If You Confess With Your Mouth, Will You Be Saved? (Romans 10:9)

Romans 10:9 and the Meaning of Confession

Romans 10 9 says, 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. This verse has been used to justify sinner's prayer evangelism, but the Apostle Paul was not saying a one-time spoken word saves a person.

What he's saying is that outward confession is evidence of one's faith. In Matthew 10 33, Jesus said, Whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father. If you won't claim Christ is Lord so you won't be ridiculed for your faith, well, neither will Jesus claim you on the day of judgment.

The first century Roman Christians were being more than ridiculed, they were being put to death for their faith. In the greater context of Romans 10 9, though Caesar could destroy the body, he had no power over their eternal soul.

If a Christian claimed Christ instead of Caesar as Lord and were put to death for it, then just as God raised Christ from the dead, they also would be raised to eternal life. That's what that meant to a Roman Christian.

To us, we've taken it to mean that if you pray a prayer, you're saved no matter what you do with the rest of your life because you confess Christ as Lord once and wrote the date you did in the back of your Bible.

The Word of Faith in Your Mouth and Heart

But as Paul says in the previous verse, the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith that we proclaim. So you didn't just say the words once, you're still saying them.

You've been so changed by the gospel down to your very core that it's evident in the very words you speak. Jesus also said out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. That's the meaning of Romans 10, 9 when we understand the text.