Jesus is Lord!

"If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Rom 10:9-10 NIV)" (Romans 10:9, 10 NIV)

One of the clearest presentations of the gospel is Romans 10:9,10. In order to be saved, you must do two things: a) declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and b) believe in your innermost being that God has raised Him from the dead. If you do this, you will be justified and saved How are you saved? It is not by obeying the laws of Moses, but by faith in the Lordship of Jesus the God-man (how can He rise from the dead if he’s not a real human being). The two parts of this confession are intertwined. You cannot believe in your heart unless you confess with your mouth and you won’t confess with your mouth unless you believe in your heart. Jesus appeared in history as a man and vindicated Himself when He arose bodily from the dead. You must acknowledge this. That is what saves.

The night before Jesus was crucified, He celebrated Passover and His Last Supper. At one point during the supper, Jesus made the startling declaration to his disciples that one of them would betray Him. Shocked, each one, in turn asked, “Surely you don’t mean me, right Lord?”

However, there is one who did not ask in the same way as all the others. Judas Iscariot asked, “Surely you don’t mean me, Rabbi?” Apparently, the different response of Judas was not noticed by the others at the table, but later when Matthew penned his gospel, Matthew put all the responses together and a closer look shows us the difference. All the disciples called Him Lord, but Judas only called Him rabbi or “teacher.”

For this reason, many Bible teachers see Judas as a fake believer.¹ Judas spent some 2 ½ years walking with and observing Jesus. Yet he only considered him a teacher. How can somebody be so close to Jesus but not really know who He was. Like the demons that tremble (James 2:19) Judas knew all about Jesus but did not believe he was Lord. The reason was the same as what later led to the crowds in Jerusalem to call for His crucifixion. Jesus did not meet expectations. We know from Acts 1:6 that the disciples, and by extrapolation, all the Jews wanted Jesus to be the one to free them from Roman rule. However, Jesus had other things than the immediate salvation of the Jews from Rome in mind such as the salvation of the world.

Those in the Church should take heed to Jesus who in Matthew 7:23 describes true and false disciples. The ones who were false were the ones who only mouthed faith and did not show the evidence of faith. Discipleship is that which follows true confessions of faith for if you really believe Jesus rose from the dead and understood that He is Lord, you will be motivated to serve Him. Serving Him also means waiting for the right time for salvation.

Pray: "Lord Jesus, You who came as God the Son and entered history as a man, I believe you are as you claim to be, and did what history tells us you did. You came and lived among us as a man, and you rose from the dead. Amen"

Notes

¹O’Neal Anton, "Did Judas Lose His Salvation?" https://youtube.com/shorts/ErPZuTzTfNU?si=GMCGsTwuXPoKJsH7"