{"id":16379,"date":"2024-11-05T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/?p=16379"},"modified":"2024-11-05T09:18:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T14:18:48","slug":"romans-109-10-jesus-not-caesar-is-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/article\/concise\/romans-109-10-jesus-not-caesar-is-lord\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 10:9-10\u2014Jesus, Not Caesar, is Lord"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Apostle Paul\u2019s directives expressed in Romans 13:1\u20137<\/a> are not the only words he wrote to Christians residing in the Roman Empire\u2019s capital city concerning their posture toward governing authorities. Considering the letter\u2019s destination, surely we must acknowledge that the Christian confession Paul succinctly captures in Romans 10:9\u2014\u201cJesus is Lord\u201d\u2014is an essential presupposition that governs his admonishing instruction concerning submitting to civil rulers. This article explores the ramifications of Romans 10:9\u201310, a memorable passage that perhaps has lost its edge for Christians who reside in a political-social-cultural setting where religious freedom is guaranteed by the nation\u2019s Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Necessity of Confessing \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This is the familiar passage we consider too glibly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

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 is justified, and with the mouth, one confesses and is saved. (Rom. 10:9\u201310)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Paul\u2019s mention of \u201cyour mouth\u201d and \u201cyour heart\u201d is patterned after \u201cThe word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart\u201d which he cites from Deuteronomy 30:14. As shown below, Paul\u2019s chiasm emphasizes the mouth\u2019s confessing of the heart\u2019s believing<\/em>\u2014the central feature\u2014while focusing fully on Jesus. Though taking place in the heart, belief in Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, is not private. It is a matter to be testified to with speech. Thus, what Paul affirms is in keeping with Jesus\u2019s teaching: that from the abundance of the believing heart the mouth confesses, \u201cJesus is Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A   For if you confess<\/strong> with your mouth the Lord Jesus and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B   believe<\/em><\/strong> in your heart<\/strong> that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B1<\/sup> For with the heart<\/strong> the resurrection of Jesus<\/em> is believed<\/em><\/strong> unto righteousness, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A1  <\/sup>with the mouth, the lordship of Jesus<\/em> is confessed<\/strong> unto salvation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Many readers of English Bibles do not realize that the two Greek verbs in the latter portion of Paul\u2019s chiasm are in the passive voice\u2014\u201cit is<\/em> believed\u201d and \u201cit is<\/em> confessed\u201d\u2014as reflected above.[1]<\/a> Our belief that God raised his Son, Jesus, from the dead is essential to our being declared righteous before God. The two central lines of the chiasm emphatically reiterate Paul\u2019s assertion from Romans 4:23\u201325. Paul insists that Abraham, who observed that his nearly 100-year-old body was as good as dead, believed God could bring forth a living son from his barren wife. His belief typologically foreshadowed our belief in God who raised his Son from the dead. Thus, Paul wrote, \u201cBut the words \u2018it was counted to him\u2019 were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification\u201d (Rom. 4:23\u201325).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. One commentator who makes this point is John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans<\/em>, reprint 1975 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968), 2.56.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The Confession, \u201cJesus is Lord,\u201d Has Lost its Edge through Repetition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Properly preached, the gospel of Jesus Christ confronts everyone with totalizing ramifications<\/em>, transforming our beliefs, practices, and policies concerning every aspect of life in this world. This call subsumes our philosophy on everything: public square issues such as law and justice, politics, economics, society, and culture. In this sin-corrupted world where \u201crepetition breeds familiarity,\u201d our hearts are too often dull to Jesus\u2019s universal dominion, and the preaching of the exhaustive fullness of Jesus\u2019s Lordship becomes commonplace.[2]<\/a> Three major influences have aided and abetted this dullness: our culture, the enlightenment, and Pietism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Some Evangelicals preach the deviant and erroneous notion that Romans 10:9\u201310 does not require sinners to confess \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d and believe that \u201cGod raised him from the dead\u201d to be saved. Bob Wilkin embraces this convoluted notion (\u201cMust we Confess in Order to be Eternally Saved?<\/a>\u201d). This aberrant teaching prompted the so-called \u201cLordship Salvation Controversy\u201d of the 1980s.