Paul continues his list of things that are needed for communication of the gospel for those who are God's elect. Dr. Sproul asks the question did God send His Son only to make possible or certain the salvation of His chosen? The benefits of the gospel may be proclaimed to all but only offered to those who believe.

We will continue with our study of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. We are in the tenth chapter. I will begin with verse 16 and read through the end of the chapter, so we will read Romans 10:16–21. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed:

“Their sound has gone out to all the earth,
And their words to the ends of the world.”

But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says:

“I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation,
I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.”

But Isaiah is very bold and says:

“I was found by those who did not seek Me;
I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.”

But to Israel he says:

“All day long I have stretched out My hands
To a disobedient and contrary people.”

The infallible, inspired, and inerrant Word of God. Please be seated. Let us pray.

O Lord, we have heard faith comes by hearing and hearing by Your Word. We have just heard that Word, and yet we do not always believe the Word we hear that comes to us from You. Lord, open our hearts tonight, that as we consider this portion of Your Word, we would receive it with faith and trust in it. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Necessary Preaching

Throughout Romans 9 and 10, we have seen Paul’s great concern for his kinsmen according to the flesh, Israel. He has already made notice of the prophecy of Hosea of the Old Testament. God declared to His own people that they were no longer His people, and those who were not His people would become His people. Then the Apostle talked about the distribution of the gospel beyond the borders of Israel and into the domain of the Gentiles, such that all who call upon the name of the Lord, be it Jew or Gentile, will be saved.

Last time, we looked at the series of rhetorical questions the Apostle raised. How can they believe in one of whom they have not heard? How can they hear unless somebody preaches it? How can they proclaim it unless they are sent? He concluded with a reference to the Old Testament prophet:

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things! (Rom. 10:15)

It was at that point that we left off.

In verse 16 Paul, says, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel.” The gospel is proclaimed widely, not only to Israel but even to the gentile nations. The point the Apostle makes in this text is that not everyone who hears the gospel obeys the gospel—that is, not everyone who hears the gospel submits to the gospel or embraces the gospel.

One of the things that Paul established at the very beginning of this epistle was that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. We are told that God has chosen the foolishness of preaching as His method to save the world.

As we considered the doctrines of election and predestination, we saw that God ordains from all eternity not only the ends or the destinies of people and nations, but He also decrees from all eternity, according to His sovereignty, the means to those ends. We have considered that the primary means God uses to awaken faith in the hearts of the elect is the preaching of the gospel. It is through the Word, especially through the preaching of the Word, that faith comes.

We have previously distinguished between a necessary condition and a sufficient condition. My favorite illustration of that distinction is this: If you want to build a fire, a necessary condition for that fire to ignite is the presence of oxygen. If you remove all the oxygen, the flame goes out, so oxygen is a necessary condition for the fire. Without it you cannot have the fire. But thanks be to God that oxygen is not a sufficient condition for a fire. If that were the case, every time we draw in a breath of air we would set our lungs on fire.

A sufficient condition is a condition that, if it is present, is all that is necessary for the effect to take place. What the Apostle is saying here is that the preaching of the Word is a necessary condition for faith, but it is not a sufficient condition. You cannot have faith without it, but you can have unbelief even with it.

The Word to All Nations

The Apostle says: “They have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’” At that point, the prophet Isaiah is uttering a lament. To be sure, there was a remnant who believed the report about the suffering servant of Israel. But Isaiah knew, as every prophet knew well, that the Word of God was proclaimed over and over again. The report of His gospel was announced. But the question the prophet raises is: Is there anybody who believes it? Is there anyone who puts his trust in the Word of God?

“So then,” the Apostle says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Then he goes on:

But I say, have they not heard? Yes indeed:

“Their sound has gone out to all the earth,
And their words to the ends of the world.”

God had published His gospel throughout the borders of Israel and beyond the borders of Israel into the gentile community. Paul says:

But I say, did Israel not know? First Moses says:

“I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are not a nation,
I will move you to anger by a foolish nation.”

