Good morning, Bereans! For our study today, I'd like to answer a couple of questions that I received from listeners. I received a question on May 24 following the message, How Do I Know If I'm Elect. If you can remember, we looked at 1 John 5.
Everyone who believes that Yeshua is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 1 John 5:1 ESV
"Everyone who believes that Yeshua is the Christ has been born of God." The tenses are very important. John uses the present tense: "Everyone who believes." It conveys the idea that everyone who is presently believing in Yeshua "has been born of God." Here the perfect tense is used which generally refers to an event in past time—the results of which persist to the present time.
So, we have a present tense and we have a perfect tense. The perfect tense would indicate that that represented by the perfect tense is an event that occurred previous to the other. The tenses make it clear that the divine begetting is the antecedent, not the consequent, of the believing. You believe because you have been born from above.
The listener made reference to Romans 10.
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 ESV
The listener then stated: "I'm surprised that this scripture was not addressed. Doesn't it depend on us to bring the gospel to them? Do you think God saves people without any action from believers? I know many of us work really hard to make sure we reach as many as possible. I know it doesn't matter what they hear unless the spirit moves their heart. Can you clarify this for me?"
Let's look at this text and see if we can answer these questions. Let's back up a few verses in the text and start there.
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." Romans 10:11-13 ESV
These verses highlight a characteristic of the gospel of salvation by faith—it is universal in scope (verse 11, "everyone", verse 12, "no distinction", verse 13 "everyone")! The offer of the gospel is a universal one.
For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." Romans 10:11 ESV
This is how we should discus theology: "For the Scripture says." The Scripture is authoritative; our opinions are not. Paul quotes here from Isaiah 28:16. Shame is not a good translation of the word kataischynō. "Disappointed" would be much better because it conveys something happening outside of us that lets us down. Here is a statement of assurance that, as believers in Christ, we will stand before God without disappointment.
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. Romans 10:12 ESV
"For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek"—to this the Jews would say, "What did you say? There is no difference between us and Gentiles." You just can't say anything more devastating than that to a Jew. These people who believe so strongly that they are different than Gentile people are told by Paul that there is no difference.
When a Jew went into a Gentile country and then came back into Jerusalem, he would shake the dust off his feet and his robe. He didn't want Gentile dust taken into Israel. Jews would not go into a Gentile house because they thought Gentile houses were defiled. They wouldn't eat with a Gentile utensil, eat from a Gentile plate, or drink out of a Gentile cup because they thought they were defiled. They didn't even want to touch Gentiles. In fact, the Jewish prayer every day when they rose in the morning was, "I thank God that I'm not a woman, a slave or a Gentile."
The word "distinction" is from the Greek diastole which means difference or division. There's no division, no separation, no difference at all so far as their relationship to God. Paul put it this way in Galatians:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Yeshua. Galatians 3:28 ESV
I heard woke folks use this verse to support gender neutrality. Does this verse teach that being "in Christ" eliminates the cultural, social, and sexual distinctions that exist between people? No! What is this verse saying? The whole problem among the Galatian Christians was that some wanted to still observe the dividing line between Jew and Greek. Paul writes, "In Yeshua that line is done away with. When we are in Yeshua, there is neither Jew nor Greek." In Christ Jew and Gentile are one. Since this is true, then there is no reason to compel Gentiles to become Jews. Jewishness is not superior. God is no respecter of persons. In Christ, all believers stand on the same ground.
"There is neither Jew nor Greek"—this is literally true today. There are no Jews and therefore there are no Gentiles. We are all either sinners or saints.
For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:13 ESV
This is a quote from Joel 2:
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. Joel 2:32 ESV
The context of this passage is about covenant renewal. This text was fulfilled when? At Pentecost, in the last days of Israel (Acts 2:14-21).
What does it mean to "Call upon the name of the Lord"? To answer this, let's go to Philippians. In order to call upon His name, we have to know what His name is.
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:6-8 ESV
This text talks about the kenosis, the self-emptying of the Lord Yeshua the Christ in His incarnation. What did He empty himself of? Glory (John 17:5). Now notice the next verse:
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, Philippians 2:9 ESV
"Therefore" can be translated as "For this reason." This section begins with a ringing contrast. Because of Christ's humility (verses 6-8), his exaltation now follows (verses 9-11). The words "highly exalted" are the Greek word huperupsoo which means "to elevate to a surpassing position, to exalt beyond all others, to exalt to the highest, maximum majesty." This particular exaltation is so grand that this particular Greek word is not used anyplace else in the whole Bible.
