Salvation, Sanctification and the Purpose of the Church
Dynamics of salvation and why it matters... Part I of many
There have been a number of considerations jostling in my mind recently of which I am attempting to make Biblical sense.
For one, I find myself concerned that there is a lack of emphasis on moral living in evangelical writing and the teachings I am usually exposed to. The emphasis appears to be mostly on “salvations”, which more or less correspond to someone praying “the sinner’s prayer” or “accepting Christ” or some equivalent sentiment.
The question of someone being “saved” comes up frequently when one considers the Great Commission. It is the Biblical command that most people will turn to if asked what the purpose of the church is, and I think they are right to do so.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
What I have discovered after reading Christian thought more broadly is that the evangelical strain which I am most familiar with is actually broadly speaking Baptist in its theology. Since I became a Christian I was taught that baptism was a rite meant for believers who have a credible profession of faith and wish to declare that to the world around them.
Thus, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” is equivalent to “getting them saved”. Thus, a core concern of Baptist-oriented evangelicals is evangelism, of which the primary concern is getting them to the point where they are credible recipients of baptism.
This creates an emphasis on the “moment of salvation”. This is also the moment which, according to the non-Pentecostal Baptists is coterminous with the moment at which someone receives the Holy Spirit.
Because whether or not someone is saved is equivalent to the question of whether they will be in heaven or not it understandably receives great attention. In fact, at least in my circles, what happens after you are saved is considerably de-emphasized.
I will call the soteriology of this sort of non-denominational evangelicalism “semi-Reformed non-Pentecostal Evangelical Baptist”.
SRNPEB Soteriology
The story basically goes like this. Everyone is born as a non-believer, not saved, without the Holy Spirit, having a “sin nature”. However, because of reasons that are more or less coherent (that I will not get into here), people don’t become morally responsible for their sin until some unknown age of accountability.
Because of the sin nature, a person in this state is basically incapable of moral effort, or at least it is ultimately meaningless. Evil will come out one way or another. This is not to say that each person is as evil as they possibly could be, simply that no amount of effort to control sin will result in real change.
At some point, they either intuit or are told the gospel, which is broadly defined as “the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins so that anyone who accepts his death on the cross and asks for it to apply to him will be saved from the natural consequences of his sin (ie: Hell) and instead reap the rewards of the full righteousness of Christ (ie: Heaven).” This is accomplished by praying a prayer that asks Christ’s death on the cross to apply to you.
With this done, sin matters to you eternally no more. You are saved! All past sins are forgiven, all future sins are forgiven and you have a one-way ticket to Heaven. At that moment you also are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and become capable of moral improvement.
After that you have a choice to make. Are you going to take your ticket to heaven and run, just accepting the gift and turning your back on the giver? Or are you going to make the “second decision”, which basically means that you are interested in actually following God.
If you choose to follow God, then you will start roughly “living the Christian life” or “walking with God”, or something along those lines. What this primarily means is sharing your faith with others. You go out and tell people about the gift you’ve received and you try to convince them to receive Christ as well.
Secondarily you will be progressively called on by God to “mortify” your sin. What this looks like is difficult to explain and I don’t believe anyone has a one-size fits all answer to this, but roughly it means that you are somewhat less sinful from year to year and somewhat more loving (which sometimes is the same thing) from year to year.
This should be accomplished roughly by the “means of growth”, which are daily Bible reading, daily prayer, frequent hangouts with other Christians, and attempts to share your faith with non-believers.
The goal of all this is that you get more people to receive Christ, and hopefully they will also choose to make “the second decision” and become a fellow evangelist.
Regardless of how much “growing” you do, you will always be sinful, and fall far short of the ideals that God sets forth for you. In essentially every area of your life, you will be shamefully lower than what God would want you to be. Your good deeds are nothing but “dirty rags” in the sight of God. If how you lived mattered to God you’d be freshly condemned to Hell on an hourly basis. Fortunately, he overlooks all your failures and treats you as though you are perfectly righteous no matter how far short you fall.
