Romans 10:9-13 - Corps - December 18,1979
ROMANS 10:9-13
December 18, 1979
There are no words in my vocabulary to express to you or to God how thankful I am for
the great accuracy of God’s Word and the wonderful knowledge of that Word He has made
known to us. That any one man should be able to live a whole lifetime and even know
what I’m going to share with the Corps tonight is just a miracle. After I finish sharing this
tonight, it’s like anytime when anyone shares the truth of God’s Word with the Corps or
any individual, once that is done, the individual becomes responsible for it. You have a
greater knowledge of God’s Word and you have a greater responsibility before God.
Romans 10:9 is the great fulcrum, the great apex of Romans for both Israel and the
Gentiles. Romans 10:9 is where everything starts before you can fully and completely
renew your mind. It is the new birth. It is everlasting life. It is Christ in you. It is the new
man. It is the super conqueror spiritual race of men.
One of the great keys to understanding the book of Romans is to evaluate it in the category
of the renewed mind. This again is very important because the renewed mind has to
already begin before Romans 10:9 can become a reality in your life.
Romans 10:17 has to be your renewed mind before you could have the experience of
Romans 10:9.
Romans 10:9
It’s the absolute tense. Thou shalt be saved, sōzō, made whole, complete. That is so
completely, completely, complete that there is no longer anything needed. What a
tremendous thing. That’s the first thing I’d like for the Corps to really drive in their hearts
that this is to get you saved, so completely completely that there is nothing spiritually that
you could ever get anymore or that you need. It’s all there. I don’t know any place in the
world that this is taught, in any commentary or any place outside of the Word of God, that
once you really have accomplished what the Word says you have to do, there is no longer
anything spiritually that the individual is lacking. How little Christians have manifested
forth the greatness of this salvation. How far we’ve lived below par and all this greatness
has been available since the day of Pentecost.
Romans rules out all of man’s works. Man can do nothing as far as being saved. Salvation
is the miracle of all miracles. It is the greatest thing in the whole world.
The natural birth is fantastic, but it is nothing as compared to the new birth. But you
couldn’t have a new birth if you didn’t have the first birth. This new birth being saved,
Christ-in you, all o£ that, that is above all, for it’s a dead person spiritually made alive. In
your first birth it was not dead, for it was a living sperm, a living ovum. Boy, what a
tremendous thing. There is nothing that man can do. God has done it all through Jesus
Christ, who is the perfect man. If Jesus Christ were God, can’t you see that he couldn’t
have done anything like this for us. But he was man, perfect man. He always did the
Father’s will. I and the Father are one, in goal, purpose. He is the perfect man, Jesus Christ.
This has to be absolutely known. It has to be accepted by believing. Then the experience of
being saved follows.
To confess with the mouth I think is a literal statement of truth. It is to confess, to say it.
But it is to say with full knowledge, full believing. It is to completely believe.
The word “mouth” is the first figure of speech in that verse, and the figure of speech
always puts the “umph” into it, the dynamic, that which God wants emphasized. The figure
of speech for “mouth” is synedoche. It is the association of ideas. To confess with the
mouth is to confess with the whole man. It just isn’t going to the altar and saying, “God be
merciful to me a sinner.” That’s not it at all. It has to be confession that you fully know,
fully believe. That’s this word. With the mouth, the whole man, everything you are,
everything you think, everything you feel, every emotion you have. That is the figure.
“the Lord Jesus” – or Jesus as Lord
“and” – in addition
“shalt believe” – Believe is to act.
“heart” – This is a figure of metonomy. You don’t believe in your literal physical heart.
That’s not what it’s after. But it’s the figure metonomy, the association of two nouns where
the two nouns are associated together. Mouth and heart. The heart is more than just
physical. The heart is more than just the physical brain. The physical brain is the central
organ that houses all. It is more than mind because mind is the storage area within the
brain for every action or reaction in life.
So to confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart, with everything you
are, every emotion, every part of your intellect, every part of your action, that is “heart.”
To believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead is the great key. There
have been great religious leaders. They have all died. Great men of the past, like Abraham.
All died.
None have ever gotten up. That’s why one of the great counterfeit teachings today, in
addition to Jesus Christ being God, is that the dead are alive now. Then others have gotten
up too, then you’ve got more than one resurrection. The only one that’s every gotten up
from the dead up until this moment of time is the Lord Jesus Christ. God raised him from
the dead. Everybody else is dead. That’s why everything always tends to belittle the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. But not the Word. If you want to be a Christian like
the Word says, then you’ve got to believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and
that’s he’s the only one. And believing that is the response to Verse 8, the word of
believing which we preach. That’s the response to the word of believing or you could have
believing the Word.
What is it? The lordship of Christ in Verse 6.
Romans 10:6
That is where he’s seated at the right hand of God.
That’s why you believe in your heart. Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, the
lordship of Christ, and believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead. That’s
Verse 7.
