Romans 10:9

[sammartha]

Many Fundamentalists point to Roman 10:9 as “declaring Jesus as your personal savior”. What is the official Church interpretation on this Chapter and verse?

 

[theMutant]

I don’t believe that the Church has declared any specific interpretation of Romans 10:9. The main problem with the way that many Fundamentalists cite Scripture is that they treat individual verses in complete isolation of the others; not always, but in many cases.

For example, there are many other verses which talk about what we must do to be save and indicate things in addition to just accepting Jesus as personal Lord and Savior.

If you’re interested, I go through many of them in posts 90-95 of this thread … forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=107215#post107215

 

[Dr.Colossus]

sammartha:

Many Fundamentalists point to Roman 10:9 as “declaring Jesus as your personal savior”. What is the official Church interpretation on this Chapter and verse?

There is nothing un-Catholic about having Jesus as your “personal Savior”, although we don’t usually use those exact words. Actually, without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ it is impossible to live a fully active faith life and would place our salvation in jeopardy.

Romans 10:9 (“For 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”) actually does more to defend the Catholic position than the Protestant one, because it uses the future tense. A person who confesses Jesus is Lord will be saved. They are not saved immediately.

 

[Fidelis]

Just for the record, here’s the NAB rendering of the verse in question:

For, 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.

As usual, it’s Catholic Answers to the rescue:

Q: All of my Evangelical friends quote Romans 10:9 (“If you confess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”) to prove that we are saved by faith alone. I know there are other verses that prove otherwise, but how do I explain what this verse says?

A: Even Evangelicals recognize that the formula “believe in and confess Jesus” is an abbreviated summary of what is required for salvation, not a thorough and precise soteriological prescription. For example, Romans 10:9 does not mention repentance from sin, but few Evangelicals deny that it is not possible to be saved without repentance. Likewise, most Evangelicals agree saving faith involves more than the two beliefs that Paul mentions—the lordship of Christ and his Resurrection. If someone accepts these two doctrines but also believes that we can get to heaven by good works apart from grace, Evangelicals would say (quite rightly) that this person believes a false gospel, though he “fulfills” Romans 10:9.

Evangelicals require a number of other beliefs for Christian faith—the Trinity, the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, creation, the Fall, man’s inability to save himself, the Virgin Birth, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, the Second Coming, the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. If someone denied all of these doctrines, few Evangelicals would regard that person as a saved Christian, no matter how fervently he professed his belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. (There are further problems, too. If Romans 10:9 were a theologically precise formula of salvation, all mute people would be damned to hell, since Paul says not once but twice that one must confess Christ with one’s lips to be saved!)

Romans 10:9 is just one of a number of abbreviated accounts of salvation that do not mention everything necessary. The message preached by both Jesus and John the Baptist was “Repent and believe,” but in Acts 2:38 Peter said, “Repent and be baptized,” without even mentioning belief. Later in Acts, Paul tells the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 2:31), without mentioning repentance or baptism. All of these descriptions of salvation are partial. They do not intend to set forth everything necessary.

Ironically, the same Evanglicals who insist on a closed-box interpretation of Romans 10:9 run to the opposite extreme when confronted with passages that speak of those who do good or who persevere and are saved: They deny causality altogether, arguing that the saved will in fact do these things, but they are not saved because they do these things. Our contention, in the case of the present verse, is more modest: We say that those who believe in and confess Jesus can be saved but not merely because they believe in and confess him. It takes more than that.

*Steven D. Greydanus *
catholic.com/thisrock/1998/9810qq.asp

 

[jpy15026]

This is what my Haydock Douay Rheimes says:

VER. 9. Thou shalt be saved. To confess the Lord Jesus, and to call upon the name of the Lord, (v. 13.) is not barely the professing of a belief in the person of Christ: but moreover implies a belief of his whole doctrine, and an obedience to his law; without which the calling of him Lord will save no man. S. Matt. vii. 21. Ch.–This passage must be understood like many others of this apostle, of a faith accompanied by a good-will , ready to perform what faith says must be practised; as it is required in this very place, that what we believe in the heart, we should confess with our mouth. Estius.
Matt. vii. 21 Here Jesus Christ shews, that it is not sufficient to believe in him and hear his words, but that in order to salvation, we must join works** with faith; for in this shall we be examined at the last day. M.–Without faith they could not cry out, Lord, Lord. Rom. x. But the strongest faith **without the works **of justice, will not be available to salvation. I Cor. xiii. B.–Many who have the Lord continually in their mouths, but care little about putting on the Lord, or penetrating themselves with his true spirit, will find their presumption, and the false consciences they have made to themselves, woefully disappointed