<p>10:32- see on 10:27.</p>
<p><em>Therefore</em>- See on :31 &ldquo;more value&rdquo;. The sense here is &lsquo;accordingly&rsquo;- in accordance with the colossal emphasis upon not being held back one bit by fear of consequence, we are to accordingly confess Christ before men. The requirement not to fear but to confess is so strong that it could be called a first principle of the Lord&rsquo;s teaching. We are to be fearless in witness.</p>
<p><em>Everyone who shall confess me before men-&nbsp;</em>Confessing Christ before men can also be an allusion to baptism, not just bucking up the courage to give someone a tract at work (Mt. 10:32 = Rom. 10:9,10). This allusion is confirmed when we realize that &ldquo;confess&rdquo; translates two Greek words, &lsquo;to confess in&rsquo;. We confess in Christ by baptism into Him. In another sense, our witness is because we are in Christ, we are Him to the world, and therefore His fearlessness unto death in witness should be ours. The Lord spoke of how if we confess Him before men, He will confess knowledge of us before the Father; and if we deny Him, He will deny us. This language is applied by John to John the Baptist- for he comments that John the Baptist &quot;confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ&quot; (Jn. 1:20). In this sense, John Baptist is being set up as our example in preaching- and again, John comments that we too are to confess the Son and not deny Him (1 Jn. 2:23), after the pattern of John the Baptist. And yet note what John's 'confession' was- it was a profession of his unworthiness, that although he was the herald of the Christ, he was not Jesus. Again, we see here a pattern for our witness to the Lord. Eph. 6:15 speaks of our each being 'sandaled' with the preparation of the Gospel. Who prepared the way of the Lord by preaching, wearing sandals? John the Baptist. It seems Paul is alluding to John here, setting him up as the preacher's example. The reference to &quot;loins girt&quot; (Eph. 6:14) would also be a John allusion- the record twice (in Mt. 3:4; Mk. 1:6) stresses how John had his 'loins girded'.</p>
<p>When He says He will confess&nbsp;<em>us</em>&nbsp;before the Father, He means He will confess&nbsp;<em>our name</em>&nbsp;before God (Rev. 3:5); He knows us according to our names / characters. He speaks of ecclesial members as &quot;names&quot; in Rev. 3:4; He calls His own sheep by name, and they each know His voice, responding to His word&nbsp;<em>individually</em>. The call to one sheep will only be recognized by that sheep; the others won't respond (Jn. 10:3). He will take individual note of each sheep, treating them accordingly, as the shepherd leads more gently those that are with young (Is. 40:11). It seems that even now, we each have our own individual name with the Father and Son, encompassing their understanding of our essential character. It may even be that in the record of Scripture, God inspired the writers to record the names of individuals according to His judgment of them (or at least, how the faithful viewed them at the time), rather than by the names they actually went under. What mother would have named her child Nabal (fool), or Ahira (brother of evil, Num. 1:15), or 'sickness' or 'wasting' (Mahlon and Chilion)? These names were either given to them by others and the use adopted by God, or simply God in the record assigned them such names.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The same two words for &quot;confess [in]&quot; are found in Rom. 10:9 &ldquo;If you shall&nbsp;<em>confess with</em>&nbsp;your mouth the Lord Jesus&hellip; you shall be saved&rdquo;. The idea of&nbsp;<em>homolegeo</em>&nbsp;seems to be of public confession; literally to&nbsp;<em>homo-logos</em>. The Lord has just used the word&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;with reference to the &ldquo;words&rdquo; of our preaching before men (10:14).&nbsp;<em>Homo</em>&nbsp;has the sense of being together with others. It can carry the sense of &lsquo;assent&rsquo;, in that our<em> logos</em>&nbsp;comes together with the&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of another; but the majority of NT usage is clearly with the sense of professing, making our&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;before others. At the day of judgment, the Lord will &ldquo;profess&rdquo; His verdict to men (Mt. 7:23) and here we learn that He will &ldquo;profess&rdquo; it to His Father too. The weight of evidence on the basis of usage is that this word refers to public profession of a&nbsp;<em>logos</em>, of our innermost thought- which is exactly in line with the themes of the Sermon on the Mount: that our internal thought and position, our&nbsp;<em>logos</em>, is crucially important; but if it is a Christ-like&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;then it will be impossible to conceal it, it must naturally become public, for a city set on a hill cannot be hid. Consider the evidence:<br />
