"That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth you confess and are saved.
Romans 10:9-10.

PAUL has been speaking about the fact that the word of salvation is near us, and we do not have to do some great thing to gain salvation. Indeed it is so near us it is in our mouth and in our heart by the word of faith being proclaimed to us. Those who hear this word, and respond to it, and understand it, and receive it, and in faith rest their souls upon it, find it in their hearts and minds in a very real way. In these two verses before us Paul is seeking to describe and explain this experience. Paul is not seeking to explain the a-b-c of the Gospel; nor is he teaching the truth as he has been doing in all the previous chapters. Rather Paul is describing the genuine experience of salvation in the believer. Salvation is not simply accepting a formula or doctrine with the mind and making an audible assent to it. It is not joining an institution. It is rather a profound experience and encounter with Jesus Christ, which changes how we think of him, and how we live our lives because of this understanding of him, and how we feel about him which is expressed in our attitude to him of adoration and worship. However this is not simply a profound feeling which overwhelms us, which could easily dissipate as time goes on, but it is a profound influence on our inner being because we have understood the truth about Jesus and what this means for us, and what it demands from us in a positive reaction in living.

It is this that Paul is seeking to express here in these two verses, and because it is not easy to make clear he speaks of it twice in two different ways, which though saying the same thing deepens and enhances the meaning he is conveying. These verses are deeply doctrinal but expressing how doctrinal truth is powerful and deep in our being and is concerned with how we relate to Jesus. We must now look at what Paul declares concerning salvation and the experience of it.

EXPERIENCE OF NEARNESS.

What is evident from Paul's words is that salvation, if we truly are saved, is as near as our thoughts and our deepest feelings. It is in our thoughts and speaking because it comes from the engagement of our heart with Jesus. Our inmost being, called the heart by Paul, is engaged with Jesus, and filled with Jesus and what he is and what he has done. This is a deep engagement because of the realization of what this has achieved for us for all eternity, and the joy of all that that means.

There is a deep heart engagement in the glory and wonder of that deep love of Jesus, and God, the Father, who has gone to such lengths and to such sacrifice, to save sinners like ourselves.

THE OUTWARD EXPRESSION OF SALVATION.

This is a confession with our mouth concerning Jesus. We express a faith and belief which engages our life and living with Jesus.

This confession is that “Jesus is Lord”. This is something far deeper and more powerful than simply stating the truth about Jesus. Indeed Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth. He is the eternal Son of the Father. He created all things, and all things have their being, and continuing in being, because he upholds all things by the word of his power. He is the one who has won the greatest victory of all time, for he has overcome completely and eternally all our enemies – sin, Satan, death and hell. He is Lord because he reigns now from the throne of heaven and glory, sitting at the right hand of the Father, and reigning until he has put down all his enemies under his feet. He is Lord reigning to order all things in heaven and earth, and in history, so that the eternal plan of redemption is completed. He has already won the victory and ended death for all who believe, but he is continually working and ordering history, so that all those who have been given him by the Father will be saved, and when this is done, then he will come again to judge the living and the dead, and gather his redeemed into his everlasting glory.

This is the fact of Jesus being Lord, but when the saved one confesses the Jesus is Lord, it is not simply confessing this truth, but acknowledging Jesus as the one to whom we give the total obedience and adoration of our whole being, with nothing held back. This confession is an expression of worship and adoration. It is an expression of surrender and bowing down in obedience. It is an expression of our realization of his glory, and the wonder of his person, and the feeling of his love shed abroad in our hearts.

We have an example of this in the Gospel's. When Peter was asked by Jesus who he and the disciples thought he was, Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. This was not simply a statement of fact, but an expression of attitude to Jesus, and deep commitment to him, together with love and adoration. We have the same expression when Jesus came specially for Thomas after his resurrection. Thomas had been unable to believe the testimony of the other disciples that Jesus had risen. The concept and its implications was too much for him to take in and accept. He saw, perhaps more clearly than all the others, that Jesus being resurrected declared not only the wonder of who he was, but the glory of what he had done. So when Thomas saw Jesus for himself, he was able to take in all that Christ risen from the dead meant, and this produced this confession with his mouth – My Lord and my God. It was faith and utter surrender to his God and Saviour.

This leads on to the place of the resurrection in this experience and receiving of salvation. We believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. This is what happened to Thomas.

But what does it express? Why is it that the resurrection is the focal point here? Why was it that the Apostles preached Jesus and the resurrection throughout the Acts of the Apostles? The fact is that the resurrection is the seal of all that Jesus did in his death, and believing in our heart is that deep assurance of what this means to us, and the safety for eternity which it brings us.

God raised Jesus from the dead. This is the great act of God which is so important and revealing. Christ was given the work by God to atone for the sin of the world, so that God could be just when he justifies the ungodly. Until Jesus had fully atoned for sin, and fully exhausted the punishment due against sin, he could not end the experience of the penalty of sin. Jesus had to suffer until God's law was entirely satisfied. God could not justify a sinner – account the sinner just in his sight – until his law was fully met. Jesus engaged to make this satisfaction, and when God raised Jesus from the dead God was declaring that his Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, had made full satisfaction for the sin of the world.

So believing in the heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is the expression of our inner being trusting in, glorying in, resting upon, this wonderful work that Jesus completed, and knowing he has completed it because God has declared that Jesus has completed it in the resurrection. Christ indeed died for our sins, and rose again for our justification.

THE REALITY OF SALVATION.

So this is the reality of salvation. We believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, and we lay hold by faith in our deepest being upon all that the resurrection implies, and so we are justified.

Justified is being in that position that God counts us just in his sight, and declares, as judge of heaven and earth, that there is no sin against us, so he accepts us and bestows upon us eternal life and his favour and his Fatherly love.

The faith in our hearts is that deep assurance and resting upon Jesus that he has saved us, and that we are saved, and that we live in the love of God; and are resting on the fact that as it is Christ who has satisfied God's law in our place and for us we can never be lost or condemned to hell, because as words from one of Toplady's hymns put it “my Saviour's obedience to blood, hides all my transgressions from view.”

From this inner faith and trust comes the assured confession concerning the efficacy and completeness of Christ as Saviour, and so we fulfill the promise that whosoever believeth shall have eternal life.

CONCLUSION.

This is Christian experience of salvation. It is not a matter of head knowledge only. Nor is it just believing as a condition for salvation, which would make faith a work we do and a so a work of personal merit. Instead salvation is an experience. It is a happening. It is a work begun, continued and ended by the Holy Spirit opening our mind and heart to the glory of Jesus, and the meaning of his death, and giving us the ability, not only to understand all this, but to rest our souls upon Jesus as our Saviour.