the mouth of a prophet, spoke a word of pardon and reconciliation, a humble and penitent man would be able to know that this, too, was the voice of the Lord.
A very vivid example of this involved the prophet Nathan and King David. The Lord sent Nathan to rebuke David for his betrayal and murder of Uriah, and for his adultery with Uriah’s wife. The stern judgment that God spoke to David through the words of Nathan brought a deep conviction to the king’s heart.
David also knew that he deserved death for his sins – since his sins were also capital crimes according to the Mosaic Law. We pick up the account there, from the Second Book of Samuel:
“So David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.’”
This was a very personal absolution, spoken to a very remorseful sinner. It was not an absolution, or an announcement of forgiveness, that came from Nathan. It was an absolution that came from God, through Nathan.
In the New Testament era, the God who had spoken through his prophets in earlier times, still spoke through people to other people. Jesus was a unique example of this.
Jesus was, of course, God in his own person, yet clothed in human flesh. Still, his words were always God’s words, since he was always God.
But during the time of his earthly ministry, when Jesus had assumed the form of a servant, his divine preaching did not flow directly from his glorious divine nature. His preaching was mediated through his approachable human nature.
Jesus’ sermons did not come across like booming messages from God the Father, reverberating through the heavens. They came across like the sermons of a humble rabbi: because, according to his humanity, and in his state of humiliation, that’s exactly what Jesus was.
But again, because his words were God’s words in every sense, they were powerful words. Jesus’ message got into people, and changed people. On an occasion that was reported in John’s Gospel, when many of the superficial hangers-on of Jesus had abandoned him, Jesus asked his apostles:
“Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
And speaking of the apostles: They, like the prophets of the Old Testament, were also especially chosen to be mouthpieces of God’s revelation. Jesus gave them a special guarantee regarding the accuracy of what they would proclaim, when he told them that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
They were eyewitnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus, and in particular to the resurrection of Jesus. For the church and for the world, they bore witness of what they had seen and heard.
The words of Jesus lived in their words, as they recounted what they had heard. And through their recounting, those who heard them heard Jesus.
Paul was an unusual apostle, not among the original twelve, but he was also chosen and sent by Jesus, and in an extraordinary manner was instructed by Jesus, to be his special envoy to the gentile world. And Paul said, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches.”
So, we believe in a God who speaks. And that means that we listen to what he says, when he does in fact speak to us.
The prophets and apostles, through whom God spoke in the past, are no longer with us today. But what they spoke – what God spoke through them – is still with us, preserved for us in permanent, written form.
Indeed, the written Scriptures are themselves a means chosen by God through which he continues to speak. St. Paul wrote to Timothy that the Holy Scriptures are able to make one wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. And this is because
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
God’s special revelation of doctrine binding on the conscience did come to an end with the coming of Christ – to whom the apostles bore witness – since the life, death, and resurrection of Christ was the fulfillment and culmination of his Father’s saving plan for the redemption of the world. We read in the opening lines of the Epistle to the Hebrews:
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.”
What remains now is for the apostolic message of this completed redemption to be announced and declared to all people all over the globe: so that they can hear what God is saying to them, and so that they can believe what they hear for their eternal salvation.
Again, St. Paul writes in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians that
“God…has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”
God’s authoritative revelation of these truths has been completed. But, while God is no longer speaking new truth, he is still speaking. Through men whom he calls and sends still today, God himself still announces, and applies, the unchanging and ever vibrant old truth of what St. Jude describes as “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
And so this is where the things that St. Paul writes, in today’s lesson from his Epistle to the Romans, come in. Paul quotes from the Prophet Joel: “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And then he continues:
“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!’”
We do not have prophets and apostles today, but we do have preachers and teachers, in the tradition of the prophets and apostles, who repeat for the people of our time the doctrine that they taught, and who proclaim – in God’s name – God’s words, God’s truth, God’s warnings, and God’s promises.
God sends them to us, as he, through his church, calls them to be his ambassadors and spokesmen among us. God speaks to us through them.
And it is through that speaking of an established divine message that you and I are enabled to respond to God by calling upon him in faith – so that we, too, can claim for ourselves the promise of Joel and of Paul: “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
As Paul also says in today’s text: “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
This is the reason why people come to church. When God’s people gather around the public ministry of Christ, it is so that they can hear Christ.
Public worship is the primary place where God speaks to us. First, he speaks to us through the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. When the appointed lessons for the day are read, you need to know that God is speaking. And he is speaking to you.