-Herod&nbsp;<em>confessed</em>&nbsp;[AV &ldquo;promised&rdquo;] with an oath&rdquo; in front of witnesses to give Herodias&rsquo; daughter whatever she wished (Mt. 14:7)<br />
- John the Baptist&nbsp;<em>confessed</em>&nbsp;in his preaching (Jn. 1:20)<br />
- If anyone&nbsp;<em>confessed&nbsp;</em>openly that Jesus was Messiah, then they would be cast out of the synagogue (Jn. 9:22; 12:42)<br />
- The Pharisees&nbsp;<em>confessed</em>&nbsp;their doctrinal positions, i.e. they openly taught them (Acts 23:8)<br />
- Paul&nbsp;<em>confessed</em>&nbsp;his beliefs publicly when on trial (Acts 24:14)<br />
- Timothy&nbsp;<em>confessed&nbsp;</em>his confession before many witnesses (1 Tim. 6:12)<br />
- Some openly&nbsp;<em>confess</em>&nbsp;their knowledge of God when their private lives don&rsquo;t match that public confession (Titus 1:16)<br />
- The faithful&nbsp;<em>confessed</em>&nbsp;their faith in God&rsquo;s promises before all (Heb. 11:13)<br />
- Teachers&nbsp;<em>confess</em>&nbsp;a doctrinal position about Jesus in their teaching and must be assessed by their audience accordingly (1 Jn. 2:23; 4:2,3,15; 2 Jn. 7).</p>
<p>In Matthew 10, the Lord uses the word in the very context of the need to openly witness. He who refuses to make this public profession will not be accepted in the day of judgment; the Lord Jesus will not confess such a person before &ldquo;My Father&rdquo;. Rom. 10:9,10 likewise predicate salvation upon this public confession. And the contrast in Matthew 10:32,33 is between&nbsp;<em>confessing</em>&nbsp;Christ and&nbsp;<em>denying&nbsp;</em>Him before men, leading to being&nbsp;<em>denied</em>&nbsp;by Jesus before &ldquo;My&nbsp;<em>Father</em>&rdquo;. Without doubt, 1 Jn. 2:23 has all this in mind when teaching that &ldquo;Whosoever&nbsp;<em>denies</em>&nbsp;the Son, the same has not&nbsp;<em>the Father</em>, but he that&nbsp;<em>confesses</em>&nbsp;[s.w.; AV &ldquo;acknowledges&rdquo;] the Son has the Father also&rdquo;. Taken together, these usages of&nbsp;<em>confession</em>&nbsp;present a solid case- that salvation is related to public confession. That is not to say that salvation is by works, nor is it to say that evangelism is the be all and end all of the Christian life- after all, we all have different gifts, some are more pastoral than evangelical. Salvation is by grace&nbsp;<em>through faith</em>; and if we believe, then we cannot be passive, we become a city set on a hill which cannot be hid. Otherwise, as the Lord teaches several times in the Sermon on the Mount, we have not really believed in God&rsquo;s grace. The Sermon teaches that there is no such thing as a secret Christian, a candle lit which nobody else sees or gets a hint of. The absolute necessity of public confession was taught throughout the Sermon, and it is being made plain again here in Mt. 10 and throughout the other references to confession. In this area particularly, we are faced with the temptation of sins of omission- to consider that we are believers because we have mentally assented to certain theological propositions about Christ, but not making any public commitment or confession about them. No wonder the Lord raised this theme in encouraging His preachers to go forth fearlessly.</p>
<p><em>I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven-&nbsp;</em>The &ldquo;also&rdquo; suggests there will be a direct correlation between our confessing of Him before men now, and how He speaks of us before the Father both now and in the last day. The same idea is found in the way in which He earlier taught that we are forgiven&nbsp;<em>as</em>&nbsp;we forgive others. What&rsquo;s going on in Heaven concerning us need be no mystery to us- because it is a direct reflection of our lives of forgiveness, witness etc. in this world. The future judgment seat will be only a bringing to earth of the judgment seat which even now is going on in Heaven. Mt. 10:32 surely also has in view the Lord's speaking to the Father in Heaven right now, in this life. But compare the parallel Lk. 12:8: &quot;Everyone who acknowledges Me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God&quot;. Of what does this speak? Surely of the last judgment [note the reference to the &quot;Son of man&quot;, a term usually used about judgment to come; and denial before the angels surely equates with the &quot;I never knew you&quot; of the final judgment]. The events of the last day, with the Lord confessing or denying us before the Father and the Angels, are actually going on this very day.</p>