Romans 10:8-11

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fabsooi

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I have a question regarding Romans 10:8-11.

“…that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.”

Is this in support of the reformist view of sola fide? How does this compare with the catholic view of salvation where faith and works are necessary?
 
This would support Protestant theology only if it were taken out of context. This is paralleled by John 3:16, which Protestants often quote to “prove” justification by faith alone. However, if we read the whole Gospel, we see that Jesus taught we have to keep the commandments to have eternal life (Matt 19:17) and abide in His love (John 15:10). We can be cut off from Him if we don’t bear good fruit (John 15:6).

Before we can obey Christ, we have to believe in Him, so faith is always the means through which we are saved. If you read on in Romans 11:22-23, Paul says we can be cut off if we don’t “continue in his [God’s] kindness.” Loving obedience to God must flow from our faith in order for us to be saved.
 
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fabsooi:
I have a question regarding Romans 10:8-11.

“…that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.”

Is this in support of the reformist view of sola fide? How does this compare with the catholic view of salvation where faith and works are necessary?
My response is:
a.) It’s one verse out of the entiriety of scripture that can’t be understood properly in isolation to the rest of scripture.

b.) There are plenty of other verses that show that the belief in Romans 10 is not just merely a belief in the person of Jesus.

The belief in Romans 10 is an obedient faith as is shown in:

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: **but he that doth the will **of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
**
**Romans 2:5-8 **
**But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of God: 6 Who will render to every man according to his works. 7 To them indeed who, according to patience in good work, seek glory and honour and incorruption, eternal life: 8 But to them that are contentious and who obey not the truth but give credit to iniquity, wrath and indignation.

**James 2:18-19 **
18 But some man will say: Thou hast faith, and I have works. Shew me thy faith without works; and I will shew thee, by works, my faith. 19 Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble.

James shows that mere belief in the person of Jesus is not a faith that is sufficient for salvation.
 
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fabsooi:
I have a question regarding Romans 10:8-11.

“…that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.”

Is this in support of the reformist view of sola fide? How does this compare with the catholic view of salvation where faith and works are necessary?
The context of the verb there “believe”, in the original language, is the perfect present - that is to “believe and keep believing” (we lose something in the English). And belief is not just intellectual assent, in means to believe, accept, and internalize and by God’s grace obediantly live out the whole message of Christ. It’s not a one time thing in the past, it’s a complete living out that belief for Christ every day until we meet Him face to face.

Hope that helps.

DustinsDad
 
I am certain this must be scriptural ignorance, or a lack of the depth of the controversy on my part. But I cannot get over the thought, when listening to both sides, that what we have here is a you say tomayto and I say tomahhto thing going on.

From my understanding the protestant will say that faith alone, maybe does not require the accompanyment of works. However, the leading evangelicals I have listened to will state that a “true faith” will indeed be accompanied by works. Works produced by the true faith. If the faith is not accoompanied by works that the faith is probably a “said faith” not a true faith/repentance. They qualify this by saying God will judge the heart. Which I think both catholics and protestants alike agree.

What troubles me is just how diffferent is this from the catholic belief? It would seem a matter of semantics, hardly worthy of discussion. We believe that our faith need be accompanied by works or it indicates a turning away from God. What we call mortal sin indicates a willful turning our back on the love of God.

Why can’t I draw a parallel here and say the protestant is saying much the same thing just timply coming at it from a slightly differing dimension. The protestant would say that a man who murders (for example) “probably” (and I put that in quotes because it is the term I hear all the time when this issue is discussed amongst protestants) has a said faith and never had an actual true heart felt repentant driven faith in the lord.

To sum up my perspective: Catholics say commiting a mortal sin is turning our back against God, thus seperating ourselves from Him. Protestants say the apparently sinful person likely never held a true faith to begin with.
If we take this point to the next logical step, might we say the Catholic who commited a mortal sin possibly didn’t have a true faith to begin with? If mortal sin is defined by full knowledge, full consent and of grave matter, one would have to be either be deranged to have elected to have commited the sin (given what he has to lose), or never really believed in the first place.

tomayyto tomahhto
 
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fabsooi:
I have a question regarding Romans 10:8-11.

“…that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.”

Is this in support of the reformist view of sola fide? How does this compare with the catholic view of salvation where faith and works are necessary?
It is really quite easy if one considers context, something Protestants have an aversion for.

If you were a Roman of that period in time, you were expected to confess with your mouth that Ceasar is a god. You would be expected to believe in the entire pantheon of Roman Gods. To confess with one’s mouth, i.e… verbally and publically, that Jesus is Lord is to deny the divinity of Ceasar and the Roman Gods.

