Or, Our Confession of Faith
Scripture: Romans 10:5-13
Date: March 26, 2023
Speaker: Sean Higgins
I went out of my way last Lord’s Day to say that “Jesus is Lord” is an entire worldview. That confession is not less than soteriological; “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” All these confessors are saved from sin, saved from God’s wrath, saved from hell. Acknowledging “Jesus is Lord” is a dividing line between life and death, between eternal riches or eternal desolation. But “Jesus is Lord,” if true, cannot be narrowed to a Christian’s “personal faith.” It is a confession with cosmological realities, from root to fruit, earth and the heavens.
Is there any more promising, brightening, comforting, rallying three-word statement? “I love you” means a lot in certain contexts, and “just do it” has caught on in a hustle culture. “He is risen” works well in these weeks before Easter. I’ve actually been quite animated by “all are yours” in 1 Corinthians 3:22. That was the finale of Paul’s reasons for the Corinthians not to be fussy over their favorite preacher of the cross. “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21-22). “All are yours” is a worldview, an abundance rather than scarcity mindset, a gratitude rather than a grasping attitude. And as good as “All are yours” is, that depends entirely on the reality that “Jesus is Lord.”
It is the “mother-thought” of an “all-embracing life system.” It’s hard not to think of Abraham Kuyper’s manifesto:
[T]here is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!
And though it’s almost always translated in English as “square inch,” Een duimbreed is a common Dutch idiom for a very small distance, it’s one “thumb’s width. Our confession of faith is not just a confession required across the globe, it is a confession that applies to the globe, and the planets and stars and highest heavens. Yes our confession saves our souls because we acknowledge what is true about Jesus, but in that acknowledgement we get everything that concerns Jesus.
Perhaps you’re concerned that that is reading too much into Romans 10:9. I hear you. But sit with me for a little longer in the mediation sauna.
As we teach our kids about the Lord Jesus and as we teach them to believe that He is risen, we don’t ask them to read the whole library first. We teach them the ABCs. When they can put together letters, they can put together sentences, and sentences add up into books and books, by God’s grace, lead to wisdom. And for those who are “in Christ Jesus,” Jesus is “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)
But if we put the confession in context in Romans 10, we will find that perhaps we have not gone quite far enough in our consideration that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the Door (John 10:9), the entrance is narrow, but He is master of the whole house; your afternoons will never be bored exploring it all.
Paul is explaining why so many Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah and refused to confess Jesus as Lord. Romans 9-11 are all about the historical fact of it, and whether that meant the end of God’s work among Israel. Many Jews misunderstood, and we’d rightly say that they willfully misunderstood, the Law’s demands as pointing them outside themselves when they desired to establish a righteousness of their own. But in addition to that, can you imagine what it might mean for a people raised to revere Yahweh as the covenant-keeping, cosmos-keeping LORD, to confess Jesus as Yahweh in flesh?
The Greek word for “Lord” in Romans 10:9 is κύριος. It can be used in reference to human lords, but throughout the Septuagint κύριος consistently translates Yahweh = LORD, the “I am” (Exodus 3:15) (over 6,000 times in the LXX per Morris). For the Jews to make such a confession involved more than just changing their view of the sacrificial system but of the cosmos.
Yahweh is the creator. Yahweh delivered His people from Egypt in the Exodus. Yahweh promised and then provided victory for them as they conquered the peoples of Canaan. Yahweh gave guidance through His Word and instructions for proper worship. Yahweh was worthy of thanks, of awe, of adoration in Psalms. He is the Judge, the Shepherd, the King and Ruler, with all authority and power. Want blessings? Call on Yahweh. Want blessings? Confess Jesus is Yahweh. So the Jews knew what they were getting by their confession.
The Gentiles in Rome were putting themselves in an entirely different danger. As I said last Sunday, the Emperor didn’t mind the worship of many gods in the Empire, but he most certainly wanted to be seen as sole lord at the top. To confess Jesus as Lord was taken as a direct challenge to Caesar’s authority, and so the temptation would be great to keep quiet about it. You can believe God raised Jesus from the dead, but hold your mouth. Paul says, salvation and riches and honor depend on the confession. It is more than a private conviction.
