“HAVE PEOPLE GONE TO HELL MISUNDERSTANDING THE 4TH VERSE OF
THE ROMANS ROAD … THE “TEN-NINE” VERSE?”
“HAVE PEOPLE GONE TO HELL MISUNDERSTANDING THE 4TH
VERSE OF
THE ROMANS
ROAD … THE “TEN-NINE”
VERSE?”
Dear
Reader, I’m not sure about you, but Romans
10:9 has never sat right with me when witnessing ... you know …
“That if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised
him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans
10:9)
My
question is … How is this the same as Paul’s reply
to the jailer? …
“Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou
shalt be saved…” (Acts 16:31)?
Answer: They’re
not! They’re chalk and cheese!
Yes Dear
Reader, you know the Romans Road … the
four verses used as a help to get people saved … “three-twenty three,
six-twenty
three, five-eight, ten-nine.”
Romans 3:23 “For all
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
Romans 6:23 “For the
wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Romans 5:8 “But God
commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 10:9 “That if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the
dead, thou shalt be saved.”
Now the
first three verses of 3-23, 6-23 and 5-8
are absolutely OK … but it’s the 10-9 that should be left out …
unless
you are witnessing to an unsaved Jew.
Now The
Book of Romans is called the Christian
Manifesto, but Paul is specifically talking about unsaved Israel
when
writing Chapters 9-11 of the book of Romans as follows … the context is
Jewish
…
Chapter
nine beginning
with “For I could wish that myself were accursed from
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:”
(Romans 9:3)
and
furthermore …
Chapter ten with “Brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is, that they might be saved.” (Romans 10:1)
and in
addition …
Chapter
eleven with “I
say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. ...”
(Romans 11:1)
There are four
elements in 10-9 that would
be important for the unsaved Jew … to wit …
“That if
thou shalt 1. confess
with thy mouth
the 2. Lord
Jesus, and shalt
3. believe
in thine heart that God
hath 4. raised
him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
1. To “…confess
with thy mouth…”
To “confess”
for the Jew, is to tell,
make known, admit, disclose, out loud
You know
like the TV cops getting their prisoner to
admit and confess to this crime or that … “Go on say it …. Yes or No … out
loud for the tape.”
Confession with the
mouth … out loud … in the Old Testament … was a must for the
Jew as the
following scriptures attest … Joshua 10:14; 2 Chronicles 30:22; Ezra
10:11 and
Daniel 9:4 and so on …
Indeed
Jesus Christ when witnessing (talking) to
Pilate makes a good confession …
“I give
thee charge in the sight of God, who
quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before
Pontius
Pilate witnessed (spoke
out loud) a
good confession;” (1 Timothy 6:13).
2. “…
Lord Jesus …”
The “Lord”
means God himself manifest in the
flesh.
The word “Jesus”
represents the Saviour
having come to save his people for their sins (Matthew 1:21)
Question: Why
would
Paul not use the word “Christ”?
Answer: It’s now
time for Israel to believe on God the Saviour in heaven as the time of
the physical
Messiah on earth had passed.
In essence
Paul is saying to Israel “Christ the
Messiah has come and gone, you now need Christ as your Lord and
Saviour.”
The Book
of Hebrews explains this fully as it is
addressed to Messiah believing Jews to take the step forward to
salvation with
Jesus the Saviour.
However
when Paul addresses the Jailer (Acts
16:31), Paul uses the complete title of the Lord Jesus Christ to
eliminate any
doubt in the jailer’s mind as to who Paul was referring to.
3. “…
believe in thine heart …”
For the
Jew, was there any other belief to be had
than in his heart?
Yes there
was … the book of Matthew clearly shows
that Israel worshipped with the lips and not the heart (Matthew
15:8).
4. “…
raised him from the dead …”
No-one
could find the body (Matthew 28:11-13) … so
this meant that Jesus, Israel’s Saviour, had risen
from the dead … proving to the Jew that
Jesus was no mere mortal, but God manifest in the flesh … had physically
returned into heaven from whence he came.
So if you
get a chance to witness to an unsaved
Jew, by all means, use “10-9” preceded by “3-23, 6-23, 5-8”.
It is a
profound shift for the unsaved Jew, to
attest to the fact, by believing in his heart and not just with his
lips, that
Christ the Messiah has now become Jesus the Saviour (study the Book of
Hebrews)
and now lives bodily in heaven.
However to
misunderstand and misapply “10-9” for a
Gentile could easily see someone in hell for the following reason …
An unsaved
person could say “Well I have spoken
out LOUD the words (which is a work) ‘the Lord Jesus’
and I
believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, so therefore I must be
going to
heaven” … not realizing that all ‘good’ and clueless hell-bound
Catholics … the
Pope included … do the same.
“Yep! I’ve
verbally confessed my sins and I love
Jesus” … just like any unsaved Catholic.
The
well-meaning Christian saint, who invented “The
Romans Road”, did not realize the Jewish connotation and
application
of “10-9”.
Dear
Reader, my advice is not to use “10-9” when
witnessing, as this is meant for the Jew not the Gentile.
Harley
Hitchcock
August
2024
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