“Did you know that Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?”  This is a question often asked of people as we share our faith in Christ. The idea here is that we think that people will respond to Christ if we paint Him as a loving God who wishes to have a relation with us. It is certainly true that God loves mankind (John 3:16) and is longsuffering not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), but this is only part of the picture. We share what we think is the Gospel message wrapped up in the presupposition that what the lost need to hear,  is that their problem is that they are missing out on a cool relationship with God. We just want to be “seeker friendly.”  We end up with a cozy and comfortable Jesus that anyone could cuddle up to, but the lost are still unaware of their real need and the real reason why Christ went to the cross (Romans 3:10-23).  But the real danger is that many think they are Christians as a result of this kind of evangelism that is devoid of any kind of true Biblical repentance (Luke 13:3  cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:9).

But our text holds the key to this dilemma; “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Often we miss the real import  of  this passage simply because we miss the meaning of the word “confess”. The Greek word used in both instances (homologeo) means “to speak the same thing”, to agree with, declare, admit.”

The point here is that to “confess the Lord Jesus” carries with it much more than “I want a relationship with God”.  Nor does the word confess here mean a simple acknowledgment  that there is a God and that He is Lord of the universe, since even the demons acknowledge that to be true (James 2:19). Nor does the word confess mean that I merely admit to doing wrong,  but rather that my sin has offended a Holy God (Psalm 51:3-4).  The whole of the text of Romans 10 would indicate that confession here means to agree with God about our unrighteousness (Romans 10:3), that we are sinners who have offended Him , and that without reservation Christ is to be Lord of our lives.

In verse 10 Paul declares that it is heart belief (trust).  This is not just  an intellectual assent to the facts, nor is it just a recognition that the claims of Christ are true.  But rather this a volitional act where by we place our whole selves in the finished work of Christ declaring our utter helplessness to remedy our sinful condition and Christ’s right to rule as the sovereign of of our life.

This kind of confession is to humble ourselves as we fall into the hands of God’s grace (James 4:6  cf.1 Peter 5;5). No Gospel message is complete until we confront the sinner with his sin. In my mind there is no greater tragedy than to give a person a thimble of the Gospel which ultimately leaves the person comfortably lost in their sin.