The main purpose for avoiding sin and doing good then is not really about God (except vaguely “pleasing” God, though that’s ambiguous) but more about the fact that living a life of sin is “unfulfilling” and leading a life of walking with God is “fulfilling” in some sort of emotional way.
Focus On Salvation
There are a lot of threads of this sort of soteriology which lead one to focus primarily on the “moment” of salvation.
First, the moment one “receives Christ” is the moment that defines whether or not you end up in heaven or hell. From the perspective of an individual believer, this is what really matters. You pass out of judgment and into life. Therefore, anything that happens before this is kind of pointless because it still leads to death and judgement, likewise, what happens afterward doesn’t matter nearly as much as that initial decision.
Second, the doctrine that the Spirit comes upon you in the moment that you first believe, combined with various teachings around the necessity of the Spirit to please God leads, in a sort of argument by allusion, to the view that anyone who is not a believer has no real capacity to control his sin and therefore concerning yourself with the sin of someone who doesn’t have the Spirit is a lost cause.
Thirdly, while it would be nice if you followed God after this moment of salvation, it is a strictly optional aspect of Christianity. The important part is going to heaven instead of hell, that is accomplished by praying the prayer. Once the prayer is prayed, nothing can change it. Whether you choose to follow God afterward is not relevant to the most important question.
As an extension of the doctrine of the Spirit and its involvement with moral progress, there is also a view that moral self-effort is “the Law” instead of “the Spirit” and that what the big problem with Christians through the ages has been is that they try to live their life through self-effort instead of “through the Spirit”.
Negative Effects
Whether it is explicitly intended or not, it has been my experience that all of these ways of viewing soteriology have the net effect of focusing great attention on “praying the prayer” and a limited attention on whether or not someone grows with God after that. Moral issues don’t rise to the level of concern that “getting someone saved” does. Your Christian work often reduces down to “sharing the gospel” or “adorning the gospel” and is always primarily outwardly focused, on the non-believer. Many is the time I hear someone say with frustration that they met a new friend who seemed nice and interested to hang out only to find out to the person’s dismay that the new friend is already a Christian. The implication is that trying to get into deep conversation with the person was a waste because they aren’t part of the “mission”.
Also, whether or not a church is “doing well” is put in terms of numbers of “salvations” and “first timers”, with the view that a church or church group is worthwhile primarily because of how many people they “win to Christ”. Groups that don’t grow are seen as ill, and groups that grow quickly are considered successful and worth of emulation. When creating a new group, much attention is given to whether the group is set up to grow quickly and rather less to whether they are setting up coherent communities.
But To The Word
But rather than focus on my observations of “what happens”, let’s ask ourselves what the Bible says about salvation.
As far as I can tell it says both a lot and relatively little about the process of salvation. In one sense we can find the greek word “soteria” and its related words quite a few times (45 that I count) in the NT and many many more (103) in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament.
Clearly the word has a great Biblical pedigree. But in terms of “how does one become saved” we have a few proof texts and a lot of implied theology.
One of the issues that we often have with the Bible is that there’s a whole lot of context surrounding any statement. Does that mean we can’t understand anything unless we understand everything? No, but it does mean that an isolated verse may or may not be saying what it appears to be saying in the context in which it is quoted.
Romans 10:13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
There you go. Anyone who ever shouted “Jesus Christ!” when they hit their thumb with a hammer is saved. Done and done.
Of course, we have to first notice that the “everyone who calls” part is quoted. It’s an allusion and therefore we should really note that he’s referring to the entire context of Joel chapter 2.
Joel 2:30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.
To look at the broader context, Paul is not merely saying “Go read Joel”, he is also interpreting Joel to remind the reader that the Gentiles are included in the promises made to Israel for this escape and “salvation”.
Romans 10:11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
And unfortunately for those who don’t like cross-references, we have to look up the context of his other quote as well to get our full sense of this chunk’s meaning.