To believe with one’s heart that God raised him from the dead, means two things:
  1. To believe with the heart means to “live” the faith actively, as you cannot be credited with believing something while living a life in disbelief. You would, therefore, need to refuse to worship false Roman Gods, object to the deaths of innocents in the arena, refuse to accept Rome’s culture of hedonism, military conquest, enslaving people, etc.
  2. You would have to believe that since God raised Jesus from the dead, He will do the same for you also which means you have to accept the theology of judgement after death; i.o.w. death does not mean an end - one must answer for one’s actions in life.
In context, and do not forget that it is the Roman’s to whom the letter is addressed, to be a Roman Christian and to confess with the mouth and believe with the heart the things Paul speaks of, one must live the Christian faith in the face of persecution. One must be willing to lose one’s family, property, citizenship, health, freedom and even life rather than abandon the faith. (This is where believing that God wil raise you from the dead comes in - it is a promise that you will be eternally saved by God even after the cruel death the Roman’s would inflict on you and your loved ones. What would be the point of dying for the faith if there was no life after death?)

But this is where the Protestant mindset fails. It means virtually nothing, taking the quote out of historical context, to confess with the mouth or believe with the heart in Jesus, God, and the resurrection, **in a land and at a time when doing so risks nothing nor costs anything. **

St. Paul, in the context of those times, was not talking about mere verbal confession and mental belief. He was talking about holding true to the faith under circumstances that would lead to loss, persecution, and death. He was talking about martyrdom.

Now, if a Protestant endures the things the Roman Christians did, even to the point of martyrdom, then yes, he too will be saved. But if he believes that such confession and belief offerred in a state of complete safety and ease is sufficient to save him, he will be unpleasently surprised on the day of judgement.

Thal59
 
At that time, when a person “declare[d]… that Jesus is Lord”, they were associating themselves with the one true Church, the one “Body and Spirit of Christ” (Ephesians 4:4), expressing a beleif in the one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Members of the Church were expected to be of one spirit, with one mind struggling together for the faith of the gospel” (Phillipians 1:27).

In the apostolic era, only one Church existed (the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic One) which declared “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism”. Thus, when they declared “Jesus is Lord,” they were all expressing a belief in the one true faith taught by the apostles, becoming a part of Christs one true Church. :cool:

Contrast that to now, where ~30,000 protestant churches exist all whom disagree on whom exactly the Lord was and his nature/purpose, teach different doctrines of faith, and have radically different practices. :rolleyes: When a person declares “Jesus is Lord,” what does it mean? :confused: In fact, it means very little. Are they evangelical? Maybe they’re Mormon? Maybe Catholic?? Pentecostal?? Or, 7th Day Adventist??? Our protestant brothers who love to point to this verse in support of their erroneous beleifs fail to undertsand that this scripture was written in a historical context where only the one true Christian faith existed (which is the faith of the Catholic Catholic Church by the way)!

Confessing “Jesus is Lord” during the time of St. Paul meant you beleived in the *“One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism”. * In other words, it meant you were a part of the Catholic Church. 🙂 Nowadays, it could mean almost anything. 👍

Francisco
 
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Mijoy2:
To sum up my perspective: Catholics say commiting a mortal sin is turning our back against God, thus seperating ourselves from Him. Protestants say the apparently sinful person likely never held a true faith to begin with.
If we take this point to the next logical step, might we say the Catholic who commited a mortal sin possibly didn’t have a true faith to begin with? If mortal sin is defined by full knowledge, full consent and of grave matter, one would have to be either be deranged to have elected to have commited the sin (given what he has to lose), or never really believed in the first place.
If we look at King David in the Old Testament, described in the Bible as a “man after God’s own heart,” he committed at least two mortal sins back-to-back, adultery and murder. Yet David definitely had "true faith’ --at least there’s never any suggestion in Scripture that he didn’t. To be consistent, a Protestant who believes in faith alone and once saved, always saved would have to conclude that David was probably not “saved” until *after *he repented of his sins of adultery and murder, because a “true believer” would not be capable of such grave sin. And then we get into the question of how much sin is enough to make it doubtful a person has “true faith?” Protestants will claim going through a period of being “backslidden” (not living obediently to God), but I wonder how you can tell if you’re simply “backslidden” or not really saved at all?
 
