The Essential Doctrine of the Christ

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

(Rom 3:23; ESV)

What is the essential doctrine of the Christian faith?  We get different answers to that question depending on who we talk to.  However we propose to use the Bible to demonstrate to our readers’ satisfaction that the Ransom sacrifice of Christ Jesus and the companion teaching of the Restitution of mankind to its lost estate are the essential and central teaching of God’s word and the Gospel.  This is what was foremost in the minds of the Apostles and others as they wrote the books of the New Testament as we will see as we progress in this short consideration of this very important subject.  We will by no means treat this subject comprehensively as there are too many verses and passages to include in the short amount of space we have.  However, I will mention a book which does at the end.

To find out why mankind ended up in the fix it is in we have to go back to the beginning, to the first book in the bible, Genesis.  In the first chapters we are told That God created the heavens and the earth; and then we are told how God spent seven “days,” or more precisely “eras,” preparing the earth for human habitation (Gen. 1).  Towards the end of chapter one and through chapter two of Genesis we are told that to people were created, married, and placed in a garden which provided for all of their needs.  But in chapter three, something happens.  First the woman, Eve, then her husband, Adam, are tempted and break the only law given them by God, the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So, as Paul explained to the Roman Christians:  “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom 5:12).  That, in a nutshell, is why we are in the sorry condition we’re in with sin and death.

The essential doctrine of Christianity is that God didn’t leave us in that condition and did something about it. Paul carried the thought forward for us, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19).  So the answer was to provide a ransom for mankind, because of one man’s disobedience and sin we all die, but God reversed the situation through the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ (vs. 17).

To understand how that works it is important to understand a very important principle of God’s justice, and it is why Paul emphasized the thought of one man bringing in death and the other life.  That principle is exact equivalency of the punishment fitting the crime.  According to the law:

And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again. And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death.

(Lev 24:17-21)

This is the famous “an eye for an eye” law.  And the principle here stated is that exactly what was done must be recompensed exactly.  That was why Paul stated in the earlier cited passage from Romans, “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).  So what was lost had to be provided for a ransom.

So what was lost?  What was lost was the perfect life of the first man.  He was created perfect and had the prospect of eternal life before him and every human who has ever lived came from him, including Eve, who was made from his rib.   All of us, with the exception of Jesus, received life from him through all the males who preceded us.  That is how life is passed on, from the male to the female.  So, from God’s standpoint all of us were still in Adam’s loins when he sinned, so all of us received the sentence which was pronounced on him before the conception of his first child.  Jesus gave up his perfect life in order to ransom mankind back from death.  That fact is directly stated in three places, twice by Jesus and once by Paul, though the same thing is presented elsewhere in other terms in God’s word:

Mat_20:28  Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Mar_10:45  For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

1Ti_2:6  Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

That is why a Trinitarian god-man couldn’t provide the ransom necessary.  What was required was a perfect man, a man who existed on the same level of existence as Adam, and we in him, did before his act of disobedience changed everything for us.

But did Jesus live and die to give said ransom?  That is a legitimate question since scholars, some of them nominally Christian and teaching in seminaries, don’t believe it happened, that it was all a myth.  But Paul expounded on the fact of Jesus’ sacrifice and that message to the Corinthians reassures us of the fact of the Christian message.  So, with what we’ve written so far in mind, let’s go through his message:

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; (1Co 15:1)

So Paul state’s right up front that he is about to declare the Gospel, the essential doctrine of Christianity:

By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: (1Co 15:2-4)

So he states plainly that Jesus died according to the scripture, that is what I wrote about from the law, which is only part, and he rose on the third day after his death, which was also prophesied in scripture (Matt. 12:38-40, where Jesus predicts this using Jonah).  Then Paul goes on to prove what he says:

And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1Co 15:5-9)

That is quite a list of people who saw the resurrected Jesus and includes one which is only alluded to in the Gospels without giving any details (Lk. 24:34).  Paul then spends two verses on a personal side note before giving one of the most profound refutations for the notions that Jesus was not resurrected and why it was necessary that he was:

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. (1Co 15:12-23)

So there it is, the Essential Doctrine of Christianity.  In a nutshell it is that Adam sinned and was condemned and all of us along with him by virtue of our being in him.  And Jesus was born as a perfect human to provide a ransom for all by ransoming Adam, along with all of his offspring by virtue of the same reasons as the fall, by giving up that life on behalf of us all.  That he did so, along with his resurrection, which was witnessed to by upwards of over five hundred people.  Thus we have a guarantee that he not only was successful, but that all the dead will be resurrected and all given the opportunity of eternal life, each in his own place.

The book I mentioned which does comprehensively treat the subject is The At-One-Ment Between God and Man, and can be purchased here.

By way of disclosure I'm just a Brother in Christ to the folks I linked to and know some of them.  That is the site where I purchase most of my personal literature.

The Answer to Sin

Thank you for waiting my friends and readers.  The reasons some of my posts are so far apart are my health.  I prefer to write when I can give of my best to our Lord.  I have another blog where I write about my health issues Here.