Isaiah 28:14 Therefore hear the word of the LORD, O scoffers
who rule this people in Jerusalem.15 For you said, “We have made a covenant with death;
we have fashioned an agreement with Sheol.
When the overwhelming scourge passes through
it will not touch us,
because we have made lies our refuge
and falsehood our hiding place.”16 So this is what the Lord GOD says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation;
the one who believes will never be shaken.17 I will make justice the measuring line
and righteousness the level.
Hail will sweep away your refuge of lies,
and water will flood your hiding place.18 Your covenant with death will be dissolved,
and your agreement with Sheol will not stand.
When the overwhelming scourge passes through,
you will be trampled by it.19 As often as it passes through,
it will carry you away;
it will sweep through morning after morning,
by day and by night.”The understanding of this message
will bring sheer terror.Berean Study Bible
The context of Isaiah again is speaking about the coming judgement on the people of Israel, specifically the chief priests and Pharisees. Weird that both quotes Paul uses are from passages in which the “salvation” is from the coming judgement of God on Israel, right?
It doesn’t seem like he’s preaching “easy grace” in these passages either. While it’s clear from verse 12 that he is also preaching the positive implications of “salvation”, the references are to a specific proclaimed judgement in the Old Testament that was to come upon apostate Israel. When Isaiah speaks of people “not being put to shame”, he is not speaking in terms of a sinful people who remain sinful but just don’t get nuked. He is speaking about justice and righteousness as opposed to wickedness and rebellion.
And this makes much more sense than an easy grace message embedded weirdly into the depths of Romans 10. Romans 9-11 are all about the destiny and state of Israel. That’s the context of everything he’s talking about. While his statements like “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” can be seen to have universal applicability as he is merely mirroring the same sentiment he has made in many other contexts, the primary meaning of the passage is in regards to the fate of Israel.
Context of Romans 10
Expanding the passage further we can see more of this:
10:1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
“Them” in verse 1 is Israel. You’ll have to take my word for it if this article isn’t going to contain a long digression into Romans 9 to establish the context. You can read it yourself and see that the themes of the coming judgment on the Jews and how some will be saved from the wrath is all over chapter 9.
Paul begins with a heartfelt desire to see his fellow Jews saved. Like Luther, who is sometimes accused of anti-Semitism, Paul also has been accused of such. But while some who read the Bible might have used the negative statements about the Jews to mean something racial, in the context its a theological dispute. Both Luther and Paul’s frustration with the Jews is not their ethnicity but their rejection of Christ.
Paul claims that the Jews have a zeal for God, but apparently do not understand the God they serve. In fact, like Paul himself, they think that by persecuting the church they are in fact serving God. (Jn 16:2; Isa 66:5) Instead of understanding God’s righteousness and calling to it, they seek instead to establish their own righteousness.
Modern dispensational evangelicals tend to believe that Paul is speaking here of “works-righteousness”. This only really holds together if you start from the assumption that there is a fundamental discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments.
But Christ accuses the leaders of the Jews not of “working too hard at following the commandments of God” but of violating and disregarding them, even overturning them.
Mark 7:9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Matthew 23:2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
Or Paul himself earlier in the very letter:
Romans 2:12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Then, when we see Paul say of the Jews: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.” It is not tenable to believe that this is about following the commandments of God as he actually declared them. If that were the case, it would make no sense for Paul to say that their zeal “is not according to knowledge”. If they are merely following Old Testament law as written and intended, this would be a good thing.
Instead, it is likely that he is referring to the works of the ceremonial law. A misplaced faith in ritual to cleanse an evil and unrepentant heart is a theme that exists in the Old Testament.
Isaiah 1:11 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.12 “When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
13 Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
Instead, a true understanding of the place of the ceremonial law is given by David in Psalm 51.
Psalm 51:14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Then we can regard the primary concern of God with regard to the sacrifices and worship of the Old Testament as with the heart, just as it is in the New Testament. A hollow fulfillment of animal sacrifice while “your hands are full of blood” is worthless and “an abomination” before the Lord.
