What does “If you confess with your lips Jesus Christ as Lord…” mean? Here Paul defines what a Christian is.
1. Public confession, whether verbal or not is probably not quite the point, that Jesus Christ — Israel’s long-awaited Messiah — is the Lord (and Caesar is not).
2. Belief that this Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, was raised from the dead.
3. Heart stuff and lip stuff: inner and outer. Like the Shema: “heart, soul, mind, and strength.”
4. People who believe are declared the status of “righteousness”: this is a present legal status and a present covenant status, both of which anticipate the final judgment.
5. People who believe have “salvation,” which means rescue from sin and death.
Notice, critics of Wright’s soteriology, that he says salvation is granted to those who have righteousness as their status.
Faith, Wright says, is created by the power at work in the resurrection.