Romans 10:13 - Calling Upon Whom?
In Romans 10 there is another great verse which demonstrates that Jesus is Jehovah. It is also interesting because the passage contains one of the 237 places where the New World Translation (NWT) translators put the name "Jehovah", even though not a single manuscript or fragment of the Greek New Testament contains the name (they all say kurios or "Lord"). I should note in passing that I do not have a problem in putting the Divine Name in the New Testament when the New Testament writers quote from Old Testament passages that contain the Divine Name, YHWH or "Jehovah," although it is obviously preferable to just go by the manuscripts and translate them as faithfully as you can as they are.
Romans 10:13 is a verse that actually comes back to bite the NWT translators if the context is thoroughly examined. See, the apostle Paul quoted from Joel 2:32: "...everyone who calls on the name of [YHWH] shall be saved..." The NWT translators, acknowledging that this is an Old Testament quotation in the column references of their translation, are actually consistent here with their own belief about "restoring" the Divine Name, in that, at least in this place, they put "Jehovah" in Paul's quotation of the Joel verse in Rom 10:13. Compare the English Standard Version (ESV) and the NWT to see what I am saying:
ESV: For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
NWT: For "everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved."
To avoid any translational problems, we will refer to the NWT for the remainder of our study here. What are the most basic things you need to look at when seeking to understand a verse of the Bible? You need to take into account the language and vocabulary features, including grammar and syntax, and you need to take into account the context of what is being said. That is how you read and understand any written document, and that is what we will do here.
So, in order to get the overall scope of the context, let's start in the beginning of chapter 10. In verse 1 and 2, Paul laments over his unbelieving kinsmen, the Jews. The reason for this lament? They were serious about their religion, but they were not believers in Christ! They did not submit themselves to the Gospel of Christ, which tells us of a perfect righteousness which God gives as a gift, but instead sought to establish a righteousness of their own before God. The NWT continues, "For Christ is the end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness." (v.4) Paul has contrasted between the "righteousness of the Law" and the "righteousness resulting from faith." While this deals with the doctrine of justification, an essential doctrine, I will move past any differences on this point for now for the sake of pressing on to the final point.
Following that, Paul speaks of the "righteousness resulting from faith" in terms of what Christ did in descending from heaven and rising from the dead. Indeed, in verses 9 and 10, being "saved" is predicated upon declaring "Jesus is Lord" and believing that God raised Him from the dead. Now, follow me through verses 11-12.
"For the Scripture says: 'None that rests his faith on him will be disappointed.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for there is the same Lord over all, who is rich to all those calling upon him" (Rom 10:11-12, NWT)
In verse 11, Paul quotes from Isaiah 28:16, identifying Jesus as the "stone" Lord YHWH promised to place in Zion and identifying Jesus, again, as the object of faith. Continuing the same thought with the word "For...", Paul says that the "Lord" is rich to all those who call upon him. This business of "calling upon" is a picture of faith's activity, as we will see shortly. Who is "Lord"? Contextually, it is still Jesus -there has been no change in subject. Also, verse 9 tells us that "Jesus is Lord" and the confession of this fact is part of having faith in Him. Jesus is the object of faith. It is His desending from heaven, His dying, and His resurrection that are spoken of from the "righteousness resulting from faith" (v.6). He is the "end of the Law so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness." He is the "Lord over all, who is rich to all those calling upon him."
This leads right into the verse in question. Paul then applies Joel 2:32 to this One who is called upon (v.12), the One who is rich for those who do so, the One object of faith that will never disappoint. "For 'everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.'" (emphasis mine) Let us not miss this point. The One called upon, the Lord, in verse 12, the One who is the sure and firm object of faith, is here identified as YHWH ("Jehovah") who is called on, using the passage from Joel. We have a continuous flow of thought, the same use of language ("call on"), and no reason to think there is a new subject in view. The verses that follow only cement what we have seen so far.
Follow the thought through to verse 16. Notice that Paul sets up a chain between calling upon, believing, hearing, and preaching. It begins with verse 14, which says, "However, how will they call on him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent forth?..." (Rom 10:14-15a, NWT) Who is "him?" The object of calling upon is the same one in whom faith is placed, is the same one people must hear of, and is therefore the same one who must be preached. Who is it? "So faith follows the thing heard. In turn the thing heard is through the word about Christ." (v 17)
This agrees with what we have seen in the verses prior to verse 13. The object of faith, the one to be called upon, believed upon, heard, preached, is Christ Jesus. If we follow the chain of Paul's logic, again, there is no way to insert another subject. It is Jesus. He is the Lord called upon, He is the One who must be preached so that people can hear and thus believe and call upon Him unto salvation.
