Romans 10:9
“that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Where this sits
Paul is arguing that the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. He is quoting Deuteronomy and applying it.
Reflection
Two organs are named, and the pairing is the argument. Mouth and heart — the public and the private, what you say and what you actually hold.
Paul is quoting Deuteronomy, where Moses tells Israel the commandment is not too hard or far off but near, in your mouth and in your heart. Paul takes that phrase and applies it to Christ. The point of the original was accessibility: nobody has to climb to heaven or cross the sea to fetch it. Paul keeps that argument intact and changes what is near.
And the two elements guard each other. A confession without the heart is performance, which the ancient world had plenty of. A conviction without the mouth is private opinion, which costs nothing. In a city where saying Jesus is Lord ran directly against the required formula that Caesar is lord, the mouth was not the easy half.
What is asked for in the heart is specific and historical: that God raised him from the dead. Not a general belief in God's existence, or in one's own sincerity. A claim about something that either happened on a particular morning or did not.
And the object of the confession is a title, not a sentiment. Jesus is Lord is a statement about who is in charge, made by someone who is thereby stating who is not.
- Theme:
- Salvation
- Book:
- Romans