SALVATION: THE BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALS


The first evidence that God is Real is by that which is called Natural Revelation.  It is obvious that the Universe, including Life, is so perfectly organized, reflected in the Sciences, that Creation cannot have all fallen in place by accident. The overwhelming infinitely calculable odds, if it could be calculated by the human race, are against it being an accident. Our only remaining option is that there had to be an all-knowing all-powerful Creator who created it and His identity is self-evident to be the One GOD!

All that we know of God, through the Bible, is miniscule in comparison to the totality of God. With God being all-knowing, all powerful, perfect, and not lacking of anything, God is deserving of Man's Worship. God can do anything He sees fit, including making His will known to Man by any miracle means He determines.

The Old Testament begins with God's Creation. The last thing He creates is Adam and Eve. God gave them a perfect life with their dominion over Creation. He gave them one rule which they did not keep. They were not to eat of the tree of good and evil. It was disobedience to God which was the first sin. It signifies the Fall of Man. Adam and Eve's Sin thus entered and multiplied throughout the whole World.

Much later, God calls upon Moses with a long term plan where God will eventually win Man back to himself. God tells Moses to lead the Jews out of the bondage of Egypt and leads them to the land of Israel. Along the way God leads Moses alone up a mountain where God carves in stone Ten Commandments for Moses to present to the Jews. Exodus 20:2-17. These Ten Commandments define Sin. However, it remains to be seen that Jewish Ordinances and Commandments will not lead to a sinless life that is pleasing to God. All humanity are sinners. Of course, God knows all this beforehand and it is all part of His much bigger plan where man will eventually find forgiveness of sin and restored fellowship with God.

It is important to learn the nature of God through the Bible and to not conjure up a religiosity that may seem Biblical but is not. Man has a tendency to be pagan. It is man-made religion. Even true believers might have an erroneous tendency to think they have to do something to please God. They might even think that God needs their help. They become divided... sectarian... denominational, which is the independent choosy spirit. It is written that division is sin. 2Timothy 4:3, Titus 3:10, 1Corinthians 1:10 And pride motivates us to be authoritative.

The Old Testament starting with, "In the beginning God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth." Elohim is plural which supports the doctrine of the triune personalities of God being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the One God. It helps to understand that God is a multiplicity: one times one times one equals one. All three are the one Deity. All three are unified personalities and they might not be comprehended in human terms. They are infinitely one. 1John 5:7, "For there are three bearing witness in Heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one." [This study uses the KJ3 Literal Translation of the Bible.]

In the New Testament, the Gospel of John starts out with, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being." Verse 4: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it." Verse 9: "He was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to His own [Israel], and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become children of God, to the ones believing into His name, who were generated not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were generated of God. And The Word became flesh and tabernacled [dwelt] among us. And we beheld His glory as of the only begotten one [born] from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Acts 4:12: "and there is salvation in no other One, for neither is there another name under Heaven having been given among men by which it is necessary for us to be saved." Philippians 2:5-11: "For let this mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus, who subsisting in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, having become in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, having become obedient until death, even the death of a cross. Because of this also God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus 'every knee should bow,' of heavenly ones, and earthly ones, and ones under the earth, and 'every tongue should confess' that Jesus Christ is 'Lord,' to the glory of God the Father."

God sent His Son, "The Word", part of Himself, on a mission to save the World. The Word was not 'Jesus in the form of a man, walking in Heaven'. The Word became "flesh" - when the Virgin Mary was miraculously impregnated with Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Next, Jesus became The Christ when He was anointed by John the baptizer. John's Kingdom message was that if Israel would repent, that the Kingdom of God would be established right away (still under the law) and that is why he was performing a ceremonial cleansing of his subjects. In the Kingdom all Israel will know the Lord and we know that still hasn't happened yet. See Jeremiah 31:34 John was confused when Jesus came amidst the water ceremony because he knew that Jesus was sinless and did not need the remission of sin. Matthew 3:13-17. There had to be a different reason for Jesus to come forward. It was his anointing to be the Christ. Christos means "anointed one". There is no efficacy in copying Christ, in this context, for us to be anointed like Him. Again, Christ does all the work and we do not have the sinless credentials to copy Him. Still under the Law, it appears that the baptizer did not yet know that our sins would be remitted by Jesus Christ's sacrifice on a cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sin.

