Rom 10.13 For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Rom 10.16 but not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says ‘lord, who has believed our message’

Rom 10.17 Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of God.

How does Faith cometh? In Romans 10:17, the word of God here is Christos which is the word of Christ and not theos. Therefore, it is about hearing of the revelation of Christ as the Saviour, the Good News when we call upon the Lord accepting by faith that we in our flesh cannot save ourselves.

We call ourselves “People of Faith”, but really, in the bible context, it is Faith in the Good News that Jesus Saves, and not simply faith in God the Creator per say. The world has many anti-Christ, but not anti-God.

As US mainline Christendom continues to decline with the emergence of the charismatic evangelicals, the liberals are aware but not really accepting the fact. They want to save the church from fundamentalism but they can’t really save themselves whether on earth or in heaven. Perhaps the real enemy is elsewhere within concerning faith. If the word of God becomes a word about their own liberal theological construction based on the effort of the flesh, faith is not built up. Once, the culture and tradition of church going diminishes, the teaching of the church of love becomes no different from a worldly desire of which the church is not really necessary.

The Protestant church has enemies but seldom realises it, blinded by the spirit of ecumenism. For example, the Jesuits were sent during the counter-reformation to undermine the Protestant movement, to work amongst the masses. They have succeeded. In Europe, the protestant church has fallen and empty after five centuries of liberal theology propogated by the Jesuit colleges and mass killing of the opposition in the guise of heresy. Yet, the Church is seldom criticised by liberal christians.

The Jesuit Pope recently said that it is absurd the notion of a relationship with Christ without going through the church (read “Catholic Church”). I guess he is after all, Pontifex Maximus, the bridgehead between God and Man, a hierarchical structure where you approach God by confession to the father priest and through church sacraments. In other words, they have made themselves God replacing Jesus Christ. The revelation by Jesus of God as Abba father is replaced by the priest being the father. Instead of calling upon Father God in Rom 10:13, we call upon a carnal religious father. The real absurdity is that they are supposed to be Christians yet do not believe.

In some other faiths, we have the mass stoning of animals in a scene to stone the devil. They do it every year with great zeal and streets are filled with blood of the innocent. Ironically, the devil is actually within us. Through Adam’s sin, we belong to the devil and owned by this deity. We may say that we are atheist or liberals not believing in such supernatural deities, but the devil owns us. We are a slave because of sin and condemned by God.

The Jews brought an animal sacrifice on their behalf every year to the high priest. Faith is not about works of loving God following the Ten Commandments. The Jews didn’t come to the temple wearing white nor boasting about how they had fed and clothed the poor. The temple is inclusive in the sense that it caters for the poor bringing two doves, to the rich bring their sheep. Liberal theology tells us we need not bring a sin offering for God loves us anyway. Therefore, they are stuck at the door, even their bible college credentials not satisfactory. Without entering, they cannot see God nor have a relationship with Father God. They can talk about love, but the love of God is not in them. For the love of God is personified in Jesus Christ, the Grace of God, the very sin offering they are supposed to bring to enter into the presence of God. Nothing really is free.

John 6:32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. John 6:33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:34 Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” John 6:35 And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe.

 

Moses represents the law. It is sad that many church preaches the law, and the love commandments. It doesn’t produces any faith, nor is food to the soul and the spirit. Moses did not gave them food from heaven, but the tablets of the Ten commandments. Even though the Jews rebelled against God, Father God gave them manna, food from heaven. Likewise Jesus is saying that He is God’s food from heaven to be consumed taken, so that life comes into their lives and they be revived again supernaturally and no longer hunger for spiritual light. For Jesus is the bread broken that satisfies our yearning to return to God. Therefore, we bring the lamb to God, to be sacrificed, that it becomes supernatural life in us to live and never die ie never thirsty again.

In Romans 6:36, comes the sad news of those even seeing Jesus and the miraculous power and works chose to believe that He is not from God, and not their Saviour giving life, eternal life to them, when they eat the bread which is the broken body. Their unbelief, being Jews, came from the law, and thinking that their righteousness can be gained from the laws of Moses. But Moses didn’t give them bread of life, but laws of judgement.

Therefore, in summary, faith comes when we hear the Word of God, and hearing within the Word of God, the revelation concerning Christ as Lord and Saviour from God above, and when we eat of Jesus, the bread of life, becomes life for us to have eternal life where we will never thirst again.