A Discussion of Evangelism:
Biblical Truths and Modern Evangelism

                         Outline

      Part 1
           I. Evangelism According to God's Word
           II. Access to the Free Gift of Salvation through Faith Alone

      Part 2
           III. Some Unbiblical Modern Evangelism Concepts and Practices
                   A. Asking Jesus into your heart
                   B. ' The prayer '
           IV. Believing in Jesus

      Part 3
           V. Confession in Romans 10

      Part 4
           VI. Calling upon the Lord

      Part 5
           VII. 'Confessing Jesus before men' in Matthew 10:32
           VIII. Conclusion

Part 3

V. Confession in Romans 10

1. Confession in Romans 10 is not confession of sin.
   
   
2. Confession is the proclamation throughout one's total life (actions and words) that Christ is one's Savior and Lord.
   1. Confession in Romans 10 is acknowledgement and commitment to the truth that Jesus is Lord and God (verse 9). (See Philippians 2:11.) ⁽⁴⁾
   2. After justification, the believer confesses Christ as one's Lord through words and actions. ⁽⁵⁾
   
   
3. Confession of the mouth is an outcome of belief and an evidence of true discipleship.
   1. Confession of the mouth is not a means to justification,
   2. Confession of the mouth is a manifestation of faith and salvation. ⁽⁶⁾
   3. Confession in Romans 10:9-10 is a product of the grace of God given to those who believe.
   4. Confession and other good works are made possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
   5. Confession of the mouth is the result of already having believed and, thus, already having been saved. ⁽⁷⁾
   6. In Romans 10, confession is the act of voicing and living the faith that one already has. ⁽⁸⁾
   7. Confession comes from belief that is in the heart (Rom 10:9). The person who truly trusts in Christ will gladly proclaim and follow Christ as Lord and Savior. ⁽⁹⁾
   8. Confession shows the person has rejected and forsaken his former religion. (The Jew has turned from self-righteousness and Law-righteousness to Christ; the Gentile has turned from emperor worship or other false gods to Christ worship.)
   9. In Romans 10, confession is made with the desire to praise God for His righteousness and for the righteousness of Jesus Christ having been applied to the believer (verse 6).
   10. Confession is the continual action of praising God for His generous provisions for salvation.
   
   
4. Confession is unto salvation.
   1. Having been justified by Jesus through faith, believers will live a life of confession (worship and service in actions, thoughts, and words).
   2. Confession is made because of justification (made right with God) and because of the final salvation.
   3. Confession is the outpouring of faith that is in one's life (actions and words) - a life that has the coming resurrection in view. Matt 25:34
   4. In Romans 10:9 ("that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved"), the verb for "you shall be saved" (σωθηση - sothese) is in the future tense.
   5. Believers will be saved - resurrected to eternal life and glorified at the end of time. Thus, in this way, their confession is "unto salvation." ⁽¹⁰⁾
   6. Confession and other good works build upon the believer's growth towards a mature servant of Christ and member of the kingdom of God - towards the time when we are taken out of this temporal life and brought into the eternal resurrected life (final salvation). Thus, in this way, confession is 'unto salvation.' Rom 10:10 ⁽¹¹⁾
   7. Philippians 3:20-21 expresses this truth: "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself."
   
   
5. In Romans 10, confession is not a request to God for salvation and forgiveness.
   1. Righteousness with God is accessed only through faith.
   2. The book of Romans is clear and consistent in stating justification (salvation) is accessed by faith without any works. (Rom 3:22; 4:3-5, 16, 24; 5:1-2)
   3. In Romans 10, confession is not something done to access salvation (justification). ⁽¹²⁾
   4. The Biblical example of 'confessing Jesus as Lord' is the result of conversion and new life.
      1. Confession as a result of conversion agrees with the examples of conversion in Acts. In Acts, immediate evidence of people having been saved is the giving of praise to God (Acts 10:46; 16:34).
      2. In contrast, the current popular method of repeating a prayer is a work done for the purpose of causing conversion.
      3. Baptism (one form of confession) is one evidence of salvation (Acts 2:41; 8:12; 16:33; 18:8).
   5. Confession is not the same as a person following a pre-worded prayer asking for salvation.
      1. The view that "confession unto salvation" is a necessary work for justification is similar to misunderstanding "be baptized ... for the forgiveness of sins" as meaning baptism is necessary for justification.
      2. 'Unto' in Romans 10:10 and 'for' in Acts 2:38 are both translated from the same Greek preposition (εις - eis).
   
   
6. Even if Romans 10 did teach prayer is necessary for justification (but it does not), a person cannot be saved by expressing another person's prayers and thoughts.
   1. It is certain from Romans 10:8-10 that the confession of one's mouth is to come from the person's own heart, not from another's heart.
   2. A prayer that is repeated after another person comes from the mind of the person leading the prayer.
   3. Having a person repeat what the 'evangelist' says does not encourage the words of the mouth to be an expression of the faith that is in one's own heart.
   
