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.

OT Israel had largely missed the way of salvation from their sins and guilt announced in the OT Scriptures. They had wrongly thought to be saved by their own righteousness of conformity to the law, meriting God’s well-done to their worship and morality. Ironically, this whole approach was itself a sin, resisting the only possible way revealed by God. That way was by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

To prove this point, Paul cites Deuteronomy 30.12-14 just preceding Romans 10.9. Moses’ exhortation for Israel to “hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God” (Deut 30.10) is a call to believe in His grace and power to bless them, despite their sins. This faith has the fruit of good works, obedience to His commandments. Instead, Israel turned this upside down, imagining they could deserve God’s favor on the basis of their personal obedience. Then His favor would not be of His grace but of His justice; He would be obligated to them. Paul combated this God-dishonoring view.

If only they had realized that the word through which they would be justified (declared righteous by God) was already given them, and that they only had to believe and confess it. It was, in substance, the good news of the Savior, the Messiah Jesus Christ, which Moses preached first and Paul echoed. “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart” (citing Deut 30.14), “that is, the word of faith [i.e., to be believed for salvation, the gospel], which we preach” (Rom 10.8). This is the prelude to the great announcement of verse 9, the true terms of justifying righteousness that cannot be acquired by human effort but only by the free grace of God through Christ.

THE TERMS OF JUSTIFICATION: TRUE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST

Romans 10.9 is an “if-then” statement, with “then” implied. It sets forth a condition in the first part and a certain consequence in the second. The first part is complex with a two-fold condition:

IF A and B THEN C

These letters (A, B, C) correspond to the three lines above. A is confessing Christ with your mouth, B is faith in your heart, and C is being saved. Now, in reality, while distinct, A and B are inseparable. Where either is genuine they are both found together. So they are not really two separable terms of the promised blessing, but two ways of describing the single condition—faith in Christ (cf. Acts 16.31). True faith in Christ is unashamed to confess Him before others. Professing Christ without saving faith in Him is a sham.

Under the terms of justification, several truths about Jesus Christ are also inseparable. First, that Jesus is Lord implies that He has completed the messianic mission and entered into His reward of Messiah-king—and therefore acknowledged as our King and Master. Confessing Jesus as Lord is also an acknowledgement of Him as demonstrably God in the flesh (Jn 8.24). Second, that God raised Jesus from the dead refers to His literal, bodily resurrection to immortality on the third day after He was crucified, which openly confirmed His claims to be the Messiah of David’s royal line and the eternal Son of God (cf. Rom 1.3, 4).

This simple requirement of a sincere faith in Christ for justification exposes the colossal blunder of the legalistic Jews who sought justification from their own personal religious and moral efforts—an impossibility for sinners under the curse of the law. But sinners have another way of being counted righteous by God—namely, by faith in Christ. This is the biblical way that humbles our pride and exalts God’s free grace to the unworthy, glorifying Him.

THE PROMISE OF JUSTIFICATION: SALVATION FROM CONDEMNATION

If there was ever a phrase chock full of significance and blessing, it is the C part of this conditional promise: “thou shalt be saved.” The primary aspect of this salvation suggested by the context is being declared righteous by God, forgiven all our sins, and delivered from condemnation here and hereafter. This justifying righteousness is not, in substance, our own faith in Christ or confessing Him with our mouths. Rather, it is Christ’s own righteousness and His atonement for sinners, appropriated by faith. Our faith is never the grounds of our justification but only its instrument, through which we are declared righteous with Christ as our justifying Righteousness. Faith in Christ saves, not faith in faith.

It is important to realize that not only Jews vainly imagined they could save themselves by being good and doing good. Their deluded hope was the evidence of spiritual darkness and the tendency of sinful pride that rests in the bosom of every sinner. The law comes to strip us of this false hope, and the gospel to sow faith in our souls, faith in Christ the Lord and Savior. We all ought to embrace with all joy and gladness the promise of Romans 10.9, as it is the only hope of salvation for sinners like us. This gospel delivers us from spiritual darkness, pride, and the fear of condemnation. Ω