Objection 45

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

Romans 10:9-10, "if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart... thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." No one is saved without a conscious, spoken acceptance of Jesus.

This is the sharpest form of the conditionalist case, so take it slowly.

First, observe the order Paul himself gives in verse 10: the heart believes unto righteousness; the mouth confesses unto salvation. If both clauses describe eternal destiny, then righteousness and salvation are two different acquisitions obtained by two different organs, an absurdity. The coherent reading is the sovereign grace believer one: heart-belief is the evidence of a standing in righteousness (the regenerate heart embracing what grace has wrought), and mouth-confession brings the believer into "salvation" in its frequent temporal sense, the open deliverance, assurance, fellowship, and blessing of a confessed discipleship. Paul is quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 ("the word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart"), covenant-life language addressed to a people already redeemed out of Egypt, about how to live in the good of it.

Second, test the verse by the cases every Christian system must handle. The mute confess with no mouth. Infants confess nothing. The thief on the cross made his confession, but on the conditionalist reading, every believer who dies between heart-belief and mouth-confession is lost in the gap, and every secret disciple is damned; yet Scripture records Joseph of Arimathaea, "a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews" (John 19:38), and Nicodemus, and "many" among the chief rulers who "believed on him; but... did not confess him" (John 12:42), men John calls believers while noting their failure to confess. Their silence was a fault, costly to their peace and usefulness, a time-salvation loss, but John does not un-believer them.

Third, notice what confession is in the New Testament: the fruit and instrument of open discipleship, "whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father" (Matthew 10:32), spoken to disciples about the honors and costs of visible allegiance. Confession is the flag run up the mast of a ship already afloat. The flag is not what keeps the ship from sinking: "no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost" (1 Corinthians 12:3), the Spirit's inward work precedes and produces every true confession. Where the Spirit gives gospel light, confession follows and is commanded; where He quickens without light, the infant, the incapable, the unreached elect, the purchase of Christ stands on its own foundation, "for the mouth confesseth what the heart already possesseth, and possession came neither by mouth nor by heart, but by God" (compare James 1:18).