What we believe #3
9th November 2009 by Rusty Hodges
In the third instalment of "what we believe", Rusty Hodges takes us through doctrines six and seven
Continuing in our look into the doctrines, here we are looking at God's solution to our sinful situation and our response (catch up on doctrines 1-3 and 4-5).
Doctrine six: We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has, by his suffering and death, made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved.
Doctrine seven: We believe that repentance toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and regeneration by the Holy Spirit are necessary to salvation.
God's initiative
Last time we discovered that we have a problem which we are powerless and helpless to do anything about. All humanity face the same fate - our sin destroys our relationship with God.
God hates broken relationships. So, he took the initiative and went on a mission to restore the relationship between himself and his creation. He came himself as ‘the solution' through Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:23 says "the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life" (NIV)
There was a price that needed to be paid. The Old Testament shows us just how much of a mess life can be. It paints a picture of how futile life is on our own, it continues to point toward a time when God will intervene on behalf of his creation. The New Testament is the climax of the intervention.
Death for Christ but life for us
Through his suffering and death, Christ did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He embraced our sin that we might embrace him and the life made possible through him.
What Jesus did ‘at one moment' in time opened the gates for the whole world to find salvation. When Jesus said ‘it is finished' (John 19:30), everything that was required for our salvation to be won was completed. The awesome promise is that anyone - regardless of age, colour, gender, nationality or location - can come to Jesus and find salvation for their soul.
Our response
Whilst it is true that we cannot earn our salvation, we do have a small part to play.
Our two-fold part is to repent and believe. To repent is simply saying sorry to God for the times we have fallen short of his standard or broken our relationship with him. When we put our faith in God we are accepting his gift of salvation. It's like plugging in an appliance to the power source. Without power an appliance is useless; repentance without turning to God in faith is useless.
Renewed by the Spirit
The moment we repent and put our trust in God, his Spirit begins the process of making us new creations. Regeneration, as it is known, is a call to holy living. God's Spirit works in us and produces its fruit as evidence of his work (see Galatians 5:22-23).
God's Spirit also assures us that God is real; that he loves us and helps us grow in our faith and understanding of God.
What an awesome God!
God saw our broken relationship and everything that stood in the way of our perfect relationship with him. Out of his love for us he chose to do something about it. He opened the door of salvation to anyone who would respond to his amazing love. He gives us his Spirit to assure us of the fact that we are saved and to help us grow to maturity in Christ. How awesome is our God!
Stay tuned until next time when we will explore what we believe about our responsibility as Christ's followers.
Rusty serves on the territorial youth team as the Youth Inclusion Coordinator, where he works to help local youth groups and youth ministries connect with the poor and marginalised in their local area. Before joining the team, Rusty was a youth pastor for almost 5 years in Tuggerah Lakes.
Rusty's personal mission is to bring hope and life to a broken generation. He is married to Belinda.
save. grow. serve.
save - noah rzeminski
Noah Rzeminski from Wollongong tells how his father was not happy with his decision to b... Read more
serve - nick horvatic
Nick Horvatic from Bundaberg shares his journey as a youth worker over the past few year... Read more
Got your own story to share? Write to us today!
Comments
Rusty I love the fact that we're starting to delve into this stuff, thanks for putting the time into pulling these articles together. Look forward to seeing Doctrine 9 !!
I take my hat off to ya, it's a tough job you've got here trying to capture immense biblical and theological truth in like 500 words!! Would be great as well if we could have this shallow level for those just trying to get their head around the basics, but then links through to another article which is allowed to be much longer but also goes much deeper, cause man there's richness to be found!
Also would love to hear some perspectives and thoughts of young gun Salvo's from across the Territory on all of this, and what kind of questions they have, etc.
In any case thanks for all your doing guys !!
Blessings and much grace
-Nath