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The Impact of Western Culture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, the first dulling influence is Western Culture itself. How? Christianity, which profoundly shaped Western Culture, played a significant role in establishing the United States and her founding documents\u2014especially the defense of religious freedom. Convinced that our Creator endows all kinds of rights to mankind, the founders brilliantly drafted a Constitution restricting the government\u2019s authority over citizens\u2019 rights. Most formidable of these rights is the First Amendment, including the freedom of religion.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\u201d<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Constitution established a nation where Christians would not be subjected to government-sponsored persecution as many of America\u2019s earliest immigrants from Europe had experienced. Assurance that governing officials cannot restrict religious belief and practice or impose an official religion on the citizens removed fear of government-sponsored oppression. With no government-authorized lord threatening Christians, Christians became softer. Christians began to adjust how they read, heard, and heeded what is entailed in confessing \u201cJesus is Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Impact of the Enlightenment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From America\u2019s founding, the rule of law banished tyrants from outside\u2014but this law did not protect against the tyrants from within. The Enlightenment\u2014an anti\u2013Christian worldview that puts the individual at the center\u2014continued infecting North America from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. Enlightenment thinkers shrunk the definition of \u201creligion\u201d and banished it from the public square to be sequestered in the church and home, far away from all that its devotees insist is religiously neutral secular turf.[4]<\/a> And in that void, people increasingly looked to the state to provide our father the government to provide their daily bread. We all have been infected by this invasive worldview contrary to Christianity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. N. T. Wright, \u201cPaul\u2019s Gospel and Caesar\u2019s Empire,\u201d Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul 1978\u20132013<\/em> (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 171\u201372.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Thus, Aaron Renn correctly observes that the secularization of American culture took place even during what he identifies as the \u201cPositive World,\u201d which he suggests finally ended in 1994.[5]<\/a> In the 1960s Francis Schaeffer warned Christians that they had unwittingly separated truth, facts, and reality (conceived of as objective or neutral and occupying the lower story of thinking) from religion, beliefs, and ethics (regarded as subjective or partial and isolated to the upper story of feelings).[6]<\/a> The false separation of the sacred from the secular strikes again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Aaron M. Renn, \u201cThe Three Worlds of Evangelicalism<\/a>,\u201d First Things<\/em> (February 2022).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n




6. Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason<\/em>, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968), 60ff.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Born from the Enlightenment, modernism\u2019s seduction has induced inattentive Christians to accept its bifurcated worldview of \u201ctwo-story thinking,\u201d to use Schaeffer\u2019s apt expression.  Christians must be alert concerning how we engage life in this present evil age, understanding the times. We need to know how to read the times in which we live in light of God\u2019s Word, and we need to be wary of reading the Scriptures and pondering God\u2019s ways through an Enlightenment lens that filters the sacred from the secular as though the two were divisible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally, we must guard against superimposing a lens that projects contemporary social-cultural-political-economic theories onto the biblical text. The Enlightenment\u2019s peculiar child, postmodernism, has made it fashionable to read Scripture through neo-Marxist spectacles of \u201coppressor versus oppressed\u201d\u2014in economic, ethnic, or sexual dynamics. This thinking seduces many professing Christians who gravitate toward Evangelicals for Harris<\/a> and The After Party<\/a> project (created by Russell Moore, David French, and Curtis Chang). Both groups are subversive to the Christian worldview that rejects the lower story-upper story separation, and Christians ought resist this kind of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Impact of Pietism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A third harmful influence on seeing Jesus\u2019s universal lordship is pietism<\/em>, which camouflages itself behind an appealing spiritual veneer. Pietism has dulled Christian sensibilities to the social-economic-cultural-political implications of the good news in Jesus Christ. Pietism is the mistress of the Enlightenment, and both attempted to shrink the definition of \u201creligion\u201d and banish it from the public square merely to churches and religious institutions. By retreating from the public square, pietist Christians ironically participated in and blessed the divorce of the sacred from the secular. Today, Evangelical and Reformed pietism attracts many to its upper-story spirituality away from the lower-story political-cultural fray. Pietistic thinking directs Christians to \u201cstay in their own lane.