That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9
Supposing you wanted to join an organization that represented members of your profession. Let’s say that you are a business tax consultant. You will find that the organization representing business tax consultants has a list of qualifications for membership, such as completion of a training course, a provincial operating license, and a place of business. Once you determine that you meet all of the qualifications, you move on to the application procedure. For this, you need to fill out an application form and pay a membership fee. When the application form is approved, you are a full-fledged member of the business tax consultant’s organization. You simply follow the steps, and you become a member. It’s the same process to become a Christian, and today’s text outlines the steps required.
Actually, when it comes to being qualified for salvation, everybody in the world has the identical qualifications, although most of the people don’t realize it. The Bible makes it clear that none of us have any ability, any value, or any other means of obtaining God’s salvation. This is good news because the Lord Jesus said he had come to seek and save those who are lost. That means the only qualification for salvation is to be lost. People all around us can’t accept that reality about themselves. Instead of accepting what God says about them, they struggle to perform enough good works, to obtain enough religion, to say enough prayers, to inject their worthlessness into God’s requirements. Those of us who are saved well remember how lost we felt just before God revealed Himself to us. We were just as lost before that, but we didn’t realize it. So much for the qualification for salvation, what about the application?
Our text tells us we must combine two critical ingredients in order to be saved. By themselves, these ingredients won’t produce the desired results. There are many people who have made a confession of the Lord Jesus with their lips but who have failed to grasp the meaning of His resurrection. Others have acknowledged the reality of the resurrection but refuse to accept and publicly declare Jesus Christ as Lord. Our salvation is not a head knowledge of historical facts. It is an admission before God that we are lost, an acceptance before God that the death and resurrection of His Son is everything required to save us forever, and a confession before others that we have trusted Christ and have submitted to His lordship. To those who would question the need for the final piece of the formula, I ask why would our text spell it out if it were not necessary?
The formula for God’s salvation is simple after we have received it. May others accept this simplicity too. -Jim MacIntosh