Find comfort in Romans 10:10.

In this verse is the key to understanding what it means to believe in Jesus and how our righteousness in Him is everlasting and apart from works.

See Romans 10:10- “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

See the NLT: “10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.”

Notice that the verse begins with “For"? Take a text out of its context and you'll be left with a con: understanding the verse in its context is hinged on understanding the preceding verse 9. Verse 9 itself has a colon (:) before it, meaning that its context is contingent on verse 8. Verse 8 begins with “In fact," meaning that its context is contingent on verse 7, which itself begins with “And", and so on.

To cut a long story short, the books of the Bible weren’t divided into chapters and verses when they were written. For example, Romans 1-end was just one loooong letter written by Paul. Bible scholars divided the books into chapters and verses.

Taking books, chapters and verses out of their context is like reading a verse from Genesis “...Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.” and yet another in Luke - “Go and do likewise” to mean that we must slay our brothers. The entire Bible is like a perfect embroidery with no loose ends, all the books inter-connected, making sense and giving life as a whole to all who believe and only through God’s Wisdom for all who believe - Grace Himself: Jesus Christ. Here's the Romans 10:1-10 and how verse 10 it is the key to right believing and salvation from all earthly ills through Jesus Christ:

Verses 1-4: “Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved. 2 I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. 3 For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with Himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. 4 For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in Him are made right with God.”

“the people of Israel” here were very zealous about right living but they tried to attain righteousness by keeping the law. Paul called their enthusiasm misdirected. The futility of trying to get right with God by keeping the law and how all who believe in Jesus Christ are righteous in God's sight and apart from obeying the law is a recurring theme in Romans.

See verses 5-10: “For Moses writes that the law’s way of making a person right with God requires obedience to all of its commands. 6 But faith’s way of getting right with God says, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will go up to heaven?’ (to bring Christ down to earth).7 And don’t say, ‘Who will go down to the place of the dead?’ (to bring Christ back to life again).” 8 In fact, it says,

“The message is very close at hand;

it is on your lips and in your heart.”

And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: 9 If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.”

See the NKJV of verses 9–10, the condition for our salvation:

“that 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. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

A person can confess Jesus as Lord all he wants but he is not saved unless he believes that God raised Him from the dead- this encompasses believing what Christ accomplished for us through His being raised from the dead. But why was Christ raised from the dead? What did He accomplish for us through His resurrection? This is the key to right believing:

God raising the Lord Jesus from the dead was not just because He could. His resurrection is the divine receipt showing that we who believe have been forgiven of all of our sins and made righteous by His "single sacrifice for sins, good for all time" (Hebrews 10:12.) This according to Romans 4:25-

“Who was delivered up because of our offences, and was raised up because of our being declared righteous."

See the TPT: “Jesus was handed over to be crucified for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised back to life to prove that He had made us right with God!”

Christ would not have risen from the dead if our lifetime of sins had not been forgiven and we had not been declared righteous by God. His resurrection is akin to seeing someone who went to serve a death sentence in an impregnable prison for the crimes of another walking free.

The wages of sin is death. One death. Christ died that death ONCE for ALL. He died the death that the Law demanded of us, fulfilling every single demand that the Law made of us. Hebrews 9 tells us:

"27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. ..."

Believer, Jesus is not going to come and die again or demand payment for sins that you might commit in the future. All of our lifetime of sins have been fully paid by Him. This is Grace- undeserved, unearned unmerited favour. Many people think that God’s abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ will make people go on sinning sprees, but His word says differently in Romans 5:16–17:

“16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.”

On the flip side, 1 Corinthians 15:56 says: “It is sin that gives death its sting and the law that gives sin its power.” Sin strengthens its grip over those who try to keep the law in order to be holy: “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under Grace.” Romans 6:14. But many have this verse backwards. The message of the cross is illogical to human reasoning. Our salvation and life in Christ is a mystery to the world and not subject to human logic or common sense. The bible says in 1 Corinthians 1:18:

18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness [absurd and illogical] to those who are perishing and spiritually dead [because they reject it], but to us who are being saved [by God’s grace] it is [the manifestation of] the power of God."

As believers, we know that the wages of our lifetime of sins (death and all of its symptoms aka earthly ills) have been fully paid and we have everlasting righteousness because Christ is risen. This righteousness is not dependent on how well we obey the law. It is a gift. This helps us see Romans 10:10 in its context:

"9 that 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. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Salvation here is not just being saved to go to heaven; it is also deliverance from the molestation of enemies and redemption from all earthly ills. It is being saved from the power, pleasure and penalty of sin. The word used in the original Greek text of the New Testament is Swthria (pronounced soteria) and it encompasses all these meanings.

When you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and speak out your righteousness in Christ that you believe in your heart, salvation follows. This is crucial for every believer, especially when Satan the Accuser fires fiery darts of accusations — strongholds/reasonings, imaginations and thoughts that try to get us to take up the burden of guilt for our sins — to trick us into coming under the judgment of the Law. See this in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,"

From what we are up against in the verses above, we see that this warfare that Paul spoke of here isn't fought in some coven, church building or some mountaintop; what we are up against is "arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" and "thoughts." Satan the Accuser is a legalist. Ha Satan is literally “prosecutor at Law” in Hebrew. The battleground for this warfare is our minds where we analyse thoughts and arguments that try to condemn us so that judgment can follow- the same processes found in any regular court of law.

Satan the Accuser can't just go about slapping judgment on anyone. He is a prosecuting attorney who's out to accuse, get convictions and ensure that the sinner gets the harshest judgment: Death. But all have sinned. Christ died our death. Once.

We overcome not through carnal weapons (human effort at getting a “not guilty" verdict) such as doing restitution like Judas, promising to keep the law and be more obedient or attempting to break generational curses with 40 days' dry fasting when Christ already hung on the tree to redeem us from the curse of the Law. We overcome by bringing the weapons of the enemy (accusations of the Accuser) into captivity to the obedience of Christ, according to the same passage.

But what is the obedience of Christ? Who better to interpret the Word than the Word Himself! Romans 5:19 tells us all about the obedience of Christ and who we are because of His obedience-

"For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous."

In this court of law, all who depend on their own obedience stand accused and condemned. Death (preceded by its symptoms of earthly ills) is the outcome.

In Christ, we are not under law but under Grace. We have no righteousness of our own. The Lord Himself is our Righteousness. In Christ, we have salvation from every earthly ill and death in hell. Romans 5:9 says of God:

“And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

When you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and speak out your righteousness in Christ that you believe in your heart, salvation, including salvation from sins and every earthly ill, follows, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:10.

This is Grace- undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour. Grace is for sinners, not those who can save themselves from their sins or obey the law in order to earn a ticket to heaven.

Come to Christ with your baggage of sins and imperfections and experience what He came to do: "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Matt. 1:21.