Jesus was fully Man and fully God. Colossians 2:9, "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily". Jesus did all the work for our salvation. We do not work our way to Heaven. All we can do is accept the Gospel message, confess our sinful nature, and we must accept Christ for our salvation through His conditional forgiveness of sin, unto eternal life. Galatians 2:16, "knowing that a man is not justified by works of law, but that it is through faith in Jesus Christ we believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of law, because all flesh will not be justified by works of law...". Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves [your doing]; it is the gift of God; not of works, that not anyone should boast;" Prior to salvation all our good works are considered "filthy rags". Isaiah 84:6. Good works are performed once we are saved being motivated by the Holy Spirit in our service to the Lord. James 2:18. Otherwise, faith without works is dead. James 2:26.

The Law of the Old Testament is our school master. Galatians 3:24-26. Part of the Jewish ordinances under the Old Testament Law is that an annual sacrifice of a perfect, spotless lamb was for the purpose of being a sacrifice for forgiving the sins of Israel temporarily until the next year all over again. It helps Israel to eventually understand the meaning of Christ's sacrifice as the sacrificial lamb; spotless, without blemish [without sin], for the sin of all the World, that only Jesus could die for the sin of humanity because only this man Jesus was without sin.

We become a Christian when we accept Jesus, the Christ, as the Son of God, who died for our sin, and arose to Heaven; upon our agreement with all of the above. We have to be sincere to validate ourselves. Romans 10:9-10, "Because if you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation." This is a formal act of conversion performed and administered only by the Holy Spirit, not by the hands of mortals. Only the Holy Spirit baptizes us; the very instant we become a true believer. This is the one baptism according to the New Testament epistle, under grace, Ephesians 4:4-6, "There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith [anti-sectarian], one baptism, one God and Father of all, He above all and through all and in you all." I quote Ephesians to preachers; they say they believe scripture, but they still have difficulty answering me when I ask them why they have two baptisms. They skirt the issue by saying water baptism is "an outer sign of an inner work"; which is not Biblical. If Christians can purge themselves of false doctrine, the Holy Spirit will no longer be grieved but free them up to more truth. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and gives us spiritual discernment if we are solid believers. It was the preaching of the Word that got folks baptized in the Holy Spirit, not water! He who legitimately believes is baptized. True belief and baptism are instantly the same process; an instant one step process. RE: The Great Commission, Matthew 28:18-20.

The final validation of the Gospel message is that Jesus having died on a cross was raised from the dead, was seen by 500 people, and was seen raised up into Heaven. 1Corinthians 15:1-11. This was necessary as proof that when Christians die they will be raised up into eternal life also: Romans 6:5-8, "For if we have been joined together in the likeness of His death, so also shall we be in the resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be nullified, so that we no longer serve sin. For the one that died has been justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that also we shall live with Him," 1Corinthians 15:14-20, "But if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is worthless, and your faith is also worthless. And also we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we witnessed as to God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if then dead ones are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised. But if Christ has not been raised, your faith is foolish; you are still in your sins. And then those that fell asleep [died] in Christ were lost. If we only have hope in Christ in this life, we are of all men most miserable. But now Christ has been raised from the dead; He became the first fruit of those having fallen asleep."

A true born-again Christian easily believes that the infinite powerful God created the universe; they must believe in God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; believe that Jesus was God's only begotten Son who, coming in the form of man, was miraculously born to a virgin. He performed miracles such as the lame to walk, blind to see, and He raised Lazarus from the dead, and Christ Jesus was raised up into Heaven. All this is in order to validate His Deity. His crucifixion was acceptable to God the father as payment for sin and God's forgiveness of sin which is available to all humanity. All a person has to do is believe in their heart, claim all this, and submit to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in order to receive eternal life in Heaven through Christ's Work, validated by our receiving the holy spirit. When Christ paid the price for our sin, all our sins (past, present, and future) were forgiven. True believers are relieved of all their guilt forever. Eternal life is forever, eternal. We cannot lose our salvation. If you lost it, you never had it. The un-pardonable sin is un-belief. No un-believers will go to heaven... unless they become believers.

In writing this paper, I try in the utmost to keep any opinion out of it. All human opinion regarding scripture is vanity unless it is corroborated by scripture. Mature Christians will ascribe that comparing Scripture with Scripture settles everything.

