Confess With Thy Mouth the Lord Jesus

Paul wrote these well-known words to the Romans, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” As the student manual puts it, “Some Christians have used Paul’s words in [this verse] to claim that all a person must do to be saved is to verbally confess a belief in Jesus Christ.” I think, though, that the next verse clarifies what Paul was trying to say: “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” In other words, if we really believe in the Savior in our hearts, then it will lead us to righteousness. Paul was not saying that we can believe and then do nothing to show that faith or freely violate the commandments; rather, he was teaching that if we truly believe in our hearts in the Lord Jesus, we will be led to live with righteousness. This is consistent as well with what he wrote a few verses earlier speaking of “the righteousness which is of faith”—righteousness and faith are inextricably linked together (Romans 10:6, 9-10). Paul sought to help the Romans and us to put faith in the Savior and not in the law, for it is only with faith in Him that we can become righteous and ultimately be saved. But our goal is still and always will be to become like He and the Father are, just as the Savior Himself taught: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

            I think that in our day this statement by Paul that we should “confess with [our] mouth the Lord Jesus” is increasingly difficult and takes courage. Paul, I believe, was not talking about confessing the Savior in the safety of our homes but rather being willing to speak of Him in the midst of others who may not believe or who show animosity towards the Lord and His teachings. We must be willing, like Paul was, to speak of the Savior openly in a world that has largely rejected Him. Paul’s words here made me reflect upon a common occurrence that happens as we travel as a family in our van. We have a CD of Scripture Scouts that we often play, and our younger children especially love the songs that relate events in the scriptures and speak of the Savior. They love to listen to the stories and sing along as we drive in the car, and my youngest son always insists that we play it louder and louder. My two oldest children, on the other hand, are mortified by the thought that someone might hear what we are listening to, and often a fight breaks out with one child trying to turn off the music and another trying to turn it up, especially when we are parked somewhere that someone else might walk by and hear it. Try as I might, I have not been able to convince the older children that they need not be embarrassed by the music that is teaching us about Jesus Christ and recounting the events of the scriptures (especially when we are in the Church parking lot!). They have not yet fully understood or been able to feel the same as Paul declared in another passage to the Romans: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). We must not be ashamed of the gospel and of the Savior, and we should willingly confess the Lord Jesus with our mouths. If others reject Him around us that is their choice, but we should not be afraid to speak of Him and declare our commitment to following His gospel.