Romans 10:7
This is how Romans 10:9 puts this all together. When you make him lord, you not only are
born again, but you manifest the evidence of Christ’s complete accomplishment by
speaking in tongues.
I Corinthians 12:3
Now I know there are not very many people who are going to agree with this in the
“Christian” world, but I can’t help it. This is what I believe the Word so simply and
beautifully teaches. The only reason that the born again believers have not spoken in
tongues is because their leadership has been blind. They have not been taught, and you
can’t go beyond what you’ve been taught. So there has been generally no knowledge
available beyond that. They seem to think that getting them born again is all that’s
necessary. That’s not all that’s necessary if the Word’s right. If you’re born again you
ought to speak in tongues. That’s the proof that you’ve made him lord. He’s lord whether
you’ve got any proof or not. He’s still lord. But you need the proof. The believer needs it.
Someday I hope the Corps picks up on this speaking in tongues bit and understands it.
There are times when you get discouraged, etc. Why don’t you speak in tongues then,
because that’ll tell you that you’re still saved. That will still tell you that he is lord, that it’s
Christ in you, the hope of glory, eternal life.
That’s why you can’t stay full of fear and worry very long if you speak in tongues. That’s
why I know from experience with our people those that really blow it and get out and don’t
bounce back, at least for a while, they don’t practice the principles of speaking in tongues,
daily, hourly, make it a part of their life like you eat food.
When you make him lord, you are not only born again, but when you really make him lord,
then you have to manifest the evidence of the completeness of Christ in you. And one of
those manifestations, the initial one, is speaking in tongues.
Romans 10:9
This confession is the distinctive difference between those who are justified by believing
and those who are seeking righteousness by their own works.
Romans 10:10
This is the actual order of the experience. As I told you earlier, you have to start having
renewed mind like Romans 10:17 before you can do Romans 10:9.
Here in Verse 10, the actual order of the experience is given.
For with the heart man is entrusted with or believeth unto righteousness. Believe first, get
entrusted first, with it from the Word, And secondly, mouth confession is made unto
salvation. You believe first unto and then you confess unto. Believing is possible for the
man of body and soul. And as he hears the Word, believing comes by hearing the Word,
and he begins to renew his mind to the Word until he gets to the point where he makes that
confession with everything he is, with all his mind, his heart, his body, everything.
Complete confession. It’s a confession unto. It is not a confession for salvation. It is a
confession unto salvation, unto righteousness. If I could confess for, it would be by works,
and it’s not by works.
Ephesians 2:8
Not of works. If I could confess salvation, it would not be of grace but of works. Anything
you do with your mind is by works.
This great truth, this fine line of demarcation, you’ve got to fully understand it, how a man
of body and soul can get to the place where he can confess with his mouth unto. But the
confession is not works. It’s not works for. It’s unto. Confession unto righteousness. That’s
the righteousness of God. Righteousness must be believed. Believing action can lead to the
confession. This righteousness is that you believe unto. When Christ comes in, eternal life,
that righteousness stands you before the Father at that moment without any sense of guilt,
sin, defeat, fear, frustration, condemnation. It is the righteousness of God, filled with all
the fulness of God. The absence of this type of confession indicates lack of believing.
Romans 10:11
“ashamed” – Literally should read, “shall not be disappointed in his expectations
It is interesting here that this is repeated from Romans 9:33.
Romans 9:33
Here it was used as showing Israel’s miserable failure which was due to their own
unbelief.
Romans 10:11
Here it is success assured to both Israel and the Gentiles in the word “whosoever.”
Whosoever believeth shall not be disappointed at his expectations.
Romans 10:12
Romans 3:22
Romans 3:29
Romans 10:12
Here is says same Lord. That is singularly significant. In the Old Testament He was the
same God for both Israel and Gentile. Here alter Pentecost the same Lord for both Israel
and Gentile.
Abraham saw the first coming, his day. Moses, the rock in the wilderness.
Hebrews 11:39
They had not even received the promise of the first earring. But they looked unto it, they
believed unto it. God reckoned righteousness unto them. God in Christ in us changes us.
Hebrews 11:40
Hebrews 12:1
“patience” – ease, second wind
The only way you can ever run with second wind, with ease, is to get enough Word in your
heart and life that you know it, that you got the second wind, that you can stand the
pressures of the world, and you’ve got to keep looking unto Jesus.
Hebrews 12: 2
Scratch “our.” He’s the perfect man, the only man whom God raised from the dead
because he was His only begotten son. Having taught you the great accuracy of God’s
Word on predestination, foreknowledge, etc. this stuff ought to fit like a hand in a glove for
the Corps. It ought to be electrifying to you. It’s a tremendous truth.
This is renewed mind Romans again. This is what the Word talks about in depth, like
union with Christ Jesus, our Lord.
The effects of this believing are seen in our victorious living his life and his conduct.
Divine love makes for divine life. God’s divine love in Christ Jesus makes for divine life,
the new nature, the new man, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Romans 10:12
“rich” – By vocation when we obey, carry out, Romans 10:9, by vocation we are sons of
God.
