For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
10. For with the heart, &c.] The “ for ” introduces a further explanation; in which the special workings of belief and confession are noticed.
man believeth ] Lit. it is believed; “belief is exercised.” So just below, it is confessed.
righteousness ] i.e., practically, Justification. See last note but two.
unto salvation ] i.e. final salvation; the “end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls.” (1Pe 1:9.) The “confession with the mouth” represents in fact the whole process by which the Christian, in his life on earth, owns and obeys Christ as his Lord; refuses to “deny Him” in the evil world. It thus stands here for the “narrow path” along which the justified move to their promised and assured home. Faith indeed “saves:” the Christian, in every sense, “ lives by faith in the Son of God” (Gal 2:20). But his “life” is manifested in obedience, which alone (whatever be the influence which leads him to it and keeps him in it) is the path to heaven. See Eph 2:8-10.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For with the heart – Not with the understanding merely, but with such a faith as shall be sincere, and shall influence the life. There can be no other genuine faith than what influences the whole mind.
Believeth unto righteousness – Believes so that justification is obtained. (Stuart.) In Gods plan of justifying people, this is the way by which we may be declared just or righteous in his sight. The moment a sinner believes, therefore, he is justified; his sins are pardoned; and he is introduced into the favor of God. No man can be justified without this; for this is Gods plan, and he will not depart from it.
With the mouth confession is made … – That is, confession or profession is so made as to obtain salvation. He who in all appropriate ways professes his attachment to Christ shall be saved. This profession is to be made in all the proper ways of religious duty; by an avowal of our sentiments; by declaring on all proper occasions our belief of the truth; and by an unwavering adherence to them in all persecutions, oppositions, and trials. He who declares his belief makes a profession. He who associates with Christian people does it. He who acts with them in the prayer meeting, in the sanctuary, and in deeds of benevolence, does it. He who is baptized, and commemorates the death of the Lord Jesus, does it. And he who leads an humble, prayerful, spiritual life, does it. He shows his regard to the precepts and example of Christ Jesus; his regard for them more than for the pride, and pomp, and allurements of the world. All these are included in a profession of religion. In whatever way we can manifest attachment to it, it must be done. The reason why this is made so important is, that there can be no true attachment to Christ which will not manifest itself in the life. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. It is impossible that there should be true belief in the heart of man, unless it should show itself in the life and conversation. This is the only test of its existence and its power; and hence it is made so important in the business of religion. And we may here learn,
(1) That a profession of religion is, by Paul, made as really indispensable to salvation as believing. According to him it is connected with salvation as really as faith is with justification; and this accords with all the declarations of the Lord Jesus; Mat 10:32; Mat 25:34-46; Luk 12:8.
(2) There can be no religion where there is not a willingness to confess the Lord Jesus. There is no true repentance where we are not willing to confess our faults. There is no true attachment to a father or mother or friend, unless we are willing on all proper occasions to avow it. And so there can be no true religion where there is too much pride, or vanity, or love of the world, or fear of shame to confess it.
(3) Those who never profess any religion have none: and they are not safe. To deny God the Saviour before people is not safe. They who do not profess religion, profess the opposite. The real feelings of the heart will be expressed in the life. And they who profess by their lives that they have no regard for God and Christ, for heaven and glory, must expect to be met in the last day, as those who deny the Lord that bought them, and who bring upon themselves quick destruction; 2Pe 1:2.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rom 10:10
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Observe the harmonious relation between
1. The heart and the mouth.
2. Faith and confession.
3. Righteousness and salvation. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Faith, and the confession of faith
1. It was a saying of Dr. Johnson, that classical quotation was the parole of literary men, and we can understand how a sympathy similar to that existing among scholars would obtain between Paul and the Jews to whom he wrote, and they found him adapting the words of the law in his exposition of the gospel. A comparison of Rom 10:6-8 with Deu 30:11-14 will show clearly that they are adapted rather than quoted.
2. In verse 9, confession comes before believing, there being a play upon the words quoted in verse 8; but in verse 10 we have, more logically, belief coming before confession.
I. with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
1. Nature of evangelical faith.
(1) It is not a mere intellectual faith, as when men believe in Caesar or Napoleon, for this the devils have when they believe and tremble (Jam 2:19).
(2) In belief of the heart, the mind as well as the affections is implied, for the heart, in scriptural language, is said to reason (Mar 2:6), to meditate (Luk 3:15), and to understand (Mat 13:15).
2. This faith is to be in the resurrection of Christ.
(1) Now by this the Divinity of Christs teaching was demonstrated (chap.1:4).
(2) Again, Christ was the outshining of the Fathers glory, and the express Image of His person (Heb 1:3). In Him we see incarnate the Divine perfections.
(3) True faith, therefore, in the resurrection of Christ implies a belief in the whole mediatorial scheme, and such a realising sense of God as will lead to holy service.
3. Hence it is a belief unto righteousness; i.e.,
(1) The forensic righteousness by which the objective difficulty to mans approach to his heavenly Father was taken away (context and Rom 3:22).
(2) And also the righteousness wrought in us (subjective) as we imitate Christs holy life (1Jn 2:29; 1Jn 3:7; 1Jn 3:10).
(3) Justification by faith is the article of a standing or falling Church, but the faith that justifies is the faith which worketh by love (Gal 5:6).
II. with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
1. This has been supposed to have reference to the primitive confession of faith in baptism. If so, the text will correspond to Mar 16:16.
2. We may, consistently with what has been said under I. 3, take the confession to stand for practical Christianity, since confessing Christ with the mouth is but one of the works wrought by loving faith.
(1) There is a confession with the mouth to which God calls us. If our hearts be full of Christ, we must needs confess Him (Mat 12:34; Mat 10:32; see also Joh 12:42 and 1Jn 4:15).
(2) But the Word is nigh us, that we may do it (Deu 30:14).
(a) The man of the world finds it hard to understand how professing Christians can believe while their actions remain unaffected by their belief. In commerce, a belief in the dishonesty of any one with whom he has to do, leads him to guard and protect himself against possible wrong. The mariner, again, whose charts disclose rocks and shoals, keeps his ship at a safe distance from them–he makes use of his knowledge.
(b) But the true Christian must act. His faith brings before him the things unseen (Heb 11:1), and he no longer walks under the influence of the things of sight, like the children of this world (2Co 5:7). As spiritual health increases, old ways of sin are thrown off, the heart is cleansed and purified, and the mans daily life has a heavenly fragrance which blesses his fellow-men. Conclusion: The secret of mens unbelief lies for the most part, not in the mind, but in the affections. They cannot bring themselves to forsake their worldliness and sin, and therefore come to the consideration of the gospel message, if they consider it at all, with prejudiced minds. (J. C. Pilkington, M.A.)
Faith and confession the subjective condition of salvation
I. with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
1. Belief and faith are one. In respect to mundane matters, we receive the testimony of men; while in the matters pertaining to the unseen world, we receive the testimony of God. Faith in man sustains the whole fabric of our secular and scientific knowledge, and faith in God is the support of our spiritual and religious knowledge. If, in order to secure the salvation of our souls, we must have the latter faith, even so, in order to the preservation and comfort of our bodies, we must have the former. Without faith it is impossible to please God; and without faith, belief, it is impossible to enjoy the advantages of civilised life. And whether it has respect to man or God, faith is belief in testimony (1Jn 5:9-11).
2. The apostle clearly intends by the heart the inner, as contrasted with the external man; and not the emotional, as opposed to the intelligent man. For the contrast is not between heart and head, but between heart and mouth. The sacred authors often spoke of bodily organs as if they projected mental values into them. With them the heart did not specially denote the affections as distinguished from the understanding (Deu 29:4; 1Ki 3:9; 1Ki 3:12; Mar 7:21; Mar 2:6; Act 11:23; Pro 16:21). The heart stood for the very centre of the person, where thought had its fountain, intelligence its post of observation, and the stores of knowledge and experience were treasured up.
3. The testimony to be believed is here spoken of as a report; i.e., the thing announced by the witnesses and heard by those to whom it was spoken. It was a report concerning the Saviour, and being given by competent and faithful witnesses, and confirmed by the attesting seal of God, there was no need for any man to go out of or beyond himself for Christ. For the word was nigh him.
4. But why specially believe that God hath raised Christ from the dead? Because the testimony is that He died for our sins, and His resurrection is the proof that the sin is purged; for our Substitute has been discharged and restored to deathless life. Therefore a sure belief that God hath raised Him from the dead carries with it a sure belief that our everlasting life is made certain.
5. But though faith, considered in itself, is simply belief in testimony, it nevertheless serves to awaken various emotions of the heart in accordance with the character of the testimony believed, and the kind and amount of personal interest involved. If we have no conscious interest in that which is the subject of testimony, then no emotion will result from its belief. But if we have, then the belief will give rise to joy or sorrow, hope or fear, triumph or dread, as the case may be. Tidings come of a terrible hurricane in the mid-Atlantic, in which numbers of ships have foundered, and belief of the tidings instantly fills many a hitherto bright and happy home with the gloom of despair and death. But let them presently have the assurance that the particular ships which contained their hopes have escaped and have safely arrived in port, and, believing this, how instantly they find their sorrow and despair give place to gratitude and joy! And here is a poor guilty wanderer, who has long and grievously offended against his heavenly Father. He has come to realise the fearfulness of his danger. Can any one wonder that he should roar because of the disquietude of his spirit? But let him now hear and believe that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life, and of what a change from the terrors of despair to the joy of salvation is he at once conscious!
II. with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
1. The salvation spoken of is not already attained, but one for which, or in order to which, confession is made. It is therefore something which is yet future. Though a Christian man is saved here and now, yet this present salvation is but a thing begun, not completed (1Co 15:2; Php 2:12; 1Th 5:8; Rom 8:24; Heb 1:14; Rom 13:11; 1Pe 1:5; Heb 9:28).
2. Now it is in respect to this continued and ultimately completed redemption that confession is made with the mouth unto salvation. The righteousness obtained by faith would, forsooth, fall to the ground again, and would not be attended by salvation, if faith had not the vital force to produce confession of the mouth, which speaks out of the fulness of the heart. For the confession indicated is not that merely of the lip, but true and bold acknowledgment of Christ both in deed and word, Jesus Christ before Pontius Pilate witnessed s good confession (1Ti 6:13)–one that cost Him His life; and any union with Him which has not in it the spirit of devoted loyalty to Him, even unto death, if needful, is vain (Mat 10:28-33; Rev 21:8; Heb 11:33). (W. Tyson.)