What is amazing is how the NWT translators can put "Jehovah" there in verse 13, and despite the clear context, not see that it is still talking about Jesus rather than a new subject introduced for a single verse in the midst of this discussion. Contextually, as we have seen, the point is crystal clear. This is another Old Testament passage, this time explicitly naming YHWH God, that is applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Why did the New Testament writers keep doing this? Perhaps it because they knew something about the nature of God and the nature of the Person of the Son that many groups have historically rejected over the centuries, including the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now, I am no mind-reader, but from what I understand, the Witness would see the NWT and immediately assume that verse 13 is talking about God the Father. The context before and after would not have any bearing in the face of the identification of "Jehovah." This is because in Watchtower thinking "Jehovah" always and only refers to God the Father. Hence, to see the Lord Jesus and "Jehovah" mentioned in the same context, no matter how strongly they are connected by that context, cannot possibly mean a connection. To the Witness, it is like reading a story about a man named "David" when "Jim" is suddenly mentioned. Obviously David can't be Jim, they reason. However, this is the engrained assumption of Watchtower doctrine operating. We aren't talking about "David" and "Jim" -employing such an example, itself, demonstrates a host of assumptions being brought to the table (such as that being and person are equivalent categories and can only map one-to-one, even for God). We are talking about the Divine Name being applied to Jesus -the same Divine Name which is also applied to the Father.
The biggest stumbling block for the Witness is the engrained presupposition of Unitarianism -the belief that God is One in Being and can only be One in Person. To the Witness, there is no way that Jesus can be Jehovah because the Father is the Jehovah, and it is clear that Jesus is not the Father. Hence, anything that identifies Jesus as Jehovah is dismissed. It is very true that Jesus is not the Father -no Trinitarian believes He is. However, if we brush aside our bias and let the New Testament speak, the New Testament writers themselves display very clearly that it is perfectly acceptable to apply passages about Jehovah to Jesus, and in this case, apply a passage naming the very name of Jehovah to Jesus. Is this blasphemy, or is it something that must shape our thinking rather than our thinking shaping it? Think about it.
This is one of the reasons why I think the absolutely baseless "restoration" of "Jehovah" (for the Hebrew YHWH) to the New Testament only reinforces the blinding theological bias of the Witnesses. If one already has it set in mind that only God the Father is Jehovah, then any reference to the name of "Jehovah" connected to Jesus is immediately dismissed. However, if we follow the actual Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in our translation, we read "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" and see the clearly intended reference, contextually, to Jesus, the Lord (the same Greek word is used - kurios). Then, we can note that Paul is quoting from Joel, flip back to the passage, and see that the verse is about YHWH! On a side note, I don't think it is coincidental at all that Paul referred to Jesus as the "kurios (lord) over all" in the same context in which he quoted from the Greek translation of Joel 2:32 which uses "kurios" for YHWH. If he didn't mean to imply a connection, then wouldn't that be just a bit confusing to the one reading the Greek? Would the Greek-speaking readers of the letter really understand a clear distinction between the kurios mentioned in verses 9 and 12 and the kurios mentioned in verse 13, if one was truly intended? Coupling that fact with the powerful testimony of the overall context, it is clear that Paul means to refer to the same Person in both instances: the Lord Jesus.
Folks, the most significant obstacle for any of us to understanding the Scriptures, I believe, is our presuppositions. They truly do form the boundaries of what we will accept and what we will not accept as evidence for any given view. They are the lens through which we see the world around us, and sadly, the Scriptures, as well. I'm not saying that I have no presuppositions -we all do. However, let all of us be challenged to recognize them, lay them down, and let the Scriptures form our opinion rather than having our opinion formed before we even open the Scriptures.
Does the Bible, especially the New Testament, give us warrant to believe that the One God in the pages of Scripture can only be singular in Person, or is that only an unchallenged assumption we have? Do we instead find that there are three distinct Persons, with differing roles, to whom are ascribed the Name, worship, and attributes of the One God? How can it be that Jesus is Jehovah and the Father is Jehovah, yet Jesus and the Father are not the same Person? Again, we can dismiss this as nonsense because of our theological bias, or we can listen to this and other testimonies from the Scriptures. For a brief definition of the Trinity, click here.