"Bestowed on Him the name that is above every name." The word "bestowed" is charizomai. It means "A grace gift, freely given, whole heartedly given." What did He bestow on Him? "The name that is above every name." The writer of Hebrews says:
having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Hebrews 1:4 ESV
His name is more excellent than the angels. Whatever name it is, it will be consistent with both Testaments of the Scripture. It will imply not just a means of distinguishing one person from another (e.g., "Joe" or "Mike"), but it will imply something of the nature of Christ, something of his person that reveals his inner being.
The word "name" is the Greek word onoma, which can mean "name, rank, or personality." Here the emphasis is on title of rank above all ranks in position.
Why give him a name? One of the common biblical ideas is that the giving of a new name marks a new stage in a man's life. Abram became Abraham when he received the promise of God. Jacob became Israel when God entered into the new relationship with him. Simon was called to follow Yeshua and his name became Peter. The promise of the risen Christ to both Pergamos and Philadelphia is the promise of a new name.
Christ has many names: Jesus, Yeshua, Christ, Son of man, Son of God, Immanuel, but here He receives a new name. Some say that it's "Jesus." But it can't be Jesus because that name was never given to our Savior. You may contend that it was because the angel told Joseph that his name was Jesus.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21 ESV
This can be clarified in my answer to another listener's question. He writes: "One thing that has me stumped is the use of the name Yeshua for Jesus. With everything that is going on with the Talmudic Jews in our current geo-political landscape, it is concerning to me that you have not addressed the Septuagint Greek text and how Jesus is a good term to use."
Please read JD Halls post regarding this topic below. "Calling Jesus ‘Yeshua' is next-level Judaizing, using a Hebraized version of His name because not even Jesus is Hebrew enough for them. Because His name isn't ‘Yeshua.' It's Ἰησοῦς (Matthew 1:21)."
First of all, let me say that it is my opinion that all of the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew. I think that there is overwhelming evidence, both historical and linguistic, that shows that the texts were originally written in Hebrew, and also that Hebrew was not a "dead language" (as was thought of for quite some time). The Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) magazine has had articles in the past on digs that have unearthed documents from around the first century written in Hebrew, including legal documents and one woman's personal diary.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21 ESV
Did Joseph and Mary call their son's name Jesus? No, they did not. The Complete Jewish Bible puts it this way:
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means `ADONAI saves,'] because he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21 CJB
Our Savior's name when he walked this earth was Yeshua. Matthew 1:1-16, makes it clear that he came from Hebrew decent through the tribe of Judah. In other words, he was Jewish. He was born to and raised by Jewish parents who raised him under Jewish culture. He spoke Hebrew. The name Yeshua is literally a transliteration of the Messiah's name. When one says, "Yeshua," he is speaking Hebrew. This is the name that all the Apostles would have known Him by and what His mother would have called Him.
To the Jews of the Second Temple period, almost all Hebrew names had a literal meaning. The name Yeshua literally means "Yahweh's Salvation," or "Salvation from Yahweh." The English name "Jesus" derives from the Late Latin name Iesus, which transliterates the Koine Greek name Iesoûs. In the Septuagint and other Greek-language Jewish texts, such as the writings of Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, Iesoûs is the standard Koine Greek form used to translate the Hebrew name Yeshua. Prior to being transliterated from the Hebrew Bible, the name Iesous did not exist in Greek. In the 17th century the "J" replaced the "I" to make our familiar "Jesus." The KJV 1611 looks like this:
And she shall bring forth a sonne, and thou shalt call his Name Iesus: for hee shall saue his people from their sinnes. Matthew 1:21 KJV 1611
So, prior to the 17th century, no one ever heard the name "Jesus." Our Savior has only been called Jesus for the past 400 years or so. If you could go back in time to the 16th century and meet with a group of Christians, you find that they had no idea who Jesus was.
Notice the parentheses in the CJB—"[which means ADONAI saves]." This is better translated, Yahweh Saves. That is the meaning of our Savior's name. The reason the CJB uses "Adonai" is because the Israelites were afraid to use God's name lest they use it in ways that he had not revealed. So instead, they called him "LORD" (from the Hebrew: Adonai), "God" (from the Hebrew: Elohim), "The Name" (from the Hebrew: Ha-Shem), or by some other title. After they returned from the Babylonian Captivity (ca. 500 BC), they refused to use God's name at all, out of respect and fear for what it represented? The Hebrew people simply said Adonai whenever the sacred name was intended. This is seen in our Bibles as LORD.
