What does "how can they hear without a preacher" mean (Romans 10:14)?

How important then is the Gospel, in which He is presented as Lord for the submission of faith. Verses 14 and 15 emphasize this. If men are to be saved they must hear the Gospel and God must send it. With Him it all begins. God sends the preacher. The preacher delivers the message. Men hear of Christ and they believe in Him. Then they call upon the Lord and are saved.

But all begins with God. Every true preacher is sent forth by Him, and beautiful are their feet as they go. Paul quotes from Isaiah 52, where the prophet speaks of the coming days, when at last the tidings of deliverance comes to Zion by the advent of the Lord in His glory. Equally beautiful however are the feet of those who carry the tidings of His advent in grace and humiliation, and of all that was accomplished by it for our salvation.

But this predicted opening the door so widely to all that call on the name of the Lord gives rise to a new development of the argument. As the Gentiles did not call on the name of Jehovah, a fresh instrumentality begins to appear with a view to awakening them from the dust of death and furnishing such a testimony as should draw out their hearts toward Him. It will be needed by the Israelites scattered up and down the earth among the Gentiles when their hour of national restoration draws nigh; but the Spirit applies it here, as He doubtless intended it, with admirable foresight to the Gentiles meanwhile. They must be called by the gospel in order to call on the name of the Lord for salvation. Preaching is thus eminently characteristic of the ways of God not under law, but since redemption. For "how shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without one preaching? and how shall they preach unless they shall have been sent? According as it is written, How beautiful the feet of those that announce glad tidings of peace, that announce glad tidings of good things!"

Verses 14, 15, vindicate the wisdom of God in making the foolishness of preaching the instrument of His saving power (Compare 1 Cor. 1:21). But the preacher must be sent. Divine truth can be rightly delivered only by those whom God sends. The word preached is His. The souls addressed are His. His messengers proclaim the Gospel of His mercy. But who are thus sent? Firstly, and generally, every Christian who has himself tasted that the Lord is gracious, has both the liberty and the responsibility of "holding forth the word of life" (Phil 2:16). As possessed of the Spirit of God, the heart of a believer is fitted to impart to others a portion of the blessing with which he is himself blessed of God in Christ (John 7:38). "I have sent them into the world," is the Lord's word respecting His disciples, when He was regarding them, not as office-bearing servants in the Church of God, but as the first-fruits of that Divine election of mercy which, in due time, would grow to the completion of the body of Christ. Further, "Let him that hears say, Come" (Rev. 22:17); calling not only on the Lord to come in fulfilment of His promise, — that He may take His own to the prepared mansions of their rest (John 14:3) — but also upon those who may yet be within the hearing of the word of grace; to come ere the day of long-suffering patience be closed, and to take freely of the water of life. But, secondly, evangelists are sent. There are those whom the Spirit of God especially sets apart for the work of evangelism. An evangelist is a gift of Christ (Eph. 4:11). He is sent forth at the will of the Spirit, who empowers him to preach the Gospel to the world. The Church has no power to send evangelists, because the source of evangelism is not the Church, but Christ. An evangelist is an ambassador of Christ. Collectively, the Church in its unity was the world's great evangelist (alas! where is it now?) as the pillar and ground of the truth. Paul and Barnabas may be separated by their brethren for an especial work (Acts 13:2-4), but it is at the express command of the Holy Ghost; and when they go forth it is as sent by Him, and not by the Church. In a word, evangelism, like every other species of ministry, is derived to its vessel immediately from God. It is held, therefore, in responsibility to the Lord, whose servant the minister is. We shall return to the subject of ministry when examining the twelfth chapter. Meanwhile, we have in this passage another quotation from Isaiah, where, if the context be examined, the deliverance of the earthly Jerusalem will be seen, I think, to be the proper subject of the prophecy (Isaiah 52:7). Accordingly, the apostle, having opened to view (as we have seen in the former part of this chapter) the wide range of Gospel grace as now preached, a range limited in its aspect only by the extent of the ruin which it is designed to meet, begins now to view the especial application of this principle to the case of Israel.

One has taken some comfort out of the thought that the evangelist was not so important, for God would be sure to do the work. But it is not the way the apostle put it, for he says, "How shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?" There is nothing like going to the word of God God can do anything He pleases in that way, I have no doubt; still His ordinary way is by preaching.

