Salvation Essentials
Apr 2nd, 2007 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General ChristianMy immediately preceding post – “Resurrection Essential?” – sparked a week long discussion the ramifications of the resurrection of Christ in the faith of one belonging to Him. All seemed to clearly say that one must believe in the resurrection to have saving faith. Not the least of which, I also take that position.
The discussion did begin to touch on other doctrines and whether or not they were essential. Among them was the Virgin Birth and, most recently, a substitutionary view of the atonement.
On top of that, Jim Stratton asked a good question, which I had the privilege of clarifying with him in person at our association’s team meeting last week. His question involved the instruction of children in the primary doctrines. I am going to fold these two thoughts together and ask a follow up question from last week.
What doctrines are absolute essentials for salvation and if you were building a “curriculum,” for either home education or discipleship within the church, when would you approach these doctrines?
By the way, a young man in our church professed Christ as his Lord this morning. His family had shared Christ with him and, of course, he had heard of Christ growing up in church. They were patient with him, not pressing him to “walk the aisle.” The burden became great on him today and he told his family that he wanted to make a public stand. Good stuff.
I feel free to share that with you, because I had a little to do with that as could be. What he has spiritually came, primarily, from his family and then from a church that I only recently joined myself.
It is a great thing when families take personal responsibility for the spiritual journey of their kids.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
I’m not sure I’m up to even commenting on this one, but that never stopped me before.
I know that, when I was 8 or so, I trusted Jesus to take me to heaven when I died. I know He saved me right then, and subsequently saw to it that I was fed and grew from there to something more mature than babyhood. As my prayer partner told me when his son, age 8, was saved: “He gave as much of himself as he could give, to as much of Jesus as he could take”.
The resurrected Jesus is the only One there is. If you believe in a Savior that’s still dead, you don’t believe in Him. Regardless of what you call that “savior”, you’re trusting in someone who can’t take you to heaven.
I didn’t weigh in on the last discussion, and it doesn’t look like I needed to.
My dad is part of a group known as The Christadelphians. I always tease him, calling him Jehovah’s Witnesses without all the walking and door knocking. Their basic doctrines are very similar to JWs, although they deny it emphatically.
There is a difference, in my mind, between ignorance and conscious rejection of a doctrine. My dad consciously rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, the diety of Christ, and hell. I asked a friend once if belief in these doctrines was essential to salvation, and he said no. “When I first got saved, I thought the Trinity was a car,” he said. It occurred to me that a person who is truly saved will accept by faith whatever truth he discovers, as he works out his salvation with fear and trembling. A person who is not truly saved will reject those doctrines that are essential.
What is important is that those who have attended seminary not reject those who are not to the same level of intellectual maturity as others.
I believe that a person must profess that Jesus is the leader of their life. We can grow in our understanding of other doctrines. But faith in Jesus is it.
Brother Art,
I would not be so dogmatic as to say that when you lead someone to Christ you must ask them to believe in the bodily resurrection, virgin birth, blood atonement, and then ask them if they desire to receive Jesus. However, I would not be so open minded as to say that when one does receive Christ they may reject these doctrines. If they reject these doctrines then they have rejected God’s Word, and if they have rejected God’s Word then they truly have not received Jesus. John 1:1
Brother Jason,
You said; “What is important is that those who have attended seminary not reject those who are not to the same level of intellectual maturity as others.” My Daddy had a 7th grade education and when he was born again, he did not need a seminary education to accept the doctrines. These doctrines are first tier doctrines.
Blessings,
Tim
I agree Tim. You may have missed my point. I have heard people say things like, “they’re not saved, because they don’t believe in substitutionary atonement.” I would venture to say that the average person has no clue what that means. But if we asked them if they believe that Jesus took their place on the cross to pay the penalty for their sin, they would agree.
Seminary graduates often have one thing in common–they like to try and impress others with deep theological terms, terms which most people are not familiar with. We need to be careful to present the Gospel to people in a way that is simple and easy to grasp–the milk of the Word. We can’t expect too much of a baby.
I doubt that your daddy knew all there was to know about the doctrines of the faith, but he accepted them by faith as they were presented to him. Had he come to a first tier doctrine, and said, “I don’t buy that,” I might have been an indication that he was not truly renewed by the Holy Spirit.
Heck, I went to college and seminary, and I don’t always understand it all.
Tim and JasonK,
Thank you for confirming the fact that I did not have to know everything about the gospel when I got saved. Now, I will not be tempted to blow up your houses:-) (You will have to read my testimony on Art’s last post to get the joke) Also, I agree with you both in saying a person that has truly had an experience of grace will believe the Deity of Christ and the essentials of the gospel when the Spirit reveals them to him through the Scripture and proper study of Christian theology.
cb
Something tells me that CB and the duck in the comic strip Pearls Before Swine were military buddies.
