Believe and heed the commandments
“Confessing with the mouth” and “believing in the heart” cannot be separated
INTRO: “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.” If taken out of the context of Scripture in it’s entirety, this verse can be spiritually simplistic, even dangerous. There has to be more.
By Steve Hall
Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle
Romans 10:9-18
Matthew 4:18-22
“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.”
This verse is a favorite among certain Christian groups. Surprisingly, if taken out of the context of Scripture in it’s entirety, it can be spiritually simplistic, even dangerous. There has to be more. What if that faith confession is only words? What if those words are not worth the paper they’re printed on? And as far as “believing in the heart” we all know how emotions can be confused with a heartfelt bond of union.
Image by Gerd Altmann
The Biblical story of Jonah offers the basics of understanding these words of Paul. Jonah preached the impending trials and destruction of Nin’eveh as determined the Lord. “And the people of Nin'eveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.” (Jonah 3:5)
The book of Sirach offers an even simpler and more direct instruction on the subject. “He who believes the law gives heed to the commandments . . .” (Sirach 32:24)
In fact “confessing with the mouth” and “believing in the heart” cannot realistically be separated. Paul was never proposing a feel-good faith which one could proclaim with a few well-spoken words. What he was preaching was a convicted faith, one that required a repudiation of one’s past, a radical change in one’s perspective on how the entire cosmos works, and repentance along with atonement insofar as the two are appropriate.
There is little in the way of negative consequences that we might expect today by saying “Jesus is Lord.” In Paul’s day, however, there was only one Lord in the Empire and attributing the title to another was risking punishment, even death. So we’re led to the conclusion that confessing with the mouth does not yet (at least in this time and in this country) risk martyrdom. Still, believing in the heart is beginning to invoke repercussions as witnessed by the arrest of those silently praying outside abortion clinics. In any case it is that kind of confession and that depth of belief that Paul is claiming as appropriate to these newborn Christians.
Pope Benedict XVI reminded us in his encyclical on the love of God, Deus Caritas Est, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”
Most people we meet are met as acquaintances. A few will become co-workers. A few will become companions. Still others will become friends. On rare occasion we meet someone who has a lasting impact. Such an encounter “gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” Such is our meeting with the Savior. It alone can give us the passion to “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord” and the certitude to “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.”