Basics of the Bible - Lesson 7

 

This is an optional lesson because we’ve already covered most of the theology in the previous lesson. But what I wanted to do was just to read through, not all of it, read through chunks of the Statement of Faith and show you how much you already know. You can download this on the website and just go through it. All that I did was I just went through it and highlighted the words that are in here that I’ve already talked about. I was pleasantly surprised that I’ve been able to cover large swatches of this Statement of Faith. So let me just go through this, okay?

So in article one, it’s on Scripture, and the Statement of Faith says the Bible is the infallible Word of God. Okay, that means it’s true, all right? It doesn’t contain errors. It’s the supreme rule for faith and practice. We saw that in 2 Timothy 3:16, because Scripture comes from the mouth of God, it is uniquely qualified to show us what to believe and how to live. The 66 books of the Old and New Testament came from the very mouth of God: theopneustos. 2 Timothy 3:16, and are without errors in the originals. Now, this is a point of some debate with some people, but we believe that God doesn’t make mistakes when he inspires Scripture, if you understand it contextually and properly. It is the unique and supreme guide for everything that it affirms. Again, 2 Timothy 3:16.

The teachings of the Bible are sufficient for salvation and sanctification. This is really important. What it means is that everything you need to know—you remember those final words in the end of verse 16 and into 17—that Scripture is “profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness, that the person of God may be complete, lacking in nothing.” Because it is sufficient, the Bible is sufficient to tell us what it takes to be saved and how to be sanctified, how to live our life. If someone comes along and says, “Oh yeah, but there’s other things you have to do,” they’re wrong. The Bible and Bible alone is our guide. So that’s article one: Scripture.

Article two is the doctrine of God. There is one God—there’s your monotheism—infinitely perfect, without change, creator of all, and yet not created. Okay, that’s this divine idea, that he’s separate from creation. He created everything. He is present in all of creation, but he’s distinct from it. He’s everywhere present. He’s omniscient over all times. He’s wholly sovereign. God sits in heaven and does whatever he jolly well wants to do, okay? 

God exists in three persons. Here’s the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in essence. And that means each one is fully God and divine perfection. All three uncreated, but executing distinct but harmonious offices. In other words, that’s the thing about where God the Father makes a decision; God the Son accomplishes it; God the Holy Spirit completes it. Okay, that’s the distinct but harmonious offices. 

Article three is on God the Son. God the Son is fully God and fully human. There’s your doctrine of the Incarnation. He is the unique—because he’s unique, he’s the only source of salvation. “I am the way, the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” It goes on, governs some of the kerygma that we talked about, some of the basic what happened during his life. He died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. That’s the doctrine of the atonement. He was physically raised from the dead. That’s the proof that he did what he said he was going to do. He will return to earth, there’s your doctrine of eschatology. Ultimately, “Every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, that he is Yahweh, that he is God.” 

Article four is on God the Holy Spirit. It talks about that God the Spirit was sent to convict the world of sin. That’s the drawing of us to himself. He fully indwells every true believer. We don’t have bits and pieces of the Holy Spirit. Some person doesn’t have more of the Holy Spirit than you do. He fully indwells us. Each one is fully indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is their guarantee, or I think I used the word earlier, ‘the seal.’ And what does the seal do when you put it on a scroll? It marks ownership and it protects the contents. That’s what the seal of the Holy Spirit is. He is saying, “Bill Mounce belongs to God, and I’m here to keep him safe.” Okay? So he’s the seal of our inheritance. He guides and empowers us. 

Article five, anthropology, the doctrine of man. Adam and Eve were both created in the image of God. They were both created. One’s not more in the image of God than others, but they were created in the image of God. We are created as the apex over creation to care for creation. We are distinct from the animals. We are to take care of them, but there’s a distinction there, but there’s also a distinction between us and God. We can never become God.

It talks about that Adam and Eve disobeyed. They were separated from God. They were dead in their sins and incapable of pleasing him. Okay, that’s that first lesson on conversion. What does it mean to believe in Jesus or to trust in Jesus is to believe that there’s nothing we can do to take care of our sin. There’s nothing that we can do to enter into and live within a relationship with God, but rather that’s God’s function. Without the direct intervention of God, people will live separated from God, die in their sins, and receive the condemnation that their sin deserves. Salvation comes from without. It doesn’t come from within us. 

Article six is the doctrine of soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. Salvation from sin and access to God is available only through the work of Christ on the cross. Once again, that’s the doctrine of the atonement. It’s received solely by faith, trusting in Jesus, not trusting in ourselves. We have to repent and turn from our sins, the necessity of conversions. We are redeemed. We are set free from sin. We are born again. This is the John 3 passage. We are reconciled to God. We didn’t used to be friends of God, and now we are friends of God. We are reconciled. We are a child of God. We are adopted into his family. We have a new Father. We have new brothers, and we have new sisters. Through the Holy Spirit, we are empowered for a life of obedience. We covered just about everything there, didn’t we?

Article seven. We’re going to see this in the next lesson on sanctification, the doctrine of holiness. God’s will for every believer is his sanctification. He wants us to grow up and look like his Son. We are Christ’s followers. We are supposed to develop a likeness in life of our Savior. We actually, it’s interesting, we are declared holy at our conversion, but we are also called to become holy in the experiences of life. Part of sanctification, as we’re going to see, has to do with the fruits of the Spirit, that we will start developing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, turning us more into Jesus. We’re still going to struggle. There’s still a battle with sin. The absolute mastery of sin was broken at the cross, but Satan’s a sore loser. He doesn’t want to lose you, and it’s still a battle till we die and go home to be with Jesus. We all have to keep repenting, pursuing sexual purity, speech, prayer, suffering, persecution, and all these things. In fact, Paul tells Timothy, “Anyone who wants to live a godly life will be persecuted.” That if you’re going through life and you’re not in conflict with this world, there’s something wrong with you. “Because the world hates Jesus,” he says, “and therefore, it will hate us.” We live in a different kingdom, and that kingdom is at cross purposes with the kingdom of this world. But we’ll see more about that in the next lesson.

Article eight is the doctrine of ecclesiology, and basically it’s the sum total of all true followers of Jesus Christ, past, present, and future. We have the two signs of baptism, the sign that we have entered into the family of God, that we have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ; and the Lord’s Supper, which is called Eucharist and Communion, and different things. But the idea is that as we celebrate it, we’re celebrating the fact that we are a family, and that we live in a relationship with each other, but also in a relationship with God. 

Article nine is eschatology, the doctrine of last things. Jesus will return, and here’s these three important words that I just talked about—personally, visibly to all, suddenly. All disciples, living and dead, will be bodily caught up to meet him. That’s going to be really strange. I’m assuming none of us are going to be afraid of heights at that point. But when Jesus comes back, and the trumpets sound, and the angels are everywhere, we’re going to—actually, the dead will rise out of the graves first, and then those of us who are alive, if we’re alive, will go up with him, and we’ll meet him in the air. It’s called the rapture. There’s going to be a final judgment, and the unrepentant will be sent off to judgment, basically, and punishment in hell, and those of us who are his children will be raised to the resurrection of life. And then, here’s the last paragraph in the statement: “This is the hope for which we long, which helps to motivate us now toward godly living, and which propels us to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost and dying world.” 

That’s a very condensed two pages, all right? But download it from the website, go through it. And I didn’t cover everything that’s in here, but I covered most everything that’s in here. And there are other theology classes on Biblical Training that will fill in some of the other gaps if you’re interested. So, our Statement of Faith.