This is especially appropriate given the context of the Jewish persecution of Christians. The “blood on their hands” was predicted by Christ back in the earlier quoted Matthew 23.
Matthew 23:31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Instead God gives Israel the true path to His righteousness right there in the next verse of Isaiah chapter 1, as Isaiah predicts the arrival of Christ and the “righteousness according to faith”.
Isaiah 1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause.18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be eaten by the sword;
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
If the hearer, the condemned Israelite will make a heart change to obey God, his sins will be forgiven. This means that they must “repent, and do the deeds in keeping with repentance”. (Acts 26:20)
Many Jews did. The very early church was 100% Jewish. But Paul is not speaking in Romans 10 of the Jews who have repented but of those who have not. These still make the sacrifices of the Law while “killing and crucifying” the prophets that Christ has sent. After killing Christ himself.
Do they think they are righteous because of their genuflections toward the Mosaic Law, despite the fact that there is hatred and murder in their hearts toward Jesus Christ, who is God Himself? Yes they do. Thus, they “do not submit to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Rom 10:4)
The issue is their lack of submission to Christ. He was the purpose of that sacrificial system. The “end” or the “telos” or the “final purpose” of the law was Christ. Everything in that entire system was intended to lead ultimately to the sacrifice of Christ to cleanse his people and finally return them from exile (literally and spiritually).
Beating Them With Their Own Scripture
The obvious rejoinder to Paul’s claim that while they are “zealous” and “attempt to establish their own righteousness” and “do not submit to the righteousness of God” is that the Old Testament commands all these laws. How would they possibly know that they are doing wrong?
Romans 10:5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.
Where does Moses write about the righteousness that is based on the law? What is Paul referring to? Presumably this will be a reference that should enlighten us to why the Pharisees ought to have known what was wrong with their theology.
Leviticus 18:3 You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4 You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
But after explaining all the various ways that a person might violate the laws of God, Moses then writes:
Leviticus 18:24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
While the law promises life for those who followed it, it also promised judgment on those who committed abominations before the Lord. Israel is subject to God’s rejection just like the Canaanites before them.
And if you know the history of the Old Testament, or even just read the Isaiah passage or the various Jesus quotes I have above, you know that the people of Israel were guilty and subject to God’s judgment. They had been in exile for hundreds of years and had never again become an independent nation since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Clearly, fastidious traditions about the Sabbath and various attempts to strain the gnats out of their camel tea didn’t solve the fundamental issue between them and God.
They were still subject to judgment, because no matter what they thought about their own righteousness, Christ’s words still rang true:
John 8:39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Paul continues Romans 10 in a similar vein:
Romans 10:6 But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
More Old Testament quotations. Paul is a scholar and speaks like someone who lives and breathes the Old Testament. This section is usually very difficult to interpret and I am going to put out the disclaimer that I think I am understanding it correctly, but I am not a scholar like Paul was so maybe I am misunderstanding the nuance.
Deuteronomy 30:9 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
11 “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
God is implicating the Israelites in their claimed inability to follow the Scripture. It appears in the original context that God is saying that the commandments of Scripture (the moral law, presumably) are not some impossible standard that they cannot understand or hold to. Instead it is right there, in black and white and all they must do is submit to it.
But they do not. Getting into hypotheticals with God is always tricky business, but suffice it to say that the Israelites do not follow the commandments of God, in Moses’ time or at any time later in their history.
Paul, however, is not simplistically quoting the verse, but also interpreting it for us. He says that when we hear “who will ascend to heaven” we should hear “to bring Christ down”.
Then we see a second quotation in verse 7, “who will descend into the abyss”. This is actually just the Septuagint version of “Who will go over the sea?” Paul says this is equivalent to “Bring Christ up from the dead”. Instead Paul says the truth is in verse 14: “But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” which he identifies as “the word of faith that we proclaim”.
