Freed from Shame

As he is so prone to do, Paul now turns to the Old Testament again to find support for his argument. He has been showing that the Jews have sought to achieve righteousness by their own efforts at law-keeping, even though Moses wrote in the law that the law itself could not save. On the contrary, according to Moses, the law pointed to the need for faith. Now Paul wants to head off any notion that because the law was a gift to the Israelites, the offer of salvation was extended only to the Jews. To do so, he quotes Isaiah 28:16b (also quoted in Rom. 9:33), where one word serves his purpose: “Whoever.” He has been making the point on and off throughout Romans, and especially in chapters 9 and 10, that the gospel offer of salvation is for everyone, not just Jews, and he will say more on this topic in the verses we will examine tomorrow. Isaiah’s words make the point nicely, for they link the universal call of the gospel with the necessary condition for justification: “ . . . believes on Him.” Just as Paul affirmed in verse 10, faith in Christ is here said to bring salvation.

But Isaiah gives a rather out-of-the-ordinary description of salvation. Those who are saved by faith in Christ, he says, “ ‘will not be put to shame.’ ” Dr. James M. Boice points out that the idea of shame is well on its way to becoming a foreign concept in Western culture. “Very few people in our day are ashamed of anything or even think in such terms,” he writes. “On the contrary, ours is an exceedingly shameless age.” And yet, Isaiah implies that those who are not saved will experience shame, and such shame is something we should desire to avoid. How should we understand this verse?

Boice notes that the word here translated as “shame” carries several ideas in Scripture. First, it sometimes has to do with disappointment (Rom. 5:5). Second, it can mean being left speechless (Job. 10:15). Third, shame may mean disgrace (Dan. 12:2). Fourth, it sometimes means exposure. In the shame of their sin, Adam and Eve felt exposed. They sought to cover their nakedness and to hide from the holy God. So will the unsaved in the day of God’s wrath, but to no avail. But Isaiah’s prophecy assures us that whoever has faith in Christ will experience none of this. His promises will not disappoint us, and we will not be left speechless, disgraced, or exposed.