If you’ve been to church twice in your life, you’ve heard it. 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.” It’s a powerful, succinct verse explaining how sinners can be made right with God. Confess and believed, be saved.
But to some, the simplicity of this verse can be deceptive. “Confess and believe? Like, there’s something in addition to faith that I need in order to go to heaven?” And some false teachers stand on this verse as yet another biblical proof that baptism (a form of public confession) is necessary for salvation. “See! Salvation is contingent not only on faith but also on the proper acting of that faith in public confession through the waters of baptism.” What may seem so gloriously plain to some has become a stumbling block to others.
So, which is it? Does God require verbal confirmation to verify genuine faith? Does Paul really mean to say that we need to publicly claim Jesus as Lord or else we are headed for Hades? Does your salvation hang on your confession?
I recently encountered this question when a congregant’s friend made a death-bed conversion and then passed away before being baptized. Should he expect to see his friend in heaven? Was his bed-ridden confession enough, or did he need something else to get him to glory?
The answer is that God accepts all into his kingdom who come to him through faith in Christ, baptism or public confession or not. If the thief on the cross is with Jesus in Paradise, having believed only hours before his death (Luke 23:39-43), then so too is the last-minute convert today. The gospel we believe, the gospel of free salvation in Jesus by faith alone, should be a great comfort in the face of death. Our assurance is not in submersion but in the open heart of Jesus on the cross. He welcomes us by faith, not by baptism or any other work (Gal 2:15-16).
And this is exactly Paul’s point in Romans 10:9 when he says “confess and believe.” In context, Paul argues emphatically against salvation by baptism, by spoken word, or by any other human deed. We are saved by faith alone, and that is our confession.
Why Our Works Won’t Work
The freeness of the gospel – that we are saved entirely apart from any of our works, including baptism – is precisely Paul’s point in Romans 9:5-10. In verse 5, Paul says that Moses explained how a works-based system functions: “the person who does the commandments shall live by them.” Here, he’s quoting Leviticus 18:5 to show that if you want to go the route of “I obey, God pays,” then you’re seeking salvation by the principle of law. The Mosaic Law promised continued blessings to Israel if they would keep God’s commandments – they could continue to “live” in the land and “live” with God and “live” so as to not be killed if they would do everything God told them to do. The Law worked by works – obey and receive (Lev 26, Deut 27-28).
The problem with seeking righteousness by our works (a self-righteousness according to v. 3) is that it never works. Exhibit A: The history of Israel. There isn’t one single generation, one single tribe, or even one single king who kept the Law enough to earn all of its blessings (though Solomon came close… until he didn’t). The standard of God’s law is an exacting, demanding standard, and we have fickle, wayward hearts. God requires perfection (Matt 5:48). To break the law in one place is to break it all (James 2:10). So, the vending machine approach to getting salvation from God will not work with God because our money is no good to God. We won’t keep all his commandments, so we can’t live in his holy presence.
So, we can’t get Mosiac blessings by obedience, but can we receive eternal life by works? Jesus commands us to be baptized (Matt 28:18-20), even as he commands us to love one another (John 13:35), to be watchful for temptation (Matt 24:42-25:13), and a host of other commands. To base our salvation on our obedience to those commands would be, as Paul calls it, “the righteousness that’s based on the law,” – “you do, you get.” And Paul’s point in Romans 10:1-5 is that law-keeping can’t get anyone to glory because we are law-breakers by nature. So, if you think that God will approve of you in his holy, spotless court because you obeyed him in baptism, then how have you done with the rest of his commands?
Jesus quotes the same text (Lev 18:5) to a lawyer who thought he could get to heaven by his obedience, followed by his parable regarding the Good Samaritan. The Law, like Jesus, says, “If you think you can live as righteously as God himself, you haven’t appreciated how righteous God is.” Paul says the same thing, again quoting this text, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith'” (Gal 3:11). The Jews of his day were “ignorant of the righteousness of God” (Rom 10:3); they thought God was about as righteous as a really obedient Pharisee. How small God must be to us if we think that any act – baptism or circumcision or anything else – puts us on par with the Holy One of Israel!