My last post was about sin.  What it is and why we all are guilty.  As outlined in what was mostly a word study the situation appears quite hopeless.  But as I pointed out at the end all is not as hopeless as it seems.  We are told in the bible that God is love (1 John 4:8).  That being the case it would seem that he would do something about the hopeless situation of those who were created in his image (Gen. 1:27).  He did.    But how, how could this curse be lifted off us and salvation be made possible for everybody (2 Tim. 2:4).

The answer is really found in the Mosaic Law, where God’s standards for justice are outlined for us.  The foundational principle for God’s standard of justice is simply stated in the phrase “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Ex. 21:24).  This is a much misunderstood and maligned requirement which is often portrayed as barbaric today.  But in Moses’ day was nothing less than revolutionary in a Middle Eastern world where the penalty seldom matched the offense.  I’ll save the exposition on that for another day.

But the important thing to keep in mind as we progress in our study is the principle of equivalence.  Simply put punishment was equal to the crime.  In the case of theft the thief had to compensate the victim for both the value of what was stolen plus compensation for inconvenience and loss of income from his property in the case of that property, such as livestock, provided and ongoing income through shearing fur, birthing or fathering new livestock.  This was important in an agricultural society where such a loss over time wasn’t a minor inconvenience.

In other matters, such as if a man harmed his fellow in a serious way which impeded one’s ability to make a living or even killed them, an equal penalty was mandated.  All the way through the law this idea of an equivalent penalty is enshrined.  But the lesson for us is also driven home by another matter which God used to pave the way for our understanding of how our sins would be covered over for us.  That was in connection with Israel’s deliverance from bondage to Egypt.

The last penalty God imposed on the Egyptians in judgment for their failure to let the sons of Israel go was the death of their firstborn.  From the first born of the servants to that of Pharaoh himself, all died that Passover night (Ex. 11, 12).  Within the same three chapters of Exodus we find that the firstborn of the Israelis were spared death as long as their households held the Passover sacrifice and marked their doorways with the blood of the lamb.

After their liberation God reminded the children of Israel of what he did on their behalf and required that all firstborn, of both man and beast, as belonging to him (Ex. 13:1&2).  God required that every male firstborn Israeli be redeemed, that is a price paid to God to buy them back from him (Ex. 13:13).  God took the tribe of Levi as redemption for the firstborn of Israel (Num. 3:11-13), however, something curious happened.  When a registration and census was taken of Israel the tribe of Levi’s firstborn males were 273 less than the firstborn of the rest of Israel (Num. 3:14-43).  So God required Israel to pay five shekels to redeem each of the excess firstborn of Israel (Num. 3:44-51).  So in this little piece of history we see the principle of exact equivalence for redemption required.

That is what Jesus did for us and it is important for us to understand that in order to see how he redeemed us.  It becomes even clearer when we answer the question of what was lost.  That goes back to the Story of Adam and Eve and their fall from perfection (Gen. 2:4-3:24).  Another important thing to notice when you read that story, dear friend, is that the entire human sinful race, including Eve, came from Adam (2:21-25).  Although the rest of us don’t appear in the story we were still technically represented there as Adam’s potential unborn offspring in his loins since we all descend from him without exception.  So what was really lost was Adam’s life as a perfect human being.  That is why none of us could pay the redemption price for mankind, because none of us are the exact equivalent, the price required by God’s standards for justice.  That is where Jesus comes in.

In the last post I quoted a passage from Romans:

“So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19; ASV)

That, in a nutshell encapsulates God’s plan of redemption and the need for it as I just outlined.  It was through one man that sin entered the world, and one man had to pay the redemption price, the exact equivalent of what was lost.  That is what God’s justice has required, the life of an unblemished, sinless, perfect man to stand in for Adam and buy back the human race from sin.  Jesus’ life was miraculously transformed and transferred to Mary’s womb.  Jesus then became the second man exactly like Adam in every respect to walk the earth and he sacrificed his life to buy back humanity from its slavery to sin.

That this now applies to all of mankind, without exception, Paul mentioned to the young man Timothy in his second letter.  Earlier I pointed you, my dear readers, to 2 Tim. 2:4, which says “Who (That is, God) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  Now lets look at the verses which follow:

“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” (1Ti 2:5-6)

This is a powerful passage which gets misused by some to argue that all will ultimately be saved.  But when verse four, the context, is added and Revelation chapter twenty along with what we’ve learned are all brought to bear on the subject of salvation we see that what all are saved from is Adam’s sin and raised to “come unto the knowledge of the truth” and have the chance they never really had to have life eternal.

This is the essential doctrine of Christianity.  Every time Paul expounds on basic doctrine this is what we get, what we read in Romans chapter five and elsewhere.  He also speaks of a second hope for some, but that is a topic for another post.

