Chapter # 10 Paragraph # 2 Study # 5
August 12, 2018
Humble, Texas
(066)
1769 Translation:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
1901 ASV Translation:
9 because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved:
10 for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame.
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same [Lord] is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him:
13 for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
- I. Believing "In Your Heart".
- A. The first issue is "believing".
- 1. This verb is used in Romans in 20 verses and the noun is used in Romans in 35 verses. Both words (verb/noun) are used extensively in the New Testament.
- 2. The noun in Romans.
- a. Is the root of "obedience": 1:5. The word for "obedience" in this text is one that refers to the concept of putting oneself "under" a thing heard. It is in direct harmony with the insistence of Hebrews 3-4 that "hearing" be "mixed" with "faith". The straightforward implication is that the "mixing" consists of placing oneself "under" that content of doctrine declared.
- b. According to 1:17, "faith" is the key issue in the reception of righteousness from God just as Habakkuk 2:4 declares. This is followed up in 3:22 where "the righteousness of God" is "unto all who "are believing". Then in 3:25-26 Paul doubles down upon how righteousness is reckoned to sinners in the context of "Justice" by setting forth the place that "the blood" of Jesus Christ has in what is typically called "substitutionary" propitiation.
- c. In 3:3 the question is raised as to whether a person should "follow the crowd" when it comes to the question of whether it is legitimate to "believe" God when everyone is being "unbelieving".
- d. In 3:27 we are told that a death-blow has been given to the massive sinful human penchant for "boasting" (the most destructive action that relationships ever suffer).
- e. Then, in chapter four of Romans there are nine verses that focus upon "faith" as the focal point of Abraham's "fatherhood" of everyone who "believes". Romans 4 is Paul's "faith chapter" in Romans in a parallel to Hebrews 11 as another "faith chapter".
- f. The opening verses of chapter five (5:1-2) zero into "faith" as the crucial factor in having "peace" with God and an introduction into "grace". After these two verses, "faith" as a noun is not used again until 9:30.
- 3. The verb.
- a. Like the noun, the verb shows up significantly in chapter 4, but it also has a heavy presence in 10:4-16.
- b. It is clear from its use in 3:2 and 4:5 that "believing" involves "committing oneself to something" (following the idea that "faith" leads to "submission to a thing heard") in the face of alternatives. One must decide, when "submitting", which of the claims made are to be treated as worthy of loyalty.
- 4. The point.
- a. Nowhere does the Bible countenance the notion that "faith" exists where there is no corresponding action/reaction. Everyone who has studied the Scriptures in any kind of detail recognizes that Hebrews 11 is a "faith" chapter and throughout that chapter, the one who "believes" takes some kind of action that is in harmony with the thing "believed". Admittedly there are some issues of "faith" that lead to refusal to "take action" because the thing "believed" requires that "non-action". But, that, in itself, proves the point: "faith" points to responses that are in harmony with the thing believed and those who do not respond according to the "faith" simply have not "believed".
- b. To "mix" (Hebrews 4:2) "hearing" with "faith", simply means to "believe" what is heard so that one is moved to take the directed/implied action involved. The lack of action simply points to the refusal to "mix" "faith" into the "hearing".
- B. The second issue is where this believing takes place.
- 1. The word translated "heart" is used in 15 verses in Romans (152 in the entire New Testament).
- a. In 1:21 Paul wrote that the "foolish heart was darkened" because they "knew" God and refused to glorify Him as God and be thankful. The word translated "foolish" by the Authorized Version is the word for being "without understanding".
- b. As a follow-up, 1:24 makes the claim that God "gave them up" in the realm of "lusts" of their "hearts". This pretty much makes what the heart craves the foundation for the choices and behaviors of human kind.
- c. As he pursues his declaration of the human condition "under sin", Paul, in 2:5, blames the heart for its "hardness" and "impenitence".
- d. Then, in 2:15, he turns right around and claims that "the law" has a "written" presence in human beings that sneaks into their choices and behaviors so that they "do" some of the things that "the Law" contains, thus condemning them to "excuselessness" when it comes to judgment.