Why should it surprise anyone that now the gospel is being proclaimed to the gentiles? This was not a last-minute switch in plans by God. He had told the people of Israel: “I’m going to make you jealous because I’m going to take the blessings and benefits that I’ve given to you across the border. I’m taking them to all nations.” Paul has view here, in the first instance, the universal proclamation of the gospel. As Paul just said earlier in this chapter, all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Limited Atonement

Whenever we consider the doctrine of election, one of the objections raised again and again is this: If God from all eternity has decreed only to save a certain number of peoples known only to Himself, is there not something dishonest about preaching to people universally and offering salvation to all, when in fact God never intended to save all people? What about the universal offer of the gospel?

This touches heavily on the controversy surrounding the doctrine of limited atonement, or what we often refer to as definite or particular redemption. The doctrine of limited atonement teaches simply that the atonement of Jesus was not designed by God from all eternity to make salvation possible to all men, despite the Apostle saying, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Certainly, it sounds like Paul is making that offer of Christ to anyone who believes, and therefore it is a universal offer. If it is a genuine universal offer, then how can we talk about the atonement being limited to certain people?

I think we all understand that the benefits of the atonement are limited only to those who believe. We are not universalists. The New Testament does not teach that Jesus automatically saves everyone in the world. The condition is set forth that to receive the benefits of the cross, one must put his trust in Christ. In the very least, we have to say that the atonement is limited to believers. Jesus does not die for everyone indiscriminately; He dies for believers.

Then we ask the question, Who are the believers? Paul answers that question for us, telling us that the believers are the elect. All believers who believe are numbered among the elect. All who are numbered among the elect will surely be brought to faith. The issue of limited atonement ultimately goes back to God’s purpose in eternity, in the covenant of redemption, where the Father covenants with the Son and the Holy Spirit to bring about God’s plan of salvation.

Did God from all eternity propose to send His Son into the world to die on the cross just to hope that someone would take advantage of that? Did He not know from all eternity every person’s name who would embrace Jesus, as well as those who would not? Did He send His Son to die to make salvation possible? Or did He send His Son to die to make salvation certain?

The doctrine of limited atonement says that God knew what He was doing from all eternity. He constructed a plan of salvation, and in perfect agreement with the Father, the Son came into the world to die for those whom the Father gave Him. He knew that those whom the Father gave Him would come to Him and that His atonement would not be an exercise in futility or simply an exercise in hypothetical possibility that perchance someone might be saved. The Son knew from all eternity that there would be people saved as a result of His sacrifice. The Holy Spirit knew from eternity all those to whom He would apply that work of the Son for salvation.

A Universal Proclamation

What do we mean when we speak about the universal offer? You may be familiar with some of the language of evangelism in our day. The most famous comes in The Four Spiritual Laws where you say to someone, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” How does that sound for honest evangelism? What if you are talking to Judas? “God loves you, Judas, and has a wonderful plan for you. Your destination is eternity in hell.” That is not a wonderful plan.

The Bible tells us that there is a certain sense, as I have told you before, that God loves everyone indiscriminately in terms of His love of benevolence and His love of beneficence. But the love He gives to those who are redeemed—the love for those united to His Son, which is the love of complacency—is limited only to believers. The Bible does say that God abhors the wicked, but some modern evangelists go and tell everyone indiscriminately that God loves them, and He even loves them unconditionally. Then, they call that the universal offer of the gospel. But that is not what the universal offer of the gospel is.

The universal offer of the gospel is that we are to proclaim to every living creature the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do not know who is numbered among the elect. That is up to God. I can tell you that you cannot know you are not elect until you die. You can know that right now you are not a believer, and you may conclude that since you are not a believer now, you must not be numbered among the elect. But you may not come to faith until your last breath, just like the thief on the cross. He was numbered among the elect, but he did not know it until his dying breath.

We are called, as the Apostle tells us here in Romans 10, to go to the corners of the earth and preach the gospel. In that sense, there is to be at least a universal proclamation of the gospel. If what we mean by “universal offer” is a universal proclamation, then I have no problem with the term universal offer. I will come back to that in a few minutes.