But at any rate, one would say, the method of teaching by Scripture is that by which we come into the truth today; and all that one can say of it in this respect today is fully justified! Ah, but we must not seize that comfort yet, or all that has been said just now must go for little. No, the old method has not been given up like that. The Church is still the method as before; only supplemented by Scripture because of the failure that has come in. It is a kind of humiliation to have to send the Bible to the heathen, and it is no good sending Bibles, if there are not preachers. People do not learn exactly from Scripture, but from the Spirit of truth; and if you say, "Granted that it is always by the Spirit of truth that any true work is done in the soul at all, but do you say that God will not use the Bible to a man's soul without a preacher?" well, it is difficult to put it that way, because God is sovereign; in a day of decay and ruin, He may speak through an ass's mouth; but how shall they hear without a preacher? The divine way, undoubtedly, is preaching.

We have no need to undervalue the preacher, because of the efficacy of the Word. I would emphasize it more, indeed, than all this system does. Instead of saying for instance, that God does not use us instrumentally as effecting anything, Scripture assures us that men can "so speak" that others shall believe (Acts 14:1). It makes the character of the speaking effective in the production of the result. But there is another reason for "how shall they hear without a preacher?" without dishonoring Scripture to furnish one; and that is serious and sad enough. It is that men, alas, have to be pursued by the grace that seeks them and the living voice of the preacher is the most effectual means in this way. Wisdom has to cry aloud, and utter her voice in the corners of the streets. "Go out into the highways and the hedges, and compel them to come in!" Scripture had always been, while necessarily safeguarded by the barrier-wall thrown around Israel, yet placed in the very centre of the chief civilizations of the old world, and on the highways of commerce. Had men desired the treasures of it, they were readily accessible, and there was no prohibition of their acquirement; but they manifested no desire. And in the midst of Christendom today, with the completed Word in our hands, what would we do without that publication of it in various ways, by which it is forced upon the notice of the unwilling-hearted? That does not in the least affect the power existing in the Scriptures to make men wise unto salvation which they assuredly have — a power which is being proved continually.

Therefore, if the prophets contemplate the gospel going out to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, it is those who are resisting its world-wide proclamation that are nullifying the word of God. Hearing, whether in a Jew or a Gentile, comes by faith; and faith in the heart is by the power of the word of God. It is by preaching the Word that God reaches the heart. Necessarily then there must be messengers of the Word, and those who seek to carry the message of God's grace to the Gentiles can justify themselves in doing so by abundant Old Testament scriptures (vers. 14-17).

And what can the preacher do? He can only preach, but if he preach in divine power he does very much. Thus we read: “How shall they hear without a preacher?” And, again, “So then faith comes by hearing” (Rom. 10). Hence the preacher, though but a vessel, holds a very important place in the blessing of the soul. He is God’s channel of communication. He must, therefore, be exceedingly and prayerfully dependent on God for His message on each occasion of delivering it.

Believe on Him now, for you will not call unless you believe in Him, and you will not believe in Him unless you have heard of Him, and this you have. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" (vers. 14, 15.) This is a beautiful circle. First of all God sends out the preacher; as the evangelist preaches, the sinner hears — as he hears he believes; the gospel of peace first goes into his heart, and then comes out of his mouth, and he says, "Lord, I believe." It is like touching the button of an electric bell, the circle is completed. I want the circle completed tonight. How is it to be completed? By simple faith, for "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." You just receive simply what the Lord has told you, and then the bell of your heart and lips will ring. The circle is completed. The Lord sends out the Word — the gospel of peace; you believe it; as you believe it, it works into your heart. You say, Lord, I believe; and then you confess Him to men, with your mouth, to salvation.

Alas, these heathen mariners did not know Jehovah, the true God, the God who made the sea and the dry land, the God whom Jonah knew; and in their trouble they turned to the false gods of the heathen. In Psalm 107:23-32 we get a wonderful description of a storm at sea, commanded and sent by Jehovah, and the result is "Then they cry unto Jehovah in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses; He maketh the storm a calm, and the waves thereof are still." These mariners did not know Jehovah, and could not call upon Him. The Scripture well asks, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" These men had not heard, so could not believe on the true God, therefore, instead of calling on Him, they called every man on his god. Since such gods could neither save nor help them, they turned to their own expedients — throwing the cargo overboard. However, their prayers and their wisdom and their works were all unavailing. They were dealing now with Jehovah, the true God, and they were to learn something of Him and His power.