Basic Teachings

Much of what I’m writing about today is a repetition of topics from the last few years, but I think we need to be reminded of the basic beliefs of the Christian Faith.  Jude 3 says we are to earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.  We need to have a fairly deep understanding of what that faith is if we are to “earnestly defend” it.

This is the first installment in a series on some of the whos, whats, whys, and hows of Christianity.

What is God?

Notice, I didn’t say “Who is God?”  We all know God is loving, just, merciful, longsuffering, and all that is good.  Those are all traits of God, but what sort of Being is He?

We know God is Spirit (John 4:24), He’s Holy (Ps. 99:9), He is one Being (Deut. 6:4), He also exists in three Persons (Gal. 1:1; Titus 2:13; Acts 5:3-4).  He is eternal (Heb. 1:8), God is light (1 John 1:5), He is love (1 John 4:8), He is omnipotent (Jer. 32:17), omniscient (1 John 3:20),

Implications!

Because He is love, He is merciful, gracious, patient, loving, and faithful (Ex. 34:6).  Because He is spirit, no one has seen Him (John 1:18 – more on this later).  Because He is holy, no unholy thing or person can exist in His presence (Heb. 12:14).

There is a lot packed into the previous two paragraphs.  Let’s look at some of this:

Let’s look at God being Spirit and as such is invisible.  The Bible also speaks of God being seen by several people, and Jesus, being God, was seen by multitudes.  How can this be.

God needs to take on a physical form to be seen by humans.  A poor example of what it is to be spirit is to link it to infrared light.  The human eye can’t see it, but we know it’s there.  In a similar way, God is spirit, He is here.  We know He’s here, but we can’t see Him.  So, He took human form in Genesis 18 to speak with Abraham.  He did it again in Gen. 32:22-32 when He wrestled with Jacob.  But, best of all, God showed Himself to us when He took on human form as Jesus (Phil. 2:5-8).

So, when someone says” Jesus can’t be God because no one has seen God,”  He certainly can be.  We haven’t seen His divine nature, His God nature, His disciples only saw His physical form, His human nature.

Because God is holy, we need some sort of system by which we can approach God.  He set up a system of sacrifice for us long ago to cleanse us by transferring our sins to another so those sins might be paid for.  In the Old Testament, this was done through animal sacrifice.  In the New Testament, a perfect holy Person was sacrificed to pay for all time the payment needed to make sinful man holy enough to stand before a holy God.

The consequence of this is that those who will not accept the payment of their sin by Jesus’ sacrifice cannot stand before a holy God and, thus, must be cast out.  God doesn’t send people to hell.  They are going there because of the sin, the unholiness, of their lives.  They cannot stand before God that way and must have a sacrifice paid, a ransom for their lives, before they can stand holy before a holy God.

God doesn’t send people to hell.  He has set up a system by which He offers admission to His presence and exclusion from eternal punishment.  It is up to the individual human to accept it, though.

Roman’s 8:15 provides an parallel to this as it describes a Roman adoption process.  In the Roman culture, a child could be adopted if the father made all the arrangements.  He would hire all the caterers, officials, and invite the guests.  The entire ceremony except for the close was done by the prospective father.  All the child needed to do was turn to him at the end of the ceremony and say “Abba,” “Father.”  He simply needed to identify himself as a child of the Father.

God has made all the arrangements.  He has performed the ceremony and only waits for the child to turn to Him and say “Father.”  With that, the child becomes a child of the Father.

In the Roman culture, a natural child could be disowned.  An adopted child could never be disowned.  We who have said “Abba” are secure.  We are sealed by the Holy Spirit for eternity with Christ (Eph 1:13).

Why is this important?

I’ve been teaching a class on Bible study methods, and one of the important points of Bible study is you should understand the passage well enough to be able to explain it to others.  I think that’s a good practice in learning the basic doctrines of our faith.  We should be able to explain it fully to others.  It is for this reason this series is important.

We often have difficulties in understanding Christianity not to mention sharing it with others.  I’m hoping this will help. Our God is an infinite God.  We can never know Him fully this side of heaven.  We can, though, understand quite a bit.  That’s why He’s told us about Himself in His Word.  What we can know, at least the basics, we should know well.