Paul, I don’t know who CB’s army buddies were, but I know that’s what Marty Duren does whenever I mention CB.
Duck.
I really wanted to start this same thread on my blog, but you get all the traffic so I’ll just join the discussion. Here’s a secondary question that I wonder about. I’m a pastor and I still give altar calls and I still occasionally ask people to “raise that hand” etc. My question is, “If a person is not public in his or her profession of faith, do they possess saving faith?” My followup question is, “How public does that profession have to be (what is it to be)?” It seems that I ask so many and see so few, and many I see and pray with seem to bear little or no fruit of their profession.
Brother Jason,
Good thoughts! You are correct, I did mis-read the intentions of your words. While you would be correct that Daddy did not understand the minutiae of the words, he could explain to anyone in clear terms what substitutionary atonement means. Oh, and the Virgin birth–he knew the that the word virgin and the phrase young girl were not synonymous.
Brother Art,
These last two articles are great discussions.
Brother CB,
I ain’t messin with your kid’s or dog. Oh, Mrs. Karen can take care of herself.:>)
Blessings,
Tim
Art,
I too observed your discussion last week but did not join in, primarily because I didn’t feel I had much to add. I was thinking about it yesterday, however, and I do want to add something to the conversation. I think that it is impossible to believe in Christ without having some understanding of the Divinity/Humanity of Jesus, His Resurrection, His Virgin Birth, Sinless Life, and Substitutionary Atonement (not to limit the atonement to just a substitutionary nature). Also, I think you have to understand that He ascended into Heaven and poured out the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Him, and that salvation comes through faith in Christ and His work for you. Now, on what level you have to understand those things, I’m not sure, but I think that some understanding is basic and necessary and comes quite simply, even to children through the telling of the gospel stories. Even children understand stories.
The reason I say that, is because if you do not believe those things, are you really believing in the real Jesus? I mean, how can you believe in Jesus without knowing that He was raised from the dead? That He lived a sinless life and took our sins upon Himself? What are you believing in? An idea? A cultural religious icon? I don’t quite know how saving faith is produced, but it seems that the Bible says something about faith coming by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. That says to me that you have to “hear” the gospel in order for faith to be birthed. Now, whether you can fully articulate all the points precisely might not be necessary, but any child who I have ever talked to that wants to give their life to Christ understands that He died for their sins and was raised from the dead. This is why the gospel must be preached and trusted and a basic belief in God apart from His atoning work on the Cross is not necessarily a saving faith, in my opinion. We have to remember that the gospel is not complex. With the anointing of the Holy Spirit it is not a difficult thing. But, God has to open people’s eyes through the preaching of the Word. Salvation is impossible unless God calls people by His Spirit anyway. When He calls, He lifts the veil.
I’m not trying to limit salvation to people, but rather, I am trying to give all of the elements of the gospel the same place that Scripture does.
If I take Romans 10:9-10, then a person must confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ and believe in their hearts in the resurreciton of Jesus Christ from the grave. There is a difference between believing the facts of Jesus and trusting them in the heart. There is also a difference between wanting to be saved and submitting to the Lordship of Christ. I think Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus and the explantion of being born again describes a heart change, and his interaction with the rich young ruler describes a Lordship change. I live in a place where almost everyone I talk to believes in Jesus. So, either about 90% of the residents of my area are born again because they “believe in” Jesus, or belief in the heart is different than simple mental belief. I think that the Lordship issue is “the” issue. Many believe the facts, but few are willing to trust those facts to the point of allowing Jesus Christ to run their lives. When a person is truly born again, he or she desires for Jesus to be their Lord. I don’t think that there is such a thing as an incognito Christian. Jesus said, “Whoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I also confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” (Mt.10:32-33)
I guess we all wore ourselves out with comments last week. I certainly affirm that the Resurrection is a vital and necessary part of the Biblical identification of Jesus, without which salvation does not happen.
I will join the thoughts of others for a moment. I thought a good place to start would be Acts 2:14-39, which is Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. In that passage he hints at, highlights, or expounds on several items:
1. The Holy Spirit
2. The role of God in the crucifixion of Christ, ie it was part of the plan of God.
3. The resurrection
4. The divinity of Christ
5. Their sin and their need to repent
On that day multitudes were saved. Now, that may not be a comprehensive expression of a “curriculum” but it may be a starting point. I’m not specifically describing that one must believe the totality of each doctrine, heck, I’m not even saying that a person must believe all the doctrines. But this may be a good place to start the discussion.
I would challenge you to look into the history of the early church (Robert Webber’s Ancient/Future stuff is a great place to look) and for them (think late 1st-4th centuries) salvation wasn’t an event, but a continual process.
Other passages may reveal less to consider and others more. But since this was the first sermon out of the shoot, it’s worth considering.