It is worth noting as a starting point for our analysis that the answer to the questions of “who brought Christ down from heaven” and “who brought Christ up from the dead” is God. So then the reason not to ask those questions is that the answer is obvious, God has done these things. And therefore “the word [of faith] is in your mouth and in your heart”. And in fact, God declares that this word of faith that Paul proclaims is in fact the same word to which God was referring when he said that this was readily available to the Israelites from Deuteronomy’s day.
So then Paul condemns the Israelite rejection of Christ with Moses’ own words. He is, in essence making the point that that very passage in Deuteronomy 30 means that the Israelites should not look for someone to accomplish the necessary work to bring righteousness to the land, as it has/will be done by God and they can have faith in that even at that early stage.
This faith, in context is not a free-floating faith opposed to doing the commandments of God, but is the power that enables them to “obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut 30:10)
The problem with Israel was never (as the Pharisees thought) some minor tedious application of Sabbath law, or some lack of the appropriate measure of hand washing, but was always a heart problem. When they “turn to the Lord their God with all their hears and all their soul”, this will enable them to “obey the voice of the Lord your God”, which “they can do” because “the word [of faith that Paul is proclaiming] is very near to them”.
Then we see a relatively uncontroversial truth being taught in this passage, that a true heartfelt repentance and turning to God will result in genuine righteousness, not based on a tithe of mint and cumin, but on the power of God Himself that animates us. Hollow rehearsals of ritual law separated from a genuine heart change is as worthless as the sacrifices in Psalm 51 or Isaiah 1. They reject God, and His Messiah and His prophets because of their own arrogant certainty in their man-made traditions.
Worse still, they believed they were doing right! When a person violates the commandments of God and does evil, then suffers the guilt and shame of evil-doing, that’s one thing. When they reject God’s commandments and call it good, that’s a much harder barrier to pierce.
An important part of this argument is that Paul is clarifying Old Testament teaching but not changing it. The condemnation is from Moses (Jn 5:45). They weren’t just faithful Bible followers who missed all this new Revelation, they are willfully obstinate people who missed the understanding of the Old Testament and still didn’t submit when Christ Himself came and explained it to them and still don’t accept it when Christ’s people explain it again.
How Then Can We Be Saved?
Romans 10:9 because, 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. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Then what is Paul talking about in Romans 10:9-10?
It would be foolish and disingenuous to disconnect this from the flow of thought that has been going on in the rest of Romans 10 (and 9 before it). He is not jumping off on an unrelated tangent. The word “because” that starts Romans 10:9 is literally the middle of the sentence begun in Romans 10:8.
Here he appears to be giving a formulation of “what we are preaching” as mentioned in verse 8. To understand exactly what Paul means by this, we must understand and remember that he has just finished making the point that the “the word of faith that we proclaim” is the same “word [that] is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 30.
Then this cannot be some replacement to the Old Testament law, now that Christ has come, it must be instead a fulfillment and clarification of what was always true, that to turn to God in your hearts (or repent) and practice the “works in keeping with repentance” (Acts 20 again) will enable you to live in “God’s righteousness”.
This righteousness is not the same thing as perfection. Back in the earlier quoted Isaiah 1, God says that the person who turns to him will both “cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.” AND that “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”.
The error of the “easy grace” formulation of salvation is the removal of the need for repentance, or turning to God, or “ceasing to do evil”. Unfortunately, many might jump in at this moment and say that I am preaching a “works-salvation”. I am not. What I am claiming is that the “turning to God in your heart” or “repentance” is both the source of your inclusion with Christ by faith and also the source of the works of faith that you will do, those works being the works that God called us to do in his holy Law. Will it happen overnight? No. Will it be perfect? No. But our sins are made white like wool, so that even when we fail our faith guarantees absolution of sin. If that faith is indeed genuine.
This formulation of salvation and the fact that it is coterminous with the true keeping of God’s law is 100% derived from the Old Testament scriptures. What is missing from this formulation is the mechanism. These dynamics were able to be known, understood, and could have (in principle) been followed by Israel. Many “heroes of faith” (see Heb 11) DID in fact follow this way to salvation. This was the one and only way that God had or intended from the Fall until now.