\u201d Pietists declare political neutrality that functionally allows the governing Leftist political worldview to gain more ground. Pietists claim that Christian ministers have no authorization from Christ to speak concerning civic and political matters. Hence, these contemporary pietists unwittingly teach their adherents that conversations about the public square are unacceptable to both gospel interests and wholesome Christian conversation\u2014unless the conversation comes from the Pietists themselves! Is there any wonder why pollsters anticipate that perhaps 30 to 40 million<\/em> Evangelicals will sit out this year\u2019s national election on November 5?[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Leonardo Blair, \u201cMore than 100M people of faith could sit out 2024 election: study<\/a>,\u201d Christian Post<\/em> (10\u201310\u20132024).<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Recovering the Full Measure of the Confession \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. government is restrained in its power on Christian citizenry in contrast to the unrestrained government of first-century Rome. To grasp this difference, it is worth comparing how Christians in America hear the Apostle Paul\u2019s letter and how the first recipients of the letter in Rome heard it when read to them. Though he had not yet visited Rome, Paul, who traveled throughout the Roman Empire, recognized the dangers Christians encountered living in Rome. He had suffered animosity from civil authorities on multiple occasions. He understood state-sponsored threats against Christians whose exclusive allegiance was to Christ Jesus as \u201cLord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also worth noting, several years before Paul sent his letter to them, Christian churches in Rome endured an emperor-imposed disruption. In A.D. 49, Claudius expelled all ethnic Jews from Rome without distinguishing Christian Jews from non-Christian Jews. So, Aquila and Priscilla left their residence in the empire\u2019s capital city, relocating to Corinth (Acts 18:1\u20133). When Paul wrote his letter to the Roman Christians from Corinth (A.D. 57), three years after Claudius\u2019s death, when his edict expired, some Jews were moving back to Rome under the new Caesar, Nero (A.D. 54\u201368), whose depravity and persecution of Christians became notorious.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. See Kenneth Berding, \u201cSomething About the Book of Romans that will Help You Really \u2018Get\u2019 It<\/a>.\u201d<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

How did Paul\u2019s first recipients of his letter hear the famous confession of Romans 10:9 \u201cIf 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\u201d (Rom. 10:9)? They more than likely heard it as a totalizing claim that encompassed all of life. Only by God\u2019s Spirit can one truthfully confess \u201cJesus is Lord,\u201d affirming his incarnation, sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension, and investiture with universal dominion (cf. Phil. 2:11; 1 Cor. 12:3). Even if Rome\u2019s later mandatory confession, \u201cCaesar is Lord\u201d (Kurios Kaisar<\/em>), had not yet been imposed on its citizens by the time Paul sent his letter to Rome\u2019s Christians, such inscriptions as \u201cNero, the lord of the entire world\u201d already existed.[9]<\/a> The emperor cult with Caesar acknowledged as a deity was emerging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Vision. \u201cInventing Deities<\/a>.\u201d <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Paul intended the Roman Christians to hear this confession, carefully crafted with chiastic repetition, as a declaration of Christ\u2019s sovereignty over the governing authorities. Nero, in Rome, was the principal ruling official to which the apostle admonishes them to submit (Rom. 13:1).[10]<\/a> Ponder Paul\u2019s apostolic commission by the Lord Jesus Christ told to Ananias:  \u201cGo, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name\u201d (Acts 9:15\u201316). So, Paul\u2019s mission included preaching to kings the Lordship of the God-man enthroned on a Roman cross under the banner \u201cKing of the Jews,\u201d and this meant nothing less than that Jesus is Lord over everything\u2014Caesar included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. One could point to other familiar words\u2014\u201cgood news,\u201d \u201cson of God,\u201d \u201csalvation,\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d\u2014as echoes of the \u201cimperial language\u201d associated with the worship of Caesar. See, for example, N. T. Wright, \u201cPaul\u2019s Gospel and Caesar\u2019s Empire<\/a>\u201d (1998), expanded in \u201cPaul\u2019s Gospel and Caesar\u2019s Empire,\u201d Pauline Perspectives: Essays on Paul 1978\u20132013<\/em> (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 446\u201347.