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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Romans 10:9,10
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. (Romans 10:9,10)
Romans 10:9,10 is used commonly to prove if we once confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, we will go to Heaven. This is the point at which we are given our ticket to Heaven. How we behave after that is important but not critical.
The above passage, isolated from its context, gives us a simple formula for salvation. We confess that Jesus is Lord; we believe God raised Him from the dead; and we are saved. We then defined "saved" as "go to Heaven when we die." We could conclude that no matter how we behave after taking this step of confession and belief, we will go to Heaven when we die.
The problem here, is, these two verses were not meant to be a formula for salvation Rather, they are part of an epistle titled "The Book of Romans." By all the laws of biblical interpretation, we must interpret a passage in terms of the entire context. We must attempt to get the sense of the author.
Given Paul's comments in Chapter Six through Eight, one could never be satisfied with interpreting Romans 10:9,10 to mean all there is to being saved is to confess that Jesus is Lord and believe God raised Him from the dead. One has to consider the preceding passages if he is to get the sense of these two verses.
Before we examine the statements in the verses that precede Romans 10:9,10, let us explain what we mean by saying prior chapters in Romans prevent the current use of the two verses as a ticket to Heaven.
Consider the following.
For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, (Romans 8:13)
If we, as a Christian, obey the lusts of our sinful nature, we will die spiritually. We will lose the resurrection life mentioned in Romans 8:11. Now, here is the question. Let us say a person confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believes in his heart that God raised Him from the dead. Then the individual continues to follow the compulsions of his sinful nature. Will he or won't he die spiritually?
Because the current teaching insists he will not die spiritually in that Romans 10:9,10 says he will be saved, the Christian churches of today are in a deplorable moral condition.
Now stop and think. If Romans 10:9,10 is Divinely inspired, why wouldn't Romans 8:13, two chapters earlier, also be Divinely inspired?
Are they contradictory? Of course not. Romans 8:13 is absolutely true; so is Romans 10:9,10. Does one supplant the other? Not at all!
To be continued.