In the context of the famous verse 9, then, we see that Paul roundly rejects the idea that anyone could actually accrue the “righteousness based on the law” because nobody can do the commandments and thereby live. If a spoken phrase (like the sinner’s prayer, a particular creed, or even a baptismal confession) were to count as part of our righteousness before God, then it would need to be followed by a life of obedience as impeccable Christ’s. If we need to say certain things in order to be saved, then we are saved by law, not the gospel of free grace. But the plan of salvation by works simply does not work.
Why We’re Saved By Mouth Alone
If we aren’t saved by the principle of law, then how are we saved? In contrast to Moses, Paul puts forward… Moses. The apostle writes, “But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 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)” (Rom 10:6-8).
Like with Leviticus 18:5, Paul quotes Deuteronomy 9:4 and Deuteronomy 30:12-14 to draw out the principle at work in these texts and show how they relate to salvation. Whereas Leviticus 18 says, “Do and live,” Deuteronomy 30 says, “Receive and live.” Paul shows the contrast between a works-based system and a faith-based system of salvation. As God did everything necessary to make the Law accessible to his people (brought it down from heaven, made it near), so God has done everything to make Christ’s righteousness immediately accessible to his elect (the Incarnation, the resurrection, and gospel preaching). The point is: There’s nothing for us to do! God has done every work required for sinners to be righteous before him. Our part is not to do, but to believe.
And that’s where verse 9 comes in: “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” (Rom 10:9). So why does Paul talk about the mouth and the heart? Is it because God requires both a belief and a confession to be saved?
Notice that Paul uses the two body parts that Moses used in Deuteronomy 30:14 – the mouth and the heart. And Paul, like Moses, is using those parts as a metonymy – a literary device where a part stands for a whole or a related thing – to talk about the soul’s embrace of the truth. God is not impressed by air passing over a larynx, as if physically speaking certain words – “Jesus is Lord” – would open the gates of heaven and roll out the golden carpet. No, Paul is saying that both the confession of the mouth and the belief of the heart (which he repeats and reverses in the next verse) describe the same, singular reality: true faith. What the heart believes, the mouth naturally confesses. And if you receive with your soul that God – not us and our works – raised Jesus from the dead after he atoned for our sin on the cross, and if that truth causes you to submit to him as your sovereign God and King, then you will be saved.
Consider how this same truth appears elsewhere in Scripture. Jesus says, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 10:32–33). So, is your standing before the Father contingent on having a conversation with your atheist co-worker and outing yourself as a Jesus follower? Does he who know the hearts and minds of all men need a demonstration from you to tell whether or not you really believed?
Or consider Jesus’ stinging words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 7:21). This sentence is instructive in two ways. First, notice that there are people who make the very confession that Paul calls for (they call Jesus “Lord”) and they don’t get to enter the kingdom. The bare statement “Jesus is Lord” is no punched ticket to paradise. Second, notice Jesus’ shorthand way of referring to the one who is granted access to heaven: “the one who does the will of my Father.” Here, the doing is not synonymous with faith but is the natural, necessary product of faith. Doing God’s will is so tightly bound to believing in Jesus that believers can be identified as doers by Jesus himself.
So, do you have to “confess” to be saved? On the one hand, no, salvation is not based on the human work of a verbal confession or obedience in baptism. However, if someone is saved, some form of confession will inevitably follow. And what is the content of that confession? “Jesus is Lord!” Meaning, because Jesus is both my God and my Master, because he died for my pardon, and because he was raised for my justification, he has done it all! If it’s all mouth and heart, then brothers and sisters, it’s no hands!
“Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling! Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. Foul, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die!”
Augustus Montague Toplady, Rock of Ages
Praise the Lord that the gospel is free! Embracing Jesus by faith is all God requires to be saved from his wrath and delivered to eternal bliss. God does not demand a ritual, a sacrament, a prayer, or even the movement of our lips – he demands far more. God demands perfection. But Jesus lived the perfect life that was required of us, and he “made the good confession” (1 Tim 6:12) before we ever could. So, God does not offer salvation to us if we would just live a little like Jesus. He commands only simple faith, like a child. God saves the helpless, not the strong. Christ heals the sick, not the healthy. Our Savior rescues the unbaptized and then calls them publicly confess that Christ has done it all.