Faith (Part 2)

Last week we saw that, according to Paul, we are saved by God’s grace through our faith. In other words, even though none of us is truly righteous, God treats us as if we were righteous because of our faith, just as God did with Abraham.

So what is this “faith” that Paul is talking about? What does it involve?

Paul tells us in Romans 10:9-10:

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

If we break down what Paul is saying in these verses, we will see that faith involves more than mere intellectual assent to certain biblical truths. First, Paul says we must have a sincere belief in Christ’s resurrection, which is the cornerstone of Christianity.

Jesus made many claims about Himself that would sound downright crazy if you or I said the same things about ourselves—such as claiming to be the Son of God, claiming to have come from Heaven and to know all about it, and claiming the power to forgive wrongs committed by people when He was not the offended party. In John 8:58, Jesus made the astounding claim: “before Abraham was born, I am.”

Through these claims and others, Jesus was asserting that He was divine—in effect, that He was God. His resurrection is the proof that Jesus was what He claimed to be. If someone walked into our church and said that he was God, we would no doubt think he was either joking, lying, or crazy. But if we saw him die, and then saw him alive again several days later, we would have to rethink what we thought we knew. That is what the resurrection does—it proves Jesus’ claims of divinity.

So if we sincerely believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then we must also believe that He is what He claimed to be—God.

Now let’s look at the other part of what Paul is saying: “if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord.”

Intellectual acceptance of Jesus’ resurrection as a fact is not enough. Even belief that Jesus was God is not enough. Satan and his demons know both of those statements are true, but of course they are not saved. As James 2:19 says: “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.”

We have to go a step further than merely believing that Jesus was divine and that He rose from the dead. We must also act on that belief through an honest confession that Jesus is Lord—not merely a lord, mind you, but our Lord. In doing so, we surrender ourselves to Christ and submit to his Lordship over our lives.

A servant is expected to obey his lord. Surrender necessarily involves obedience—trying to do things God’s way, trying to do what Jesus told us we should do. That is surely what Jesus meant when he said, “Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46) At a minimum, that means that we must try to obey the two great commandments: to love God above all else, and to love others as ourselves.

Of course this is much easier said than done. We might well respond: “I’m trying! But it’s hard, and I keep failing.” Paul knew that feeling, which is why he says in Romans 7:15: “For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate.” And then he cries out in Romans 7:24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”

In the next verse, Romans 7:25, he answers his own question: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

So how are we saved? We are saved by believing that Jesus is divine, putting our trust in Him, and submitting to His Lordship over our lives. And when we do that, God gives us what we cannot earn and do not deserve—Christ’s righteousness, along with salvation and eternal life.

That’s what Paul meant when he said: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.”