“because 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. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.”
— Romans 10:9-10
Paul’s point throughout these chapters 9-11 is something about God’s justice/redemption plan and the nation of Israel.
Some would say the whole book of Romans is ethnic and not individual (New Perspective on Paul). Don’t think it’s an either/or. Could be both/and, since nations are composed of individuals.
Verses like this focus on individuals, but the context of the chapter is national.
Paul contrasts salvation by law—whether strictly works salvation or more likely (again NPP) salvation by following Jewish boundary markers, “works of law.”—with salvation by believing. Word is near you, it’s in your heart, you’ve heard it. And with the heart, just believe. No national distinction. All who believe are saved.
V. 10 is almost like a proverb—parallel structure. Maybe we make too much of the different terms. And how each action results in different things.
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