“The righteousness of faith speaks in this way…’The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we preach): that 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” (Rom. 10:6-9).

May we accept the statement in the last verse as literally true? Shall we be in danger if we do? Is not something more than faith necessary to salvation?

To the first of these questions we say, Yes. To the last two we say, No. So plain a statement cannot be other than literally true, that can be depended on by the trembling sinner.

Take the case of the jailer at Philippi. Paul and Silas, after having been inhumanly beaten, were placed in his care. Notwithstanding their lacerated backs and manacled feet, they prayed and sang praises to God at midnight. Suddenly an earthquake shook the prison and all the doors were opened. It was not alone the dread of Roman justice if the prisoners should escape that caused the jailer to tremble. He felt in that earthquake shock a premonition of the great judgment. Trembling under his load of guilt, he fell down before Paul and Silas saying, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

Mark well the answer: “ Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30,31). This agrees exactly with the words we quoted from Paul to the Romans. On one occasion the Jews said to Jesus, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” Just the thing we want to know. Mark the reply: “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (Jn. 6:28, 29).

Would that these words might be written in letters of gold and kept before the eyes of every struggling Christian. The seeming paradox is cleared up. Works are necessary; yet faith is all-sufficient, because faith does the work.

Waggoner, Bible Echo, August 1, 1890