Believing with the heart
I. The object of faith (verse 9). There are many who for many a weary month question whether they have the right sort of faith; whereas they would do better if they looked to see whether their faith rested upon a right foundation. Now, soul-saving faith rests upon Christ–
1. As incarnate.
2. In His life. Faith perceives that He is perfect in obedience, sanctified wholly to His work, and although tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.
3. But chiefly in His death. Faith hears the expiring sin-bearer cry with a loud voice, It is finished, and adds a glad Amen, It is finished!
4. In His resurrection. Inasmuch as Christ was put into the prison of the tomb as a hostage and bail for His people, faith knows that He never could have come out again if God had not been completely satisfied with His substitutionary work. He neer had been at freedom set. Faith, therefore, perceives that if Christ is risen the soul is justified.
5. In His ascension. Faith beholds Him in His session at the right hand of God, sees Him pleading as the great High Priest, and expecting until His enemies are made His footstool. Mark, not so much as a hairs breadth of faiths foundation is to be found out of Christ. Faith does not build on its own experience, on any knowledge which it has obtained by research, or on merit which it fancies it has procured by long and ardent service.
II. The nature of faith. With the heart man believeth.
1. We generally attribute the act of faith to the mind, but our text makes it to be a work of the affections.
(1) In order merely to state that faith must be sincere we must heartily believe it. It must not be a notional faith which a man possesses, because his mother was of the same persuasion, or because he would be singular if he were to be an infidel.
(2) To make a distinction between doctrinal faith and the faith which accepts Christ. I know scores who are well read in divinity, who are orthodox to the last turn of the scale, and who fight like tigers for but one hair of the head of a creed, and yet, they will never be saved by their faith, because it is merely a belief of certain abstract propositions which never affected their nature.
2. What is this believing with the heart?
(1) The first work of the Holy Spirit in man is not to teach him doctrines, but to make him feel a great hungering and thirsting after a something, he scarcely knows what. His heart, like the needle, touched with the magnet, cannot rest, because it has not found its pole. Now, when Christ is set forth as a complete Saviour, able to give salvation now, then the heart says, Why, that is just what I have been wanting. Just as the flowers which have been shut up all night, as soon as the sun is up, open their cups as if they felt–There! that is what we were wanting! The heart stretches out its arm to Christ, and Christ comes into that heart, and the heart presses Him close to itself. Believing with the heart is the hearts own conviction that Jesus Christ is just what it wants. Many of you have a true faith in Christ and yet you have never read Paleys Evidences, nor Butlers Analogy. You hardly know upon what ground the Bible is accepted as true, and hence, cunning infidels give you a good shaking when they get hold of you upon that point. But there is one thing upon which you can never be shaken, you feel the gospel must be true, because it just suits the wants of your heart. If any man should say to you when you are thirsty, Water is not good, by a process stronger than logic, you could prove that water is good because it quenches your thirst. When you are hungry, if a philosopher should say to you, You do not understand the ground upon which bread nourishes the human frame, you would say, One thing I know, bread is good to eat if I am hungry, and I will show you. So the believing heart is hungry, therefore feeds upon Jesus; is thirsty, therefore drinks the living water.
(2) Again, is it not mans heart which is led to perceive the difficulty of reconciling the Divine attributes? Do you not remember when your heart said, God is just; it is right He should be. Yet I know He is merciful, but I cannot understand how He can be both, for if He is just, He has sworn to punish, and if He is gracious, He will forgive. You came up to the sanctuary when your heart was thus perplexed, but you heard the preacher show clearly that Christ became the substitute for man, you understood how God had all His justice satisfied in the death of His beloved Son, and your heart said, There, this is the very answer I have been wanting. Now, I see how righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Oh! the joy and gladness with which your heart laid hold upon a crucified Redeemer, saying, It is enough, my trouble is removed.
(3) Believing with the heart implies a love to the plan of salvation. As you are thinking it over, something whispers, Why, such a plan as that must be true. Then, the sweet promise flashes across your mind, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed; and your heart says, Then, I will believe on Him; that plan so magnificent in its liberality is worthy of my loving acceptance.
3. What is true of us when we commence our spiritual career is true all our lives long. Soul-saving faith is always the belief of the heart. I think I see some grey-headed man rise up and say, In my young days I gave my heart to Christ, and I had a peace and joy such as I had never known before. Since that time, this brow has been furrowed with many cares, but the Lord has been my hearts stay and confidence. When trouble has come in upon me, I have been able to sustain it.
4. This is the right way to believe in Jesus, because this is the way in which you can believe in Him when you come to die. You have heard of the renowned bishop on his dying bed. His friends said to him, Do not you know us? There was a shake of the head. Next, the children beg him to remember them. But he shakes his head. Last, came his wife, and he had forgotten her. At last, one said in his ear, Do you know Jesus? The response was instantaneous. Know Him? said he, yes, He is all my salvation and all my desire. Though the heart may know the wife and the child, yet never can the heart know the dearest earthly object as it knows Christ. He that believeth with his heart hath Christ in him, not on him, the hope of glory.
5. It is a very blessed thing that with the heart man believeth; because some of you might say, I have not head enough to be a Christian. Even fools may still believe. The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein.
III. The result of faith. Unto righteousness. The man who believes in Christ is righteous; he is righteous at once, in a moment; he is righteous in the germ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Believing with the heart
The seat of faith, it deserves to be observed, is not in the brain, but the heart; not that I wish to enter into any dispute concerning the part of the body which is the seat of faith, but since the word heart generally means a serious, sincere, ardent affection, I am desirous to show the confidence of faith to be a firm, efficacious, and operative principle in all the emotions and feelings of the soul, not a mere naked notion of the head. (J. Calvin.)
Heart judgment
1. The popular impression is that argument produces belief, and that no justly founded belief can be entertained unless the man has had clear intellectual reasons for that belief.
2. Life contradicts this view by the wholesale. Men believe thousands of things of which they have had no demonstration, and there are multitudes of things which men can demonstrate that they do not believe. What is evidence? It is that which satisfies intellect, conscience, taste, and the emotions. Some men want evidence that touches the intellect; some evidence that touches the imagination; some evidence that touches the taste; some evidence that strikes the moral sense. The evidence that convinces one man has no effect upon another.
3. Now, in regard to evidence, belief has a wide range. In things material, a man believes upon sense-evidence. But in regard to scientific things, there are no evidences that are less reliable than the obvious operations of what are called the five senses. That Huxley and Tyndall will tell you. Here a trained intellect is the master of evidence. An impassioned investigator is carried away. Men insist upon it that you must discharge all feeling, lay aside all pre-conceived notions, and come with your mind as transparent as crystal to the investigation.
4. But the range of truth that is thus brought within the scope of our investigation is relatively small. The truths that work to manhood, to character, and conduct, are innumerable and immensely more important. The great bulk of the questions about which men are to believe or not have reference to a kind of truth that you can never judge by pure cold intellect. All social and moral truths depend upon the affections. A man who carries a purely mathematical mind to the reading of Milton is a fool. A man who should read Tennyson as a microscopist would examine an insect, how preposterous his conduct would be! In the largest department, then, belief depends upon the feelings. I do not mean that it excludes the intellect, but that the investigating intellect is obliged to be in harmony with the feelings that dominate the department where the truth lies. Truths of beauty–and that takes in the whole realm of art–cannot be conceived of by a purely speculative intellect. The intellect must be struck through and through with the elements of the beautiful in order to appreciate it. There is a great deal of mathematics in the science of music; yet music itself cannot be appreciated by the mere man of science without the sense or faculty of music in him.
5. The great religious truths which determine conduct and character cannot be understood except through the state of the heart. The baser animal passions indulged in so cloud the moral feeling and the intellect as to preclude the truth and investigation of it. The natural man cannot discern the things of the Spirit. A man in a rage cannot understand the emotions of peace. A man that is grasping and unfair is not in a state to consider justice and equity. How can a man who is puffed up with self-conceit have any adequate comparison within himself of his moral states? Selfishness so distorts and disturbs the light of the reason that it cannot form a just judgment of truths nor understand them even when they are expounded by others. Recently, at Cornell University, a professor said, I hope they will never establish an observatory here. Why? Because the locality is utterly unfit for celestial observations. Cayuga Lake every night fills the atmosphere with so much vapour that it is not until late in the day that you can get a clear view of the sky, and hardly three nights in the whole year have been fit for a critical observation of the heavens. The clouds that go up around the human observatory prevent men from seeing clearly. They cannot make observations of celestial things.
6. Notice how careful men are in forming their beliefs on scientific subjects. Although the truths of science are material, largely, yet men feel the necessity of good health, of a clear eye, and of all conditions which render them secure from various adverse interruptions. So far is this carried that men do not trust themselves; there is what is called a personal equation among them. When a star in transit passes a given line, and a man records the time exactly of its striking the line, it will happen that a dull brain did not see it for a measurable period of time after a sensitive and quick brain; and the astronomer has a personal equation of his own peculiarities of quickness or slowness, according to rules that have been established, so that in making the additions or subtractions, he always takes it into account as a part of his calculations. This is for the sake of physical observations. Whoever thought of making a personal equation in the judgment of men on great moral questions? Look at the way in which a judge feels himself bound to come to the consideration of facts, law, and reasoning. If he is a naturally obstinate man, and has the shadow of a previous idea in the case, it will take twice as much evidence and coercive logic to dislodge him from his prejudices. An honourable man would refuse to sit on any case in which he was conscious that he had a foregoing disqualification. Now, see how in regard to justice, science, and every department, men are conscious of the disturbing forces felt in one way or another; and see how they prepare themselves to arrive at right judgments and to correct them as much as possible by review and restatement. But compare the way in which men approach these tremendous themes of religion and sit in judgment upon Divine equity, and upon questions of right and questions of duty. See how young men, being somewhat unsettled from their old foundations, plunge into unbelief. They read their evidence in the newspaper, going from their house to their business. Oh, I have read on that subject; I know all about it. How little have men read, how little have they pondered, how little have they ever had the slightest idea that their judgments have been influenced by their dispositions, by their conduct, by their wishes and longings, by their self-indulgence–how little have they come to form a judgment against the pulling-down influences that act upon them!