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Mijoy2:
What troubles me is just how diffferent is this from the catholic belief? It would seem a matter of semantics, hardly worthy of discussion. We believe that our faith need be accompanied by works or it indicates a turning away from God. What we call mortal sin indicates a willful turning our back on the love of God.
There are huge differences when the doctrines are placed side by side and compared. The Council of Trent decree on Justification lists the main issues.
Here are some examples of things protestants believe which the Catholic Church condemns:Canon 4.
If anyone says that man’s free will moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God’s call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification, that it cannot refuse its assent if it wishes, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive, let him be anathema.

**Canon 6.
**If anyone says that it is not in man’s power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil as well as those that are good God produces, not permissively only but also propria et per se *, so that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of St. Paul, let him be anathema.

There are some protestant groups who claim that Free Will doesnt exist and that we merely do what God wills us to do, in otherwords they see man as a puppet but use fancy words to avoid this accusation. From this view they see Faith Alone as God willing them to believe in Him and thus they are saved. This is not what the Church teaches.**Canon 18.
**If anyone says that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to observe, let him be anathema.

**Canon 20.
**If anyone says that a man who is justified and however perfect is not bound to observe the commandments of God and the Church, but only to believe, as if the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life without the condition of observing the commandments, let him be anathema.

**Canon 21.
**If anyone says that Christ Jesus was given by God to men as a redeemer in whom to trust, and not also as a legislator whom to obey, let him be anathema.
Many protestant goups see man as helplessly lost to sin and unable to do good works, in that sense all they can have is faith. The Church condemns this lazy and hollow gospel and maintains the words of Jesus that if we want to see Heaven we must “keep his Commandments”.
Many also claim:Canon 24.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.
They claim works as a sign of justification and not part of the process itself.
Why can’t I draw a parallel here and say the protestant is saying much the same thing just timply coming at it from a slightly differing dimension. The protestant would say that a man who murders (for example) “probably” (and I put that in quotes because it is the term I hear all the time when this issue is discussed amongst protestants) has a said faith and never had an actual true heart felt repentant driven faith in the lord.
Some protestants believe in something called “Once Saved Always Saved” in which after a simple act of Faith in their lifetime, NO sin later on will cause them to lose their salvation. Others disguise this false teaching by saying “a truly saved person wouldnt do that” but on the side they maintain if a “saved person” did those acts their salvation would not be in jeopardy.
To sum up my perspective: Catholics say commiting a mortal sin is turning our back against God, thus seperating ourselves from Him. Protestants say the apparently sinful person likely never held a true faith to begin with.
Those are two huge differences. There is a big difference from turning your back on God and never following Him in the first place. Christians can and do sin (even major sins), but its our duty to repent and return to God, that is not the same as someone who never believed or followed God.*
 
Apparently, Romans 10:8 is quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 except for the last part of Deuteronomy 30:14 “that you may do it”.
 
I have a question regarding Romans 10:8-11.

“…that if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and if you believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved.”

Is this in support of the reformist view of sola fide? How does this compare with the catholic view of salvation where faith and works are necessary?
No.

Pope Benedict:

"In fact, there exists a profound unity between the act by which we believe and the content to which we give our assent. Saint Paul helps us to enter into this reality when he writes: “Man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved” (Rom 10:10). The heart indicates that the first act by which one comes to faith is God’s gift and the action of grace which acts and transforms the person deep within.

The example of Lydia is particularly eloquent in this regard. Saint Luke recounts that, while he was at Philippi, Paul went on the Sabbath to proclaim the Gospel to some women; among them was Lydia and “the Lord opened her heart to give heed to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14). There is an important meaning contained within this expression. Saint Luke teaches that knowing the content to be believed is not sufficient unless the heart, the authentic sacred space within the person, is opened by grace that allows the eyes to see below the surface and to understand that what has been proclaimed is the word of God.

Confessing with the lips indicates in turn that faith implies public testimony and commitment. A Christian may never think of belief as a private act. Faith is choosing to stand with the Lord so as to live with him."

Pope Benedict XVI w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20111011_porta-fidei.html

Also: Pope Benedict XVI on the subject of **Faith and Works in St. Paul
**
vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html (scroll down)

Plus earlier one:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061108_en.html

Read all three.

To quote from one of them:

"In the Catechesis last Wednesday I spoke of how man is justified before God. Following St Paul, we have seen that man is unable to “justify” himself with his own actions, but can only truly become “just” before God because God confers his “justice” upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense,

St Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us “just”.

This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. Or to use different words faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith."

~ Pope Benedict XVI (emp added - make sure to read all three links)
 
Apparently, Romans 10:8 is quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 except for the last part of Deuteronomy 30:14 “that you may do it”.
 
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