“If you confess with your mouth JESUS AS LORD…”

“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Romans 10:9-10

This passage, a favorite of many, I propose is one terribly misunderstood and misapplied for the sake of an easy believe-istic approach to salvation. Just believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, say it out loud and boom, heaven’s your new home! It’s a classic case of tearing the passage out of its historical and theological context like a page out of a magazine.

Paul’s first readers were Roman citizens who were law bound to assert tyrannical Caesar as “Lord” and obey his every dictate or die. Their confession of the Lordship of Christ would then have sounded more like:

“I no longer accept or follow any lord…