7. Now, it is often the case that a true-hearted, simple-minded man, believing the gospels without a particle of intellectual evidence, but with a hungry heart and with a real love of things that are spiritual, is led to believe, I had almost said, without the operation of his reason at all. He is not able to give a reason for the faith that is in him any more than an artist is able to give the reason why he puts in a bit of red there, except that his eye was hungry for it. It is possible for a man pure in heart to come to a just conclusion in regard to mighty truths, that involve time and eternity, in such a way that he will be the laughing stock and the derision of eminent philosophers, or even eminent theologians. But such simple men believe with their heart. The temperature of the heart was such that it inclined them to accept these things, and, accepting them, they believed in God and felt good.
8. See how this is the doctrine of the Bible. Take, e.g., Joh 1:1-5, The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. Turn to Joh 1:20-25. Our Saviour bears testimony again and again in St. Johns Gospel, which records His controversies with the conceited, scholarly men of the temple, when He declared to them that He made known to them the invisible truths of God, which ought to be appreciated by moral sensibility, but that they could not see them, and even denied them, on account of the condition of their hearts. This is the Scripture testimony, and it corroborates the experience of men. In secular life men have come to understand that they must prepare themselves before they come to a judgment or appreciate a thing accurately. But in religion men are still asking for intellectual proof that shall come like a mathematical demonstration. They are believing this and disbelieving that, on evidence which does not belong to the subject at all. Blessed are the pure in heart; they shall see God. Men of distempered heart, unclean and impure, shall never see Him. Beware, then, of the disturbance of your own hearts. Beware of all those judgments that are merely abstract, or factual, as in science. Accept those judgments that come to you from the heart, and report themselves to you irresistibly as true, springing from the highest moral conditions, from conscience, reason, hope, faith, love. (H. W. Beecher.)
Belief of the heart necessary for righteousness
Since the end of religion is obedience, the heart is wanted. To know what we ought to do and to do it are two very different things. For the first: perhaps, the mind is adequate; for the second we have need of the heart. I see the better and I take the worse way, said one of the ancients. Why? Because there was no force strong enough to impel him to the better way. This is what we all want. What the philosophers call the dynamic force–to constrain us to obey what we see we should. Most of us have got knowledge enough of the right way; what we lack is the impulse to walk therein. The body is like a delicate piece of machinery worked by the heart, which sends the blood pulsating through every vein and artery. Without that all would be in vain. What the heart is to the body the emotions are to the soul–the impelling force. But, it may be said, the heart is, of all parts of our complex nature, the least under our control. Faith springs up spontaneously, or not at all. To bid men believe or love is a waste of breath. God therefore makes Himself visible in His Son Jesus Christ, and when thus we really see Him, faith must spring up in our hearts, as surely as admiration does in the heart of a beholder of a glowing sunset, or the hearer of noble music, or the spectator of some heroic deed. A child is sinking in a stream; you see a man at the risk of his life leap in to save the precious life. It needs no command to make your heart glow with gratitude to such a deliverer. It leaps up at the sight. To look at Jesus Christ touches the heart so that it is constrained by the love of Christ, so as to live, not for itself but for Him. (W. G. Horder.)
The faith of the heart
We remember to have heard a preacher describe this act of faith as follows:–Look at that drowning man, hurried down the stream by the furious torrent with which he is convulsively struggling. His looks and cries bespeak the agony he feels. By and by his attention is directed to a life preserver, which his friends are placing in the most favourable position possible. He at once sees that if he is saved at all, it must be by that instrument; and here is the exercise of his understanding. But it is very questionable whether he shall be able to reach it. The current seems to carry him in another direction; yet there is hope; it is taking another turn. He is gradually approaching the instrument of his safety; and now there is hope, mingled with his agony; he comes nearer and nearer: his friends cry courage, and see with what energy he seizes the preserver of his life. There was heart in that grasp. But not more so than when the poor trembling sinner lays hold of Christ. He is pointed to the Cross, but the current of his feelings drives him past it. He weeps and mourns, he groans and prays; his friends reason and encourage; the spirit operates; hope springs up; immediately the direction of the stream is changed; he gets nearer every moment; he looks, weeps, cries, Save, for Thy names sake; and in an agony–with all his heart–and with all the affections and powers of his soul, he grasps the Saviour. (Handbook to Scripture Doctrines.)
Faith and righteousness
Look at certain doctrines, and see what they must produce when believed with the heart. It is a portion of Scripture revelation that God is omniscient and omnipotent, that He is ever at hand, to note down human actions, and register them for judgment. Can this really be believed, and yet the believer fail to be intensely earnest to approve himself in Gods sight? Rather, will not his faith produce a holy reverence of the Almighty, and make him walk circumspectly, because walking side by side with his Maker and his Judge? The Bible tells him, moreover, of an amazing scheme of rescue planned and executed by God on behalf of himself and his fellow-men. It sets God before Him as giving His own Son, and that Son as giving Himself to ignominy and shame that pardon might be placed within reach of the sinful. Can this be believed, and yet the believer not glow with intense love towards so gracious a God; yea, and towards his fellow-men, seeing that they are objects of the same mercy, and therefore equally precious in the sight of the Creator? But yet further. Along with the revelation of this scheme of mercy the Bible sets forth conditions apart from which we can have no share in the blessings of Christs death, imposing duties on the performance of which our future portion is made to depend, and annexing threatenings and promises just as though we were to be judged by our works irrespective of the blood of the Redeemer. It tells us of heaven; it tells us of hell; and, dealing with us as with accountable creatures, it conjures us by the joys of the one state and the terrors of the other to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world. Now tell me who believes this? The man who lives as though there were no heaven, or no hell, doing the very things, obeying the very passions, neglecting the very duties, which are forbidden or commanded, to all who would escape wrath and find mercy hereafter? Impossible. These things cannot be believed by the sensual man, the covetous, the proud, or the ambitious. Faith in these things must lead to effort, to obedience, to self-denial. (H. Melvill, B.D.)
Confession of faith
I. the Divine order of salvation.
1. Faith.
2. Confession.
II. The result of this order.
1. Righteousness.
2. Salvation.
III. Inferences.
1. These requisites are a matter of present duty.
2. Unbelief and silence are sinful. (W. W. Wythe.)
Confession with the mouth
1. There must be no confession where there is not a believing. To profess what you have not, is to make yourself a deceptive trader, who pretends to be carrying on a very large business, while he has no stock and no capital. To make a profession, without having a possession, is to be a cloud without rain–a river-bed without water, a mere play-actor, a rotten tree, green on the outside, but inwardly, as Bunyan puts it, only fit to be tinder for the devils tinder-box.
2. True faith, however, produces works; and, among the rest, confession of Christ. Faith, without works, is a dead root., yielding no fruit; a well filled with deadly vapour; a tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots, like some of those forest monsters which block up the navigation of the Mississippi, upon which many a goodly vessel has been wrecked. As you are to flee from profession without faith, so equally flee from a faith which does not bring forth a good profession.
I. To confess Christ with the mouth embraces the whole life-work of the Christian. It consists in–
1. Uniting in acts of public worship. As soon almost as the two distinct seeds of the woman and of the serpent were discernible, Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, while those who feared not God went away to their various occupations. When Jeroboam set up the calves at Bethel, the act of standing with the multitude around the courts of the temple was a distinct confession of allegiance to Jehovah. In the apostolic times, those who believed were constant in the apostles doctrine, and in breaking of bread, and in prayer. In the early Christian days, you may see a picture something like this: There is a low arch, like the opening of a sewer. Yonder comes a maiden, who stoops beneath and emerges into one of the catacombs of Rome. A torch renders darkness visible, and some watchful brother observes her; asks for her pass-word. Her being there proves her a Christian. She would not have been there to worship God among those pariahs of society if she had not loved the Lord. Very much so was it in later times. When the Lollard preached to the handful in some remote farmhouse, with a watcher outside; or in the days of the Covenant, while the dragoons of Claver-house were scenting out their prey, you might be clear that they were for the Lord of Hosts, who met at peril of their lives. To-day it is so to very few. There are some, perhaps, whose husbands last words were, If you go to church you will never enter my house again; but it is not so with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand. We mingle together saint and sinner. And if this were the only profession, it would not fulfil the intention of my text. In persecuting times it would; but now it is little or no confession to most of us to sit comfortably in our seats and listen to the preacher, and then go our way.
2. A dutiful attention to those two ordinances which are intended by Christ to be the distinctive badge of believers. Under the old Mosaic dispensation, ordinances were only for Israelites. And under the Christian dispensation there are no ordinances for aliens. The Ethiopian travelled all the way from the realm of Candace, in order that he might be present at the distinctive worship of the Jew. You remember how carefully the heads of the Jewish houses were that they and all their children were present at the passover.
(1) Baptism is the mark of distinction between the Church and the world. It is the crossing of the Rubicon.
(2) The Lords Supper sets forth the distinction of the believer from the world in his life and that by which his life is nourished.
(3) Both these ordinances bring a cross with them to some degree, especially the first.
3. An association with the Lords people. It was so in the olden times. Moses may, if he wilts, live in the court of Pharaoh, but he counts the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. What a touching illustration of this point we have in Rth 1:16-17. We find in the early Church, that as soon as a man became a Christian, he went to his own company. Paul was not content with being baptized; and wherever there were people of God, they were always formed into a Church. Those who speak lightly of Church fellowship do mischief. Suppose, instead of the compact phalanx of this one Church, we were broken into individual Christians, some of the warmest-hearted among you would grow cold; the little ones among us would be subjected to false doctrine; while even the strongest here would feel it to be a most solemn bereavement.
4. The taking up of the cross in the family. It may be you are the first one converted. You pray, and there is a ringing laugh within the walls. Persevere! for now it is that you are to make confession unto salvation. Your faith cannot save you unless you say, I cannot love father or mother more than Christ. This is hard; but remember the example of your Lord, for whom you do it.
5. Bearing witness in time of temptation. Young Josephs answer was, How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? The case of Nehemiah is equally to the point. Can such a man as I flee? Christian, some dirty trick in business comes in your way. Now, play the man, and say, I would rather starve than do it. On a Sabbath morning, when you are invited to waste its holy hours, say, No, I am a Christian.
6. Testifying whenever we are called into trial for Christs sake. Remember the three Hebrew children, Daniel, Peter, and John. I have noticed that whenever men are likely to lose anything for Christ, that the most timid generally come out at that time. You do not hear of Joseph of Arimathaea while Jesus lives. But when Christs body is on the Cross he begs His body. And who shall help to wrap Him in spices? Why, Nicodemus, that came to Jesus Christ by night. The stag flies before the hounds, but when it comes to bay, fights with the bravery of desperation. Erasmus said he was not made of the right stuff to be a martyr. So the papists picture him as hanging somewhere between heaven and hell. He had knowledge of the truth, but he had not the courage to avow it; while Luther smote the triple crown upon the Popes brow. If the Lord be God, follow Him,etc.
