Basics of Christian Belief

If faith in Jesus is the only way for us to get into relationship with God, then we must know who Jesus is. Throughout Christian history, he’s been described as the “incarnate” Son of God. This comes from a latin word that means enfleshed. We believe that Jesus is truly human and at the same time truly God. When Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, he added to his person a human nature. He is therefore one person with two natures. (see John 1:1-2; John 1:14; Colossians 1:15-20; and Philippians 2:-1-11 for starters). The incarnation made it possible for Jesus to live a truly human life and die a truly human death (see more on this below).

If Jesus is God, then how are we to understand the identity of the Father and the Holy Spirit? This is primarily what the early church creeds were clarifying. The verbiage they chose to describe how God is both ONE (see verses like Deuteronomy 6:4) and THREE (see verses like Matthew 28:19) is “trinity” or literally “tri-unity”. We believe, along with the church for 2000 years, that God is triune. He is one God and three persons and each of those persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are fully God.

So why does all of this God talk matter to us humans? This can only be fully understood if we know what a human is. This is one of the biggest questions of our age and the Bible has some really clear answers. Human beings are created by God to be his image bearers (see Genesis 1:26-31). This means that human beings are uniquely designed by God to relate to him and then reflect who he is and how he acts. This image bearing includes countless attributes from truth telling to the creation of beautiful things. God was so committed to the proliferation of this image bearing that he created humans as male and female and commanded them to multiply and fill the earth. (see Genesis 1:26-31).

No matter who we are or what we believe, all of us agree that the world is not as it should be. While there is a great deal of beauty and good in the world, there is also much that is wrong. Christians believe there is a root cause of all that wrong. The Bible calls this root cause “sin”. The word sin literally means “missing the mark”. Sin first occurs in the garden of Eden when Adam and Eve reject God’s standard of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). The result of sin is the condition known as death (Romans 5:12-14 and Romans 6:23). This means that the world we live in (including ourselves) is tainted by sin, the most serious of which is eternal separation from our life-giving creator God.

If sin and its effects are our problem, then what is the solution? The need for a solution brings us back to the incarnate Son of God (see the section on “Who is Jesus”). Jesus didn’t just add a human nature to his person to walk around earth and teach us how to live. Jesus became truly human so that he could take on the consequences of our sin, namely death (Hebrews 2:14). The New Testament book of Romans sums up both the problem and the solution in one verse (Romans 6:23): “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus’ death acts in a substitutionary way for us so that the consequences of our sin (death) could be dealt with. This saving from sin is then offered to us as a free gift which we can receive by faith (Romans 3:23-27). When we receive that gift by faith, we are forgiven of our sins and brought into a living relationship with God that lasts for eternity.

The “response” that is needed from us is less about us doing something and more about us receiving what Jesus has done for us (John 1:12,13). Once a person has come to believe in who Jesus is and what he has done for them, they are now a Christian. While this is an eternity altering moment, it is only the beginning of the experience. When we read about the first Christian converts in the book of Acts (see Acts 2:41) we see them professing their faith by being baptized. This was not only an individual act but also a communal one. They were participating in a ritual that was professing that they were joining themselves with Jesus as well as joining themselves with his people. The local expression of God’s people, that every Christian is to join, is known as the church. Every church is to be a Christ-centered community that functions like a healthy family and is committed to growing in a relationship with Jesus through the study of God’s word, prayer, intentional relationships, worship, and mission (Acts 2:42 and Acts 1:8)

The local church is much more than a group of friends who enjoy getting together or a service organization who serve in the community. The church is a group of Christians who have designated themselves as members of a local expression of God’s universal Church (1 Corinthians 1:2), placed themselves under biblically qualified leadership (1 Timothy 3:1-7), practice the ordinances of baptism and communion as commanded by Christ (Matthew 28:19 & , 1 Corinthians 11:23-26) and regularly preach the Bible as God’s primary means of communication with his people (2 Timothy 4:1-3). These “marks” are the essentials of a healthy church and are the means that God uses to care for and mature disciples of Jesus.

The world as we know it ends when Jesus returns which is known as his “second coming” (John 14:1-3). When this happens there will be a judgment and those who have relied on Christ’s sacrifice for their sin will be welcomed into God’s kingdom for eternity (John 17:3). Those who have not believed in Jesus and what he’s done to remedy their sin will be separated from God for eternity (John 3:17,18). This eternal kingdom of God is also known as “the new heavens and the new earth” (2 Peter 3:12-14) meaning that we will live in a physical world in resurrected physical bodies that is somehow like the old world but completely free of sin and all of sin’s effects. (Revelation 21-22).