Romans 10:9 “…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.”
Ephesians 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”
Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
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The Mystery of Salvation. At first glance, these scriptures appear at odds with one another. Yet when we consider the work of the Holy Spirit, His deliberate involvement in our lives before we have fully formed or have been fully informed, it makes sense – yet it is still a Divine mystery. John 16 tells us that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, will convict the world of sin and of righteousness, and that when He comes, He will guide those predestined by God into all truth, speaking on the authority of the Father. Through God the Holy Spirit’s work in us as the truth speaker, and the author of the gospel of our salvation, we are sanctified – set apart for God’s use. (2 Peter 1:21; John 17)
By God’s plan, the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts (that is, those who God has predestined for salvation) and makes us ready to receive the gospel of truth, the gospel of our salvation (Romans 1:16). And by His grace implants the seed of faith within us and moves in such a way that we can declare with our mouths, or the better word, confess with our mouths Christ as Savior and Lord, since we are regretting our sinful lives and desire to repent or turn around from that life. Part of the mystery is that with each individual who has been saved, there is a uniqueness in each instance of salvation. We don’t all experience that moment of salvation at the same age, in the same place or circumstance, etc. Salvation does not result from a confirmation or catechism class, or even a baptism, but by God’s will. Otherwise, it is a human intervention or effort -- not God -- doing the saving. And, yet, in His grace and goodness, He allows us to choose or affirm what He has worked in us. He allows us to covenant with Him. In the very best sense, we put ‘skin in the game’, that is, we surrender ourselves to His sovereignty and Lordship over us in our confession. We are allowed to make ourselves a living sacrifice to God, based on the work of the Cross – Christ’s sacrifice that covers us. (Romans 12:1; Ephesians 2:15-17)
The greatest mystery in salvation is that God has chosen us – as the Spirit has Paul write so well at Ephesians 2, we who “were dead in [our] transgressions and sins, in which [we] used to live when [we] followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” I cannot comprehend that, but accept by faith what He has done in me, what He has done in all of us whom He has called. A great mystery, indeed.
