Why Don’t People Believe? (Romans 9:30-10:21)
Big Idea: Understand why people don’t believe, understand the gospel, and then bring them the good news.
To be a Christian means that you will experience a new kind of pain that you’ve never experienced before. It’s a pain that Paul explains in both Romans 9 and 10. Here’s the first time he describes that type of pain from Romans 9:
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. (Romans 9:1-3)
Here’s the second time he describes that type of pain, found in the passage we just read:
Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)
When you come to faith in Christ, you will discover a pain you never anticipated — the deep ache of concern for those who do not yet believe. This burden grows so heavy that, like Paul, you may find yourself willing to trade places with unbelievers if it meant they could be saved. Guard your heart against indifference. The hardening of our compassion toward those who have rejected the gospel is a quiet tragedy. Paul felt this weight so profoundly that he declared he would willingly forfeit his own salvation if it meant his people might be brought into the family of God. As Spurgeon says:
If they die unsaved they will have for ever to endure the wrath of God, that my soul feels, and desires to feel more than ever, a continual heaviness of heart concerning every unsaved soul that still lives. God grant us more of this heaviness of spirit. May we be deeply pained by that dread, awful, overwhelming, I will even dare to add, horrifying thought of souls being lost for ever.
This is our pain. So why don’t people believe, and what do we do about it? Those are the two questions that Paul answers in this passage.
Let’s look at these two questions.
Why Don’t People Believe?
The first question before us is this: why don't people believe? Paul is addressing this question with a specific group in mind: his own people, the Jewish nation. These were a people chosen by God, entrusted with his revelations, and recipients of his most sacred promises. Yet despite every advantage, they had not believed. How could that be?
The question remains as urgent today as it was for Paul. We should never lose our concern for the Jewish people — God's covenant people — and their need for the gospel. But the question does not stop there. It reaches into our own lives and circles close to home. What about the people we love? The friend who once sat beside us in church. The family member who has heard the gospel more times than we can count. The colleague who dismisses faith with a polite smile. Why have they turned away? Why don't they believe?
Paul offers two reasons: they rely on works, and they reject the gospel.
They rely on works (9:31-32)
Romans 9 and 10 draws a sharp line between two radically different approaches to righteousness: one worked up through human effort, one received as a gift through faith in Christ. This is not merely a first-century Jewish problem. It is the universal human default. It’s the instinct every one of us is born with.
The gospel speaks directly into it. It confronts our most deeply embedded and most socially acceptable sin: self-righteousness.
No people in history were more spiritually privileged than the Jews. They had the knowledge of God, the law, the promises, and the covenants. And yet they missed Christ entirely. In fact, Paul says in Romans 9:31-32, the Gentiles, who had none of those advantages, ended up ahead of the Jewish people.
What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
What happened? The problem wasn’t a lack of zeal. Romans 10:2 says, “They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge." A person can burn with genuine zeal for God and still not be saved. Sincere belief in the wrong thing does not make it true; it just sends you running down the wrong road even faster. Weak faith in the right object is sufficient. Passionate faith in the wrong object is fatal.
The Pharisees are the clearest example. They fasted twice a week, prayed, tithed even their garden herbs, and tracked every rule with exhausting precision (Matt. 23:23). Yet they missed the gospel entirely. It’s like a rich young man that Jesus once met who confidently claimed to have kept every commandment. Jesus revealed he hadn’t even kept the first one. He thought he was morally good, but he didn't love God. He loved his record.
Israel's law-keeping was meticulous but fundamentally misguided. They forgot that the law was never meant to be a performance system; it’s supposed to be a response to God's covenant love.
This error is not uniquely Jewish. It is deeply human. None of us are immune. Paul shows us the problem: even the most religiously privileged people can miss salvation entirely by trusting their own performance.
You may think you’re good enough. You’re not. Nobody will ever be good enough. Our righteousness isn’t enough. It’s only when we stop relying on our own righteousness that we have any hope of being saved.
Why don’t people believe? It’s because they rely on their own performance. But there’s a second reason Paul gives for why people don’t believe:
They reject Christ (10:1-4, 18-21)
One reason Israel trusted in their own works, Paul explains, is that they stumbled over Jesus. Their failure was not merely moral or religious — it was Christological. They rejected the very One the law was pointing them toward.