Some say that Jesus is his name in English. Really? What is Amparo's name in English? Her given name was Amparo and that is what we call her. I have a couple of friends with foreign names and I call them by their names, not by an English version of them. In conclusion, the name given our Savior, which is above every name, is not Jesus. He was never called that. And it is not Yeshua--the name given Him at birth.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, Philippians 2:9 ESV
What other name than Yahweh has a right to be called "the name above every name."
The movement of verses 9-11 does not stop at the phrase "bestowed on Him the name" but flows straight on to the universal confession that Yeshua is Lord, suggesting that the significant thing is the ascription of "LORD" in addition to the names already known.
so that at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, Philippians 2:10 ESV
It says, "at the name 'of' Yeshua" (not at the name Yeshua). The name "of" Yeshua is "Lord."
Verse 10 is a pretty direct quotation of Isaiah 45:23 where Yahweh, having declared himself to be the only God and only Savior, vows that he will yet be the object of universal worship. It is this divine honor that is now bestowed upon "Yeshua Ha'Moshiach." "Ha" means "the," "Moshiach" is "Messiah."
These verses in Isaiah 45:20-25 speak of the uniqueness of the only God. In the Greek version of the Tanakh, the LXX, the Greek word "Kyrios" (which means "Lord") is used to represent the personal name of the God of Israel (i.e., Yahweh). In most English versions, LORD is spelled with four capital letters when it stands for the sacred name of Yahweh.
"Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Isaiah 45:20 ESV
He is speaking here of the heathen idols.
Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Isaiah 45:21 ESV
Yahweh is saying, "I'm unique, I'm the only God, there is no other Savior besides Me."
"Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.' Isaiah 45:22-23 ESV
This is where our quote in Philippians is taken from. This is Yahweh, the one and only God, who is speaking.
"Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him. In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory." Isaiah 45:24-25 ESV
It is in Yahweh, the sovereign God, that salvation will come. And in Philippians, this title "LORD" is ascribed to Yeshua. Yeshua Ha'Moshiach is Yahweh, the God of Israel!
God, the Father, exalted him and gave him the name "Yahweh," which is the name of the sovereign God who created all things. Yeshua Ha'Moshiach is Yahweh!
We see this same idea of Yeshua's being Yahweh in John 8.
I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." John 8:24 ESV
The pronoun "He" is not in the text; it is added by the translators. The text says: "Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins." What are they to believe? What is He saying that people have to believe so that they don't die in their sins? The conditional clause provides the proper object of faith: "If you do not believe that ego eimi.
Yeshua, in claiming to be "I Am," was asserting equality with Yahweh Himself, who was revealed as the "I Am That I Am"—the self-existent, eternal God.
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 3:14 ESV
"I AM WHO I AM" is "Ehyeh; asher ehyeh" and means "I am that which exists." The root of Ehyeh is hiya, which means "to be" or "I exist." So here Elohim tells Moses His name is Ehyeh. But look at the next verse.
God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel: 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Exodus 3:15 ESV
Listen to me, people. Yeshua is Yahweh. To deny that Christ is, in fact, Yahweh in the flesh is to deny the deity of Christ and to the deity of Christ is to die in your sins! Is that too strong? This is what Yeshua is saying. "Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins."
Let me say a word about the name Jehovah. In Hebrew Scripture, the personal name of God is written with four Hebrew letters—yod, heh, vav, heh (YHWH). It is, therefore, called the tetragrammaton. This name appears 6,829 times in the Hebrew Scriptures.
In the First Temple period, at least until the Babylonian Exile in 586 B.C., the divine name was regularly pronounced in daily life. By the third century B.C., although the tetragrammaton was pronounced by priests in certain Temple liturgies, Jews avoided its use, employing instead many other substitutes. When reading or reciting Scripture, the custom was to substitute 'adonai (LORD).
Until the early Middle Ages, Hebrew was written without vowels. By the sixth century A.D. a system of vowel signs was developed by the Masoretes, the Jewish scholars of the period, to aid the reader in pronunciation. They superimposed the vowel signs of the word 'adonai upon the four consonants of God's name.
In A.D. 1518, in his monumental work of Christian mysticism, the Italian theologian and Franciscan friar Galatinus, not realizing that the Masoretes had placed the vowel signs of another word with the consonants yhwh, fused the vowels of 'adonai with the consonants of the divine name and thus gave the Church "Jehovah," a word which has no meaning in Hebrew. So, strike the word Jehovah from your Christian vocabulary; it is not biblical at all.
