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Dr. Jerry Wierwille, Ph.D. is a biblical studies researcher, theologian, and Bible translator. He holds a Masters Degree in Theological Studies and a Master of Divinity Degree from United Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Maryland. His research specialties are in biblical Greek, the writings of the Apostle Paul, New Testament theology, and the Book of Proverbs. He’s also the host of a podcast on the Book of Proverbs called Words of Wisdom. Since 2015, he has worked with Spirit & Truth where he has served as a lead researcher on a variety of projects and currently works as a translator for their Revised English Version of the Bible. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Atlanta Bible College where he teaches courses on New Testament Greek, apologetics, and evangelism. He also serves as Worship Pastor at Living Hope Community Church in Latham, New York.

Below is an abstract from Sean Finnegan's paper "Applying Old Testament YHWH Passages to Jesus: Recontextualizing Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13."

The New Testament writers chose to incorporate Old Testament texts in their writings in the church. The New Testament contains 283 quotations of Old Testament texts and over 1,000 allusions to Old Testament texts. All books of the Old Testament are quoted in the New Testament except for Ezra, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Solomon’s Song of Songs, and a few others.

Romans 10:5 reads: “For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the Law, that the person who does these commandments will live by them. By the righteousness that is based on trust speaks this way: ‘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 among the dead) but on the contrary, what does it say? “The message is near to you: in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the message of trust that we are proclaiming)’ because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from among the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made, resulting in salvation. For the scripture says: ‘Whoever 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, enriching all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The passage I want to describe and talk about is the final one, in verse 13. But if you’ve read Romans 10 before, you know that it actually contains several quotations and allusions to Old Testament texts. But let’s look at Romans 10:13 first. This contains a quotation from Joel 2:32, “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” The Apostle Paul (the writer of Romans) quotes Joel 2:32 verbatim from the Septuagint, where “kyrios” (“kurios”) the Greek word for “Lord” is used. Paul draws on this word to make his argument in Romans 10:13. However, in the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) is used in Joel 2:32 instead of the word for “Lord”.

I would like to share an explanation for why we should focus on Romans 10:13. According to C. Kavin Rowe in his scholarly paper “Romans 10:13: What is the Name of the Lord?”, “It is quote astonishing, then, that Paul explicitly uses ‘to onoma kyriou’ (‘the name of the Lord’) of Joel 3:5 (which is the Septuagint reference for the Hebrew Joel 2:32) to refer to Jesus. In this way, he makes an unreserved identification of Jesus with YHWH (the unique and only God of Israel) – however, since Paul is not foremost a propositional theologian, he does not simply say ‘Jesus is YHWH’ but rather this theological medium is that of overlap and resonance, such that he creates the overlapping conceptual space wherein this resonating identification occurs. The identification within this unquestionable resonance and ‘conceptual overlap’ is one of dialectical identity.”

There are a couple different ways that the New Testament writers use the Old Testament. Three schools of thought have been proposed. First, that the Old Testament and the New Testament have a single meaning and a united referent. What that means is that whatever the Old Testament is talking about and referring to is the same as what the New Testament is talking about and referring to. The second way to look at it, is that there is a general meaning or sense shared by both the Old Testament writers and the New Testament writers, but the specific referents may be different depending on the context. Lastly, there is what is called a fuller meaning but a single goal. In this way of understanding the Old and New Testaments, the same text may be used for different purposes, but they are both trying to achieve the same overarching goal.