Other’s Writings

How should a Catholic respond to Romans 10: 8-10. I have looked for Catholic Commentary on the verses but had no luck.

STEVE RAY HERE:
The new way of uprightness, open to all, is easy, as Scripture shows. Moses writes: Lv 18:5, also quoted in Gal 3:12, promises life to men who strive for legal uprightness. The practical observance of the Torah’s prescriptions was a necessary condition for the life so promised. Implied in the quotation is the arduous nature of that condition. In contrast with this demand, the new way of uprightness does not ask of man anything so arduous. To illustrate this point, Paul alludes to Moses’ words in the Torah (Dt 30:11-14). Just as Moses tried to convince the Israelites that the observance of the Law did not demand one to scale the heights or descend to the depths, so Paul plays with Moses’ words, applying them in an accommodated sense to Christ himself. The heights have been scaled and the depths have been plumbed, for Christ has come to the world of man and has been raised from the dead. Man is not asked to bring about an incarnation and a resurrection; he is asked only to accept in faith what has already been done for him and identify himself with Christ (Incarnate and Risen), who is man’s salvation and uprightness. Paul adds an allusion to Ps 107:26 in his midrashic explanation of Dt. In this explanation “Christ” is substituted for the “word” of the Torah. (See S. Lyonnet, in Mélanges bibliques [Fest. A. Robert; Paris, 1957] 494-506.)9. if you acknowledge: That is, utter the basic Christian confession of faith and mean it. Paul proceeds to cite the credal (baptismal?) formula of the early Palestinian churches, Kyrios I?sous (Jesus is the Lord); cf. 1 Cor 12:3; Phil 2:11; L. Cerfaux, Christ, 20. An inward faith is demanded that will guide the whole man; but it is also an assent to an expression of that faith. The man seeking justification and salvation is called on to acknowledge Christ as the Risen Kyrios and as the source of salvation precisely as the one raised from the dead by the Father. Again, Paul asserts the efficiency of the Father in Christ’s resurrection (? Pauline Theology, 79:72).10. This verse formulates rhetorically the relation of man’s uprightness and salvation to his faith and the profession of it. The balance stresses certain aspects of the one basic act of personal adherence to Christ and its effect. One should not overstress the distinction between justification and salvation, or between faith and profession.11. no one who believes in him will be put to shame: Is 28:16 is used again; cf. 9:33. Paul modifies the quotation by adding pas (all), thus emphasizing the universality of the application: “not…all” = “no one.” In is the words referred to the precious cornerstone laid by Yahweh in Zion; they are accommodated by Paul to faith in Christ and used as an assurance of salvation for the Christian believer. The addition of the word pas prepares for the next verse.12. no distinction between Jew and Greek: As far as the opportunity to share in the new uprightness through faith is concerned (cf. 3:22-23). the same Lord: At first it might seem that Paul is referring to Yahweh, since he uses Jewish expressions, “the Lord of all” (Josephus, Ant. 20.4, 2 § 90), “call upon the name of” (1 Sm 12:17-18; 2 Sm 22:7), and explicitly refers in 10:13 to Jl 3:5 (Eng 2:32). But in the context (esp. after 10:9) kyrios can only refer to Jesus, who is the Lord of Jew and Greek (cf. Acts 10:36; Rom 9:5; Phil 2:9-11). In the OT “those who call on the name of the Lord” was a designation of sincere and pious Israelites; in the NT it is transferred to Christians (1 Cor 1:2; Acts 9:14), and the object of it is Christ. The title once reserved for Yahweh is now transferred to Christ; the vv. 12-13 are an eloquent witness to the early Church’s worship of Christ as Kyrios. Salvation was expected by the Jews from the kyrios of the OT (Yahweh); they are now told that that salvation comes through him who has been made Kyrios by Yahweh himself (Acts 2:36) as of the resurrection.

Raymond Edward Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland Edmund Murphy, The Jerome Biblical Commentary, vol. 2 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1996), 321.