Romans 10:17

So belief cometh of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Conybeare and Howson translated this verse:

So, then, faith comes by teaching; and our teaching comes by the word of God (There is no English word which precisely represents the word for teaching in its subjective as well as objective meaning, which is literally, "word received by hearing," that is, "the spoken word.")[16]

Word of Christ ... instead of "word of God," as in KJV, does not alter the meaning, the word of Christ and the word of God being identical. Jesus said:

For I spake not from myself; but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak (John 12:49).

The only thing capable of producing faith in human hearts is the word which receives its authority from God and has as its subject the life and work of Jesus Christ, together with all of his teachings through the apostles; and, since that is true, anything that reduces, obscures, or replaces the word of God in men's preaching must be hailed as counter-productive. It is what God has revealed which, alone, can carry conviction to the human heart; and one can only deplore the amazing scarcity of Bible reference in modern pulpits. It is precisely in that omission that the widespread unbelief of this generation originates.

Faith comes by hearing God's word ... This means that faith does not come directly from the Holy Spirit, but comes from that Spirit through his authorship of the holy scriptures, and in the sense of his being the living and causative agent in that word We mean that the Holy Spirit does not enter people's hearts to produce faith, that being the appointed function of the word of God, as revealed here. The Spirit enters our hearts "after we have believed" (Ephesians 1:13) and after we have become sons of God (Galatians 4:6) and in consequence thereof.

Hearing ... here is not the same as "hearkening" in the preceding verse, but refers merely to the sense of hearing, and should not even be understood as excluding "reading"; for a deaf person still might learn the word of God through reading it, as a blind person might learn it through yet another sense, that of touch.