Romans 10:9

Having learned that the works of the law cannot justify a person, learn how effortlessly and easily we are justified in Christ: for this requires faith from the heart and confession from the lips. But it is necessary to explain more fully what was said: …

, the sum of the gospel, which is plain and easy enough. Observe, First, What is promised to us: Thou shalt be saved. It is salvation that the gospel exhibits and tenders--saved from guilt and wrath, with the salvation of the soul, an eternal salvation, which Christ is the author of, a Saviour to the uttermost.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,....

That there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles; but, in point of justification and acceptance with God, the gospel sets them both upon the same level,

For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man that doeth--"hath done" those things--which it commands. shall live in them-- (Le 18:5). This is the one way of justification and life--by "the righteousness which is of (or, by our own obedience to) the law."

quarantine:scripture (2026-07-29) — scripture-overlap:80%@v3-8

In this case, these are the apostle's own remarks, confirming the foregoing statements as to the simplicity of the gospel method of salvation. confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus--that is, probably, "If thou shalt confess Jesus [to be] the Lord," which is the proper manifestation or evidence of faith (Mt 10:32;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

PAUL'S great work was saving souls. Whatever else he might be doing, he never forgot, "by all means to save some." Whatever else he aimed at in his Epistles, he always took care to write that men might, by his teaching, be led to the Lord Jesus. He sought to speak so that troubled consciences might come to peace through Jesus Christ his Lord, whom he loved so well. This is one of the reasons why he so often gives us weighty condensations of the Gospel, packing the Truths of God together very closely.

YOU see by this mourning that our church has been bereaved. I have lost a friend tender and true to me, and my heart is too full for utterance.William Higgs, Esq., for many years a beloved deacon of the church in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, fell on asleep January 3rd, 1883, in his fifty-ninth year. I scarcely knew what to preach from this morning; but at last I settled in my mind that I would raise a memorial to my departed friend by preaching a sermon which should be connected with himself.

YOU see by this mourning that our church has been bereaved. I have lost a friend tender and true to me, and my heart is too full for utterance.William Higgs, Esq., for many years a beloved deacon of the church in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, fell on asleep January 3rd, 1883, in his fifty-ninth year. I scarcely knew what to preach from this morning; but at last I settled in my mind that I would raise a memorial to my departed friend by preaching a sermon which should be connected with himself. Therefore I cast about me, and I considered what subject he would wish me to preach from if he were sitting behind me this morning as he was last Lord's-day. I had no difficulty in answering that question. His life and death pointed in one direction. He was a man of rare common sense, straightforward and downright in his aims, and most pithy in his speech, with such a mixture of mother-wit that he might have been taken for John Ploughman's brother, as indeed he was. He cared nothing for oratory, which I have heard him call "a flash in the pan"; he delighted in the plain, solid gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that he would have said to me,—Give them Christ crucified, and salvation by grace through faith, as plainly as ever you can; for when he was sore sick and in the very agony of death, he repeated as his dying creed— and in his own quaint way he added, "They may talk as much as ever they like, but the whole of it lies in Jack the Huckster's verse You will find that story in the first volume of my sermons.See No. 47. "Christ's Prayer for his People." In Park-street early in my ministry I told the story, and it did my friend good, and helped to rest his soul all those years ago, so that he remembered it and repeated it at the last. For his sake let me tell it again.

PAUL'S great work was saving souls. Whatever else he might be doing, he never forgot, "by all means to save some." Whatever else he aimed at in his Epistles, he always took care to write that men might, by his teaching, be led to the Lord Jesus. He sought to speak so that troubled consciences might come to peace through Jesus Christ his Lord, whom he loved so well. This is one of the reasons why he so often gives us weighty condensations of the Gospel, packing the Truths of God together very closely. He knew that these are very useful and so he prepared them for his Brothers and Sisters, as one provides portable meats or condensed milk for travelers. When the reader finds a compact sentence of this sort, he has met with a little Bible, a miniature Body of Divinity. Behold the whole story of redeeming love told out in a line or two, easy to be understood, likely to be remembered, calculated to impress! He who composes short and striking summaries of Gospel Truth may be working as effectively for the salvation of men as another who delivers earnest, pleading discourses. In this chapter Paul several times puts the Gospel in a remarkably plain, simple and brief manner. He is the master of condensation and our text is a specimen of his power! He here gives the plan of salvation in a line or so—"If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved." I wish to preach in the same spirit in which Paul wrote, aiming from my first word to my last at the conversion of any of you who have not yet known the Lord. I pray that we may all mean business at this time and may get at it in downright earnest. May you be determined to come to the point and no longer hesitate! How glad I should be if any would say to themselves, "I will run in the way, if I can but see it.

That if thou shalt confess, etc. - Acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior. Believe in thy heart that he who died for thy offenses has been raised for thy justification; and depend solely on him for that justification, and thou shalt be saved.

That if thou shalt confess - The word here rendered “confess” ὁμολογέω homologeō is often rendered “profess”; Mat 7:23, “Then will I profess to them, I never knew you;” Tit 1:16; Tit 3:14; Rom 1:22; 1Ti 2:10; 1Ti 6:12-13, 1Ti 6:21; Heb 3:1, etc. It properly means to “speak what agrees with something which others speak or maintain.” Thus, confession or profession expresses our “agreement or concord with what God holds to be true, and what he declares to be true.” It denotes a public declaration or assent to that, here expressed by the words “with thy mouth.” A profession of religion then denotes a public declaration of our agreement with what God has declared, and extends to all his declarations about our lost estate, our sin, and need of a Saviour; to his doctrines about his own nature, holiness, and law; about the Saviour and the Holy Spirit; about the necessity of a change of heart and holiness of life; and about the grave and the judgment; about heaven and hell. As the doctrine respecting a Redeemer is the main and leading doctrine, it is put here by way of eminence, as in fact involving all others; and publicly to express our assent to this, is to declare our agreement with God on all kindred truths. With thy mouth - To profess a thing with the mouth is to speak of it; to declare it; to do it openly and publicly. The Lord Jesus - Shalt openly acknowledge attachment to Jesus Christ. The meaning of it may be expressed by regarding the phrase “the Lord” as the predicate; or the thing to be confessed is, that he is Lord; compare Act 2:36; Php 2:11, “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Here it means to acknowledge him as Lord, that is, as having a right to rule over the soul. Shalt believe in thy heart - Shalt sincerely and truly believe this, so that the external profession shall correspond with the real, internal feelings. […]