The name given Yeshua which is above every name, therefore, is Yahweh. Returning to our text in Philippians, notice the next verse.
and every tongue confess that Yeshua the Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:11 ESV
This gives us the first Christian creed--"Yeshua the Christ is Lord" or literally, Yeshua Ha'Moshiach is Yahweh. This is actually a confession that Yeshua of Nazareth is the God of Israel, Yahweh, the only true God.
The word "that" in verse 11 indicates a purpose clause—"with the result that at the name of Yeshua Ha'Moshiach Yahweh… ." This is why the whole universe is called to worship Him—He is God!
For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:13 ESV
Calling on the name of the Lord in the Tanakh is an interesting phrase. It primarily refers to worship, in other words, to calling out to God in terms of adoring wonder and praise, to speak of His majesty, to extol His virtue, to humbling one's self beneath His sovereign power. It is an expression of true-hearted worship. You find it in Psalms 79 and 105.
Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name! Psalm 79:6 ESV
Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples! Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Psalm 105:1-2 ESV
In the New Testament, in Acts 7, for example, it is also an act of worship.
And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, "Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit." Acts 7:59 ESV
Here Stephen is calling Yeshua Yahweh, the God of Israel. In Acts, calling on his name seems to be used as a description of Christians.
And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." Acts 9:14 ESV
Look at what Paul says to the church in Corinth.
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Yeshua, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Yeshua the Christ, both their Lord and ours: 1 Corinthians 1:2 ESV
So, calling on the Lord is an act of worship. It is to believe that Yeshua is the God of Israel, the Savior Yahweh.
For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:13 ESV
"Everyone"—that is any and all who believe that Yeshua is the one true God Yahweh will be saved from the wrath of God.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:36 ESV
The word translated "whoever does not obey" in the ESV, is the verb apeitheo. The leading Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Danker, makes a very insightful comment about apeitheo, which sheds light on John 3:36:
"Since in the view of the early Christians, the supreme disobedience was a refusal to believe their Gospel, apeitheo may be restricted in some passages to the meaning: ‘disbelieve, be an unbeliever'" (BAGD, p.82).
Believing involves the proposition that our Savior Yeshua is Yahweh the covenant-keeping God of Israel, the Creator of all things. The confession of a Christian is that Yeshua Ha'Moshiach is Yahweh!
With all of this as an introduction, let's get to the listener's question.
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 ESV
Some commentators see these verses as directed toward the Jews, some see them as directed to the Gentiles, and others see both. I would not push the issue, but it seems to me that in these two verses, Paul is explaining his Gentile mission. He has just explained the universal scope of the Gospel as going beyond Jews, so now he talks about his Gentile mission.
In these verses, we see that Paul moved from the effect to the cause. He just said in verse 13, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Then He says, "How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" Paul is working his way backward—from the cause to the effect.
"How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?"—obviously, you can't call on Yeshua as Yahweh until you come to believe that He is Yahweh. Once you believe He is Yahweh, then you call upon Him as Yahweh.
"How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard?"—the "in" is not here, but it is implied from the preceding statement. But it does have a "whom," that verb takes the genitive case and could be read this way: "But how shall they believe Him whom they have not heard?" So, in the message of the Gospel, the Lord Yeshua the Christ speaks. And when a person responds, he is responding to the great Shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Yeshua the Christ:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27 ESV
They hear the voice of the Shepherd, the true Shepherd, through the proclamation of the message about Him. Could this (v14) be talking about Israelites? Had they never heard of Messiah? Their Scriptures were full of the message of Messiah. This seems better fitted to the Gentiles to me.
"And how will they hear without a preacher?"—did the Israelites need a preacher when they had the Word of God? The Jews had heard as Paul tells us in verse 18.
Rather than a noun, preacher, Paul uses a participle (i.e., "preaching") to show the action of what is regularly done. The present participle speaks of the ongoing act of the proclamation of the Gospel.
The word "preacher" comes from the Greek verb kerusso, which is from the noun kerux, which means "a herald for a king." In fact, the official kerux or herald would stand in the market place and blow a trumpet calling the attention of the crowd to the edict of the emperor, and his proclamation was understood as a command. He declared the policy of the king.
So, kerusso means to declare the policy of the king. We often think of preaching as loud, bombastic speech. This word has nothing to do with the manner in which you say something. It has to do with declaring a policy, God's policy.
God is sovereign not only in decreeing the ends but also in determining the means to those ends. And God has decreed that someone carry the message of the Gospel so that people may believe. Even though God has predetermined those who will be saved, we are responsible to proclaim the message of the Gospel to all men.
