Have They Not Heard?

18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,

and their words to the ends of the world.”

 19 But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,

“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;

with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”

 20 Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

“I have been found by those who did not seek me;

I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”

 21 But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”

(Romans 10:18-21 (ESV)

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth.” There are some people who seem to think Jesus Christ cannot come back yet, because the world has not been evangelized. These people need to read scripture. There is a reason people aren’t sure whether or not Paul thought Jesus would come back in his generation. It is because Paul was very well aware that the possibility existed in his generation. Paul understood that everything had been fulfilled already in his day. And for him this was all the more reason to preach the good news today. There was no ulterior motive for Paul. He was not trying to bring about Armageddon or the golden age of the millennium or any such other thing, he was trying to save people before the day of judgment fell upon them all, that he might save some he would say.  The gospel has indeed reached the ends of the earth. Paul was not ignorant of the fact that there were people outside the Roman Empire. He was aware that there were peoples and nations he had never heard of, and yet he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Paul is aware that neither Jew nor gentile can rely on the excuse that they have not heard, neither can they say they have not understood. He is also realizes that his people will reject the gospel for the most part. It isn’t antisemitism that causes him to write this way. It is the reality he sees. Paul does not count the Jewish people as saved in any other manner than what saves the Gentiles. If it is not Christ, then it is no one. Jesus Christ is Lord!