1st Sunday in Lent (C) - (Rom 10:8-13)

(Rom 10:8-13)

Romans 10:8 What does it say then? Near you is the word, on your lips and in your heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach.

Romans 10:9 For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

"What sayest thou then? Near you is the word, on your mouth and in your heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach." As Moses said that the word, that is, the law of God, was easy to know and to keep, so Paul says the same of the gospel. If the law has Christ as its end, if everything from Christ begins and ends in Christ, if all the word of Scripture conceals Christ, all the word of Scripture conceals the gospel, to which every word of the Old Testament leads and guides. "The word of faith which we preach" are the gospel truths necessary to believe in order to attain salvation, which, through the preaching of the apostles, are within the reach of all, so that all can say that they have them in their mouths and in their hearts, and there is no need to make long journeys or to endure great hardship in order to learn them. Christ is present in the word of faith that is proclaimed by the Church.

There are three truths that we must grasp in this sentence of Paul. The first is this: the word of the gospel, which is the word of Christ, is not foreign to man, it is not distant from him, not in a spatial-temporal sense, but in an existential sense. Man's existence yearns for this word, he seeks it. After all, every human search is a search for truth. Because of sin, this search loses its essence, but it is still a search for one's own being. Man seeks himself, but he does not find himself, and he does not find himself because he cannot find himself in Christ. Only by finding Christ does man find himself, but to find Christ one must find the word of Christ.

The second truth is this: the word must be preached, announced, proclaimed, so that every man hears it and by hearing it adheres to it through faith. If preaching is lacking, then the word remains distant from man, and if the word remains distant, Christ also remains distant. When the Church has done this, it will have helped man in his search for Christ, it will have helped man to find himself, to be himself. The Church exists to give Christ. This is the purpose and mandate the Church has received. That is why preaching is the very essence of the Church. Christ gives himself through the word, and without the word, Christ does not give himself, and if he does not give himself, those who seek him seek him in vain. For this the Church is responsible. The true sin of the Church, the only one she must always repent of, is the failure to evangelise, the failure to proclaim, the failure to preach the word of Jesus.

The third truth directs us instead to 'the word of faith'. The word is of faith because it announces a mystery that only by faith can be accepted and only by faith can one adhere to it. Without faith, the word remains a mute word. Faith and word are an inseparable unity. There could be the word without faith, but faith does not reveal the mystery, because the mystery is not revealed by the word, but by the Spirit who reveals himself to the heart and only manifests himself if there is faith in the heart.

What do we see today? One observes that Christ is as if forgotten. Traces of him are being lost. The word of preaching is purged of all content inherent in Christ, his truth and grace. What prevails in many today is the proposition of an entirely human, earthly, sometimes even diabolical justice. If the preaching of faith is omitted, Christ is omitted, righteousness according to faith is omitted, grace and truth are omitted. What remains? Man and his sin remains.

"For if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord, and shalt believe with thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." He who is professed in faith is Jesus Lord. Professing with one's mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in one's heart that God raised him from the dead is the way to salvation. This means not only admitting the historical fact of the resurrection, but also accepting, from the depths of the soul, the whole work of salvation accomplished by Christ.

This confession must be an explicit testimony. Adherence to Christ can never be a private fact, lived intimately in one's own heart, in which it must still be rooted, but it must be publicly witnessed. One cannot be an anonymous Christian, a Christian of silence. The Christian is he who before the world confesses that Jesus is Lord, the Word, the only-begotten of the Father who became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and who in his humanity and not only in his divinity was constituted Lord of every man. The term Kyrios (Lord) was used in the LXX Bible to translate YHWH and what Paul is telling us is that the confession of faith consists in believing that Jesus is the Messiah and that he is 'one' with Yahweh.

This confession must be clear-cut. There can be no gaps. That is why it is necessary for the Christian to confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, consubstantial with God by divine nature, consubstantial with man by human nature. If there is no right confession about the person of Jesus, one cannot be saved, because the Jesus we confess would no longer be the Jesus of God, but a Jesus modelled on human thoughts, and therefore an idol. Everything that man constructs with his mind is simply an idol, and the idol does not save. Instead, the Son of God who came in the flesh for the redemption of the world saves, and the Son of God who came in the flesh is the Lord of man.

