Today's post will survey Paul's letter to the Romans to reassert our premise of the indissoluble relationship between the Lordship of Christ and true salvation. As we have iterated over and over in our former posts, we see that Paul likewise asserts that those who unflinchingly deny the Lordship of Jesus, as evidenced in a life characterized by disobedience to Him, are not born-again Christians, regardless of what their profession is.
It has been undeniably clear that the NT data examined so far (the Gospels and Acts) unanimously teaches that persons whose lives are defined by unrepentant sin & defiant unholiness are basically showing their true colors as unregenerate unbelievers. Despite the fact that such people declare they are fig trees, the only fruit manifested is thistles. As the old adage goes, "Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck. Must be a duck." Jesus warned His followers how to distinguish false believers and false teachers in their midst by simply telling them to examine what kind of fruit they were bearing, or, in His words, "You will know a tree by its fruit" (Matt. 7:17-19; 12:33).
When we read Paul's letters, we are not surprised when we see that he too explicitly echoes this resounding notion that Jesus is either Lord of all, or Lord not at all. Those who do not truly confess with both their lips and their lives that Jesus as Lord have ultimately rejected Jesus, since He is not merely the the Savior of their sins, but also the Lord and Master of their lives.
Before we even look at Paul's letter to the Romans, it should be noted that cumulatively, in his letters, he uses the words "Jesus" and "Lord" in tandem a whopping 103 times, whereas he only links "Jesus" with "Savior" seven times. It would be a damnable heresy from this to deduct that Jesus Christ is any less a Savior than He is Lord; however, when we simply observe the data presented before us, it seems that Paul seems to favor the designation of Jesus Christ as "Lord", something that should not be overlooked in our discussion.
The first explicit reference of the Lordship of Jesus as necessary for genuine conversion is found in Romans 10. In verse 8, Paul tells us the message he consistently preaches as an apostle of Jesus is the "word of faith" (ESV), better translated "the message about faith [in Jesus]." Basically, he is recapitulating and reaffirming that his message to the Jews in Romans 10 is no different than the gospel message he has presented in the first 8 chapters of the letter, namely, that salvation is by faith alone in the gospel of Jesus Christ alone (cf. 1:16-17; 3:21-31; 4:1-25; 5:1-2, etc.).
But in the very next verse (10:9), we see that Paul's gospel is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. People are saved when they confess with their lips that Jesus is indeed Lord, being fully convinced that God has truly raised Him from the dead (I take v.9 as a Hebrew parallelism, where Jesus is declared as Lord precisely because He has been raised from the dead, cf. 1:4).
In v.10, Paul makes this inseparable link even clearer: "For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." In other words, if one's mouth confesses that they are 'saved', despite the fact that their heart has never truly believed that Jesus was raised and declared Lord, such a confession is to be viewed as null and void. As the ESV Study Bible aptly comments, "Saving faith is not mere intellectual agreement but a deep inward trust in Christ at the core of one's being." How often I have had reprobates in the very mire of unrepentant sin rashly quote this verse to me to vindicate their "salvation" experience (for example, how they parroted a prayer at the end of a church service quoting this passage) as being legit! Oh, if they had only read the context and realized what Paul was really saying here!
The "Lord Jesus" is indeed "Lord of all" (10:12, note the repetition for emphasis). Whoever calls upon the name of the "Lord" will be saved (10:13). How I wish huckster preachers would explain - biblically - what the Lordship of Jesus really entails & requires in their 'gospel' presentations! As we saw in our original posts, Jesus Himself said that on Judgement Day, many will say "Lord, Lord" to Him and yet be banished to Hell forever. Why? Because they evidenced that though their lips may have said one thing, their heart said another, for they were those who habitually practiced a life of iniquity (Matt. 7:21-23).
Before we move on to Paul's next letters, it should be noted that not a few scholars view the context of this confession in Romans 10 as taking place in the ordinance of believer's baptism. Herein the believer, at great cost and injury to himself (remember the context of the great persecution Christianity faced in the 1st and 2nd centuries), publicly confessed that Jesus was his Lord, and not Caesar, something which could bring about capitol punishment. Moreover, in making this public declaration, the believer was basically declaring that the reign and Lordship of his heart were being transferred from self to Christ, or, in the language of Jesus, "denying self, taking up cross, and following Him, regardless of the cost."
In addition to this, we would be remiss to overlook the correlation between the book's thesis statement, namely that the gospel reveals God's saving power to save all those who trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins, with the necessity of obedience that flows forth out of that saving faith. This is seen in what scholars call an inclusio. Simply put, an inclusio was a literary devise often used to subtly emphasize an underlying theme to be understood by the reader throughout the whole section. This was done simply by the use of repetition at the beginning and ending of a designated section. In Romans, the "designated section" is the entire book.
At the beginning of Romans, Paul informs his audience that he has been commissioned by the "Lord Jesus" Himself to preach the gospel to bring about "the obedience of faith" (ESV), or, as the NIV nicely translates it, "the obedience that comes from faith" (1:5). To "close" the inclusio at the end of the book, we see the exact same phrase repeated, as Paul reminds us that those who have true, saving faith will evidence obedience to the Lord Jesus as well. In Paul's doxology (16:25-27), he reminds the Romans that the gospel he preached was for the purpose of "bringing about the obedience of faith" (see also 15:18). Thus the evidence that confirmed to Paul that the believers in Rome were truly "saints" was their visible obedience (1:7-8; 16:29), precisely what Jesus taught us in the Gospels and Luke taught us in the book of Acts.
In our next post, we will look at the remaining Pauline literature to make sure that there is an internal consistency within his theology of what salvation is defined by and looks like.
In Christ, and for His supreme glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan
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