7. The going out of ones way at times to bear testimony. Who is on the Lords side? let him come unto me. Every now and then we shall not be able to confess Christ, unless we do something that shall seem harsh and strange. Surely, Gods Elijahs cannot be silent while thousands of Baals priests are kindling their fires. We shall find it needful to intrude upon the dainties of etiquette, and, like the prophet who came to Bethel, we shall have to cry against altars at which others pay their vows.
8. The using of our position as a method of confession. Joshua is the head of a household tie uses that position: As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Let the family altar be reared. You have influence, perhaps, where you can help Christs Church. Esther came to the kingdom for such a time as this. Some of you are large employers, or members of Parliament. All that influence is so much money given to you to put out to interest for your Lord.
9. Preaching. There are some of you who have ability to speak. You can talk upon politics and science; but if you love Jesus, are you going to give all your attention to these inferior themes? You tell me you are nervous. Never mind. If you break down half a dozen times, try again; you shall find your talents increase. This confession, then, is a life-work. The Christian man is to be something like a physician. There is a brass plate on his door and a big bell. How else does he profess to be a physician? You do not see a box of lancets hanging at his side, nor see him dress in a peculiar costume. His profession is carried on by his practice. This is how a Christians profession is to be carried on. When we went to school we drew houses, horses, and trees, and used to write house under the house, etc., for some persons might have thought the horse was a house. So there are some people who need to wear a label round their necks to show they are Christians, or else we might mistake them for sinners. Avoid that. Let your profession be manifest by your practice.
II. Do not excuse yourself from this, for no excuse will be valid. You will lose your business! Lose it, and gain your soul, and you will be unfashionable! What is it to be fashionable? You will be despised by those who love you! Do you love husband or wife more than Christ? If so, you are not worthy of Him. But you are so timid! Mind you are not so timid as to be lost at last, for the fearful and unbelieving shall have their portion in the lake that burneth. In the silence of the sick or dying hour, no excuse, however specious it may appear today, will answer your conscience: and if so answer your conscience, depend upon if it will not satisfy God, Conclusion:
1. Remember how dishonourable it is to say you believe, and yet not to make confession. You are like a rat behind the wainscot, coming out just now and then when nobody is looking, and then running behind again. What! is Christ to be treated as if His name were a thing to be avowed in holes and corners? No, in the face of the sun let it be said, I do love Jesus, who gave Himself for me. He died in the face of the sun, with mockers round about Him; and with mockers round about us let us declare our faith in Him.
2. How honourable will the confession be to you. If I had to join an army, and found for my comrades the scrapings of the street, I do not think I should like to be a soldier; but if I found my colonel a great conqueror, and that I had for compeers men who had won renown, I should feel honoured by being allowed to be a drummer-boy. So when I read the list, and find Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel, Isaac, Jesus Christ Himself, the apostles, Luther, Calvin, etc., I count it an honour if my name shall be found written with theirs, as the humblest soldier in the army.
3. I urge this upon you, because it will make you useful. A secret Christian is a candle under a bushel, salt without savour.
4. Grace is sufficient. If grace put you upon a pinnacle of the temple, depend upon it, grace will keep you there.
5. The reward is splendid. He that confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven. There was once a prince who journeyed into a distant part of the kings dominions, where he was little known and cared for. The people said, This is the heir; let us insult him. Others said he was no heir at all. And they agreed to set him in the pillory. As he stood there they said, Who dare acknowledge, and stand by him? One from the crowd, who said, I dare! they set side by side with the prince; and when they threw their filth on or spoke hard words of the prince and him, he stood there, smiling, and received it all. Years went by, the king came into those dominions and subdued them; and there came a day of triumph. The prince came to the gates, and the traitors all bound in chains stood before him trembling. He singled out from among the crowd one man only, and he said to the traitors, Know ye this man? He stood with me in that day when ye treated me with scorn. He shall stand with me in the day of my glory. Come up hither! And the poor, despised citizen of that rebellious city rode through the streets side by side with his king. This is the parable. Live it out! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Confession of Christ indispensable
It is sometimes said that piety should be retiring, and unseen. But why? There is nothing of it in the Bible. Hypocrisy is rebuked; but I ask for a single passage where the manifestation of pure religion is rebuked. Let your light shine before men, He that is ashamed of me, etc. Religion is supposed to be manifest, if it exists at all. It is to constitute the character and to distinguish the man. I point you to the example of Christ. Religion is everything in His life. I point you to the example of Paul. You see nothing else in his life but his religion. I point you to David, and Isaiah, and John, and the holy martyrs. The men were modest men; but their religion was open and bold. And thus it is in all the works and doings of God. Does the sun hide his noontide beams under the plea that pure light should not be ostentatious? Is the moon–that, like the Christian, shines by reflected light–or the stars ashamed to send their rays on a darkened world? Light shines not indeed for display, but for use; not for its own glory, but like the light that should radiate from the Christians life, to illustrate the glory of the great Creator. The ocean that He has made is not ashamed to roll, the lightning of heaven to play, the oak to spread out its boughs, the flower to bloom. The humblest violet is not ashamed to exhibit its beauty, and display its Makers praise. And if Christian light does not shine forth in the life, we have the highest evidence that it has never been enkindled in the bosom. (A. Barnes, D.D.)
Confession of Christ indispensable
During a series of evangelistic services in Ireland a young man found peace with God, but three nights after I found him again in the inquiry room. Whats wrong? I said. I was too precipitate the other night; there is no change in me. No, sir, that is not the reason. You have not confessed Christ. He almost jumped up in amazement. How do you know? Who told you? Nobody told me, or needed to tell me. When a man goes away trusting one night, and comes back doubting the next, it is an infallible sign that he has not confessed Christ. He then said, You are quite right; I live alone with my mother, who is a Christian. I thought as I walked home that I would tell her, but my heart failed. I then said to myself, Ill tell her to-morrow morning, but the next day it seemed more difficult instead of less, and it occurred to me that she would say, Why did you not tell me last night? Then the thought arose, If you had found a five-pound note, you would have told her fast enough. Yet here you have found Christ and eternal life, and you utter not a sound: why it is all a delusion. And I said to myself, Im not saved at all. If I had been, I could not have helped confessing it. I said, Yes, my friend; instead of the devil tempting you, you tempted the devil, and he began his old game of making you distrust Gods Word. He gave his heart anew to the Saviour, and went away to tell his mother. Next night I found him in the inquiry room, pointing a soul to Christ. I touched him in passing, and said, How is it with you now? He looked up with a bright smile, and said, I told my mother! (D. L. Moody.)
Necessity of confession
Lieutenant Watson, once a gay young aristocrat, was awakened and converted by means of a few earnest words spoken by a brother officer (Captain Hawtry), when he was preparing for a ball. Growing rapidly in grace, and confessing Christ from the first and constantly, he was soon led, while serving in the Peninsula, under Wellington, to hold meetings in his own quarters for the soldiers, who were spiritually in a very destitute condition. Many of these were converted, but the officers generally mocked, calling Lieut. Watson Coachie, saying he drove the mail coach to heaven, and crying after him, Any room for passengers inside or outside to-night? One officer, however, Lieut. Whitley, a man of refined and scientific mind, behaved differently, and although he reasoned with Watson, he always behaved as a gentleman. The result of quiet conversations was that he became seriously interested in the gospel. One day, says Mr. Watson, on his repeating the question, How am I to get the Spirit? I replied, The Lord said, Ask, and ye shall receive. He said, I hope I have asked, though feebly. I remarked, Jesus said again, If a man will be My disciple, he must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. What did He mean by that? he said. I told him, You can now have a practical proof. You know we have a public meeting. Will you take up your cross and come to-night? Anything but that, he said. But you must remember the words of Jesus, I told him, Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and My doctrine in this sinful generation, of him will I be ashamed when I come in My glory. Oh, he exclaimed, I will go. And he went under great exercise of mind. Of course the going was greatly blessed to him, and soon after the Lord filled him with joy and peace in believing. He now became most valiant for the truth, and ceased not, wherever he was, to speak of Jesus.
Power of confession
In relating his experience during the Peninsular War, Captain Watson says, I was nominated to sit on a garrison court-martial. A number of officers of different ranks and regiments were present on the occasion, and before the proceedings commenced, some of them indulged in loose and sceptical observations. Alas, thought I, here are many not ashamed to speak openly for their master and shall I hold my peace and refrain when the honour and cause of Him who has had mercy on me are called in question? I looked for wisdom and assistance from on high, and I was enabled to speak for a quarter of an hour in a way that astonished my hearers and myself. The Lord was pleased to give what I said a favourable reception, and not another improper word was uttered by them during my stay in that room.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 10. For with the heart man believeth, c.] And be sincere in this: for with the heart, duly affected with a sense of guilt, and of the sufficiency of the sacrifice which Christ has offered, man believeth unto righteousness, believeth to receive justification for this is the proper meaning of the term here, and in many other parts of this epistle; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. He who believes aright in Christ Jesus will receive such a full conviction of the truth, and such an evidence of his redemption, that his mouth will boldly confess his obligation to his Redeemer, and the blessed persuasion he has of the remission of all his sins through the blood of the cross. One grand object of the apostle is to show the simplicity of the Gospel scheme of salvation; and at the same time, its great efficacy, it is simple, and very unlike the law, which was full of rites, ordinances, ceremonies, &c., each of which required to be perfectly fulfilled: and yet, after all, even those who had the utmost zeal for God, and, as conscientiously as possible, observed all the precepts of the law, had not attained to justification nor peace of conscience. Whereas both Jews and Gentiles, who had believed on the Lord Jesus according to the simple declarations of the Gospel, were freely justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses: and they had the witness in themselves that they were passed from death to life.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
With the heart man believeth; in the former verse confession was set first; in this, believing. Faith indeed goes before confession; I believed, says the psalmist, and the apostle after him, therefore have I spoken; yet our faith is discerned and known by our confession.
Unto righteousness; i.e. unto justification. This phrase may be expounded by Rom 4:5, or Rom 9:30.
