The Israelites seek to establish their own righteousness by trying to keep the law, and have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God, which is Christ Himself. This is an insult to God, and it causes them to miss the way of God's salvation.
Christ came to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17) that He might terminate the law and replace it (Rom. 8:3-4). Thus, everyone who believes in Him receives God's righteousness, which is Christ Himself.
This refers to Christ's incarnation.
The Greek word is used in Luke 8:31 in reference to the dwelling place of the demons; in Rev. 9:1, 2, 11 to denote the place out of which the locusts, whose king is Apollyon (Antichrist), will come; in Rev. 11:7 and Rev. 17:8 to signify the place out of which the beast, the Antichrist, will ascend; and in Rev. 20:1, 3 to specify the place into which Satan will be cast and imprisoned during the millennium. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, uses this word for deep in Gen. 1:2. Here, in this verse, it points to the place Christ visited after His death and before His resurrection, which place, according to Acts 2:24, 27, is Hades; for Acts 2:24, 27 reveals that Christ went into Hades after He died, and rose from that place in His resurrection. Hence, according to biblical usage, the word abyss always refers to the region of death and of Satan's power of darkness, which is the lower parts of the earth (Eph. 4:9), into which Christ descended after His death, which He conquered, and from which He ascended in His resurrection.
This refers to Christ's resurrection.
Here the word is used interchangeably with Christ (vv. 6-7), indicating that this word is Christ. Christ was incarnated by coming down from heaven and was resurrected by coming up from Hades. Thus, He has become the living Word, the Spirit (Eph. 6:17), to be in our mouth and in our heart, just like the air, the breath, that can be taken into our being. He is near and He is available.
Christ needs our participation in Him. Since we have been made vessels to contain Him, we need to believe with our heart to receive Him, and to call on Him continually with our mouth to take Him in, thus allowing His riches to fill our empty vessel (Rom. 9:21-23).
Christ's being raised from the dead was invisible; hence, it requires our believing. Moreover, although Christ's death has redeemed us, it is His life in resurrection alone that can save us. Therefore, only when we believe in the great miracle that God performed in Him in raising Him from the dead can we be both redeemed and saved.
To believe with the heart is toward God; to confess with the mouth is toward man. To believe with the heart is to believe in Christ, who was glorified and raised by God from the dead; to confess with the mouth is to confess that Jesus, who was despised and rejected by man, is Lord. Both are conditions for our being justified and saved.
I.e., resulting in.
This shows that God selects us, redeems us, justifies us, sanctifies us, conforms us, and glorifies us in Christ in order that we may enjoy His unsearchable riches in Christ (Eph. 3:8). The secret to this enjoyment is to call on His name.
Calling on the name of the Lord is the secret not only to our salvation but also to our enjoyment of the Lord's riches. Beginning with Enosh, the third generation of mankind, and continuing all the way down to the New Testament believers, God's chosen and redeemed ones enjoyed Christ's redemption and salvation and all His riches by means of this secret (see note Acts 2:211).
To be saved here means to be brought into the enjoyment of the riches of the Lord. The Lord is rich to both Jews and Greeks. All who call on the Lord's name enjoy this rich Lord; as a result, they are filled with Him and express Him.
This implies that believing is through the word and is due to the word (v. 17).
To our human feeling, obeying the gospel is deeper than believing the gospel. Before we believe the gospel, we are first subdued by the Holy Spirit so that we will obey the gospel. Those who do not obey the gospel may become enemies of God's gospel (Rom. 11:28), enemies of God Himself.