   
7. The Biblical provision for a one-time declaration of one's salvation through belief in Jesus Christ is baptism. (See Romans 6:3-5; Acts 2:41; 8:36-39; 10:44-48; 16:14-15; 16:31-34; 18:8.) ⁽¹³⁾

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Notes

4.  "We should be very careful what doctrines we hold and teach on the subject of justification. He who is wrong here, ruins his own soul; and if he teaches any other than the scriptural method of justification, he ruins the souls of others, ver. 3.
    A sinner is never safe, do what else he may, until he has submitted to God's method of justification." Charles Hodge commenting on Romans 10:3-4, Epistle to the Romans, 343-344.
   "But he makes a true confession of Jesus as Lord; who adorns Him with His own power; acknowledging Him as the one who was given by the Father and is described in the Gospel." John Calvin commenting on Romans 10:8-10, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, 227.  [Return]

5.  "... a frank and open acknowledgment of what Christ is in himself, as that he is truly and properly God, the Son of God, the true Messiah, the Mediator between God and man, and the only Saviour of lost sinners ... in ascribing the whole of our salvation to him ... This confession must be made both by words and facts, must be open, visible, and before men; and also real, hearty, and sincere ..." John Gill commenting on Romans 10 in John Gill's Exposition of the Bible.  [Return]

6.  "We are not to regard confession and faith as having the same efficacy unto salvation. ... we may not tone down the importance of confession with the mouth. Confession without faith would be vain [cf. Matt 7:22, 23; Tit. 1:16). But likewise faith without confession would be shown to be spurious. Our Lord and the New Testament in general bear out Paul's coordination of faith and confession {cf. Matt 10:22; Luke 12:8; John 9:22; 12:42; I Tim. 6:12; I John 2:23; 4:15; II John 7). Confession with the mouth is the evidence of the genuineness of faith and sustains to the same the relation which good works sustain {cf, 12:1, 2; 14:17; Eph. 2:8-10; 4:1,2; James 2:17-22)." John Murray commenting on Romans 10:9-11, Epistle to the Romans, vol 2, 55-56.  [Return]

7.  "... confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus - the proper manifestation or evidence of faith (Matthew 10:32, 1 John 4:15)" "This confession of Christ's name ... is an indispensable test of discipleship." Jamison, Faucett, and Brown commenting on Romans 10 in Commentary Critical and Expositional on the Whole Bible.
   "confession is the fruit and external evidence of faith" Charles Hodge commenting on Romans 10:9, Epistle to the Romans, 341.
   "Confession verifies and confirms the faith of the heart." John Murray commenting on Romans 10:9-11, Epistle to the Romans, vol 2, 57.  [Return]

8.  "The Word of the Lord ought to bring forth fruit wherever it exists; and our confession of the Word is the fruit of the mouth." John Calvin commenting on Romans 10:8-10, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, 227.  [Return]

9.  "Those who are ashamed or afraid to acknowledge Christ before men, cannot expect to be saved. The want of courage to confess, is decisive evidence of the want of heart to believe, vers. 9, 10." Charles Hodge commenting on Romans 10:9-10, Epistle to the Romans, 344.
   "Faith precedes confession, of course" A.T. Robertson commenting on Romans 10:9, Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament.  [Return]

10.  "Yes, it is "unto salvation"; not as a cause of it, for Christ alone is the author of eternal salvation; but a sincere and well made confession of Christ points out to all that know us where and from whom we expect to have salvation ... until we receive the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls." John Gill commenting on Romans 10 in John Gill's Exposition of the Bible.  [Return]

11.  "Justification by faith lays the foundation of our title to salvation; but by confession we build upon that foundation, and come at last to the full possession of that to which we were entitled." Matthew Henry commenting on Romans 10 in Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible.  [Return]

12.  "We should not, however, conclude from this that our confession is the cause of our salvation. ... he simply wanted to point out the nature of true faith, from which this fruit springs, lest any one should hold out the empty title of faith for faith itself. ... There is laid on us as a perpetual consequence of faith the necessity of confession with the mouth, but this is not to ascribe salvation to confession." John Calvin commenting on Romans 10:10-11, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, 228.
   "Though faith and confession are both necessary, they are not necessary on the same grounds, nor to the same degree. The former is necessary as a means to an end, as without faith we can have no part in the justifying righteousness of Christ; the latter as a duty, the performance of which circumstances may render impracticable. In like manner Christ declares baptism, as the appointed means of confession, to be necessary, Mark xvi. 16" Charles Hodge commenting on Romans 10:9, Epistle to the Romans, 343.  [Return]

13.  "The beginning of the Christian life has two sides: internally it is the change of heart which faith implies; this leads to righteousness, the position of acceptance before God: externally it implies the 'confession of Christ crucified' which is made in baptism ..." Sanday and Headlam commenting on Romans 10:10, Epistle to the Romans, 290.
   "... baptism, as the appointed means of confession ..." Charles Hodge commenting on Romans 10:9, Epistle to the Romans, 343.  [Return]

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L.D. Hammons © 2003 This article may be freely copied and distributed without charge if it is copied in its entirety (without editing) along with this notice - including the author's name and copyright notice.

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