With the mouth confession is made unto salvation: our adversaries the papists make great use of this text, to prove that good works, as confession, &c., are the cause of salvation; whereas confession is required here, not as the cause, but as the means thereof. The apostle makes faith here to be the cause, as well of salvation, as justification; because confession of the mouth, to which salvation is here ascribed, is itself an effect or fruit of faith; and so, according to that known rule in logic, the cause of the cause, is the cause of that which is caused thereby.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
10. For with the heart man believethuntojustifying
righteousness; and with themouth confession is made unto salvationThis confession ofChrist’s name, especially in times of persecution, and wheneverobloquy is attached to the Christian profession, is an indispensabletest of discipleship.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,…. The apostle here explains the nature and use both of faith and confession; as true faith does not lie in the bare assent of the mind to the Gospel, or any truth contained in it, respecting the person and office of Christ, so neither does it lie, as not in the brain, so not in the tongue, but in the heart; it is not a notional knowledge of things to be believed; nor is it saying that a man believes; but it is heart work, a believing with all the heart; such a faith in which all the powers of the soul, the understanding, will, and affections, are concerned, it is a seeing of the Son, a beholding of the glory, fulness, suitableness, ability, and willingness of Christ as a Saviour, with the eye of the understanding spiritually enlightened; it is a going out of the soul to Christ, in various acts, such as venturing into his presence, prostrating itself at his feet, resolving if it perishes it will perish there; a giving up itself unto him, determining it will have no other Saviour, leaning and relying on him, and living upon him; which faith works by love to Christ, moves the affections, stirs up the desires of the soul to his name, and endears him and all that belong to him to it. The use of this grace is, “unto righteousness”; it is not instead of one, for faith is not our righteousness; nor is it in order to work out one, for this grace puts a soul on renouncing its own righteousness; but its use is to receive one, even the righteousness of Christ, which when it spies, it admires, receives, lays hold on, and rejoices in looking on itself as righteous through this righteousness, and so has peace with God through Christ:
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. This is to be understood not of confession of sin, though that is proper and requisite to be made, both with respect to the participation, and enjoyment of salvation, particularly pardoning grace and mercy, and to an admission to Gospel ordinances; but of confession of Christ, as appears from the preceding verse, which lies in a frank and open acknowledgment of what Christ is in himself, as that he is truly and properly God, the Son of God, the true Messiah, the Mediator between God and man, and the only Saviour of lost sinners, and of our faith in him, with respect to ourselves, to our pardon, justification, acceptance and salvation in him and through him; in ascribing the whole of our salvation to him, and giving him the glory of it; in declaring to the churches of Christ what he has done for our souls, and in subjecting ourselves to his ordinances. This confession must be made both by words and facts, must be open, visible, and before men; and also real, hearty, and sincere, the words of the mouth agreeing with the experience of the heart; and such a good profession made before God, angels, and men, highly becomes all that believe with the heart. This was the practice of the primitive saints; yea, all nations own, acknowledge, and profess the God they worship; and should not we confess our God, Saviour and Redeemer? Christ himself confessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate, and is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. So to do, makes both for the glory of God, and for our own real good and advantage. Yea, it is “unto salvation”; not as a cause of it, for Christ alone is the author of eternal salvation; but a sincere and well made confession of Christ points out to all that know us where and from whom we expect to have salvation; it is what lies in the way, and is to be taken up by all that believe in Christ, and to be held fast without wavering until we receive the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Man believeth (). Impersonal construction, “it is believed” (present passive indicative of ). The order is reversed in this verse and the true order (faith, then confession).
Confession is made (). Impersonal construction again, “it is confessed,” “man confesses.” Both (heart) and (mouth) are in the instrumental case.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
With the heart [] . As the seat of the energy of the divine Spirit [ . ; mediating the personal life (of the soul yuch, see on 11 3], which is conditioned by the Spirit. It is not the affections as distinguished from the intellect. Believing with the heart is in contrast with oral confession, not with intellectual belief. “Believing is a mode of thinking not of feeling. It is that particular mode of thinking that is guided to its object by the testimony of another, or by some kind of inter – mediation. It is not intuitive” (Morison).
Man believeth [] . The verb is used impersonally. Lit., it is believed. Believing takes place.
Confession is made [] . Also impersonal. It is confessed. “Confession is just faith turned from its obverse side to its reverse… When faith comes forth from its silence to announce itself, and to proclaim the glory and the grace of the Lord, its voice is confession” (Morison).
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For with the heart man believeth,” (kardia gar pisteuetai) “For with a heart one believes”; The heart has the capacity to obey or disobey the Word of God, the voice of God. To believe with the heart is to obey the gospel call and command, Joh 8:24; Act 16:31; Rom 6:17; Rom 10:16; 1Co 15:1-4.
2) “Unto righteousness “ (eis dikaiosunen) “to righteousness,” to the end that he receives God’s righteousness imputed to him when he believes; one believes unto salvation. True belief in Jesus Christ places him (Gk. eis) into the righteousness of God-Baptism, church membership, etc. do not, Rom 4:5.
3) “And with the mouth confession,” (stomati de homologeitai) “With reference or with regards to salvation,” to deliverance from the weight, burden, and condemnation of sin, unto the freedom in Christ, and that such is available to others, Ecc 11:1-6; a true faith is to be accompanied by a sincere profession and an effort to keep the commands of our Lord, even by following the Lord in church worship and service. Luk 9:41; Joh 13:34-35; Joh 14:15; Mat 5:15-16. Those with a light are to let it shine, with a testimony are to give it, and with the bread of life are to share it. In such, they give a mouth testimony (confession) with relationship to their salvation or deliverance from condemnation.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
10. For with the heart we believe (327) unto righteousness, etc. This passage may help us to understand what justification by faith is; for it shows that righteousness then comes to us, when we embrace God’s goodness offered to us in the gospel. We are then for this reason just, because we believe that God is propitious to us in Christ. But let us observe this, — that the seat of faith is not in the head, ( in cerebro — in the brain,) but in the heart. Yet I would not contend about the part of the body in which faith is located: but as the word heart is often taken for a serious and sincere feeling, I would say that faith is a firm and effectual confidence, ( fiducia — trust, dependence,) and not a bare notion only.
With the mouth confession is made unto salvation It may seem strange, that he ascribes no part of our salvation to faith, as he had before so often testified, that we are saved by faith alone. But we ought not on this account to conclude that confession is the cause of our salvation. His design was only to show how God completes our salvation, even when he makes faith, which he implants in our hearts, to show itself by confession: nay, his simple object was, to mark out true faith, as that from which this fruit proceeds, lest any one should otherwise lay claim to the empty name of faith alone: for it ought so to kindle the heart with zeal for God’s glory, as to force out its own flame. And surely, he who is justified has already obtained salvation: hence he no less believes with the heart unto salvation, than with the mouth makes a confession. You see that he has made this distinction, — that he refers the cause of justification to faith, — and that he then shows what is necessary to complete salvation; for no one can believe with the heart without confessing with the mouth: it is indeed a necessary consequence, but not that which assigns salvation to confession.
But let them see what answer they can give to Paul, who at this day proudly boast of some sort of imaginary faith, which, being content with the secrecy of the heart, neglect the confession of the mouth, as a matter superfluous and vain; for it is extremely puerile to say, that there is fire, when there is neither flame nor heat.
(327) “ Creditur;” πιστεύεται, “it is believed.” It is an impersonal verb, and so is the verb in the next clause. The introduction of a person is necessary in a version, and we may say, “We believe;” or, as “thou” is used in the preceding verse, it may be adopted here, — “For by the heart thou believest unto righteousness,” i.e., in order to attain righteousness; “and with the mouth thou confessest unto salvation,” i.e., in order to attain salvation. “God knows our faith,” as [ Pareus ] observes, “but it is made known to man by confession.” [ Turrettin ] ’s remarks on this verse are much to the purpose. He says, that Paul loved antitheses, and that we are not to understand faith and confession as separated and applied only to the two things here mentioned, but ought to be viewed as connected, and that a similar instance is found in Rom 9:25, where Christ is said to have been delivered for our offenses, and to have risen again for our justification; which means, that by his death and resurrection our offenses are blotted out, and justification is obtained. In the same manner the import of what is here said is, that by sincere faith and open confession we obtain justification and salvation. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
10. The heart In modern language the heart is held to be, as a mental term, the seat of the feelings or sensibilities. And as modern science claims to have shown that the head, the brain, is the seat of thought, so we often have the antithesis head and heart as expressing intellect and sensibilities. But this antithesis is unknown to antiquity, especially to the Bible. But a single passage in the whole canon attributes thought to the head. (Dan 7:1.)
As this passage locates the seat of faith in the heart, it becomes important to know the precise import of that term. In his Biblical Psychology Dr. Delitzsch goes into an extensive research on this subject, and brings out some striking results. As the bodily heart is the centre of the bodily system, so the mental heart is the centre of soul and spirit. And, as the centre of the interior self, it manifests itself in various directions. It is not merely the fountain of the sensibilities and emotions, natural and moral of the desires, the loves, and the hates; but it is also the seat of the perceptions, reflections, meditations, reasonings, and memories, and the spring of the purposes, plans, determinations, and volitions. It is then in the very centre of our spiritual being that faith has its seat and its spring. So that, in accordance with modern mental science, we may define New Testament faith as being that belief of the intellect, consent of the affections, and act of the will, by which the soul places itself in the keeping of Christ as its ruler and Saviour. Hence both the Greek noun for faith, and its usual cognate verb believe, would, perhaps, both generally be more closely rendered by the word trust.
