THE GOSPEL
THE GOSPEL
ROMANS 10:9-11
Paul offers the good news to everyone.
The quotation in 10:8 from Deuteronomy contained the words “mouth” and “heart.” This suggested a great gospel verse. “Mouth” came first in the Old Testament quotation, and that would seem to be the only reason for placing confession before belief in the passage before us.
10:9. Notice the content of the confession. The lordship of Christ, and the resurrection which established and confirmed it, are an integral part, and it goes very much against language and history, not only theology, to call anyone a Christian who refuses to accept the fact of the resurrection, not as a philosophical principle or a “salvation myth,” but as an authenticated event (1 Corinthians 15:1-19). Paul nowhere connects the lordship of Christ only with his incarnation. On the basis of a mutually integrated faith and confession a believer is “saved.” The death of Christ, and the atonement it signified, is contained in the resurrection, an event impossible without preceding death.
10:10. The parallelism characteristic of Hebrew is continued, but “heart” and “mouth” are now reversed in order. The heart, where the great transaction takes place, means the core of the personality, the true self, stripped of all its accidental physical accompaniments; it is the person as God sees it, which will one day stand before him. “Righteousness” is the gift of such faith, and righteousness planted in the “heart” must permeate the whole person, and work itself out in thought, word and deed.
10:11. Isaiah 28:16 is quoted. Neither in the Hebrew nor in the Greek version, from which Paul commonly quoted, does the word “everyone” occur. Paul adds it logically enough, however, and his argument about the universality of salvation turns upon it. The verse contains no reference to the Law. Those who believe, in the center of their being, that Christ is Lord, divine and living, and believe it with sincerity and strength enough to confess it—in baptism, in public life, in the face of hostile challenge, in all life’s social contexts—are Christians. No one else is. Nor will such a faith betray them. They will know testing, experience trial, endure pain “for his name.” If their faith is real, they will never know disillusionment with the One in whom they have believed.