But Israel as a whole did NOT follow this. They rebelled. And thus they were many times over made to suffer as Isaiah describes in 1:20: “but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Or “vomited out of the land” as Moses says in Lev 18.
Then what is Paul adding? Or is he overturning this formulation of salvation with verses 9 and 10?
First we must confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord. This is a declaration, verbal and intentional of our allegiance to Christ. This is the same thing as “turning to God in your heart”. He is not some great teacher or moralist. He is not a dead guy who stamped my ticket to heaven. He is not a liar or a lunatic or a legend. He is the Lord of all that there is. As Daniel says: “And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” (7:13-14)
The Jew in mind that Paul wishes this for would thus repudiate the powers that be in that time and place. They cannot go on persecuting the people of God if they are themselves confessing Jesus as their own Lord.
And they must “believe in their heart that Jesus was raised from the dead”. Why is this important? Because a dead savior cannot save. “If Christ is not raised then our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins” (1 Cor 15:17). If death defeated Christ then the judgment has not been fulfilled. The exile continues. Having a dead Lord is like having no Lord at all.
This goes to the theme of Christ as the representative and fulfillment of Israel. There was a condition placed on God returning the people from their exile, and all the promises that that entailed.
Deuteronomy 30:1 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, 2 and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
Hmm. Deuteronomy 30 again, eh? Almost like it’s an important text that we don’t read much. Anyway… The exile had never ended truly. Some of the Jews had returned physically to Israel, but they were still a conquered people. Still a scattered people. They lacked a King.
When Christ dies he symbolically (and as a substitution) suffers the “curse” on behalf of the people. The fortunes of Israel are restored and life is literally granted back to Christ when he is raised from the dead. Thus then those who turn toward Christ, through their identification with Christ, are restored to the place of sonship that Israel was intended to enjoy. This includes (but is not limited to) avoiding Hell.
But if Christ was never raised, the exile continues. The curse of sin is still upon Israel and thus upon the Gentiles that have been included in Israel. God has rejected them as His people. They stand “divorced” as a harlot (see basically all of Ezekiel and Hosea). If he has been raised, then the exile ends. They have a new King and are no longer subject to slavery but are free. They have become heirs. The church is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God by which “we are more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37). God “casts their sins as far away from him as east is from west” (Ps 103:12).
But not every person who is descended from Israel is Israel (Romans 9:6). As long as the individuals continue in their rebellion they are not part of the restored Israel. When they turn to Christ and confess that he is Lord, they become restored to Israel. Paul goes more into this in chapter 11, with the analogy of the branches broken off and the possibility of them being grafted back in.
He says something somewhat cryptic then in verse 10: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
What does “justified” mean? If you know your systematic theology, you might be jumping up and down with your hand raised going “Ooo Ooo!!!” but bear with me. What does “saved” mean? Saved from what?
Some translations (I’m cobbling it together loosely) might phrase this as “With the heart one believes and becomes righteous and with the mouth one confesses and is delivered”.
That helps us with “justified”. It is roughly “made righteous” or as certain theological positions might word it “considered righteous”. From a modern context, we might like to think of this as “declared not guilty”. But really the Bible is it’s own context and we already have the tools we need to understand this. When we believe we are no longer standing under the judicial curse of God defined in Deuteronomy 29, but are restored, as described in Isaiah. The faith, the heart attitude, the repentance, the new allegiance leads us both to the restoration promised by God as well as the actual performance of his commandments. The two cannot exist apart from one another. (Again, not perfectly, as in these passages God still makes provision for the person’s sin).
But “saved”? Saved from what? Wouldn’t being considered righteous and no longer under God’s curse already be “salvation” in the terms that we usually think of it? What further benefit does the verbal acknowledgment provide?
There is one sense in which you could say that the two are really one. That confession is worthless without belief and belief must necessarily be followed by confession. However, I think there is more specific concerns in Paul’s mind at this moment, as evidenced by our earlier discussion of verses 11-13.
