Receiving the Gospel

Romans 10:9-11 says the following, "That if you confess 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 confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'" Many people take this very section of scripture to be a formula such that 'confessing + believing = salvation'. People treat confessing and believing as like variables that they have complete control over. What if people do not have control over what they believe?

The ideology that shows itself most powerful and correct is usually the ideology that wins, and this ideology is the one that people believe in. Could you for example one day decide, "I am fatigued believing in the idea that the world is round, so today I am going to believe that the world is flat?" Even if you tried to believe that the world is flat, you most likely would always not be able to convince yourself even though you may not have ever seen the shape of the world.

The difference between the knowledge of the shape of the world, and the knowledge of God is that one comes from God and the other comes from man. Even the demons in Luke 4:41 see Christ for who he is, and the greater question is if we are all before the face of God constantly without the ability to recognize him as a result of sin. Blindness is truly something that Jesus can heal, but on the other hand one should ask why demons in Luke 4:41 identified who Jesus is when few others could.

By the demons confessing Jesus as the Son of God did they confess a belief in him? Even the rich man in hell in the story of Lazarus demonstrates that he believes that God can raise someone from the dead. One should thus ask why the disciples could not identify the truths about Jesus that demons knew as facts and that those in hell would have assumed.

The point is that true belief in Jesus Christ only comes from God. Matthew 16:17 shows Jesus proclaiming how blessed Peter was for not the confession of Jesus Christ but instead the revelation from God the Father that Peter received concerning Jesus Christ. The focus is that if Peter is receiving revelation from God the Father, then he is in communion with God the Father. Overall, just as Peter is given the gift of the revelation of Jesus Christ, so to true belief in Christ is given by God directly.

Receiving the gospel thus has more to do with God's work and reception than it has with our choice. God can either choose to bring us to a knowledge of him, or God can choose not to do so.