Romans 10:13 is a verse that actually comes back to bite the NWT translators if the context is thoroughly examined. See, the apostle Paul quoted from Joel 2:32: "...everyone who calls on the name of [YHWH] shall be saved..." The NWT translators, acknowledging that this is an Old Testament quotation in the column references of their translation, are actually consistent here with their own belief about "restoring" the Divine Name, in that, at least in this place, they put "Jehovah" in Paul's quotation of the Joel verse in Rom 10:13. Compare the English Standard Version (ESV) and the NWT to see what I am saying:
ESV: For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
NWT: For "everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved."
To avoid any translational problems, we will refer to the NWT for the remainder of our study here. What are the most basic things you need to look at when seeking to understand a verse of the Bible? You need to take into account the language and vocabulary features, including grammar and syntax, and you need to take into account the context of what is being said. That is how you read and understand any written document, and that is what we will do here.
So, in order to get the overall scope of the context, let's start in the beginning of chapter 10. In verse 1 and 2, Paul laments over his unbelieving kinsmen, the Jews. The reason for this lament? They were serious about their religion, but they were not believers in Christ! They did not submit themselves to the Gospel of Christ, which tells us of a perfect righteousness which God gives as a gift, but instead sought to establish a righteousness of their own before God. The NWT continues, "For Christ is the end of the Law, so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness." (v.4) Paul has contrasted between the "righteousness of the Law" and the "righteousness resulting from faith." While this deals with the doctrine of justification, an essential doctrine, I will move past any differences on this point for now for the sake of pressing on to the final point.
Following that, Paul speaks of the "righteousness resulting from faith" in terms of what Christ did in descending from heaven and rising from the dead. Indeed, in verses 9 and 10, being "saved" is predicated upon declaring "Jesus is Lord" and believing that God raised Him from the dead. Now, follow me through verses 11-12.
"For the Scripture says: 'None that rests his faith on him will be disappointed.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for there is the same Lord over all, who is rich to all those calling upon him" (Rom 10:11-12, NWT)
In verse 11, Paul quotes from Isaiah 28:16, identifying Jesus as the "stone" Lord YHWH promised to place in Zion and identifying Jesus, again, as the object of faith. Continuing the same thought with the word "For...", Paul says that the "Lord" is rich to all those who call upon him. This business of "calling upon" is a picture of faith's activity, as we will see shortly. Who is "Lord"? Contextually, it is still Jesus -there has been no change in subject. Also, verse 9 tells us that "Jesus is Lord" and the confession of this fact is part of having faith in Him. Jesus is the object of faith. It is His desending from heaven, His dying, and His resurrection that are spoken of from the "righteousness resulting from faith" (v.6). He is the "end of the Law so that everyone exercising faith may have righteousness." He is the "Lord over all, who is rich to all those calling upon him."
This leads right into the verse in question. Paul then applies Joel 2:32 to this One who is called upon (v.12), the One who is rich for those who do so, the One object of faith that will never disappoint. "For 'everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.'" (emphasis mine) Let us not miss this point. The One called upon, the Lord, in verse 12, the One who is the sure and firm object of faith, is here identified as YHWH ("Jehovah") who is called on, using the passage from Joel. We have a continuous flow of thought, the same use of language ("call on"), and no reason to think there is a new subject in view. The verses that follow only cement what we have seen so far.
Follow the thought through to verse 16. Notice that Paul sets up a chain between calling upon, believing, hearing, and preaching. It begins with verse 14, which says, "However, how will they call on him in whom they have not put faith? How, in turn will they put faith in him of whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent forth?..." (Rom 10:14-15a, NWT) Who is "him?" The object of calling upon is the same one in whom faith is placed, is the same one people must hear of, and is therefore the same one who must be preached. Who is it? "So faith follows the thing heard. In turn the thing heard is through the word about Christ." (v 17)
This agrees with what we have seen in the verses prior to verse 13. The object of faith, the one to be called upon, believed upon, heard, preached, is Christ Jesus. If we follow the chain of Paul's logic, again, there is no way to insert another subject. It is Jesus. He is the Lord called upon, He is the One who must be preached so that people can hear and thus believe and call upon Him unto salvation.
