Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. But what does [Scripture] say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: 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. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
—Romans 10:1-4, 8-10 (TNIV)
As a recovering works-righteous person, I can relate to Paul’s writing here and testify that it is not simply Jews who labor under the delusion of works-righteousness. It is a malady that afflicts us all to one degree or another. It seems to me that works-righteousness is a remnant of our desire to be God and not be beholden to him or anyone else for our eternal destiny.
But Paul calls a spade a spade and reminds us that there is no such thing as salvation by works. No, we are saved by the blood of Christ, shed for us while we were still God’s enemies. None of us can earn our way into heaven; we can only get there by our faith in Christ. Speaking personally, this is a very freeing thing. When I labored under the delusion of works-righteousness, it was a terrible burden trying to earn my way into God’s kingdom because I could never seem to get it right all the time (or even most of the time) and this led me to suffer terrible bouts of despair and depression.
No more (or rarely any more). I still continue to muck along and get it wrong as often as I get it right. What’s changed is this. Now I really believe that eternal life is a free gift offered to me in Christ. Yes, God still finds my sins grievous, and yes I still work hard to get it right as much as possible. But I do so now with the understanding that my performance does not determine my destiny. Christ’s blood does and this takes all the pressure off me. I want to please Christ but I know that nothing I can do will earn me a place with him forever.
Instead, because I know Christ loves me and died for me, even though I do not deserve his love or this gift, I have confidence that I will live with him forever. This requires real trust and hope. It is a trust and hope rooted in the real knowledge of what God has done for us in Jesus. It is knowledge gained through Scripture, prayer, Christian fellowship, and experience, both my own as well as countless others. I do not feel the need to “prove” this to others because that is not how faith works. Empirical proof is not my final arbiter of truth because it perforce is limited to things, well, empirical, and life is much more than just empirical data. To be sure, I want to proclaim the Good News to any who will listen, but if they demand that I “prove” it empirically, I cannot help them. I would simply say the proof is in changed lives and Kingdom values lived, albeit not always consistently. This business of becoming like Christ is a slow, arduous process and illustrates just how tightly sin clings to us.
This is what Paul was talking about when he writes that we are saved if we believe that Jesus is Lord. For Paul, as with most of his contemporaries, “heart” meant more than just the seat of affections and feelings. It also referred to the mind and to the will. Consequently, if we believe Jesus is Lord and has acted on our behalf to save us from permanent separation from God, we will speak and act like it. As James’ letter reminds us, our faith will always be made manifest in our actions. We will seek to act in ways that are pleasing to Christ because we are ever thankful for the great gift he has given us.