The Holy Catholic Church

Every time we say the Apostles’ Creed, we say that we believe in the “holy catholic church.” Early in church history, the great creed said that the church is one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic. The four marks of the church historically are its unity, sanctity, catholicity, and Apostolicity.

Take away its Apostolicity; you do not have the church. Take away its sanctity by the Holy Spirit; you do not have the church. Take away its unity with Christ; you do not have the church. Take away the catholicity; you do not have the church. We are just one infinitesimal fragment of the church of Jesus Christ meeting together now. There are churches all over the city of Orlando that are part of the body of Christ. There are churches all over the United States of America that are part of the body of Christ.

But the church goes beyond the borders of the United States. The church is in Hungary. The church is in Ukraine. The church is in Malawi. The church is in Peru. The church is in Iran. The church is in every nation of the world. This voice has gone out to all the world. It was not limited to Israel. It was not limited to the Mediterranean world. The voice of the gospel has gone to every corner of the planet, and there are people from every tongue, tribe, and nation right now incorporated into the church of Jesus Christ.

That is what we mean when we say the church is catholic. It is not limited to one denomination or to one nation, be it Israel or America. The church is everywhere because God has reserved for His Son people from every corner of the world. I think that is a wonderful thing.

Found by God

Back to this business about the universal offer of the gospel. Let us get technical for a second. To whom is the gospel offered? Is it offered to everyone indiscriminately, no strings attached? Is it an unconditional offer to every human being? The good news is only offered to those who believe. If you are not willing to put your faith in Christ, then the gospel is not offered to you. It is proclaimed universally, but the benefits of the gospel are only offered to those who believe, who hear the Word and are brought to faith in and through the Word.

“But Isaiah,” Paul says in verse 20, “is very bold.” Isaiah said:

I was found by those who did not seek Me;
I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.

This business about structuring worship for seekers, for unbelievers, was a major topic of discussion that we had recently at our national pastors’ conference. The overwhelming majority of churches in the United States, particularly evangelical churches, have embraced the new strategy, the new method of church growth based around constructing worship for seekers.

I have labored the point to you, so you may be tired of hearing it, regarding the Bible’s teaching that, outside of regeneration, no person in his natural state seeks after God. If you want to structure your worship for seekers, then you structure your worship for believers, because the seeking of the kingdom of God, which is the main business of the Christian life, does not start until you are converted. People who are not Christians are desperately trying to find the benefits that only Christ can give them, but all the while fleeing from Jesus.

Paul, quoting the Old Testament from Isaiah, says, “I was found by those who did not seek Me . . .” Have you found God? Did you find the Lord after a rigorous pursuit of Him in your pagan experience? Is that what Paul was looking for on the road to Damascus when the bright light knocked him from his horse? Did he say, “You’re just what I was looking for, Jesus”? No, he was looking for Christians so that he could take them, throw them into prison, and kill them.

I will never forget my own conversion. The last thing in the world I was seeking was Jesus, until He found me. Once He found me, then I wanted to know everything I could find out about Him. What made me want to go to church was to learn more. This past week at the conference, I heard some of the best preaching I have heard in my life, and one of them was from a text that we have not come to yet in Romans. I cannot wait to get to that text so I can steal everything I heard from one of the other speakers.

The Need for Biblical Preaching

I got a request recently that touched me deeply. A church that I consider a sister church of ours is currently without a pastor. They are suffering from serious financial shortfalls. They are struggling. They have had to lay off staff. The session of that church met, and they sent a call to me and said: “R.C., is there any way you could come and preach for us? People are downcast. They’re discouraged. Would you come and help us?”

They asked me if I would come and preach. What could I say? There was only one possible answer: “Of course I will come and preach.” They are sending me a letter of what they want me to speak about, what their needs are, and so on. But all I have been thinking about for the past several days is, if in the providence of God I go to that church and can bring any word of encouragement to the people there, what will I want that word of encouragement to be? They do not have a pastor. They are looking for a senior minister. What do they need in a senior minister? I know what they need, and I am going to encourage them to acquire what they need.