What is amazing is how the NWT translators can put "Jehovah" there in verse 13, and despite the clear context, not see that it is still talking about Jesus rather than a new subject introduced for a single verse in the midst of this discussion. Contextually, as we have seen, the point is crystal clear. This is another Old Testament passage, this time explicitly naming YHWH God, that is applied to Jesus in the New Testament. Why did the New Testament writers keep doing this? Perhaps it because they knew something about the nature of God and the nature of the Person of the Son that many groups have historically rejected over the centuries, including the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Now, I am no mind-reader, but from what I understand, the Witness would see the NWT and immediately assume that verse 13 is talking about God the Father. The context before and after would not have any bearing in the face of the identification of "Jehovah." This is because in Watchtower thinking "Jehovah" always and only refers to God the Father. Hence, to see the Lord Jesus and "Jehovah" mentioned in the same context, no matter how strongly they are connected by that context, cannot possibly mean a connection. To the Witness, it is like reading a story about a man named "David" when "Jim" is suddenly mentioned. Obviously David can't be Jim, they reason. However, this is the engrained assumption of Watchtower doctrine operating. We aren't talking about "David" and "Jim" -employing such an example, itself, demonstrates a host of assumptions being brought to the table (such as that being and person are equivalent categories and can only map one-to-one, even for God). We are talking about the Divine Name being applied to Jesus -the same Divine Name which is also applied to the Father.
The biggest stumbling block for the Witness is the engrained presupposition of Unitarianism -the belief that God is One in Being and can only be One in Person. To the Witness, there is no way that Jesus can be Jehovah because the Father is the Jehovah, and it is clear that Jesus is not the Father. Hence, anything that identifies Jesus as Jehovah is dismissed. It is very true that Jesus is not the Father -no Trinitarian believes He is. However, if we brush aside our bias and let the New Testament speak, the New Testament writers themselves display very clearly that it is perfectly acceptable to apply passages about Jehovah to Jesus, and in this case, apply a passage naming the very name of Jehovah to Jesus. Is this blasphemy, or is it something that must shape our thinking rather than our thinking shaping it? Think about it.
This is one of the reasons why I think the absolutely baseless "restoration" of "Jehovah" (for the Hebrew YHWH) to the New Testament only reinforces the blinding theological bias of the Witnesses. If one already has it set in mind that only God the Father is Jehovah, then any reference to the name of "Jehovah" connected to Jesus is immediately dismissed. However, if we follow the actual Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in our translation, we read "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" and see the clearly intended reference, contextually, to Jesus, the Lord (the same Greek word is used - kurios). Then, we can note that Paul is quoting from Joel, flip back to the passage, and see that the verse is about YHWH! On a side note, I don't think it is coincidental at all that Paul referred to Jesus as the "kurios (lord) over all" in the same context in which he quoted from the Greek translation of Joel 2:32 which uses "kurios" for YHWH. If he didn't mean to imply a connection, then wouldn't that be just a bit confusing to the one reading the Greek? Would the Greek-speaking readers of the letter really understand a clear distinction between the kurios mentioned in verses 9 and 12 and the kurios mentioned in verse 13, if one was truly intended? Coupling that fact with the powerful testimony of the overall context, it is clear that Paul means to refer to the same Person in both instances: the Lord Jesus.
Folks, the most significant obstacle for any of us to understanding the Scriptures, I believe, is our presuppositions. They truly do form the boundaries of what we will accept and what we will not accept as evidence for any given view. They are the lens through which we see the world around us, and sadly, the Scriptures, as well. I'm not saying that I have no presuppositions -we all do. However, let all of us be challenged to recognize them, lay them down, and let the Scriptures form our opinion rather than having our opinion formed before we even open the Scriptures.
Does the Bible, especially the New Testament, give us warrant to believe that the One God in the pages of Scripture can only be singular in Person, or is that only an unchallenged assumption we have? Do we instead find that there are three distinct Persons, with differing roles, to whom are ascribed the Name, worship, and attributes of the One God? How can it be that Jesus is Jehovah and the Father is Jehovah, yet Jesus and the Father are not the same Person? Again, we can dismiss this as nonsense because of our theological bias, or we can listen to this and other testimonies from the Scriptures. For a brief definition of the Trinity, click here.
posted by Mathetes | [quick link]
1 Comments:
Well done. I have joined a FB group where we ask questions and anyone, including JWs, can participate and share the truths of God's word. It is truly interesting to see the blindness upon their minds, yet the Lord tells us to share the truth in love - plant a seed and let Him water it:
"ASK ANY BIBLICAL QUESTION TO JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1304827842879511/?multi_permalinks=1675228649172760¬if_t=like¬if_id=1493115722432809
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