that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among [the] dead, thou shalt be saved.
Paul has just said that the message of faith is not far away. It is near — in the mouth and in the heart. Verse 9 says what that nearness asks of a person. It asks for a confession with the mouth and faith in the heart, and it promises salvation to both.
God gave Israel commands to carry out. What He asks here is different.
Long ago God brought His commandment very near to Israel so that they might do it. He has brought His word even nearer to us in Christ. It is no longer a word about what we ought to do. It is a word about what Christ has done, and what God Himself has done in raising Christ from the dead. On our part it asks only two things. We must believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead. We must confess Him as Lord with our mouths.
The title is not a polite one. It settles the question of who owns you.
It means His authority, His absolute rights over us; He is sovereign Lord... "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." To confess Him is to put yourself openly under His will, and to take your stand with Him. Saul of Tarsus did this when he cried, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" And who would refuse to obey Him? His love for us is greater than we can know, and His will for us is our greatest blessing.
The verse asks for faith in a raised Christ. Kelly points out what the verse leaves out, and what the resurrection proves about God.
Notice that there is no mention here of death, but of resurrection. Death by itself does not imply resurrection, but resurrection always involves death. So you confess Jesus as Lord. Why fear, why be anxious, if the One who has undertaken to save you is above all?... Love came down to meet you and suffer for you. But power has also entered the place where Jesus died in weakness. God entered the grave of Jesus in power and woke Him... He is for you. He has proved it in raising up Jesus from among the dead. "You will be saved" — not forgiven only, but saved.
The two things named are settled events, not hopes or efforts.
So the soul's salvation does not rest on what a person does, such as keeping the law. It does not even rest on a promise God gave without conditions, as He gave one to Abraham. It rests on settled facts: the Son of God has come; He has died and risen again. Honest faith takes hold of this sound, settled truth and understands it.
Verse 9 puts the mouth before the heart, though in real life the heart comes first. One writer sees a safeguard in that order.
The verse names confession first. That is what marks the clear difference between the living Christian and the dead world... Confession seems to be placed first for a reason. Satan's lie deceives the whole world. He would use a verse like this to persuade people that simply believing the resurrection as a fact, or as proof of divine power, is enough to save the soul.
Neither half stands alone. What the mouth says must come from what the heart believes.
It is the mouth and the heart that have the important place here — not the hands and the feet. The mouth shows what is in the heart. No one will confess Jesus as Lord for himself unless he believes in his heart. Something may look like that confession. But without faith there is no plain, honest confession of Him as your own Lord. But the two go together. If I believe, I therefore speak.
Hole warns the quiet believer what that silence costs.
Once you stand on the Word of God and are sure, confess Christ at once. Let nothing make you delay... You will never be happy without it, for you will be a hypocrite. Inside you are a Christian. Outside you are still a man or woman of the world, drifting with the stream and doing as others do. You smile when worldly people joke about sacred things, because you are afraid of standing out. And all the while you hate yourself for it.
The promise at the end is as firm as the two conditions before it.
This gospel verse has three "shalls" that belong together. If you shall confess with your mouth, and shall believe in your heart, you shall be saved. An old lady in England, who had been saved for fifty years and more, said to me the other night, "Thank God for those three shalls."... God has linked them together — a threefold cord which cannot easily be broken.
(This writer quotes an older translation. The ESV reads, "you will be saved.")
- Near — The word is not something to fetch or achieve. It is news of what Christ has done, and what God has done in raising Him.
- Believed — The heart rests on settled facts, not on what we do, and not even on a promise: the Son came, died, and rose.
- Confessed — The mouth shows what is in the heart. Where faith is real, confession follows; delaying it turns a person into a hypocrite.
- Lord — To confess that title is to put yourself openly under His authority. Saul of Tarsus did this when he asked what his Lord wanted him to do.
- Saved — Not forgiven only, but saved. The resurrection is God's proof that He is for you, and the verse's three promises hold together like a cord.
For with [the] heart is believed to righteousness; and with [the] mouth confession made to salvation.
Paul has just said that the word of faith is near — in the mouth and in the heart. So why is righteousness tied to what a person believes inside, and salvation to what he says out loud?
In verse 9 Paul names the mouth before the heart, following the wording of Moses. Verse 10 turns the order around.
He had used the order of mouth and heart as in the original words of Moses. And so in fact it is that the gospel goes out and appeals to people. We hear the confession of the mouth and trust the belief of the heart accordingly. But it is plain that the inner taking in of the word must come before and go along with the outward speaking of it. Only then is the work in a person true and full… Without believing there can be no righteousness. We are justified by faith and in no other way. But if there is no confession of Christ the Lord with the mouth, we cannot speak of salvation.
The believing here is not the mind agreeing that something is true.
This is heart belief. It is a real inward conviction of the heart, not just agreement in the mind. It is faith in God's testimony about His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit produces it. This is the faith that justifies (Romans 5:1). This is the faith by which a person believes so as to have a share in righteousness — God's righteousness.
Another writer describes what a person sees when he believes.
To believe in the heart is to believe as having a personal interest in what is believed. I see that I need Christ and His work for my salvation, and that without Christ I am lost for ever. As one has said, "The faith of the heart produces the confession of the mouth; so the confession of the mouth becomes the proof of the sincerity of the faith."
Believing and confessing are not the same act. Each puts the person in a different place.
Faith of the heart brings him into the position where he is reckoned righteous before God; confession of the mouth brings him into the position of a saved man (v. 10). Whether the confession is made to God or to man is not the point: no doubt it covers both. The idea is not merely of someone undergoing a secret operation. Because of the heart-work within, he boldly takes up the confession of Jesus as Lord.
Why is confession with the mouth tied to salvation, rather than to righteousness?
Because salvation is a term of such wide meaning, and includes deliverance from the world, among other things. We believe on Christ as risen from the dead with our hearts, and that means our justification before God. Both of these, however — the faith and the justification — stay hidden from other people. Our salvation shows, for it is not so much a judicial fact as a practical fact — we are really saved from the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The very first step towards a salvation of that sort must be the confession of Christ as Lord, made with the mouth so that people may hear it. A silent confession of Christ in the mind — just thinking it — obviously would not do.
Confession also draws a line the believer has to stand on.
Inwardly there is faith counted for righteousness: outwardly the confession of Christ, which is salvation indeed from a world-system that opposes Him — a system with which we were all once identified. The confession of Christ is the clear break from that "untoward generation."
So what about someone who believes but stays silent?
But we must not forget that "with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." God makes much of confession of His Son, and we cannot safely acknowledge salvation without it.
When the heart is touched, the silence ends.
Note that it is first the heart, then the tongue. It is not head-work… You get right with God first in your heart, and then put yourself right with men by your mouth. Your tongue exalts Christ. The one who is saved tells others about it.
- Heart first. The heart must take the word in before the mouth speaks it out, or the work is not full.
- Real faith. Heart belief is conviction the Holy Spirit produces, not mere agreement in the mind — believing as one with a personal stake in what Christ has done.
- Righteousness. God reckons that believer righteous on faith, and on no other ground.
- Open mouth. Confession with the mouth is the first step of a salvation others can see. A silent confession, only thought, will not do.
- Salvation. That salvation is real deliverance from the power of the world, the flesh and the devil, and it reaches on to the resurrection of the body and the glory to come. God makes much of confession of His Son.