This is not merely someone’s opinion, with which you have the right to disagree. Instead, God’s Spirit is probing, testing, and correcting your opinions.
Your Lord is calling you to account before him. He is also calming your troubled mind, and healing your wounded soul.
He is shining a light on the pathway of your life, showing you the way to go. He is transforming your mind, reshaping your attitudes, revising your priorities, and refocusing your values.
In special sacramental ways, God also speaks to us through the apostolic Scriptures, as the pertinent texts of Scripture are recited over the earthly elements that Jesus designated for Holy Baptism and for the Holy Supper of his body and blood.
When the pastor says in baptism, according to Jesus’ command, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” it is not really the pastor who is saying this. God is saying this, through the pastor. We confess in the Large Catechism that
“To be baptized in God’s name is to be baptized not by human beings but by God himself. Although it is performed by human hands, it is nevertheless truly God’s own act.”
In Baptism – which is constituted by the spoken words of baptism – God the Father is adopting the person being baptized into his heavenly family. He is forgiving his sins through the death and resurrection of his Son. And he is filling him with a new spiritual life through the regenerating work of his Spirit.
The Trinitarian name, as God speaks it upon us, gives us a Trinitarian salvation. And whenever the words of baptism are devoutly recalled and reverently re-spoken, all these blessings are renewed, because God is speaking once again.
God, in the person of his incarnate Son, is also the one who is speaking in the consecration of the Lord’s Supper. We confess in the Formula of Concord that
“the true and almighty words of Jesus Christ, which he spoke in the first institution of the Supper, were not only effective in the first Supper; they remain so. … For wherever what Christ instituted is observed and his words are spoken over the bread and cup, and wherever the consecrated bread and cup are distributed, Christ himself exercises his power through the spoken words, which are still his Word…”
When God speaks – and in this case, when God’s Son speaks – we need to listen. What Jesus says is so, is so. What Jesus tells us he is giving us, he is giving us.
And the blessing that Jesus says is attached to his gift, is attached to his gift. So, a communicant who has examined himself, and admits his need for forgiveness, receives forgiveness – because that’s what Jesus says.
Indeed, one of the earmarks of a proper Lutheran worship service, is that God’s Word permeates everything. God is speaking through the prayers that we say, the canticles that we chant, and the hymns that we sing.
And if the sermon is sound, and correctly unfolds and applies the text of Holy Scripture, then we can know that God is speaking to us through the sermon, too: admonishing us, instructing us, forgiving us, encouraging us.
Those who say that they believe in God, but who also say that they don’t need to go to church in order to have a relationship with God, are basically admitting that the God in whom they believe is not the God who speaks.
Perhaps they think that the God in whom they believe somehow oozes spirituality and morality into them through hunting or fishing, sports or leisure, staying in bed or going out to play. But such a God is only an idol.
In his First Epistle to the Corinthians Paul actually writes about gods who do not speak. He reminds the Corinthians of the time before their conversion: “You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.”
Those who believe in dumb idols today need to hear what the true God wants to tell them, through a pastor who preaches his Word, and through a congregation that sings his Word. They need to be here, in church.
If the reason they are not here, is because no one ever invited them, or introduced them to the God who speaks – by speaking God’s basic message of law and gospel to them – then that is a problem you can solve.
God can speak through you to your spiritually impoverished friends. And through you, God can draw them to where even more of his words will be heard.
Many, however, who should know better, stay away from church for other reasons. Maybe it is because they are too lazy, or too proud, or too afraid, to go to the place where the God who speaks, will speak to them.
Maybe they don’t want to hear what they know God will say to them about pet sins that they don’t want to give up. But they need to hear it.
Maybe they don’t know that God has a message of pardon and peace for them, which will liberate them from their guilt or their despair. But they need to know it.
Pray for the people you know who are in a situation like this, who are enshrouded in this kind of darkness, and who are enmeshed in this kind of confusion. And when God gives you an opening with them, to speak for him, do so, because God will be speaking through you.
The God who speaks does truly speak to you, here in this place. When you need to be jarred into an awareness of how your sins are offending God, and hurting you and others, God will speak to you about that. He will call you to repentance. And you will listen.
When you are troubled or spiritually afflicted, doubting or afraid, God will speak to you about that. He will speak powerful and comforting words of faith and hope to you. And you will listen.
And when you admit your many failures, and regret your many missteps, God will speak to you about that – and in response to that. He will speak powerful and cleansing words of forgiveness and restoration to you. And you will listen.
God speaks, and we listen. We listen, and we believe. We believe, and we live. Amen.