“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart, one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
Romans 10:9-10

The common error

So often, many have asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Maybe this was the very question that led you to receiving Christ as your Lord and Savior. Although the question is innocently asked, it is somewhat of a loaded one because the inquiring person appears to be wanting to know what he/she can DO to save themselves. As stated over the previous few posts, the truth is that we are incapable of doing anything to earn our way into heaven and into a right-standing with God. Therefore, this question sounds like somewhat of a trap. In effort to answer the question accurately, it must first be clarified that Jesus did all of the work on the cross for us; it was 100% God’s plan, and it serves as the full and final payment for our sin. However, in today’s verse, it seems that God engages us in some small way in this salvation process. Not everyone receives salvation just by having been born, so we must need to contribute some kind of movement toward God in order to receive this free gift He is offering us, right? Here in Romans 10:9 it identifies just that – belief and confession are required of us. Even still, we must take caution against viewing our belief and confession as more than what it is. In John 6:34, we are informed by Jesus that God draws us toward Christ as a precursor to salvation. This means that even the curiosities that result in our understanding and acceptance of the Gospel are initiated by God, not us. A common error among some believers lies within the high importance they place on their decision to believe upon Jesus for salvation – almost equating their belief with His suffering on the cross, as if it were a team effort. Even just stating it that way seems so irreverent…seemingly taking away from Christ’s sacrifice and adding to our effort. Although God is clearly afforded the credit for salvation, it was still His plan for this belief and confession from us to be required for accessing salvation and relationship with Him, so we can confidently claim what God clearly states as true here. God engages us, but on His terms, taking no glory away from the finished work of Jesus on the cross.

As for us, our very small part in this process seems to be plainly stated here in Romans 10:9-10. The requirement for salvation appears here to have two seemingly distinct parts, belief and confession, but they are intricately intertwined. It sounds like a pretty straight-forward formula but let us look more closely at the context and the implication here. It is true that God intended the access to Jesus to be a simple process in which anyone can take part, yet the heart position of the person is what truly determines the authenticity of his/her decision to become a Christ-follower, not the actions themselves. To clarify, Romans 10:9 seems, on the surface, to imply any acknowledgement of Jesus resurrecting from the grave and a verbal recitation that “Jesus is Lord” will supply you with a golden ticket for heaven. This is no truer than proposing that a simple reciting of the national anthem makes you an American. If there is nothing to back up the words themselves, then the verbal proclamation of a truth means nothing. Still, straight forward verses like Romans 10:9 often tempt us to oversimplify this truth in a similar way, thinking that as long as I DO these two things, I am good; yet we cannot miss the deeper meaning behind the belief and confession referenced here. Each of the two parts carry much weight for the believer.

Belief in the resurrection

First, the resurrection of Jesus is a supernatural event that has never been duplicated by any other human being. Although Jesus’ life on earth was marked by performing supernatural miracles of healing among the people, it was His own miraculous resurrection that made him distinct from any other human. This distinction proved Jesus to be not only God’s son, but also God in the flesh. (This duality will be covered in future posts.) Only God can be responsible for raising to life a brutally beaten body, which had expired two days prior. Furthermore, for anyone who doubts this occurrence, Jesus was seen by hundreds of witnesses over the 40 days following his resurrection before he ascended to heaven, where He is now enthroned. One reason the resurrection of Jesus is so profound and central to the Christian faith is because it encompasses multiple truths all at once – proof that Jesus is God, proof that Jesus fulfills Old Testament biblical prophecy, proof that Christ has defeated death, and proof that His death satisfied our need to have a perfect, holy sacrifice stand in our place and take the punishment we deserved. The resurrection is the pinnacle of Jesus’ purpose for coming to earth in human form. So, when Romans 10:9 states that believing Jesus was raised from the dead will save you, it is not implying that we believe in it with a shoulder shrug and a “yeah, sure” type of agreement. On the contrary, belief in the resurrection requires an incredible amount of faith – trusting God’s Word in place of having hard evidence for yourself – and recognizing the many life-altering implications that the resurrection holds for anyone who believes in Jesus.

Confess that Jesus is Lord

Second, Romans 10:9 identifies the need for a confession from those who seek salvation. The verse is quite specific in that we are required to confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord in order for a believer to be made right with God. We are plainly told the “how” and the “what” concerning this confession – “with our mouths” that “Jesus is Lord,” respectively – but we aren’t specifically told “to whom” or “how often” we are to confess such a statement. Many people who desire to oversimplify the process of salvation and minimize its inherent commitment would assert that the audience for such a confession would only be God and that it would be confessed as a one-time occurrence. However, this is not accurate.

When we come upon a seemingly simplistic verse like Romans 10:9, it is important that we place it in context with the verses around it and test it against other verses in the Bible that represent God’s overarching character and His commandments. When we apply context here, Paul’s intentions become clear concerning the “how” and “to whom” – the audience and the frequency for the audible confession from us that Jesus is Lord. The verse is implying that we are to confess Jesus as Lord continuously, as our worship of Him will persist not only during our time on earth, but also throughout eternity (Revelation 5:13). Therefore, our confession that Jesus is Lord is intended for the ears of not only God, but for anyone who ever asks us. Jesus should permeate us so fully from within that the words identifying His lordship are readied on our lips to be confessed to anyone at any given time (1 Peter 3:15). As you are hopefully seeing, this belief and confession is about a heart position, not an action on our part. Therefore, if our heart is postured at the feet of Jesus, pouring out our pride to humble ourselves before Him, then the belief and confession Romans 10:9 addresses is going to simply be the outward evidence of an inner rebirth that will mark us as distinctly different people from here to eternity.

Authenticity is key

I hope you can see the profound outcome for believing in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I do not point out these weighty truths in effort to cause you to backpedal on your desire to accept Jesus as your Savior. On the contrary, I hope it will generate even more gratitude and reverence for Him! With so many people coming to Christ with a misunderstanding of what it means to truly love and accept Him, I do have a desperate desire to be real with everyone I meet, informing them of the truth behind those words they confess. It is very easy to get caught up in relevant sermons or emotional rallies/camps which result in momentary confessions of faith that seemingly falter within a few months’ time. It is critical that we all clearly understand the offer being made by God and the natural flow of the acceptance of such a gracious gift. This is also why it is so important for even seasoned, more mature Christians to revisit the truths surrounding the good news of Jesus as often as possible – so we will remember the profound grace that was extended to us at the beginning of our own journey. The Gospel is not something we graduate from and eventually set aside. Instead, it is a foundational treasure that supports and sustains every revelation thereafter, and it should be in our constant view, reminding us of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

*Note from the author: This post is the fifth installment in a series of six posts explaining the process of salvation through Jesus Christ. If you have questions concerning the Christian faith, I invite you to read through the first six posts on this blog site in the order they were published. I am praying for you!