Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 3 Study # 3
September 16, 2018
Humble, Texas
(076)
1769 Translation:
17 So then faith [
cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.
19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by [
them that are] no people, [
and] by a foolish nation I will anger you.
20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me.
21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
1901 ASV Translation:
17 So belief [
cometh] of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
18 But I say, Did they not hear? Yea, verily, Their sound went out into all the earth, And their words unto the ends of the world.
19 But I say, Did Israel not know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy with that which is no nation, With a nation void of understanding will I anger you.
20 And Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I became manifest unto them that asked not of me.
21 But as to Israel he saith, All the day long did I spread out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
- I. The Argument Being Made.
- A. On the one hand, the good news that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Joel 2:32) indicates a requirement that someone must become the "herald" by whom this good news is to be made known to Joel's "all flesh" (Joel 2:28).
- B. On the other hand, "not all" (but actually many, if not most) do not submit/believe when they are subjected to "the message of the herald".
- C. "Therefore" Paul claims that "the faith out of the hearing and through the word of Christ" without specifying an actual verb. The "supplied" verb is, as the Authorized Version/ASV have it, "cometh".
- D. The question is this: how do we track Paul's thought?
- 1. The "So then...". Apparently, Paul is interested in establishing the necessity of a hearing of "the word of the faith" if people are "to be saved" by "calling upon the name of the Lord". This pushes his claim to be a legitimate "herald" sent by God.
- 2. This thesis is established even though we have the strong contrast out of Isaiah regarding the paucity of those who, having heard, actually believe, because, even if the response of "faith" is not robust, it is still by "hearing".
- a. At issue in Paul's "verb-less" conclusion is, actually, what verb do we supply?
- b. There are two "verb-less" declarations: "the faith (insert verb) out of hearing; and, the hearing (insert verb) through a word of Christ.
- c. The traditional "cometh/comes" (Authorized Version, ASV, NASB) is probably in the ball park, but we need more specificity. The idea seems to be that "faith" "comes into existence", or "arises in the heart" (Paul's earlier thesis that one must "believe with the heart") when "the word of the faith" (Jesus of Nazareth is God's "Lord" and this "Lord" was raised out of the dead by God) is proclaimed by a herald.
- d. But, since there are two verb-less "conclusions" being drawn, must we assume the same implied verb? Most likely. Paul's theology is that "faith" arises in the heart of at least some of those who hear and that the "hearing" arises "through" the "word of Christ".
- 1) This "word" has already been given its content: "the word of the faith" (10:8) consists of the identification of God's "Lord" to be "Jesus" and the acknowledgment that God raised Him from the dead.
- 2) Thus, "faith" arises in the heart, and the "hearing" that produces that "faith" arises "through" this "word of Christ".
- 3) In what sense does the "hearing" arise "through" this "word of Christ"?
- a) The switch in prepositions is deliberate (faith "out of" hearing; hearing "through" the/a "word of Christ").
- b) The switch is between the idea of something arising "out of" something else and the idea of something arising "through" something else. Robertson says the form indicates rudimentary "agency" so that the "through a word of Christ" indicates that the "word of Christ" is the "agent" of the "hearing". One logical conclusion this suggests is that it was "a word from the Christ" that sponsored the "hearing". This is historically accurate since Saul became Paul by reason of Christ's personal intervention both in his "conversion" on the road to Damascus and his "education" in Arabia afterwards.
- c) The question is whether this conclusion fits the "So then..." nature of Isaiah's question. It does, given the fact that Isaiah's "report" arose out of him by reason of the "Whom shall we send and who will go for us? Here am I send me" (How shall they proclaim unless they be sent?).
- d) However, it might also be logical to assume that Paul meant that the "hearing" arose through the proclamation of the "word of/about Christ", since "faith" cannot arise without the "hearing" and the content of the "hearing" consists of "the word of the faith". Thus, the "agency" of the hearing was the actual proclamation of the content of "the faith".
- e) Paul's quote of Isaiah contained both issues he sought to establish: that "faith" required a "report" and a "report" required a vocalization of words that were "heard".
- f) At root, however, is Paul's argument that he is a legitimate apostle of God. This leans more heavily in my mind toward the idea that it was by "a word from Christ" that Paul became that apostle and became the instrument of the "hearing".
- i. In the logic-train from 10:14-15, Paul's argument is that, for someone to call upon the name of the Lord, someone must be sent.
- ii. Thus, to follow up on this necessity, he claims the "hearing" (that must precede the "believing" that creates the "calling" that leads to "salvation") is "through" "word of Christ" (awkward in English; we want an "a" as in "a word of Christ" or a "the" as in "the word of Christ"). Thus we must decide whether Paul meant that the necessary "hearing" was generated by Christ in His commission of Paul to be the "sent one to the Gentiles" (Romans 11:13), or that he meant that the necessary "hearing" consisted of "the word of the faith" which has everything to do with "a word about Jesus of Nazareth as Christ risen from the dead".
- iii. The weakness of this second option is that, grammatically, "through" with a following Genitive sets forth an "agent". The first of the above options supplies us with that "Agent": Christ's "word". Thus, the idea of the "word" being uttered by Christ to Paul to move him to be the "apostle" who would "herald" the good news is reinforced.
- 3. And the follow-up contrast in expectation ("But...") that, surely, if the response is sparse, the cause is "they must not have heard". To this Paul claims the opposite: they have heard. We cannot blame the "unbelief" on a lack of hearing. But, the claim is rooted in Psalm 19:4 which has little, to nothing, to contribute to the "someone must be sent" thesis. Then, in both the words of Moses and of Isaiah, Paul erases every exculpatory hope for an "ignorant" Israel. Not only did Israel know, they vehemently rebelled against their knowledge.
- a. Paul uses the strong contrast word translated "but" 68 times in Romans alone.
- b. He appears to favor the notion of taking on the "expected" conclusion with the use of a strongly contrasting fact.
- II. The Bottom Line.
- A. Paul's "conclusion" ("So then...") is that Isaiah 53:1 establishes a two-fold conclusion.
- 1. First, that "faith arises out of hearing", and, second, that the required "hearing" arises out of a commission of Christ to a person to "go and tell".
- 2. Both of these conclusions fit Isaiah 53:1 precisely because "our report" includes both the initial commission in Isaiah 6:8-9 ("Whom shall I send...send me...Go and tell this people...") and the complaint that no one is "believing" "our report" (if, indeed, the question, "Lord, who has believed our report?" is a complaint -- after all, in the initial commission, Isaiah was clearly told that his ministry would be unto condemnation, not enthusiastic "belief").
- B. Thus, two issues become "settled": salvation is by a faith that arises out of a "report" and the "report" is generated by Christ's commissioning of Paul to "go and tell".