Proper soteriology and the Gospel

Proper understanding of salvation and our need for Christ is essential in this dark day and age. Satan works in ways that keeps us focused on our self, our own efforts for salvation, and on suppressing truths from God's word that are meant to wake us up and see the glory of Christ.

Being a Christian in North America is especially hard. It's like a frog being boiled to death. If you increase the temperature slowly it'll never jump out of the pot. This is what Satan does, through sneaky trends over long periods of time, he's pulling people away from Biblical truth. Just look at the postmodernism around you, everybody does whatever is right in their own eyes, there is no authority or obedience, and people wonder why life is so dark and painful, why people are so messed up. I hope that everyone in CCF will understand and know these basic truths, especially the new committee, so you can be firm in your faith, stand against the schemes and tricks of the princess and rulers of this day and age, and minster to the people effectively to the glory of God.

The new birth
In Ezekiel 11:14-21 and 36:24-27, God describes for us what happens when someone is saved. When Israel wandered in the desert, and finally settled in the promised land, most of the people utterly failed to keep God's commandments. Even after hundreds of years of patience and warning from God, the people went after other gods and lived in immorality no different than other nations. The Ezekiel passages describe the work of salvation as replacement of hearts, the old heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh, and God gives his Spirit to the people. Then they desire to obey God's law.

This can also be seen in the New Testament. Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 5 that those must be born again in the spirit to inherit the kingdom, and again he says in John 14 that those who love him obeys his commandments. John also writes in 1 John 5 that those who love God obeys his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

Here we can conclude several things:

• The unsaved person will not be able to keep God's commandments, neither does he/she desire to do so
• Salvation is the work of God by changing a person's heart and giving him/her his Spirit
• This is experienced by the person through new desires and delight in obeying God's commandments

Don't let people deceive you, believing in Jesus is not just knowing doctrine and theology, if you know all the doctrine yet don't want to obey God, you need to examine your faith.

The Gospel
The Gospel is not as simple as what most tracts say. The Gospel is about Christ, and one can study and learn of the riches and glory contained within for their whole life. For the sake of keeping things short, here's a short summary of the Gospel's main components:

• Christ died for our sin
• He was buried
• He rose again the third day and was seen by many witnesses
• His kingdom has come in part and will come in full

(The first three points are from 1 Cor 15 1-11, the last point is from the Gospel of Matthew.)
The whole point of preaching the Gospel is not for people to learn some knowledge about a person named Jesus, but to offer sinners an opportunity for repentance and faith(Acts 17:30, Romans 1:16-17, 1 Cor 15:1-2). Therefore, we must understand and be convicted of sin and it's consequences, and the preciousness of the free gift of life in Christ.

Sin

Many people would define sin as missing the mark. It's true that's what the word means, but it has become a cliche. Sin is our moral, spiritual inability to obey God's commandments, therefore breaking our relationship with God. We must not simply know this, but see this in our lives.
If we examined ourselves, we would have noticed this is true, and we have all sinned. Just read Exodus 20 and Matthew 5, and ask yourself if you have truly lived up to these standards all your life. People will often think they are basically good, maybe it's true by everyone's own standards, but when measured up to God's perfect standard, nobody is good, and the consequences are very dire. Everyone is destined for eternal punishment under God's wrath.(Isaiah 66:24)
Going back to the new birth, we can say that nobody can cleanse their own sin, for salvation belongs to the Lord. So how then can people be saved? Through a response to the Gospel.

Repentance and faith

Repentance is turning away from sin and our efforts in trying to save ourselves, and faith in this sense is being assured of Christ being the only possibility for salvation. This is not just some decision a person makes, but are the outward manifestation of God's work in convicting a person of sin, renewing their heart, and giving them the Holy Spirit.

Salvation

Salvation is not just a one time repentance, but one must grow and continue in repentance and faith to be saved, one must go to Jesus daily to be washed of sin(John 13:8, 1 John 2:1-2). There are people who make shipwreck and abandon their faith. As strange as it seems, even though it is God's work of salvation, we have to persevere. This can be seen all over Jesus' parables in Matthew warning against false assurance of faith, as well as many of the New Testament's urge to persevere and work out our salvation.(1 Cor 15:2, Philippians 2:12, Heb 4, 6:1-8, 10:11-18, 12:25-29), yet the Bible also tells us that we can have confidence knowing God has saved us, and will finish his work until the end(Romans 8:37-39, Philippians 1:6). How then do we reconcile these 2 truths?

• Those who are truly saved bear good fruit
• Are we becoming more loving, peaceful, joyful, faithful, kind, virtuous, gentle, and self controlled?
• Are we using our gifts to edify the church, building people up in Christ likeness?

As we examine ourselves and see these things are true in our lives, our assurance of God working in us grows, and we grow in these things more and more, this is a cycle leading to salvation, yet when we are asked, "who has done this work?" we say, "not to us, but to him, be all the glory, honour, and power, forever and ever, amen."