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wherever idolatry reigns, whether in ancient Rome or various nations today, Christians have always faced great hostilities. Government guardians of idolatry are pleased to welcome Jesus Christ into their pantheon of deities and household gods. What they cannot allow is the confession \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d to exclude acknowledgment of other deities. About 100 years after Paul sent his letter to Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna bore witness to this truth. After the Roman authorities arrested him because he refused to renounce only \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d and confess divine honors to the Roman emperor, \u201cthe police captain Herod and his father Niketas met with him\u201d in an effort \u201cto persuade him and saying, \u2018But what harm is it to say, \u201cLord Caesar,\u201d [Kurios Kaisar<\/em>] and to offer sacrifice . . . and to be saved [from death]?\u2019\u201d[11]<\/a> His commitment to Jesus\u2019s lordship is a model every Christian, \u201cEighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. The Martyrdom of Polycarp<\/em> 8.2.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Vice President Kamala Harris held a political rally on Oct. 17, 2024 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She berated her opponent, former President Donald Trump, for appointing three justices to the United States Supreme Court \u201cwith the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade<\/em>, and they did as he intended.\u201d At that instant, two male students from the University of Wisconsin\u2014La Crosse proclaimed<\/a>, \u201cChrist is King!\u201d then<\/a>, \u201cJesus is Lord,\u201d loudly enough for all in the arena to hear. V. P. Harris promptly retorted<\/a>, \u201cOh! You guys are at the wrong rally,\u201d drawing thunderous applause and cheers from the nearly 2500 attendees. The two confessors were promptly ushered out of the arena as V. P. Harris continued mocking them. What a commentary on the depths to which the Democratic Party\u2019s candidate and voters have sunk! Of course, when she brought her rally to a close, without any hint of disconnect between her God-rejecting words and actions, Harris said, \u201cGod bless you. God bless the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First Amendment seems to have lulled many Evangelicals into a slumber from engaging in political and cultural issues from which they must be awakened. The freedom to confess \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d in the public square is in greater jeopardy than at any previous time. As hostilities increase in our nation against believers who confess exclusive allegiance to one Lord, will we stand firm and confess, \u201cJesus is Lord\u201d? Are we prepared to acknowledge the exclusive lordship of Jesus, who died a criminal\u2019s death on a Roman cross under that placard that specified his crime, \u201cJesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews\u201d? As Jesus taught us, the words we speak with our mouths confirm the beliefs resident in our hearts. Confession without faith is hollow. Faith without confession is proved spurious. Our mouth\u2019s confession reveals and confirms the authenticity of our faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belief and confession of Christ’s ultimate Lordship is an essential to our life amid a world of authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Belief and confession of Christ's ultimate Lordship is an essential to our life amid a world of authorities.","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,12,191,1813,38],"tags":[583,282,227,467,1074,122],"scripture-reference":[],"post_folder":[],"ppma_author":[25],"class_list":["post-16379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-concise","category-current-theme","category-november-2024","category-theme","tag-authority","tag-christ-over-all","tag-culture","tag-government","tag-kingdom","tag-theology"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/jametlene-reskp-bkIivYZn2L8-unsplash-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-01-13 11:08:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"authors":[{"term_id":25,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"ardel-caneday","display_name":"Ardel Caneday","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/ardel-caneday.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/ardel-caneday.jpg"},"author_category":"","job_title":"","church_city_state":"","last_name":"Caneday","first_name":"Ardel","church_site":"","user_url":"https:\/\/abcaneday.com","description":"Ardel Caneday<\/b> continues as an adjunct faculty member at University of Northwestern<\/a> after recently retiring from his role as Professor of New Testament & Greek. Ardel completed the MDiv and ThM at Grace Theological Seminary and the PhD in New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is a founding teaching elder of Christ Bible Church (Roseville, MN). He co-edited with Matthew Barrett Four Views on the Historical Adam<\/i>, co-authored with Thomas R. Schreiner The Race Set Before Us<\/i>, and has published many articles in Christian magazines, journals, books, and online."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16379"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16471,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16379\/revisions\/16471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16379"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-reference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-reference?post=16379"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=16379"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christoverall.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=16379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}