| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
Belief Is Not Salvation, #3
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9,10)
If we were to remove this passage from the Book of Romans and make it the only statement in the Scriptures we could make a case for salvation as being belief in certain facts.
Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. That Jesus is Lord and rightfully our personal Lord is a true fact. Confession of this true fact is essential to salvation.
Believe in your heart that God has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. The physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead is the cornerstone of our faith. Apart from the physical resurrection of the Lord we have no hope for our own resurrection.
You shall be saved. What it means to be saved must be determined from the entire Scriptures. Being saved has little to do with going to the spirit Paradise.
With his heart man believes unto righteousness. God counts us as righteous when we believe God has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead.
With his mouth man confesses that Jesus is his Lord, and God saves him on the basis of this confession.
The above is an accurate statement concerning God's plan of salvation. The statement serves as a basis and guide for the working out of our salvation. He who does not regard Jesus as his Lord and who does not believe God has raised Him from the dead is not likely to find the road to eternal life.
The problem today is that the above passage is lifted from its context and made to mean that if a person confesses Jesus is Lord and believes God has raised Him from the dead he is saved and on his way to Heaven; not that he shall be saved, as the Scripture states, but that he is saved.
If there were no other verses in the Bible we could defend the prevailing point of view. However, this would be to make salvation a mental position having little impact on life on the earth (which is exactly what Satan desires!).
Let us look at a passage also from the Book of Romans that reveals the folly of making the Divine salvation a mental position.
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16)
Speaking to the Christian people (certainly not to the unsaved because they cannot choose to live righteously and thus receive eternal life on the basis of their behavior), Paul tells us that if we (Christians) choose to obey sin we will die spiritually.
Let us say the individual believes that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised Him from the dead. After this profession of belief he is baptized in water into Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Then he chooses to sin. What then? He dies spiritually, according to the Apostle Paul!
To be continued.