Romans 10:9-10 tells us, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Also, Jesus tells us that if we confess Him before men, then He will confess you to the Father and be your advocate legally before the throne of God (Matt 10:32, Luke 12:8). Your profession of faith in Christ before another person is a legal matter in heaven, and it is only through Jesus that we can legally be reconciled back to God.
Eternal salvation is obtained by a simple heartfelt confession… nothing more and nothing less. It is not about our good deeds or bad deeds, which is why this gospel is rightly called the “good news.” You may not even feel anything different after your confession. God has chosen this simple method of confession unto salvation so that no one can boast in another person’s eternal life. Since God knows the heart, there is no point in arguing who has been born again and who has not. Romans 10:6-8 tells us that it is not wise to say “who will ascend into heaven... or who will descend into the abyss,” because the word is in your mouth and in your heart. This word of faith in your mouth and heart is the doorway into all of God’s eternal life. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18) Jesus told Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, “most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus then showed Nicodemus that he was born of the flesh, but in order to enter the kingdom of God he had to be born of the spirit. There is no other name by which man can be saved except confessing the name of Christ Jesus (Acts 4:12), which in itself is a sign of repentance. But our profession of faith in Christ is only the beginning point of our walk with the Spirit of God who created the universe. The next steps involve allowing your newly created spirit to influence your soul and body, and this is the harder part where we learn to take up our cross and follow Jesus. This is where we learn to worship Him in spirit and in truth: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) God created your spirit, soul and body to relate as one, but when we sinned in Adam, that oneness was broken and now our body (flesh) fights against the Spirit as Paul talked about in Romans chapters 6-7. Our flesh is in a constant warfare against our spirit. God is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, but all three exist as one in unity. Since we were created in God’s image, our spirit, soul and body is a similar trinity. However, SIN has killed us and this unity. Now, only our recreated spirit in Christ can renew our souls. While our spirits are born again and therefore “perfect” (Heb 12:22,23) at the point of our confession of faith, our souls must be renewed daily by the Spirit. Please see the previous figure again and notice how the seven spirits of God are constantly influencing our heart, while the body is constantly being influenced by other outside forces that are often contrary to the Spirit of God. Hence the warfare is in our souls, which is why James tells us that our souls must be “saved” or renewed day by day (James 1:21).
