Matthew 10:32 Commentary and Bible Study

Christ’s confession before the Father secures our eternal life, for the Father cannot deny the Son. If the Son makes a request on our behalf, then the Father must comply with that. Not that the Father has any different thoughts towards us. Those whom the Son confesses have been loved by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from eternity past. The Son does not persuade the Father against his will, or get him to change his mind towards us, but he fulfils the condition of our justification by making atonement for us which the Father requires. There is a vast difference between our confessing and his confessing. We confess the perfect Son of God and Son of man as our Lord and Saviour, the one without whom we cannot live, the one whom no one should be ashamed of, for he has glory beyond the heavens. We confess him on earth; he confesses us in heaven. He confesses a worthless and helpless sinner who can give him nothing, of whom he has every right to be ashamed, who looks to him for pardon and new life and is eternally lost without him. He gains nothing from being associated with us; we gain everything from being associated with him. He has cause to be ashamed of us, and is not; we have no cause to be ashamed of him, and yet we are. For men to deny him is to earn the approval of an unbelieving world for a season, but for him to deny us before the Father is for us to forever lose our souls. We confess him before those we have no reason to be ashamed before, for Christ calls them an adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 8:38). What should we care about the opinion of a sinful and adulterous generation? But he confesses us, though we are worthless in ourselves, before the infinitely holy God. Our confession or denial of him comes in time, but his confession or denial of us come in eternity past, present, and future, and cannot change. If we confess him before men, we fear God more than man; if we deny him before men, we fear man more than God. But what can God do to us, and what can man do to us. Christ has already spoken of this, and what they can each do is incomparable. Man can end the physical life; God can send body and soul to hell forever. If we are faithful to him it costs us our lives, but Christ in being faithful to us paid with his eternal soul.Why does Christ insist on the confession of the mouth without flinching? Isn’t faith in the heart enough? The devil may suggest that confession is nothing, and that in a tight corner we may deny Christ to save our skins and then return to him later when the danger is passed, for it is the faith that exists in the heart that matters, not the words that come out of our mouths. But Christ does not allow this. Our witness is all important, and our mouths must confess what we believe in our hearts, for we must be ready to pay a price to prove our loyalty to him. He might also have denied us before the Father in order to avoid the cross, but he did not. He remained faithful to his people even though he had to face death and hell for us. We must be ready to confess Christ whatever it costs us, as he has said in the previous verses. In confessing Christ before men, the believer has a shrewd idea of what his confession is likely to cost him, but as Calvin says, God does not allow any excuse for us not confessing Christ, even though he knows we may have to do so at the cost of our lives; it is his strict demand, and the world cannot endure it. ‘For this purpose the disciple of Christ must be bold and courageous that they may be always ready for martyrdom.’ Our integrity requires our mouths and our hearts to agree and to act together. We must be ready to pay a price for our loyalty to our Lord and Saviour who has paid such a high price for us. Besides, we are left in the world after conversion, in large measure for the sake of our testimony, and the battle with the powers of darkness is about maintaining that testimony. It is by words that we assault the kingdom of darkness. If friends on earth are entitled to the loyalty of each other, including an unashamed admission of friendship, then how much more is Christ who has already paid the price of our souls in hell?When will he confess us? Now, as he makes intercession for us, and on the Day of Judgment when all are gathered before his throne. Think of the level of knowledge required for him to do this. He must be witness to every single conversation that has taken place in the history of the world.