I have been out of touch with the life of that church for the last several years, so I do not know what is going on in the congregation or in the center of the church. I do not need to know the answer to that question to know what their most important need is, because it is the same need of any Christian church in the world: the need for biblical preaching.

I do not care what else you have. You can have the best young people’s program, the best singles program, and the best counseling program, but if you do not have biblical preaching, you have nothing. If you do have biblical preaching, there are other things that are desirable, but that is all you need.

Preach the Word

I had the need for biblical preaching reinforced to me at our conference by other men in the ministry. One man preached on Paul’s final admonition to Timothy. Paul was writing from the Mamertine Prison, which was a piece of rock hewn out of the ground that had been used in Rome as a cistern to hold water. You had to go down the stairs, and it was about fifteen by fifteen. It was a space carved out of solid rock about seven feet high, and there, Paul, awaiting execution, in the darkness where it was cold and wet, wrote his last epistle to his beloved Timothy.

Paul asked Timothy to come before winter. He asked Timothy to bring his parchments and bring his coat. If you have ever been in the Mamertine Prison, you know why Paul asked for his cloak. Here was Paul, writing his last message, his last exhortation to his beloved disciple, Timothy. When he gets near the end of the epistle, Paul says: “Timothy, I solemnly charge you—Timothy, my son, I can’t be any more serious. This is the most solemn business with which you have to do. Timothy, preach . . .”

Paul did stop there. He did not say, “Timothy, the one responsibility I’m leaving you with as my disciple is to preach.” That is not what Paul said. Because if all Paul said was, “Timothy, you have to preach,” Timothy could have had his marching orders to go ahead and give weekly commentary on the political situation in America or in Rome. He could have given pop psychology lessons. He could have preached through a method of entertainment. That was not what Paul said to his disciple. He said, “Preach the Word!” (2 Tim. 4:2).

Preach the Word. What does that mean? Preach the Bible. The Bible is the written Word of God. Paul was not saying, “Timothy, whenever you stand up to preach, make sure you have a text that you read before you go off on a tangent that you want.” No, Paul was talking about expository preaching. Expository preaching, beloved, is looking at the text of Scripture and exposing it, making it bare, and making it clear to the people.

The great Princeton theologian Charles Hodge said at the end of his life, “I never had a novel idea.” He was determined to know nothing except what he had learned. My opinions are worthless to you. They are not the power of God unto salvation. The power of God unto salvation is the Word of God.

Paul said, “Timothy, preach the Word in season and out of season.” When is the Word in season? Does that mean, “Preach the Word in the winter, but you can take a vacation in the summer because it is the offseason for the Word of God”? No, preach the Word in season and out of season means preach the Word all the time. There is no other season than in season or out of season for the minister who preaches the Word. That is part of what it means to preach the Word. Be ready any moment to open the Scriptures for the people of God.

Is this any different than the mandate Jesus gave to Peter before Jesus ascended? “Peter, do you love Me?” Peter answered, “Of course I love You.” Did Jesus say, “Then counsel My sheep, manage My sheep”? No, Jesus said, “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17). In other words, Jesus essentially said: “Don’t you poison My sheep. Don’t you take pabulum and give it to the adult sheep. You give milk to the little lambs, and you give meat to the adult sheep. But your job, Peter, is to take care of My sheep. They’re My sheep; they’re not your sheep. You are called to feed them.” Feed them with what? The Word of God.

When I go to church when I am on the road and not able to be here, I want just one thing. I want to hear a Word from God. In these texts we have read, we see exactly what that means: expository preaching.

If you ever go to another church, if you are ever on a pulpit committee, or if you are ever on the board of deacons or the session or whatever group is ruling the church, make sure that, whatever else happens, you have expository preaching every Sunday morning. Make sure the text is what you are hearing, because that is what we need.

Faith Comes by Hearing

Paul quotes Isaiah:

I was found by those who did not seek Me;
I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.