Isaiah had already proclaimed that those who trusted in God as the Rock would be kept safe, while those who rejected him would be crushed. He and other writers of Scripture were looking ahead to Christ Jesus as that Rock. For those who trust in him, he is a Rock of salvation. For those who reject him, he becomes a Rock of destruction.
This is precisely what Paul means in Romans 10:4 when he writes, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." The word end here does not mean cancellation — it means destination, fulfillment, culmination. The law was never an end in itself; it was always heading somewhere. It was a road, and Christ is where it was always going. Once you've arrived at the destination, you don't keep driving the road — you live in what the road was leading you to all along.
Paul presses this further in verses 18 to 21 by drawing on a string of Old Testament passages to make a sobering point: Israel's problem was not that they hadn't heard. For generations, God had been calling them. The problem was that they refused to answer. And so, in his sovereign grace, God extended his invitation to those who would receive it.
Why don't people believe? They trust in themselves, or they turn away from Christ. More often than not, it's both — two sides of the same coin.
If you're not a believer, Paul's answer is simple: neither being good enough nor being spiritual enough will bring you to God. Christ is not one option among many. He is where the whole story was always heading. He is not waiting for you to clean yourself up. He came down to meet you, and he is still calling.
If you are a believer, this is a warning worth heeding. It is possible to be active in ministry and still quietly trust your own record before God. Check what you are actually resting in.
The call is the same for all of us: stop trying to earn what can only be received. Christ is not the reward for the righteous; he is the refuge for those who know they are not.
Two Things We Can Do
That's why people don't believe: they trust in their own works, and they reject Christ. So what do we do about it? Verses 5 to 17 give us the best news we will ever hear, and two things we can do with it.
Believe the Gospel (10:4-13)
Romans 10:4–13 is one of the most glorious summaries of the gospel in all of Scripture, and at its heart stands one magnificent truth: God has already done everything necessary for your salvation.
Paul makes this clear in verses 6–7, where the righteousness that comes by faith speaks in striking terms:
Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
You do not need to scale the heights of heaven or plunge into the depths of death, because God has already done both. God the Son came down from heaven and took on flesh. God the Father raised him from the dead. The work is finished. It is complete.
And because it is complete, the gospel is closer to you than you might think. Verse 8 says the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart — that is, the word of faith we proclaim. You don't have to earn it or travel far to find it. You can receive it right now, by placing the full weight of your trust in what Jesus has done for you, both inwardly in the heart and outwardly in confession:
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (10:9–10)
And in case you're wondering whether this promise is really for you, Paul closes the passage by throwing the doors wide open:
For the Scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' (10:11–13)
No one who wants to believe is left out. The word everyone means exactly what it says.
So here is the first thing you can do: believe this yourself. Delight in it. The promise of verse 13 carries no asterisk, no fine print, no list of qualifications you must first meet. If you have been relying on your own goodness or your own record to make you right with God, this passage is an invitation to stop. Christ has already done what you cannot do. There is nothing left for you to contribute except your need. So come to him as you are, trust what he has done, and receive what he freely offers. That is the first thing, and it is the most important thing.
Tell Others (10:14-15)
But here’s the second thing you can do: tell others. Or, putting it a different way, get yourself some beautiful feet.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (Romans 10:14-15)
Paul's logic is airtight: no one believes a gospel they've never heard. The chain is unbreakable — no preacher, no message; no message, no hearing; no hearing, no faith; no faith, no salvation.
When you share the gospel, you step into the role of Isaiah's herald. In the ancient world, a messenger's feet weren't beautiful because of how they looked — they were beautiful because of what they carried. A soldier sprinting home with news of victory was welcomed with joy that matched the magnitude of his message. The feet were glorious because of their cargo.
To have beautiful feet is simply this: to be a sent person, carrying life-giving news to those who haven't yet heard it.
Some will reject it. That should grieve us. But we carry the greatest news ever announced. Believe it deeply. Tell it freely. Your feet will be beautiful — and God may use you to change someone's eternity.
