Another riddle me this post.
Salvation is not denominational.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter what people are saying. Saying is not necessarily confessing. Confessing is not just saying, but acknowledging - normally publicly and it trends into professing allegiance; it means to concede that something is true; it means to be of a common mind about a matter; it can trend into committing oneself to something. This is a much stronger word than just saying something.
Believing in one's heart that God raised Jesus who is LORD from the dead is a necessity which Paul well covers in 1 Corinthians 15. If Jesus is not resurrected, then He is not LORD, He is not the Christ, and our faith is worthless. So, LORD Jesus was resurrected and this is one of the proofs of who He is. It's the sign Jesus gave in John 2:19 "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up".
Romans 10:9-10 is chiastic - it's parallelism formatted to elaborate itself (the A points are parallel; the B points are parallel; the C point is the central point:
A if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus
B and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead,
C you will be saved.
B' For with the heart one believes unto righteousness,
A' and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
LORD Jesus the Christ is who our Bible says He is. His name and titles
require belief, confession, submission of all men.
NKJ Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
NKJ Philippians 2:5-11 ....Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Some wrestle with the Romans verse because it doesn't fit the theory of Biblical Faith they believe is true. But, if we really study Biblical Faith, it is far from simplistic. And "confession" is not something that can be falsified. Maybe to men false confession can seem true, but not to God who has intense thinking on the matter:
Titus 1:15-16 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They profess (same word as confess just translated differently) to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
These defiled people who confess to know God but deny God in works, are disobedient (no submission), disqualified (can't do good works which Christians were created in Christ Jesus to do Ephesians 2:10), and they are abominable (which also means detestable, disgusting).
If we want to see what Jesus had to say about [publicly] confessing Him, John 12:25-43 and on is a good place to do some reading. It's a parallel to some of what Paul is dealing with in Romans 10.