Remember the reader's question: "Doesn't it depend on us to bring the gospel to them? Do you think God saves people without any action from believers?"
Morris points out, "Hearing is a reflection of first-century life. Paul does not raise the possibility of the message being read. While there were people who could read, the ordinary first-century citizen depended rather on being able to hear something." Then he added, "If the message of God was going to be effective in biblical times, it had to be heard. And for this a preacher was needed" (Morris, 390).
It was an oral society in which the Gospel first came to the world. But in our society, the preaching may come from a book or tract or booklet explaining the good news. Yet the point is that for someone to "hear" the good news of Yeshua the Christ in order to believe, there must be someone delivering the message. So, the answer to the question: "Do you think God saves people without any action from believers?" is "No." Someone has to present the message. People must hear/read in order to believe.
Just to show you how Scripture can be misunderstood, consider what Ray Steadman writes: "I don't believe that the distribution of the Scriptures alone will ever be sufficient to win men. Now, I do not demean that ministry, because it is a very important one. The translating of the Word of God and the spreading of the Scriptures all over the earth are important. But they are only supplementary. That, alone, will never reach and change nations as does the Gospel when proclaimed by a human messenger."
So, is he saying that God's word doesn't give the Gospel clear enough? We need a man to clarify the Scriptures? He later in the article writes this: "There has been a universal proclamation of the Gospel through nature." So, God's Word is not enough to win men apart from human delivery, but nature is?
"How will they preach unless they are sent?"—how on earth would you ever get a Jew to preach to Gentiles unless they have been sent by God? The word "sent" here is apostello. Paul could be defending his Gentile mission here. He was sent by God to preach to the Gentiles. Behind it all—the calling, believing, hearing, and proclaiming— is the Sovereign Lord who sends the messenger to deliver the good news.
William Cameron Townsend was a missionary in Guatemala trying to share the Gospel with a tribe that had never heard the Gospel. They spoke a little Spanish, but they had their own language, their own dialect. Not one word of the Bible had ever been translated into their language. One day William gave an Indian a Spanish Bible. But that man, who could not read English, looked at William and asked him a question that changed his life forever. "If your God is so great," he asked, "why can't he speak my language?" From that question came a dream, and from that dream came a vision, and from that vision came the greatest missionary translation organization in the history of the Christian church. From that question came the Wycliffe Bible Translators—because our God is great and He speaks every language.
"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" This is a quote from Isaiah:
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." Isaiah 52:7 ESV
The context of Isaiah's words was the announcement of God's favor in restoring Jerusalem following the Babylonian captivity. So, this is another return from exile passage. Good news is come to Jerusalem from Babylon that the captivity is over. The bondage is over. Deliverance is come. And here comes the messenger and he's running with the good news that Israel is going to be free, that deliverance is come.
Isaiah chapter 52, the message, came first to Israel. But notice what follows in verse 9.
Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. Isaiah 52:9 ESV
Now the picture here is a historical event, the coming of a messenger announcing the freedom of a people in bondage. But it is a symbol of a glorious future day when true redemption and true salvation would come to Israel, but not just to Israel.
The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Isaiah 52:10 ESV
God's salvation is going to go to the ends of the earth. When they heard him quote Isaiah 52:7, they should have remembered that this salvation message was to extend to the ends of the earth; it was a universal message.
"How beautiful are the feet"—is a figurative way of expressing gratitude for the obedience of the messengers who have brought good news. In ancient times, good news traveled by means of messengers who ran from one place to another. When an army marched off to war, no one knew for months how the battle had gone until the messenger came with the news. No one had a cell phone. You couldn't turn on the TV and watch the battle in real time as we can today. They didn't have the Internet that flashes news around the world instantly. Everything depended on the messenger's arriving safely, with news from distant lands. But what if the battle had gone badly? That often happened, and the messenger was be charged with telling the truth even though it plunged the nation into mourning. But oh, how happy the day when the messenger came running down the mountainside with good news on his lips.
The context of this text in Isaiah is that it is Christ who brings the good news. He is the faithful Israelite.
The short answer, then, to the listener's questions: "I'm surprised that this scripture was not addressed. Doesn't it depend on us to bring the gospel to them? Do you think God saves people without any action from believers? is "no." It is technically, no, because however people come across the Gospel, some human put it in print or proclaimed it.
Believers, Yahweh has chosen us to proclaim the message that Yeshua is Yahweh, God of Gods, and Lord of Lords.