In other words, God said, “I was found because My Word went out to all of the earth and I was made manifest because My character and My plan was revealed through the Word.”

He continues in verse 21, quoting the Word of God through the prophet Isaiah:

But to Israel he says:

“All day long I have stretched out My hands
To a disobedient and contrary people.”

Do you remember earlier when Paul said there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, that they are both under sin? He brought them both up before the tribunal of God: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). He pointed out that he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and that no one is saved by circumcision.

After going through all the failures of Israel, Paul asked, “What advantage then has the Jew?” (Rom. 3:1). He was essentially asking: “What good is it to be a Jew? If my circumcision doesn’t save me, if my Jewish biology doesn’t save me, if being a descendent of Abraham doesn’t get the job done, well then, what good is it being a Jew?” What did Paul say? “Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2). What advantage was it to be a Jew? The Jew had the Scriptures.

I was converted when I was eighteen years old, a freshman in college. I came from abject paganism. Nevertheless, I had gone to church all my life, the most liberal church in the city. I went to church for two reasons: one, my parents made me go, and two, it was the social center of our community. I learned to dance in the church. My first date with Vesta was at a church dance. The minister preached every Sunday, and I sat in the pew every Sunday and listened to sermon after sermon. I sang in the choir.

But I never read the Bible, nor did I hear it preached from the pulpit. Every Sunday morning, despite the theological views of the preacher, the reading of the text of Scripture was part of the liturgy. In spite of himself, the man was giving us the Word of God in the reading of the text. I never read it for myself. I never went home, opened up a Bible, and studied it, but all those years before I was led to Christ, God the Holy Spirit was bombarding me with His Word, because “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

That is why we try to get as much Word in here as we can. We do not just give the exposition on Sunday night. We do not just give the exposition on Sunday morning. But now we have added to it, using the Psalms in the pastoral prayer, so that you are hearing the Word of God in the pastoral prayer. We have added to it an Old Testament reading, so you are hearing of the Word of God, even without exposition, just the simple hearing of the Word of God.

Did you hear this morning of the manna that came from heaven? How God nurtured and fed His sheep in the wilderness by providing bread from heaven? He said: “Don’t forget that. Take some of that manna. We’re going to preserve it. We’re going to put it in the ark of the covenant so that people will know, generation after generation, that the Lord God omnipotent fed His people with bread from heaven until such a moment that One would stand up in the midst of His people and say, ‘I am the bread of life.’”

The Old Testament Scripture pointed beyond itself, beyond the manna that was gathered from the dew of the earth to the manna that comes down from heaven to feed His sheep. There is a conspiracy here, a divine conspiracy with the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They are all working together in and through the Word. The Spirit does not divorce Himself from the Word.

There are people all over the place who want to be led by the Spirit without the Word, and they cannot distinguish between the leading of God and indigestion because they have nothing to check their desires, to inform their inclinations and hunches. God the Holy Spirit leads and teaches in the Word, through the Word, and never against the Word. As Paul says at the beginning of our text, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Power in the Word

Let me ask you: Have you ever heard God through His Word? When the Bible is expounded to you, does it tickle your ears or inflame your soul? Does the Spirit of God take this Word and bother you with it? Pierce you with it? Comfort you with it? Strengthen you with it? Encourage you with it? There is nothing else. I have nothing else to give you. If you have other needs, I cannot help you.

You know what would bring revival in this country? If every church in America would say: “I’m never going to ask the minister again to administrate the church. I’ll never ask him again to be responsible for the finances of the church. I’ll never ask him to be a corporate manager of the church. What I want is someone who will feed me the Word of God.”

If every church in America would major in that text such that the Word of God was preached in an expository manner every Sunday morning in our midst, it would change the country because that is where the power is. The power is not in our programs, not in our buildings, not in our parking lot, but in the Word. Let us pray.

Father, give us a hunger and thirst to know Your Word that cannot be quenched. Give us preachers who will not tickle our ears but who love Your Word and love Your sheep enough to give Your Word to them. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.