Unto righteousness This self-surrendering trust being accepted, the believer is pardoned and held as righteous; by the Holy Spirit he is in measure sanctified and made intrinsically righteous. But true faith will ever go from heart to mouth, from belief to confession and profession; and this in its fulness results from present justification to final salvation. The true mode of profession appointed by Christ for every Christian includes always the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. The self-esteemed believer who neglects these appointments of Christ disobeys Christ, and is very likely to lose that salvation that results from confession.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Because with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’
This believing from the heart (that is, from the whole inner man) that God has raised Him from the dead (as the One Who had claimed to be the Messiah and had been crucified) will result in reception of the righteousness which comes from faith. See especially Rom 4:25 where Christians are revealed as ‘accounted as righteous’ (justified) through His having been raised, in consequence of His being first delivered up for our offences. Consider also Rom 5:10; Rom 6:1-11; Rom 8:10-11. The true and genuine confession of Jesus as LORD will result in salvation, because it will be by those who have committed themselves to Him as their Saviour and Lord on the basis of His death and resurrection. Note how we have here a continuation of the thought in Rom 1:16-17. The Gospel is the power of God unto ‘salvation’ because in it the ‘righteousness’ of God is revealed. This paralleling of righteousness with salvation is common in the Old Testament, both in the Psalms and in Isaiah.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Rom 10:10 . Elucidation of Rom 10:9 . With . and . Jesus is not to be supplied as subject (Hofmann), which is not even in accordance with the linguistic usage of the N. T., for 1Ti 3:16 has a singular poetical style; but the contents of the faith and of the confession are understood, according to Rom 10:9 , entirely of themselves . “ With the heart, namely ( ), one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth confesses unto salvation .” In the style of Hebrew parallelism the thought is thus expressed: “With the faith of the heart is united the confession of the mouth to the result that one obtains righteousness and salvation.” The righteousness obtained through faith would, forsooth, fall to the ground again, and would not be attended by salvation, if faith had not the vital force to produce confession of the mouth (which speaks out of the fulness of the heart); see Mat 10:32 ; comp. 2Co 4:13 . We have thus here no merely formal parallelism, but one framed according to the actual relation of the dispensation of salvation; and in this case, moreover, Paul observes the genetic sequence in , because he is now no longer dependent on Rom 10:8 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Ver. 10. For with the heart, &c. ] Plutarch tells us that of all plants in Egypt, that they call Persica is consecrated to their goddess Isis, and that for this reason, because the fruit of it is like a heart, the leaf like a tongue.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
10 .] For (refers back to Rom 10:6 , where the above words were ascribed to , and explains how . . refer to the acquiring of righteousness) with the heart faith is exercised ( , men believe) unto (so as to be available to the acquisition of) righteousness, but (q. d. ‘not only so: but there must be an outward confession, in order for justification to be carried forward to salvation’) with the mouth confession is made unto salvation .
Clearly the words . and . are not used here, as De W., al., merely as different terms for the same thing, for the sake of the parallelism: but as Thol. quotes from Crell., . is the ‘terminus ultimus et apex justificationis,’ consequent not merely on the act of justifying faith as the other, but on a good confession before the world, maintained unto the end.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 10:10 . , . The parallelism is like that in the previous verse, though the order of the clauses is reversed. To be saved one must attain , and this depends on heart-faith; such faith, again, leading to salvation, must confess itself. To separate the two clauses, and look for an independent meaning in each, is a mistake; a heart believing unto righteousness, and a mouth making confession unto salvation, are not really two things, but two sides of the same thing. The formalism which seems to contrast them is merely a mental (perhaps only a literary) idiosyncrasy of the writer. It is true to say that such a confession as is meant here was made at baptism; but to limit it to baptism, or to use this verse to prove baptism essential to salvation, is, as Weiss says, unerhrter Dogmatismus .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
with. No preposition. Dative case.
man believeth = it is believed.
unto. App-104.
confession, &c. = it is confessed.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
10.] For (refers back to Rom 10:6, where the above words were ascribed to , and explains how . . refer to the acquiring of righteousness) with the heart faith is exercised (, men believe) unto (so as to be available to the acquisition of) righteousness, but (q. d. not only so: but there must be an outward confession, in order for justification to be carried forward to salvation) with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Clearly the words . and . are not used here, as De W., al., merely as different terms for the same thing, for the sake of the parallelism: but as Thol. quotes from Crell., . is the terminus ultimus et apex justificationis, consequent not merely on the act of justifying faith as the other, but on a good confession before the world, maintained unto the end.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 10:10. , with the heart) From the mentioning of the heart and mouth by Moses [in Deu 30:14, quoted here at Rom 10:8], the consequence is [here by Paul referred, or] proved in reference to faith, and confession; namely, because the heart is the proper subject of faith and the mouth, of confession; therefore Paul here in this verse begins his sentences, by saying, with the heart, and with the mouth.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 10:10
Rom 10:10
for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;-Righteousness cannot exist unless it has its root in the heart. It must begin with and first change the heart. Then the faith that is in the heart leads on to the righteousness of the life in Christ Jesus. If faith in the heart does not find growth in the life, it will die. Faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. (Jas 2:17). A living faith will produce works. If the works are not good, the faith is faulty.
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.-The open confession of Jesus as the Son of God leads on to the life of devotion to Christ Jesus that fits for salvation before God. Faith in God and courage to confess Christ is just as essential to salvation at every step through life down to death itself as they are at the beginning.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
righteousness
Righteousness here, and in the passages which refer to Rom 10:10, means that righteousness of God which is judicially reckoned to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; believers are the righteous.
(See Scofield “Rom 3:21”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Heart and the Mouth
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.Rom 10:10.
1. St. Pauls singularly free, but deeply inspired, manner of applying texts from the Old Testament is especially illustrated in this passage. The passages quoted from Isaiah about the Stones, which St. Paul applies to Christ (see Rom 9:32-33), refer originally to Jehovah simply in one case (Isa 28:16). Jewish tradition had possibly already referred them to the Christ; and certainly our Lords use of Psa 118:22The stone which the builders rejectedas applying to His own rejection, made the reference more obvious. It is indeed in deepest accordance with the spirit of Isaiah; and St. Peter (1Pe 2:6), we notice, follows St. Paul in the use of them. Another passage (Isa 52:7) quoted in Rom 10:15, about the feet of those who preach good tidings, is transferred, with added meaning, from the heralds of the redemption from Babylon to the heralds of the greater redemption. Again, a passage from Psalms 19 quoted in Rom 10:18 is transferred very beautifully from the witness of the heavens to the witness of the Gospel; as if St. Paul would say, grace is become as universal as nature.
In the same way the language of this passage, cited from Deuteronomy, is taken from the Law to express the spirit of the Gospel. The calling upon Jehovah in Joel becomes in St. Pauls quotation the calling upon Christ. All this free citation, uncritical according to our ideas and methods, rests on a profoundly right apprehension of the meaning of the Old Testament as a whole. The appeal to the Old Testament, even if not to the particular passage, is justified by the strictest criticism.1 [Note: Bishop Gore.]
We can look upon the whole passage (Rom 10:5-10) in the light of the view held by St. Augustine, that the words of Moses, understood in their true spiritual sense, describe a righteousness which is essentially the righteousness of faith (de Nat. et Gratia, 83). Moses is in fact describing a religion of the heart: The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. To one who thus turns with heart and soul to the Lord, obedience is easy: The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. This, says St. Paul, is in substance the word of faith, which we preach. St. Pauls explanation is not allegorical but spiritual; it penetrates through the letter of the Old Testament to its spirit, and that is the spirit of the Gospel.
2. The text contains two parts: Belief and Confession. This is the orderbelief with the heart first, and confession with the mouth afterwards. But if we compare this verse with the preceding one, it is noticeable that St. Paul has reversed the order. In Rom 10:9 it is confession with the mouth first, belief with the heart afterwards. Rom 10:9 explains the quotation used in Rom 10:8, The word is very nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart. The order is suggested by literary association, not by theological formulation. As mouth is mentioned before heart, St. Paul speaks of confession of Christ before belief in Christ, but in Rom 10:10 he rearranges his statement in true logical sequence. Belief with the heart must come first, confession with the mouth is the natural resultant.
I
Belief
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.
There are three things to keep before our minds in considering this section: (1) Belief is with the heart. (2) Belief must have a definite object or centre. The centre of our faith is Christ and His Resurrection. (3) Belief is productive of righteousness.
i. Belief is with the Heart
1. It is important that we should lay particular stress upon St. Pauls meaning when he speaks of the heart; for if we are to understand this difficult passage, we must try to analyse the meaning of the terms used. When we talk about the heart of man we usually mean the affections or emotions, but to the Jew the heart represented the whole spiritual man. We gather from the Old Testament that the heart was the source of all moral action, the source of the affections and purposes, and a symbol even of the mind and the will. The whole moral nature was represented by the term. And so St. Paul practically affirms that man believes with the whole of his nature. Not only his intellect and emotions and affections, but the whole nature in all its scope and powersall are taken up into this righteousness of faith.
The believing heart is indispensable to the discovery of truth. I do not say that it is indispensable to the discovery of all truth, although there is a sense in which it is true that no truth can be discovered without it. I do say that the truth he needs cannot be discovered by any man unless one of the organs by which he sets about perceiving it is the heart of trust and faith. No man by mathematical reasoning can get at the whole truth. We know that no man arrives at all that range of truth which is personal by his mathematical reasoning; that he gets at that, if he ever gets at it at all, by quite other faculties. That is what Tennyson declares in his protest in In Memoriam:
If eer when faith had falln asleep,
I heard a voice believe no more
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reasons colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answerd, I have felt.
He does not mean to shut out any one set of faculties; he simply means to assert on behalf of another set its rights in our search after and discovery of truth.1 [Note: R. E. Speer, The Master of the Heart, 35.]
The heart has reasons which the reason does not know. It is the heart that feels God, not the reason. There are truths that are felt, and there are truths that are proved, for we know truth not only by reason but by the intuitive conviction which may be called the heart. The primary truths are not demonstrable, and yet our knowledge of them is none the less certain. Principles are felt; propositions are proved. Truths may be above reason and yet not be contrary to reason.1 [Note: Pascal.]
2. It is essential to this heart-faith that we have genuine love to God. In the absence of goodwill towards God, there can never be this faith of the heart. You remember how Cecil taught his little daughter the meaning of gospel faith. She came to him, one day, with her hands full of little beads, greatly delighted, to show them. He said to her calmly, You had better throw them all into the fire. She was almost confounded; but when she saw that he was in earnest, she trustfully obeyed, and cast them in. After a few days, he brought home for her a casket of jewels. There, my daughter, said he; you had faith in me the other day, and threw your beads into the fire; that was faith; now I can give you things much more precious. Are not these far better? So you should always believe in God. He has jewels for those who will believe and cast away their sins.2 [Note: C. G. Finney.]
