“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.
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.