- e. The next Romans text referring to the heart (2:29) indicates that there is such a thing as a "circumcision" of the heart that, apparently, begins with a desire to be praised by God rather than men and ends with behaviors that correspond to the "spirit" of God's true moral law.
- f. The "heart" is not found again in Romans until 5:5 where we are told that it is God Who "sheds His love abroad in our hearts" by His Holy Spirit. Thus, the "love of God" is revealed to be the underlying cause of the "believer's" truest motivations.
- g. The explanation for this shows up in 6:17 as a "placement of oneself under a form of doctrine". This corresponds to Paul's concept of "faith" being the actual placement of oneself under something heard as we noted above in our perusal of the use of "faith" by Paul in Romans.
- h. In 8:27 Paul characterizes God as a "heart-Searcher" who responds to the Spirit's intercessory prayer for the people of God. The implications of this are many and profound.
- i. And in 9:2 he uses "heart-grief" as a buttress for his claim to be seriously concerned for his fellow-Israelites.
- j. Then follows five references to "the heart" in chapter 10 (10:1, 6, 8, 9, and 10).
- k. The last of Paul's references to the "heart" in Romans is in 16:18 where he claims that "the simple" have "hearts" that are relatively easy to "deceive".
- 2. The major point: "belief" in the "heart" is a most fundamental conviction that sets the stage for the choices and behavior of the "believer".
- II. The God Raised Him Out From Among the Dead.
- A. That a resurrection out from among the dead is an absolutely "major" claim (Christianity rests solidly upon it) is indisputable.
- B. That "belief" in such a claim, if it is actually a "heart" belief, is an absolutely radical factor in the reality of life -- goals, choices, activities, and results.
- C. That "faith" in "resurrection" absolutely relegates all of the present temporal issues to the level of insignificance can hardly be disputed.
- D. The text of Romans 1:4 clearly makes "resurrection" the basis for any serious "faith" in Jesus as "Son of God" (no definite articles before either noun; focus upon qualitative issues rather than unique issues). Thus, all of Christianity rests upon whether, or not, "God" raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.
- E. The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead is a once-in-history event. Every "average" person on the planet lives somewhere between 65 and 90 years in the flow of millennia of history. This means that no one ever experiences anything that even comes close to "resurrection" as an event in their own lifetime with credible witnesses. This also means that no one can point to any other time frame when "resurrection" occurred with credible witnesses either before or after Jesus of Nazareth and His time upon the earth. "Resurrection" has never been even close to an experiential "norm" that could give "believers" any "support" by reason of numerous occurances. Thus, "faith" in God's resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead cannot be rooted in anyone's current experiences; it must have its roots in God's creation of conviction "in the heart". There is no other "root" sufficient for "faith" in such a claim. It is, apart from the gracious work of God in the hearts of individuals, simply impossible to believe something "in the heart" that has no "experiential" foundation in the "believer".
- III. The Outcome: Salvation.
- A. This "salvation" is most significantly "deliverance from the wrath of God" (a one hundred percent result).
- B. The other aspects of "salvation" are not in the "one hundred percent" category.
- 1. A somewhat popular organization of the issues involved in "salvation" involves "salvation from the penalty of sin" (justification), "salvation from the power of sin" (progressive sanctification), and "salvation from the presence of sin" (glorification).
- 2. Only "justification" is in the "one hundred percent" category at the present time: God refuses to "impute sin" to those whom He has "justified" (Romans 4:8). Salvation from the power of sin is significantly less than one hundred percent just as James declared, "...in many things we all offend..." (James 3:2), and with which Paul agrees with his, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect..." (Philippians 3:12). Even the auto-insurance industry agrees with an ad where it is declared, "News flash: nobody is perfect". And salvation from the presence of sin is absolutely zero percent at this present time: we are immersed in a fallen world where sin's presence is ubiquitous at this present time.
- C. Thus Paul uses a future tense for his word of promise: there will come a time when "salvation" will be fully experienced by all who believe. Our problem is that this full experience is beyond our time in this world.