I John 3:2
By vocation we are sons of God. By destination we are already seated in the heavenlies in
Christ Jesus.
There are a lot of places in the epistles that say this about being “rich.” But the thing I feel
for the Corps tonight is the richness of all this as stated in Romans 8:28.
Romans 8:28
We’re talking about confession, to really know.
Romans 8:29-31
We are what the Word of God says we are. We have what the Word of God says we have.
It’s not my fault that the Christian world is so screwed up. I didn’t screw it up. They
screwed me up and God by His mercy and grace got me out of the mess. I sit here tonight
in this Corps meeting still bearing the brunt of almost forty years of criticism by the socalled
“Christian” group. I don’t care what they say. The Word of God is the will of God.
It means what it says and says what it means. And every word of it is true. And I will wait
until the return to find out whether we are right or whether we are wrong. If we’re wrong,
there just cannot be a God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:32
The effects are seen in victorious living of his life, his conduct because divine love makes
for divine life. The evidence thereof is in the man or woman’s believing.
Romans 8:33 and 34
If there’s one iota of truth in Jesus Christ being God, you have no gospel left, you have no
good news to declare. God raised him. God didn’t raise Himself. He raised His son. He
seated him at His right hand. God isn’t sitting on His own hand. It’s His son who makes
intercession for us. Not the Virgin Mary, no saint, no bishop, no pope.
Romans 8:35-39
That’s the richness of Romans 10:12.
Romans 10:12
“unto all” – without any exception, Israel and Gentiles, all who call upon him. The calling
upon him is to do what Verse 9 says.
Genesis 4:26
I’m picking up the usage of the word “call” here. “Enos” means the weak one. In his age,
in his time, Enos in that day at that time, then began men to call their God by the name of
Jehovah. Then under Enos, the weak one, then began men to call their God by the name of
Jehovah.
Zechariah 13:9
God – Elohim
Under Enos, the weak one, they called their God Jehovah. There’s only one true God. No
trinity. None of these other gods.
Acts 2:21
It’s the name that’s important. You better get the name right.
Acts 9:14
It was the name of the chief priest that gave him the authority to go over to bind people
who were calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I Corinthians 1:2
II Timothy 2:22
I Peter 1:17
Romans 10:12
The name is important.
“call” – kaleō, to turn to; I call upon your name and you turn to me because I have turned
to you. To call is to be obedient to Verse 9. That’s the calling.
call upon – epikaleō; to call along side of; It’s used of the paraclete in the gospel of John,
who is our helper, the holy spirit, Christ in you is the along side, but literally it’s the inside.
Called inside of. Paraclete means along side, but he’s closer than that because He’s in you.
Hebrews 11:16
“called” – epikaleō
Romans 10:13
This is just a confirmation of the truth of Verses 11 and 12.
“Lord” – used in Verse 9 and 12
Elohim is God as Creator; Jehovah is that same God in relationship to that which He has
created. It’s just another name for the one God. God created in Mary that which made for
soul life. And that is why he was God’s only begotten son. He’s the only one He has ever
done it for, soul life. Elohim sent His only begotten son. God was in Christ reconciling the
world. That is why Jesus Christ is called Lord.
God the Creator is Elohim. He is Jehovah in relationship to that which He has created.
That’s why He was Jehovah to the Lord Jesus Christ because it was Elohim who sent him,
who did it. I don’t know how to tell it to you any better. Work it. It’s there.
That’s why you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord. He is not God, but Lord, because
God as Jehovah worked with him and he always did the Father’s will. He was the perfect
man and God raised him and gave him a new name, a name which is above every name.
That is why it is he who is seated at the right hand of God who makes intercession for the
saints according to the will of God.
Joel 2:21
Lord – Jehovah
Joel 2:22-24
Reminds us of III John 2.
Joel 2:25-32
Israel called out. Gentiles called out.
Today there is a remnant according to the foreknowledge, predestination and election of
grace. Yet no one is ever by the true God coerced into believing, nor is anyone prevented
from believing. In Genesis, Cain was a beautiful example, for he sought his own selfrighteousness.
And it’s still today self-righteousness verses God’s righteousness.
Those today who have the believing of Abraham are the true children of Abraham.
As I see the greatness of the Word, the way of God with men, I see it in the opening of the
Word with the headship of Adam. Then God earning with the law of Moses. (Before that
Abraham.) Then the failure of Israel. Then the election of the Gentiles. Then the second
Adam, Christ Jesus, who is the head of the body of the called out of both Israel and
Gentiles. And that brings us to the seventh major division, which is the remnant that is
living today.
The way of God with men is just the way of the greatness of God’s love and grace and
mercy and His Word.
Right in here is the apex, the great fulcrum, of all truth in the book of Romans. I just don’t
know anything any greater in life that anyone could attain unto than to confess with his
mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in his heart that God raised him from the dead, and to be
born again of God’s spirit and have that Christ in you, the hope of glory.