A Christian lawyer from Cripple Creek told me once, as we talked over the question of how a man might get his life righted, of an experience of his own years ago, when, in a great deal of perplexity, he had gone to his old pastor to ask him for help as to how he might get his life directed aright. He said the old man simply turned to the 32nd Psalm and read him these two verses: I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose trappings must be bit and bridle to hold them in, else they will not come near unto thee. Then, my friend said, the old man shut up his Bible and turned away. At first he felt no little resentment at his pastor for this curt way of replying to his inquiry; but when he went away and thought it over he saw that the whole secret of a right life lay just here, that the only way in which God could ever guide a man was not by some mechanical instruction, not by fitting a bit into a mans mouth and pulling him this way and that with a rein, but by planting in his heart His own Spirit and letting that Spirit guide him.3 [Note: R. E. Speer.]
ii. The Centre of Belief is in Christ and His Resurrection
1. The argument of the preceding verses is that to confess Jesus as Lord implies a true faith in the incarnate, risen, ascended Christ. It is the proof of the faith that it manifests itself in confession. Now it is impossible to suppose for a moment that St. Paul is speaking of a merely intellectual assent to the doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection of our Lord. It might appear that he inserted the words with the heart to prevent such a misconception. But, on the other hand, we must beware of completely sundering heart and head beliefs, according to modern phraseology. St. Paul, on the contrary, unites them, for the heart must be understood to include the intellect, since it embraces the whole spiritual and moral being. It is the entirety of our nature that must be absorbed in a living, active, personal faith in Christ as our risen Lord and Saviour.
There can be no doubt that the belief in a historical Christ and a historical resurrection is the only basis on which a living certainty of life beyond the grave can be placed.1 [Note: John Stuart Blackie, Life, ii. 321.]
2. This belief was not an act of the intellect alone; it was scarcely even a conscious act of the individual. For we must keep in mind, in considering this message to the disciples of Christ at Rome, the vast difference between their age and the age in which we live. There was a feeling produced among the early believers in Christ by the common atmosphere which every member of the society breathed. The individual rarely detached himself from the community of which he was a part, weighed the evidences for himself, and formed his own creed. There was such a community of belief amongst them that the creed was in reality common to all, the only difference, perhaps, being that some felt it with greater intensity, than others, were more influenced by its power and warmth. But the belief was common. They had one mind, and one heart. The power of the Spirit of Christ and the belief that He rose from the dead possessed them.
The contrast between the religion of Jesus and that organized and enforced by Moses was not greater than the contrast between the people in St. Pauls time and the people of to-day. These Christians felt the power of the Spirit of Christ, and as a consequence they believed in His resurrection. The whole position has been reversed, and the polemical reasoners of to-day first set about proving the fact of the resurrection in order that men may feel Christs power. They build up their arguments, and then say that men ought to be conscious of the influence of Christ.1 [Note: A. H. M. Sime.]
When I heard the learned astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wanderd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Lookd up in perfect silence at the stars.2 [Note: Walt Whitman.]
iii. Belief is productive of Righteousness
1. The conviction of the heart, which is inevitably confessed with the mouth, is no barren creed. It is a spiritual force within us making always for righteousness.
2. Two conditions of morality are secured to us by the Resurrection of our Lord: (1) Grace to enable effort. (2) Hope to inspire effort.
(1) Grace to enable effort.Howbeit, writes the Apostle, in days, like our own, of religious controversy and confusion, the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness. Just because the Resurrection demonstrates the Lordship of Christ, and authenticates His claim to be the Bread from Heaven, by which we may live immortally, so is it inseparably connected with His summons to live righteously.
(2) Hope to inspire effort.The victory of Christ is seen to carry consequences of the utmost importance. He is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh; in the indivisible unity of the human race He becomes for us all the pledge of final triumph. In Him we are sharers of that conquering manhood which overcame the very principle of mortality. By Him we are made strong to overcome sin, and assured of immortal life. There is no longer any place for the dreary suspicion that for us, being what and where we are in the world, there is no power to resist evil, that in sad truth the quest of the higher life is not for us. St. Paul bids the weakest and worst of us build boldly on the foundation of Christs victory: If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. There is no place now for that withering sickness of the spirit, aghast at the futility of all human effort, shadowed and menaced and mocked by the inevitable stroke of death. The things which are not seen are eternal, and our true life is hid with Christ in God. o death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord.
The believing heart is ever essential to the living of a consistent and real life. There never was yet in the world an absolutely consistent infidel. Life would break down for the man who did not live practically on faith, however much theoretically he may cast it out of his life. You remember the verses which have been wrongly attributed to Charles Kingsley:
There is no unbelief!
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod,
And waits to see it push away the clod,
He trusts in God.
Whoever says, when clouds are in the sky,
Be patient, heart, light breaketh by and by,
Trusts the Most High.
Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep,
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep,
Knows God will keep.
Whoever says to-morrow, the unknown,
The futuretrusts unto that Power alone
He dares disown.
The heart that looks on when the eyelids close,
And dares to live when life has only woes,
Gods comfort knows.
There is no unbelief;
And still by day and night, unconsciously,
The heart lives by the faith the lips decry,
God knoweth why.
II
Confession
With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
The beginning of the Christian life has two sides: internally it is the change of heart which faith implies; this leads to righteousness, the position of acceptance before God; externally it implies the confession of Christ crucified which is made in baptism, and this puts a man into the path by which in the end he attains salvation; he becomes one who is being saved.1 [Note: Sanday and Headlam.]
At times, the elders of the Hurons, the repositories of their ancient traditions, were induced to assemble at the house of the Jesuits, who explained to them the principal points of their doctrine, and invited them to a discussion. The auditors proved pliant to a fault, responding, Good, or That is true, to every proposition; but when urged to adopt the faith which so readily met their approval, they had always the same reply: It is good for the French; but we are another people, with different customs.2 [Note: Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America, i. 150.]
i. A Baptismal Confession
1. There seems to be no doubt that St. Paul has in mind some form of Baptismal Confession of Faith. Such a confession marks the external side of the beginning of the Christian life. The first formal creeds we meet with are Baptismal Confessions. The story of the Ethiopian baptized by Philip is an instance. Philip told him about Christ, and the Ethiopian, impressed by what he heard, asked to be baptized. Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
2. No idea existed at first of an exclusive creed; indeed, there was no one universal, unvarying form of creed. Each Church, while teaching the same truths as the others, had its own form of expressing them. The candidate for baptism who had been taught the Christian history and doctrine in a class with others, freely and discursively, had no suspicion of the creed with which at length he was entrusted, which he had to commit to memory, but which was never written down. He had no disposition to doubt, nor the Church to be inquisitorial. Men became Christian because they were eager to believe the Gospel message; anxious to know more of it; and to know it soon, before they died a martyrs death.
The creed in early days was called the Symbolum or symbol. Various meanings have been given to this name. But whether we regard it as meaning a military sign, tessera militaris, or whether it was adopted from the Greek mysteries, which committed a sign to the keeping of the initiated, it was a sign which the Christian carried about with him. By it he gained admission, wherever he might be, to the Christian Church, and by it he claimed the brotherly service of those who shared in the same faith. Their creed was their symbol, their secret, their pride.1 [Note: W. Page-Roberts.]
Think not the Faith by which the just shall live
Is a dead creed, a map correct of heaven;
Far less a feeling, fond and fugitive,
A thoughtless gift, withdrawn as soon as given;
It is an Affirmation and an Act
That bids eternal youth be present fact.2 [Note: Hartley Coleridge.]
ii. Unto Salvation
Confession is made unto salvation.
In what sense is it true that confession is thus closely connected with salvation? Two replies may be given to this question.
1. First of all, confession of faith is necessary to the salvation of others. It has pleased God to make the saving of men dependent on the work and activity of those who are already saved, and there is no single part of that work more important or more fruitful in results than the open confession with the mouth of the authority and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is sometimes said that it is harder to live for Christ than to speak about Him, but the statement is far from being universally true. There may be some who find little or no difficulty in speaking for Jesus to those who know Him not, but the greater number of Christian people know only too well how difficult a task it is to say anything to others of what is deepest and most sacred in their own hearts; and the difficulty grows greater and not less when they have to speak to those nearest and dearest to them. Many of us who would find little or no difficulty in speaking for Christ to a stranger are stricken dumb within our own homes.
It is told in the Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers that he spent an evening at Edgarstoun in the house of Mr. Rutherford. His amiable wife was by the library fire with her sister-in-law, and Mr. Brown, a remarkably large stout man of seventy-two. He had been a parishioner in Cavers when Dr. Chalmers was assistant there, and the greetings and cordial inquiries between them were quite animated. We fell into devout discourse presently, and conversed till late. At length the company retired to rest, but in the early morning they were roused by a cry. Mr. Brown had suddenly been stricken down by death, and in a moment had been called from time into eternity. Chalmers suffered an agony of self-reproach that he had not spoken to him urgently of Christ. It was touching to see him sit down on a bank repeatedly with tears in his eyes, and say, Ah! God has rebuked me; I know now what St. Paul means by being instant in season and out of season. Had I addressed that old man last night with urgency it might have seemed out of season to human eyes, but how seasonable it would have been. 1 [Note: Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, ii. 365.]
2. But the confession is also necessary to our own salvation. It is true we are saved by faith alone, but it is also true we are not saved, and cannot be saved, by faith that is alone. A faith kept to itself, confined within the soul, denied all expression, will soon cease to live. All deep emotion requires some kind of outward manifestation, or the emotion itself will die away. John Stuart Mill said that his father starved his feelings by denying them expression; and what is true of human feeling is even truer of those more sacred feelings the heart has for Christ. To believe in Jesus and never to speak to any single soul about Him, to lock up the secrets of faith in our own heart, is not only to imperil the salvation of others, it is to endanger our own. Faithfulness and faith are always closely connected; we cannot retain the one if we refuse the other. Confession is made unto salvation.
It is true that the life is the greatest and most impressive witness for Christ, and that without the witness of the life all that the lips may utter for Him is worse than worthless; but this is not all the truth. Christ asks of us all more than the silent and daily witness of a holy life, He asks the testimony of our lips as well. He Himself lived a life that was the sublimest witness for God the world has ever beheld; but He was not content with living for God, He spoke for God as well. He was the Word as well as the Life, and He asks us here, as everywhere else, to follow Him. We are to be living epistlesletters which speakknown and read of all men.
One of the most serious dangers to the spiritual life is in its silence concerning itself. If there is peril in empty and light speech about sacred things, if there is little or no value in the glibness of a shallow heart that can chatter out all its most sacred experiences as if they were articles in the inventory of an auctioneer, there is even more peril in our never speaking at all of Him who has saved us. Much of the feebleness and depression of the spiritual life of to-day is owing to the fact that so many professed believers in Christ have forgotten that with the mouth confession is made unto salvationtheir own as well as that of others.1 [Note: G. S. Barrett.]
The Heart and the Mouth
Literature
Barrett (G. S.), Musings for Quiet Hours, 49.
Blake (R. E.), Good News from Heaven, 27.
Edger (S.), Sermons Preached at Auckland, New Zealand, ii. 153.
Finney (C. G.), The Way of Salvation, 313.
