If You Confess With Your Mouth…

 Here’s a great section of FF Bruce’s commentary on Romans 10:6-13.  I love how Bruce just says it clearly, succinctly, and plainly, doing his best to simply reflect what Paul said. 

“This is the gist of his commentary: God has brought his salvation near to us, in Christ.  We do not have to ‘climb the heavenly steeps’ to procure it, for Christ has come down with it; we do not need to ‘plumb the lowest deeps’ for it, for Christ has risen from the dead to make it secure to us.  It is here, present and available; what we are called upon to do is to accept it by inward faith – believing in our hearts that God raise him from the dead – and to acknowledge him aloud as Lord.  The saving faith is resurrection faith: ‘if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain.’ (2 Cor. xv.17).  And the confession of Christ is public confession: ‘Jesus is Lord’ is the earliest, as it remains the sufficient, Christian creed.”

“Those who put their faith in Christ for salvation have as their encouragement the assurance of Isaiah xxviii.16 (already quoted in ix.33): those who commit themselves to Christ will never be ‘let down.'”

“This righteousness which God imparts is open without distinction to all men and women of faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.  His saving mercy is lavished without discrimination or restriction: all who call on him will receive it.  At an earlier stage in Paul’s argument the words ‘There is no difference’ had a grim sound, because they convicted Jew and Gentile together of sin against God and incapacity to win his acceptance by personal effort or desert; now the same words have a joyful sound, because they proclaim to Jew and Gentile together that the gates of God’s mercy stand wide open for their entrance, that his free pardon is assured in Christ to all who claim it by faith.”

These quotes can be found on page 202 of Bruce’s excellent Romans commentary (in the Tyndale series).  If you don’t have this one, get it!  I’d even recommend it for laypeople who want to do their own study of Romans.  You can find older copies of it used on Amazon for less than $5 shipped to your door.