We considered from Romans 10:5-7 that salvation is impossible, since none of us obey perfectly and none of us could conceive or carry out the incarnation or resurrection. And yet salvation is accessible (10:8-10); it’s clear and it’s in Jesus. We “confess,” or as Tyndale translated it, “knowledge with thy mouth that Jesus is yͤ Lorde.” Verse 10 repeats verse 9, comparing justification and salvation.
Verses 11-13 move on from what Moses writes to what “Scripture says.” Paul quotes the prophets Isaiah and Joel.
There’s more than just Moses’ word on salvation.
For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11 ESV)
Paul reuses this quote from Isaiah 28:16, though only the very last part of the verse, which he just quoted in Romans 9:33. The apostle had a lot of ammo to choose from in the arsenal of prophets, and he liked firing this round. It is Scripture , so it is the Lord’s Word. And the Lord says through Isaiah that 1) it’s about the one who believes and 2) that the ones believing will not be put to shame .
Shame before whom? Before God? Before the world? It turns out, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.” (Romans 8:33) There’s no dishonor, no humiliation, no disappointment for those who believe because God accepts all the believing ones.
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. (Romans 10:12 ESV)
It is not just the hope of the Jews, nor now exclusively for Gentiles after all but the remnant of Israel rejected.
There is no distinction for what? There’s no distinction for how to be saved. This is an explanation of the Isaiah quote (“For…”). But Paul has been making an ethnic distinction for a chapter and half, the same distinction he introduced in Romans 1:16, regarding the distinction among those who need to be saved. This is important. Just as there is no distinction between male and female for how to be saved (Galatians 3:28), there is absolutely a glorious distinction in how they fulfill their roles as saved men or women. So Paul is not flattening Jews/Greeks into one in all ways.
In fact, those with God’s revelation in the nation of Israel should have attended to God’s intention to make His glory known among the nations (see Psalm 67).
Jesus is Lord, and He is Lord of all .
Bestowing His riches , not in a zero sum game, but out of His “all.” The Lord is plentifully supplied; there is no lack in His accounts, His arsenal. His fields are full (see Psalm 50:10-12).
Call on takes over duty for believing, and is used again in verse 13. It means to look to another for help. In verse 12 it is a substantival participle (τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους), “all the ones calling on Him.”
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13 ESV)
This quote comes from the prophet Joel 2:32. Calls on the name of the Lord is a formula of worship, in particular supplication (Murray). In 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul even can summarize the Christian community: “along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” Believers are the Lord-callers.
Salvation is not a bootstrapped project, a rigorous religious climb, or available to the zealous. It depends the name of the Lord . Confess “Jesus is Lord” and you will be saved, call on the name of Jesus as Yahweh and you will be saved.
Our confession of faith: He is Lord of all. So all are yours because Jesus is Lord.
On a personal level, this is the humbling truth that turns us from vain self-puffery to the joyful fruitfulness of those who call on the Lord.
“He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are .” (Mere Christianity, Location 1689)
It is vanity, as in discouragement-inducing-futility, to try to make something seem great that isn’t great. We are not great. The Lord, though, is great and greatly to be praised.
On a worldview level, the “Lord of all” parts, the “riches” parts, spill into chapter 11, and the jealousability He is working among us. God blesses those who confess Jesus as Lord over all the world.
did [Israel] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! (Romans 11:11–12 ESV)
As the redeemed, you live in forgiveness according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7). As the regenerated, He has purposed to show the immeasurable riches of His grace in the coming ages (Ephesians 2:7). As the saints of God, you have heard the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8). Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord of all. Apart from Him, life is merely busy and barren. Call on the Lord in the days of toil, and trouble. His riches are for all those who call on Him.
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. (Philippians 4:19–20, 23, ESV)