Romans 10:12,13

“ For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for there is one and, the same Lord for all, rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. ”

Salvation being free, there is no longer any restriction to its application: it is necessarily universal. It is this logical consequence which the apostle expounds (Romans 10:12), and which he confirms (Romans 10:13) by a new Scripture passage.

What formed the separation between the two fractions of mankind, the Jews and the Greeks, was the law (Ephesians 2:14, the μεσότοιχον, the partition wall). This wall once broken down (as has just been proved) by the work of the Messiah, mankind no longer forms more than a single social body, and has throughout the same Lord, and a Lord rich enough to communicate the blessings of salvation to this whole multitude on one single condition: the invocation of faith. Israel had never imagined anything like this; and yet it was so clearly announced, as is proved by Romans 10:13.

In the second proposition of Romans 10:12, the subject might be the pronoun ὁ αὐτός, the same: “the same (being) is Lord of all.” It seems to me, however, more natural to join the word κύριος, Lord, to the subject, and then to understand it as the predicate: “The same Lord is (Lord) of all.” See the same construction Romans 2:29. In any case, there is no reason for making the participle πλουτῶν, who is rich, the principal verb in this sense: “The same Lord is rich for all;” for the essential idea is not that of the Lord's riches, but that of His universal and identical sovereignty over all men. To us this idea is commonplace; it was not so at the beginning. It strikes St. Peter like a sudden flash the first time he gets a glimpse of it (Acts 10:34-36).

The condition of invocation recalls the idea developed above of profession (the ὁμολογια) in Romans 10:9-10. The true profession of faith is, in fact, this cry of adoration: Lord Jesus! And this cry may be equally uttered by every human heart, Jewish or Gentile, without the need of any law. Behold how the universalism founded on faith henceforth excludes the dominion of law.

The idea: rich unto all, establishes the full equality of believers in their participation of the blessings of salvation. The common Lord will give not less abundantly to one than to another; comp. John 1:16: “and of his fulness have all we received.”