Romans 10:11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Israel was under specific temporal judgment. The end of the temple and of Jerusalem at the hands of the Romans was coming like a freight train. The “salvation” in mind in “confessing with your mouth” is the salvation from the “coming wrath” which had been warned about since John the Baptist started telling the Pharisees they were in trouble in Luke 3:7. The quotes about salvation and not being put to shame are squarely in the midst of predictions of Jerusalem and Israel’s judgment.
Then it makes sense why confession in a public way is necessary for this sort of salvation. A secret Christian might go to heaven but he’ll be standing in the wrong place when the Romans come. They will be subject to the same temporal judgment as the non-believer, the one that Christ warned them to flee from (Luke 21:20).
Then that makes sense of Paul’s entire flow of thought.
Summary of Romans 10:1-13
Paul knows that judgment is upon Israel, his people. He knows that while they have zeal for God, they clearly do not understand his scriptures or his righteousness. He says that they are still believing their traditions and meticulous ritual will pardon their egregious violations of God’s law and they therefore reject Christ, the true messenger of God’s law and his mercy.
They stand condemned by the Old Testament, by Moses himself, who explained the actual way to salvation and true righteousness right from the very beginning. While Paul and the apostles may be explaining things more clearly, they are not fundamentally saying anything new, merely uncovering what was not clear.
The true path to righteousness in the eyes of God was always through “faith”, a heart change, allegiance. This is not mere “belief” (as James 2 points out) but is a placing of your chips on Jesus’ mark. It is the same as “believing in your heart that He is raised from the dead” (meaning that He was the true representative of Israel and that He is the true King who leads Israel back from exile).
Anyone who does this will see the righteousness of God manifested in them, as God had always promised to the person who turned to Him in their hearts. And further, if they courageously confess that their Lord is Christ, then they will be counted among the hated Christians, and thus will not be among the judged Israel when their “measure has been filled up”.
What Does This Mean For Us?
One, that we should see the fundamental continuity between the Old and New Testaments. One cannot be understood fully without reference to the other. Also that the simplistic perspectives of proof-texts can lead to entirely wrong conclusions. Furthermore, that God has fulfilled the curse of the Law by his action through Christ and now the fully redeemed Israel, embodied in Christ and his body (those who are in the faith) is privy to all the promises and blessings that God gave regarding restored Israel.
We know also that salvation is not as simple as “praying a sinner’s prayer”. Really and truly it is a heart belief, and not simply “intellectual acknowledgment” but a transfer of one’s fundamental allegiance. The confession with the mouth is not some ritual that we do just “cause it says to”, but a continual choice to declare your allegiance to Christ publicly by standing with his church instead of with the unbelieving world.
This confession does not appear to be necessary for “being saved” as we normally think of it, but it is necessary to avoid the judgment that God is bringing upon the unbelieving world. Being an undercover Christian means that you will suffer as he judges the world around you.
BUT, it may also be that Paul does not see a real possibility of disconnecting the heart belief and the confession. It is obvious to us from the example of Israel that you can confess your allegiance to God without a true allegiance, but is it possible to have a true allegiance without a confession? I don’t know and the passage doesn’t speak to the question as far as I can tell. But they are definitely distinct actions.
Therefore I think I reject some of the details of the soteriological perspective of a standard non-denominational roughly Baptist church. Sinner’s prayers might be a good indicator that a person has had a real heart change, but it is definitely possible to pray that prayer without being saved. The real question is the heart. And whether or not the prayer has been prayed is less of an indicator than whether or not they stand with the church or with the unbelieving world against the church.
We may not be able to suss out a person’s soul’s state with any certainty but we can certainly say that it is inappropriate for a believer to separate his allegiance from God’s people. Therefore, when it comes to what we consider success in terms even of “salvations” we should be looking not for what we think their heart state was or whether they prayed a good-enough-sounding prayer, but whether their allegiance has been visibly turned to Christ and whether they now stand with church as we confess that we have but one Lord, Christ the King, Risen from the Dead.