That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation?…. For whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:9–13—NKJV)
The “Roman’s Road” of salvation has four mile-markers. The first is “All Are Lost” (3:10–23, 5:12), the second is “It Is All of Grace” (5:8), the third is “It Is All a Gift” (6:23), and the final is “It Is All About Faith” (10:9–10, 13). Our topic is the fourth mile-marker, that salvation is All of Faith. As Romans 1:16–18 outlines, only by faith can a man escape the wrath of God that is “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Because the wrath of God hangs over all lost men, they are in need of the grace of God only found in the substitutionary death of His perfect Son offered as a gift most rare and complete. Such a gift can only be received by faith.
We are exhorted to flee the wrath of God (Matthew 3:7, Psalm 90:11, Luke 16:19ff). But how? Hebrews 6:18 states, “We might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul…. “ Faith seems like a paper-thin shield when compared to the weight and finality of the wrath of the Almighty. Yet it is this faith that proves its mettle and becomes the very same sturdy shield which protects the saint through all his earthly days (Ephesians 6:13–17).
Authentic, biblical faith is actually one of the strongest forces known among men. Though all world religions transform a man, it is only the “Christian” faith that genuinely transforms the hardest of sinners into an avid producer of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22f). I believe the faith of which God speaks comes from Him (Ephesians 2:8–9) and without His authorship our “faith” is in vain (Hebrews 12:1–3). This faith is a saving faith founded upon the bedrock faith of Scripture that translates into the living faith of daily obedience to God (Ephesians 4:1–5). In other words, it is a faith that sees Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Sovereign, and my Sanctifier (Psalm 23).
The kind of faith God requires is not what commonly passes for “faith” in our world. We tend to think of faith as a sectarian distinctive, or a mystical avenue to inner happiness, or a blind naïveté. Even nominal Christians tend to compartmentalize faith into its various practices such as meditation, religious observance, doing good, and being good. But how do you behave when you really, really, really believe something?
When you really believe that certain foods are good to promote your health and certain foods are poison for you, your behavior changes and you feel guilty when you eat the “forbidden fruit.” When you really believe someone is watching you, the thought captivates your every move. When you really believe there is a thief in your house, your every sense is enlivened and your “fight or flight” juices get flowing.
Our text tells every sinner (and specifically one who has been divinely awakened by the agency of the Holy Spirit to be convinced of the alarming fact that he spends every living moment imminently under the impending wrath of God) to call on the Name of the Lord and he shall be saved. This is an action which is the logical response to something he really, really believes. He has become convinced of the spiritual facts as defined by the Bible. How he calls on the Name of the Lord is something astonishingly similar to the cry of a newborn. The little guy knows something is wrong, his body begins to writhe, his face begins to display his discomfort, he opens his silent mouth to utter something—anything—but nothing yet, and finally a tortured cry escapes his little frame and his plea is heard.
The rescue of the repentant sinner’s soul is promised when he is convinced of, and yields to, two facts—that Jesus is Lord and that He rose from the grave (Romans 10:9). The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes (Romans 1:16ff). The sinner must believe that Jesus was born, lived, died, was buried, and rose out from among the dead! It is one thing to believe Jesus was born, he lived, he died, and that he was buried. But that is not enough for salvation. This same Jesus rose from the grave proving His claims, proving He finished the work of salvation, proving He is the Son of God, and proving He is the only Savior of all mankind. This belief—really, really heartfelt believing—is what provides judicial righteousness and allows God to declare the sinner justified and free from the penalty of death.
This belief of heart will be evidenced by the mouth in praise of his Savior. Because really, really believing really, really changes a man—root and branch. Out of his mouth will flow copious praise of his Savior, Sovereign, and Sanctifier. He will publically and privately own Him as Lord of all he is, all he will be, and all he possesses. Such a sinner, and only such a sinner, can readily see that this seemingly thin faith is formed of the tempered steel of God’s promise and is sufficient to guarantee the salvation of the most precious possession he has, his eternal soul. Are you sure you are a transformed, rescued believer? Trust and obey.