It is not enough, however, to proclaim righteous faith with the mouth; the heart must also participate in it, and the heart participates in it by making the truth that is professed its own. From the profession of the mouth and the faith of the heart comes salvation for man. The salvation that Paul envisages is not simply deliverance from sin. Salvation is possessing the life of Christ and making this life the guiding principle of our life: actions, words, thoughts. This is why deliverance from sin alone is a very reductive concept of salvation.

Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books:

- Revelation - exegetical commentary

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

(Buyable on Amazon)

38 Last modified on Tuesday, 04 March 2025 00:10

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Argentino Quintavalle

Argentino Quintavalle è studioso biblico ed esperto in Protestantesimo e Giudaismo. Autore del libro “Apocalisse - commento esegetico” (disponibile su Amazon) e specializzato in catechesi per protestanti che desiderano tornare nella Chiesa Cattolica.

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Lent is like a long "retreat" in which to re-enter oneself and listen to God's voice in order to overcome the temptations of the Evil One and to find the truth of our existence. It is a time, we may say, of spiritual "training" in order to live alongside Jesus not with pride and presumption but rather by using the weapons of faith: namely prayer, listening to the Word of God and penance (Pope Benedict)

La Quaresima è come un lungo “ritiro”, durante il quale rientrare in se stessi e ascoltare la voce di Dio, per vincere le tentazioni del Maligno e trovare la verità del nostro essere. Un tempo, possiamo dire, di “agonismo” spirituale da vivere insieme con Gesù, non con orgoglio e presunzione, ma usando le armi della fede, cioè la preghiera, l’ascolto della Parola di Dio e la penitenza (Papa Benedetto)

Thus, in the figure of Matthew, the Gospels present to us a true and proper paradox: those who seem to be the farthest from holiness can even become a model of the acceptance of God's mercy and offer a glimpse of its marvellous effects in their own lives (Pope Benedict)

Nella figura di Matteo, dunque, i Vangeli ci propongono un vero e proprio paradosso: chi è apparentemente più lontano dalla santità può diventare persino un modello di accoglienza della misericordia di Dio e lasciarne intravedere i meravigliosi effetti nella propria esistenza (Papa Benedetto)

Man is involved in penance in his totality of body and spirit: the man who has a body in need of food and rest and the man who thinks, plans and prays; the man who appropriates and feeds on things and the man who makes a gift of them; the man who tends to the possession and enjoyment of goods and the man who feels the need for solidarity that binds him to all other men [CEI pastoral note]

Nella penitenza è coinvolto l'uomo nella sua totalità di corpo e di spirito: l'uomo che ha un corpo bisognoso di cibo e di riposo e l'uomo che pensa, progetta e prega; l'uomo che si appropria e si nutre delle cose e l'uomo che fa dono di esse; l'uomo che tende al possesso e al godimento dei beni e l'uomo che avverte l'esigenza di solidarietà che lo lega a tutti gli altri uomini [nota pastorale CEI]

The Cross is the sign of the deepest humiliation of Christ. In the eyes of the people of that time it was the sign of an infamous death. Free men could not be punished with such a death, only slaves, Christ willingly accepts this death, death on the Cross. Yet this death becomes the beginning of the Resurrection. In the Resurrection the crucified Servant of Yahweh is lifted up: he is lifted up before the whole of creation (Pope John Paul II)

La croce è il segno della più profonda umiliazione di Cristo. Agli occhi del popolo di quel tempo costituiva il segno di una morte infamante. Solo gli schiavi potevano essere puniti con una morte simile, non gli uomini liberi. Cristo, invece, accetta volentieri questa morte, la morte sulla croce. Eppure questa morte diviene il principio della risurrezione. Nella risurrezione il servo crocifisso di Jahvè viene innalzato: egli viene innalzato su tutto il creato (Papa Giovanni Paolo II)

St John Chrysostom urged: “Embellish your house with modesty and humility with the practice of prayer. Make your dwelling place shine with the light of justice; adorn its walls with good works, like a lustre of pure gold, and replace walls and precious stones with faith and supernatural magnanimity, putting prayer above all other things, high up in the gables, to give the whole complex decorum. You will thus prepare a worthy dwelling place for the Lord, you will welcome him in a splendid palace. He will grant you to transform your soul into a temple of his presence” (Pope Benedict)

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