Dwight Fletcher | What does it mean to confess Jesus as Lord?

IF YOU’RE like most people living in the Western Hemisphere in the 21st Century, when you hear the word, “confess”, you imagine a guilty party in a courtroom or interrogation room, detailing all their wrongdoing.

With that image, or a similar one in your head, you may not understand the significance when you read verses like Romans 10:9 (ESV), “...If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

This Scripture makes it clear that in order to be saved and to be right with God, we must confess out loud with our mouth the reality of what is in our heart, that Jesus is Lord.

The word ‘confess’ used in this verse is a Greek word – homolegeo. ‘Homo-’ means ‘the same’ and ‘Legeo’ means ‘to say’. This compound word, Homolegeo, means ‘to say the same as’. In this case, it means to:

● Say the same about Jesus as God the Father says about Jesus.

● Say the same about Jesus as Jesus claimed for Himself.

● Say the same about Jesus as the entirety of Scripture says about Jesus.

So, “to confess” means more than just the verbal words in the air, and it doesn’t have to do with guilty admissions. It means to embrace what God the Father says about His Son and what the Bible says about His Son. It means to make this declaration the foundation of our lives and beliefs.

When Paul says, “confess with your mouth”, he means openly, publicly, and unashamedly. It means confessing Him in the waters of baptism, which is publicly declaring your faith; and it means living your life in obvious submission to Jesus. There are no secret agents in God’s army. None of us are called to be camouflaged to blend in with the world.

As believers, we confess in our bedroom, in our board rooms and to the entire world that “Jesus is Lord”. Whatever that may cost us, “Jesus is Lord”.

It is important to make this public declaration, because in Matthew 10:32-33 (NKJV), Jesus promises that, “Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.”

This means your confession has implications for both your eternal victory and your current victory. On the day when Jesus returns, you don’t want Him saying, “I don’t know you,” because you declared on earth (with your actions and your silence), “I don’t know Christ.”

But before that day arises, you also want Jesus interceding on your behalf right now. Romans 8:34 makes it clear that Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father. He speaks on our behalf to the Father. When we need a breakthrough, Jesus is interceding. When we need healing, Jesus is interceding. However, if we don’t confess Him before others, it limits Christ as our heavenly intercessor and robs us of the heavenly power available. It’s one of the reasons we have so little deliverance from sin, spiritual oppression and curses for believers today.

As we wrap up this series on Jesus As Lord, I want to make one thing abundantly clear: it is a tragic error to regard Jesus as a “fire escape” from the flames of hell. Yes, He does save repentant sinners from hell. But while we are saved from something, we are also saved to something: to the absolute, 100%, ‘Lord of all’ headship of Jesus Christ in every area of our lives.

So, consider this week one thing that you can do to publicly declare with your words and your actions that Jesus Christ is Lord.