Sin

Sin, what is it and what does it mean for us?  Don’t worry; this is no diatribe against any particular group as you will see as we progress in our consideration dear reader.  But sin is an important subject, one which is uncomfortable for most for good reason.  Yet it is one every one who wants to be a footstep follower of the Master, Jesus Christ, must bring themselves face to face with because accepting the facts concerning it is the first step down the road to the prize of immortal and eternal life.

I count six nouns which Unger and White’s Hebrew section in my Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words Tells me are translated as sin at least part of the time.  Instead of trying to cover each and every one, some are more often translated other things such as “sin offering,” I will hit the ones most used for the concept and what they tell us since that will allow me to keep things within the limitations of space I try to keep to.

‘Awen (H205) carries the thought of “iniquity, vanity and sorrow” (all definitions for the Hebrew will be taken from Unger and White).  Unger also states that the word “’awen means the absence of all that has true worth; hence, it would denote ‘moral worthlessness’ as in actions of wrongdoing, evil devising, or false speaking.”  So what we see here is how God views the actions of mankind.  This word is used at Psalms 90:10 to indicate the futility of all our efforts to prolong our lives as our sinful natures bring our downfall into death anyway.

‘Asham (H817), means “sin; guilt; guilt offering; trespass; trespass offering.”  This word highlights two aspects of sin, that of trespassing and the guilt thereof.  What is it we trespass?  The answer is obvious, God’s righteous standards and laws.  While Gentile Christians aren’t under the Law of Moses, they are under another law, that given to Noah as part of God’s covenant with mankind in consideration of his promise never to bring a flood again.  Its requirements were articulated for us by the Council in Jerusalem in the first century at Acts 15:23-29.  But even were we to keep that covenant as per written for us we still fall short of God’s perfect standards, but more on that later.  So we are still trespassers and guilty before God.

‘Awon (5771) has the idea of being twisted or perverted in life.  Who can doubt that in this modern world it is nearly impossible not to live a life which is perverted in some way?  Most of the entertainment marketed to us through TV, books, music, magazine and other means is every bit as twisted as ancient Rome.  And throughout history such things have tended towards the lowest common denominator.

We think the sexual revolution of the sixties and the resulting immorality is something all that new.  Look around the world in all times at what was called “art" and even enters the hallowed confines Churches and temples and it’s easy to see our times aren’t really unique.  Read the records of punishment in the Colonies, or even Europe and other places of women being sentenced to public flogging for having children out of wedlock or being caught in adultery and about the only thing striking about our day is the availability of effective contraceptives to hide the conduct and the lack of penalties.  So our times are not so unique in people leading sinful and twisted lives on one level or another.

Chatta’t (H2403) is the last of the ones I will consider from the Old Testament Hebrew.  “The basic nuance of this word is ‘sin’ conceived as missing the road or mark.”  This will be important later on.  But this is another aspect of sin and why in the absence of a law code all are still guilt of sin.  God’s Standards are high and such that imperfect people just can measure up or hit the mark.  So no matter how good we try to live our lives we still “miss the mark,” or sin and fail.  This is probably the most important aspect of sin to understand and keep in mind.

In the New Testament the Basic word for “sin” is hamartia (G266) and this is the word around which all other words in the NT for "sin" are built.  It is the Koine Greek equivalent of chatta’t and means to miss the mark as well.  This is the concept around which the New Testament writers built their theology.  The whole idea is the truth that no matter how stringent and intense our efforts to live up to God’s perfect standard, or law, we just cannot make it and we need help.

Probably the best illustration of this I’ve ever seen is in the street ministry of both Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron.  They go out on the streets and pick those who will talk to them and using the Ten Commandments and some of Jesus’ teachings which touch on them they question those people, many of whom consider themselves to live righteous lives and they demonstrate just how far they “miss the mark,” and sin.  If you don’t have an idea what I’m talking about just go here and watch the movie 180, where you’ll get to see Ray comfort in action.  It’s worth your half-hour.

Paul wrote his letter to the Romans as an exposition on basic Christian truth.  He opens up his letter describing the condition of man, how fallen and twisted in life most have fallen.  It reads like today and what he had to say in the first chapter is often quoted by many to condemn one sin in particular, homosexuality.  But he was speaking of much, much more. In the second chapter he expounds on the fairness of the judgment on God’s part.  But we want to take particular note of chapter five.

In Romans Chapter five Paul brings home the point that all of us sin, all are lost.  He does this by explaining to his readers that we all sin because of the act of our father, Adam, in taking the fruit and sinning against God through his disobedience.  Thus, through his sin we all are dying because we sin (vs. 12, 14, 18, 19 and 21).  It can be stated no more plainly than this:

“So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19; ASV)

That, my dear readers, is the state we all find ourselves in.  The bottom line is that all of us are sinners.  Not the greedy, or homosexuals, or robbers, or fornicators, whores, people in the church pews, the synagogues, the mosques or whatever else we can think of.  ALL of us are sinners and all deserving of nothing but death without help.  There are no exceptions.  I wrote earlier that this is an uncomfortable topic.  But as you ponder that, dear reader, do know there is hope.  It is mentioned in the verses I quoted for you.  That is what I hope to start on next.