#DailyDevotion Confessing & Believing Jesus Is YHWH Is A State Of Salvation Not To Earn Salvation
Rom. 10:9-17 9If with your mouth you confess, “Jesus is the Lord,” and in your heart you believe “God raised Him from the dead,” you will be saved. 10With your heart you believe and become righteous; with your mouth you confess and are saved. 11“Anyone who believes in Him,” the Bible says, “will not be disappointed.” 12There is no difference between Jew and Greek, because they all have the same Lord, Who gives His riches to all who call on Him. 13“Everyone who calls on the Lord’s name will be saved.”
There are conditions of fact and conditions that need to be made. Unfortunately, many people who live in the paradigm of works righteousness take this scripture as conditions to be made. It’s like they have completely forgotten chapter 1-9 where works do not save us. In those chapters it is quite clear that we are saved by grace, as a free gift, through faith in Chris Jesus and his works, which faith is also a gift of God to us.
So Paul here is describing the condition of those who are saved, those who by God’s grace have been given faith in Christ Jesus and his work of salvation for all people. If you are in a state of salvation, you are are going to confess Jesus is the LORD. What do we mean by that? Well if you read your Old Testament in many places you will see the name of God as LORD (the ord will be in small capital letters but I haven’t figured out how to do that in OpenOffice). This tells us in this place LORD=YHWH, the God of Israel. To confess Jesus is LORD, the God of Israel in the flesh takes faith. Only by the Holy Spirit can we confess this truth and believe it.
Secondly, if we are in a state of salvation, we are going to believe God raised Jesus from the dead. This is also is a foundation of the Christian faith. It is what the apostles preached on Pentecost and on every occasion since then. Jesus Christ of Nazareth died but on the third day he rose bodily from the dead never to die again. Jesus has overcome death, our penalty for sin. If Jesus is risen from the dead our sins, trespasses, iniquities, guilt and shame has been removed from us, placed on Jesus and buried with Jesus in the tomb where they all stayed. They were not resurrected with Jesus.
So we believe in our hearts and confess these things as true, Jesus is the God of Israel and he is risen from the dead. If you cannot confess and believe these things, you are still in a state of condemnation. Only those who have the Holy Spirit and are born from above can believe and confess such things. Apart from the Spirit, you are still dead in your trespasses and sins and cannot believe or confess such things. Paul tells us in ch. 8, “7This is so because the fleshly mind hates God. It refuses to obey God’s Law because it can’t obey it. 8Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.” Those who are of the Spirit can believe and confess these things.
So we call upon our LORD Jesus Christ to save us. We are promised here we will not be disappointed. We are assured all who call upon the name of the LORD Jesus Christ will we saved. We should note here Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 and telling Jesus the LORD Joel is referring to. Peter does the same in Acts 2:21. Both Jew and Non-Jew have the same LORD and Savior to call upon to be saved from their sins and enter eternal life—Jesus Christ, the LORD.
Heavenly Father, grant to us your Holy Spirit through your Word so we may hear, believe and confess Jesus Christ is the LORD to your glory and receive salvation from him. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.