8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Romans 10:8-11
I have been writing about things that are over my head recently. I see a scripture that pulls on my heart, and I say, “Wait! Not yet! I don’t quite understand that.” It’s like a trust fall exercise with God where I know it will be okay but I’m still afraid of the unknown.
Verse 10 is one of those verses. I looked into the original Greek to find the difference between justified and saved. It didn’t help. I looked at the verses before and after to understand more, but I didn’t. I know who Paul wrote it to and when, but that didn’t give me any academic certainty to pick apart the words and teach this in depth. Perhaps I am better off taking the obvious and simple route. When it comes to salvation our hearts and mouths are non-negotiable.
You can’t just confess it with your mouth and not believe it in your heart; you can’t believe it in your heart and keep your mouth shut. It doesn’t work that way! The mouth and the heart must agree and faith that originates with God and is taken up by believers will stick in our hearts and come out of our mouths.
Maybe that’s why we are so crazy about “praying the prayer.” We love to hear someone deciding to follow God say it out loud. We know that they must confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord but we are sadly unable to see people’s hearts at that moment. Over time we can look at the fruit and know what’s going on in the heart but we count on the verbal prayer until we get more evidence.
Yet we know that many of us “prayed a prayer” yet were far from God or there were no changes in our lives until it truly happened in our hearts. In the past couple of weeks, I have heard stories of 2 separate people who had confessed salvation with their mouths for years before God came for their hearts. They are both positive that what they had done with their mouths years ago had not been enough to save them because nothing had happened to their hearts. They could feel the difference now and knew the old had been a counterfeit faith. Everyone around them can see the change too!
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
On the flip side, I also recently had a conversation with someone who was a believer for some time but had never made a public or even private announcement to anyone about it. When she was confirmed in her church, she publicly denounced Satan and spoke her intention to serve and follow Jesus as her Lord. At that point, something changed. She caught on fire for Jesus in a new way and started walking in authority over the spiritual warfare that had plagued her for years. She cast off the spirit of suicide, witchcraft, fear, and everything else that was oppressing her. She still walks in this authority.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Mark 16:17-18
So, we can’t just pick one or the other. We need our heart and mouth for salvation and I would argue that this lasts for our entire lives. When our mouths or hearts get off track, we must submit them to God again. I bet I’m not alone when I say that more than once, I have found myself not speaking about God and His amazing work in my life. He deserves the credit and the honor from our mouths even when it gets uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter if we want the glory for ourselves or if those around us are hostile to the name of Jesus.
Sometimes we say the right things and our hearts are far from God. This is an easy trap to fall into inside the church. We have doubts or are disobedient, but we put on a good face and pretend as if we line up with our words. This is dangerous too and it takes humility and those who love us and God to get us back on track. We confess our sins, not just our beliefs, and we are cleansed again because of the perfect blood of Jesus.
There is one part of the background or rather the forecast of the book of Romans that I want to include. When Paul writes this letter it is during a time of relative peace for this church in Rome. A few short years later Rome would experience a fire and then the persecution of believers in Rome would grow to terrifying heights under Nero. Paul himself would be in Rome as a prisoner and it’s believed that he was beheaded during this time of persecution.
These words served to instruct and encourage believers about salvation in peace and during great strife. Confessing with their mouths would mean death and believing with their hearts was necessary to give them bravery to speak. You would have to be very sure of this Jesus Paul was speaking about to continue to follow Him when it meant that you would be crucified or beheaded. This is what Christianity is.
We must believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord! That His perfect sacrifice cleanses and justifies us and it is available to any human who would believe. We believe and confess and are made right with the Father now and for all eternity. Our words and hearts must match!
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One response to “Believe and Confess”
Well said!