Romans 10:8

“ But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart. Now, that is the word of faith which we preach. ”

In the passage quoted, Moses said: “Believe on him who is revealed to thee in the law. With Him in the heart and on the lips thou shalt understand it, and thou shalt certainly fulfil it.” This saying was in the ancient economy a relative truth. It becomes in Christ absolute truth. In these words Moses had in a sense, without suspecting it, given the exact formula of the righteousness of faith; and it is because the apostle was conscious of this fundamental identity of feeling between Moses and the gospel on this point, that he could venture, as he does here, to apply the saying of the one to the teaching of the other. There is therefore in this passage neither a simple imitation of the words of Moses, nor a false Rabbinical pretence to interpret it correctly. Paul has done what we do or should do in every sermon: 1st. Disentangle from the temporary application, which is the strict sense of the text, the fundamental and universal principle which it contains; 2d. Apply freely this general principle to the circumstances in which we are ourselves speaking.

Nigh thee signifies (in the mouth of Moses): of possible, and even easy accomplishment. The term is explained by the two expressions: in thy mouth and in thy heart, the former of which means: easy to be learned and repeated; the second: easy to be loved; of course: in communion with Jehovah and by the aid of His Spirit both promised to faithful Israelites. “Such expressions, says Paul, are exactly those which find their full reality when they are applied to the word of faith, which forms the subject of gospel preaching.” If faith is an emotion of the heart, and its profession a word of invocation: Jesus Lord! is it possible to realize this formula of Moses: in thy mouth and in thy heart, better than is done by the word of faith?

Salvation thus appears to us as a perfectly ripe fruit which divine grace places before us, and on which we have only to put the hand of faith. To Christ belongs the doing; to us the believing. This idea of the absolute nearness of the finished salvation is analyzed in Romans 10:9-10 (starting from the expressions of Romans 10:8), and justified once more by a scriptural quotation (Romans 10:11), which contains at the same time the transition to the following passage.