Gore (C.), The Epistle to the Romans, ii. 51.
Harper (F.), A Year with Christ, 109.
Magee (W. C.), Sermons, 1.
Moody (D. L.), New Sermons, Addresses, and Prayers, 318.
Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 419.
Newbolt (W. C. E.), Counsels of Faith and Practice, 69.
Newbolt (W. C. E.), The Gospel Message, 104.
Page-Roberts (W.), Liberalism in Religion, 75.
Page-Roberts (W.), Conformity and Conscience, 181.
Skrine (J. H.), Sermons to Pastors and Masters, 35.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, ix. (1863), No. 520.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xx. No. 1175.
Christian World Pulpit, lxvii. 273 (Henson); lxix. 356 (Sime).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
For with: Luk 8:15, Joh 1:12, Joh 1:13, Joh 3:19-21, Heb 3:12, Heb 10:22
unto righteousness: Gal 2:16, Phi 3:9
and with: Rom 10:9, 1Jo 4:15, Rev 2:13
Reciprocal: Lev 5:5 – confess Lev 16:21 – confess over Jos 7:19 – make 1Ki 8:48 – And so return 2Ki 5:15 – now I know Psa 40:10 – not hid Pro 14:3 – but Mat 10:32 – confess me Luk 12:8 – Whosoever Luk 23:42 – when Joh 12:42 – they did not Act 8:12 – they believed Act 8:37 – If Act 11:14 – words Act 13:39 – by Act 16:31 – Believe Act 19:18 – confessed Rom 4:5 – But to Rom 4:24 – if we Rom 5:1 – being Rom 9:30 – even the righteousness Eph 2:8 – through 1Ti 4:16 – them 1Ti 6:12 – hast Heb 10:39 – but 1Pe 3:21 – the answer 1Jo 5:1 – believeth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
:10
Rom 10:10. The heart is the mind and it must accept the divine testimony that Christ arose from the dead, then the believer must make a confession of this belief. Paul does not say that this belief and confession alone will bring one into a saved state. But they are a part of the terms that pertain to the “righteousness” discussed above, which leads one unto or in the direction of salvation. Other items will logically follow if this belief is “from the heart” (chapter 6:17).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 10:10. For with the heart, etc. This is an explanation of Rom 10:9. The idea of salvation is analyzed; it comprises two facts: being justified and being saved (in the full sense of the word). The first fact is specially connected with the act of faith, the second with that of confession (Godet). Here belief comes first, in accordance with Christian experience.
Man believeth, lit, it is believed, unto righteousness, i.e., with this result, that righteousness is obtained; men are accounted righteous when they believe with the heart.
And with the mouth confession is made, or, man confesseth, lit., it is confessed. The impersonal form has the force of a general statement. The E. V. fails to preserve the correspondence. We might render: faith is exercised, to conform with confession is made.
Unto salvation, with this result, namely, salvation; here including, as we hold, sanctification and glory. It is not necessary to limit this to the latter. The two parallel clauses are closely connected. True faith always leads to confession; confession is nothing without true faith. Public confession is a confirmation of our own faith; a bond of union with others; an outward pledge to consistent living; but above all an act of loyalty to Christ.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Rom 10:10. For with the heart Not with the understanding only; man believeth unto righteousness So as to obtain justification, regeneration, and holiness, in all its branches; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation So as to obtain eternal salvation. For if we so believe in Christ as to become truly righteous, and manifest that we are so by confessing him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, when such a confession might deprive us of our property, our liberty, and our lives, we must, of course, love him better than any or all of these things; and therefore we willingly part with them for his sake. And being thus crucified to the world, and all visible and temporal things, our affections will be set on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God: and consequently, when he shall appear we shall appear with him in glory. In the first ages, the spreading of the gospel depended, in a great measure, on Christs disciples confessing him openly before the world, and on their sealing their confession with their blood. Hence Christ required it, in the most express terms, and threatened to deny those who denied him, Mat 10:32-33; 1Jn 4:15. The confessing Christ being so necessary, and at the same time so difficult a duty, the apostle very properly connected the assurance of final salvation therewith; because it was the best evidence which the disciple of Christ could have of his own sincerity, and of his being willing to perform every other act of obedience required of him. There is a difference between the profession and the confession of our faith. To profess is to declare a thing of our own accord; but to confess is to declare a thing when asked concerning it. This distinction Cicero mentions in his oration Pro Cecinna. Macknight.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 10. The idea of salvation is analyzed; it embraces the two facts: being justified and being saved (in the full sense of the word). The former is especially connected with the act of faith, the latter with that of profession. Paul, in expressing himself thus, is not swayed, as De Wette believes, by the love of parallelism. There is in his eyes a real distinction to be made between being justified and being saved. We have already seen again and again, particularly in chap. Rom 5:9-10, that justification is something of the present; for it introduces us from this time forth into reconciliation with God. But salvation includes, besides, sanctification and glory. Hence it is that while the former depends only on faith, the latter implies persevering fidelity in the profession of the faith, even to death and to glory. In this Rom 10:10, Paul returns to the natural and psychological order, according to which faith precedes profession. This is because he is here expounding his thought, without any longer binding himself to the order of the Mosaic quotation. And to put, as it were, a final period to this whole passage, the idea of which is the perfect freeness of salvation, he repeats once more the passage of Isaiah which had served him as a point of departure (Rom 9:33).
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. [“The seat of faith,” says Calvin, “is not in the brain, but in the heart. Yet I would not contend about the part of the body in which faith is located: but as the word heart is often taken for a serious and sincere feeling, I would say that faith is a firm and effectual confidence, and not a bare notion only.” The belief must be such as to incite to love (1Co 13:1-2) and the obedience of faith (Jam 2:14-26). The faith of the heart introduces the sinner into that state of righteousness which in this present world reconciles him to God. The continual profession of that faith by word and deed works out his salvation, which ushers him into the glory of the world to come. Salvation relates to the life to come (Rom 13:11). When attained it delivers us from the dominion of the devil, which is the bondage of sin; from the power of death, which is the wages of sin, and from eternal torment, which is the punishment of sin. Such is salvation negatively defined, but only the redeemed know what it is positively, for flesh can neither inherit it (1Co 15:50) nor utter it– 2Co 12:1-5]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
10. For with the heart it is believed unto righteousness, and with the mouth it is confessed unto salvation. When our Savior gave the commission (Mat 28:20), He said, Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age. While the glorified man Christ is up in heaven interceding for us, the spiritual Christ is on earth and omnipresent. Deep. in E. V. is abyss in the Greek, which literally means bottomless, applicable to the center of the earth, which is evidently the fiery location of hell, and the only locality which is bottomless. Thither the human soul of our Savior descended while His body lay in the tomb, proclaiming His victory in the pandemonium, and crossing the intervening chasm into the intermediate paradise, Abrahams bosom, meeting the thief the same day he was crucified, and leading captive all the Old Testament saints, there waiting in joy ineffable the completion of the redemptive scheme and the sealing of the Abrahamic covenant with His blood, leading them up with Him, invisible, because they did not have their bodies: accompanying Him for forty days on earth previous to His resurrection, and ascending with Him into glory, the first fruits of the triumphant Mediatorial kingdom (1Pe 3:19; Eph 4:8-10; Act 2:27-31). In this grand culminating argument, Paul affirms the beautiful facility of the salvation plan, since Christ, our only and omnipotent Savior, is omnipresent, and we have nothing to do but believe with the heart unto salvation, i. e., heart faith, believe into it, keep on believing until you get it. Then, when you do conscientiously receive it, confess it with your mouth to all the world, perpetuating your unfaltering testimony through time and eternity. We must remember that we are not saved through mental faith, such as wicked men and devils have, but through the real spiritual faith of the heart. The popular churches are filled up with people who have nothing but intellectual faith, like the devils in hell, who are very orthodox, giving us a perpetual illustration of the unsalvability peculiar to intellectual faith, otherwise they would all be saved and get out of there in a hurry. Your heart is your spirit, your immortal self, filling your whole body. This spirit is the man himself who fell in Eden, utterly losing spiritual life, and consequently literally and totally depraved; the mind not utterly falling, as in that case they would have become idiots; the body not totally falling, as in that case they would have dropped dead in their tracks. On this residuum of body and mind surviving the Fall, Satan has built up great systems of materialistic and intellectual religions, girdling the globe, serving as passports of his deluded millions into hell, being utterly destitute of spirituality and salvation. I have seen many join the church on a merely intellectual confession of faith. As well take in a lot of devils so far as salvation is concerned. Heart faith which brings salvation always opens the mouth and tells its own story. The churches are filled up with poor, dead dummies, a withering burlesque on Jesus Christ, who is here both to raise the dead and cast out all the dumb devils. Oh, what a sensation would this bring into a great popular, dead, dumb church False religion makes the church still and dumb as a graveyard. True religion makes the church active, demonstrative and uproarious like a graveyard on the resurrection morn.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
10:10 For with the heart man {i} believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
(i) Faith is said to justify, and furthermore seeing the confession of the mouth is an effect of faith, and confession in the way to come to salvation, it follows that faith is also said to save.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
This verse summarizes the ideas in the previous verse in general terms. Paul frequently summarized in Romans, and often these summaries refer to the results of the action in view, as here (cf. Rom 4:25; Rom 5:21; Rom 6:23; Rom 7:25).
Belief in Jesus Christ in one’s heart results in acceptance by God (i.e., imputed righteousness, justification, and positional sanctification). Testimony to one’s belief in Jesus Christ normally follows and normally is verbal. Paul was describing the normal consequence of belief. Witmer wrote that the confession is to God. [Note: Witmer, p. 481.] One’s confession that Jesus is Lord would be to God initially (i.e., expressing trust in Christ to the Father), but most interpreters have believed that the confession in view goes beyond God and includes other people as well. This seems to be a reasonable conclusion since the confession is to be made with the mouth.
In what sense does this confession result in salvation? Paul obviously did not mean that confession of Jesus Christ secures acceptance with God since he just said belief in the heart does that (Rom 10:9; cf. ch. 4). Salvation is a broad term that includes many kinds of deliverance, as we have seen. What aspect of salvation does taking a public stand for Christ secure? For one thing it saves the person making the confession from the potential discipline of God. [Note: See Dillow, pp. 122-24.] It also saves him or her from the loss of reward that those who are unwilling to identify themselves with Him will enjoy (cf. Mat 10:32-33; 2Ti 2:12). Furthermore, it often results in the eternal salvation of other people who hear the confession of faith and then believe themselves.