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Author's Bias | Interpretation: conservative
Paul states clearly how one can receive salvation:
But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart"—that is, the word of faith which
we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in
salvation. (Rom 10:8-10)
Paul indicates that a person's salvation is based on what a person believes in their heart and what they confess with their mouth.
Jesus speaks of the heart and its relationship to the mouth in His response to the Jews:
Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by
its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The
good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that
every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be
justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matt 12:33-37)
Taken together with Jesus' call, "repent for the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:14;
Matt 4:17), Jesus is referring to repentance at the heart level.
Genuine repentance is directed towards God. It involves a significant judgment of oneself and prompts one to turn to
God; genuine repentance includes the concept of a radical change – a conversion.
The biblical concept of "repentance" is with this meaning of "to change one's mind." This places an emphasis on the
thought and will of a person, and it is in this context that the concept of conversion arises. From a "change of mind" to a "change of
behavior," a person "turns" his will from himself to God, or a person "turns away" from sin to "turns" towards holiness.
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