Philippians 3:20-21 "For our citizenship is in Heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our body of humiliation, for it to be conformed to His body of glory, according to the working of His power, even to put all things under Himself." John 10:28, "And I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish to the age, and not anyone shall pluck them out of My hand." Romans 8:38-39, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Don't you immensely love Christ for the plan He has worked for you? But... more so, do you love Him for WHO HE IS ? Is He Prominent [one of many] or Preeminent [unique, ultimate] in your life?

Extra...

The Bible says God cannot lie; God has no guile. God does not do evil that good may come of it. God does not give us trials to see how much pain and suffering we can take. God allows pain as the consequence of sin, which we either bring onto ourselves or others bring onto us. The reason for evil in the World is of Man's doing by rejecting God. Satan is the tempter. God gives believers the grace and strength to be faithful to Him whatever the temptation. If God forced us to behave, there would be no Grace.

God allows Man to reject Him because He does not force Man to accept Him. Faith and belief must be a person's free choice. Nobody gets saved against their will! Does it work to pray for someone to be saved? The Lord forgives the sinner who repents. God's way with Man is to draw Man to Himself by His love and ready forgiveness. We do not forgive sin; we are not bigger than God. Cheap empty forgiveness is when Christians rush in and forgive sinners before God does.

The Lord's Prayer, Matthew 6:12, the KJV "forgive" is aphes in the original Greek which really means to let go or surrender; "debts" is opheilo, the personal dynamic is to owe someone something. Then, Ephesians 4:32 says, "forgive yourselves, even as also God in Christ forgave you." In the original Greek it is karixomai, literally to show oneself to be pleasant. (Kittle Dictionary) All about being conciliatory.

Every generation conjures up who the anti-Christ might be and that the rapture would be soon because the then current deadly events; including more wars and rumors of wars. It could be today or even 2000 more years. The Lord's timing will be perfect in spite of our anxiety. Rejoice! Christ destroys evil at His Second Coming.

Covenants between God and the Jews are "eternal". Is.55:3, 61:8. Je32:40. Ez37:26. Before Jesus died, the Law was still in effect. The instant Jesus died, the veil of the temple was miraculously torn from top to bottom; no longer needing a high priest as an intermediary for our access to God. The Jewish Law with animal sacrifices, ceremonial cleansings and baptismal washings of proselytes, and holy days, ceased. Otherwise, we would still have a works program. The Passover Supper for Jews only, one night per year, does not translate into "communion Sunday". How can you hold a memorial for someone who is alive in Heaven and inside you? The Greek word for communion is koinonia for fellowship. At the last Passover, Jesus was present explaining the Passover Seder elements as pointing to him. He always was and is our Passover covering. The new covenant is future for Israel, and the House of Judah, and they will all know the Lord, which is not the case today. Jeremiah 31:31-34 Gentiles? Only put no greater burden but to only have four requirements being abstinence of idol sacrifices, blood, that strangled, and fornication! Acts 15:28-29. By the end of Acts, no ordinances nor holy days for any born again Christian!

When a sinner "believes on the Lord Jesus Christ" he is "crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised with Christ" and his new life is "hid with Christ in God." Gal. 2:20; Col. 2:10-12; 3:1-4; Rom. 6:1-5. The Word of God says the Christian is crucified WITH Christ, not LIKE Christ. Many sectarians are eager to have followers seek to imitate Christ's water baptism. They do this in spite of the fact that the apostle is speaking of Christ's burial in death and not His burial in the waters of Jordan. [Maurice Johnson]

A transition through Acts shows the church going from Jewish believers, to gentiles growing in acceptance, then all equal in fellowship. Starting in Acts 10 and Acts 15. It took the apostles awhile to understand. Galatians is a good intro to Romans, and warning that Christians are not under the Jewish Law, nor spurious denominational traditions but under Grace; no ordinances given by Paul. We need to study Biblical Christianity and purge man-made "traditions". Easter [Ishtar, Eostre, Baal, Ashteroth] replaced the original Greek pasha [Passover] Acts 12:4. Christmas is reflective of the pagan Roman festivals and worship of Nimrod. [Encyclopedia Britanica]

Bishops, in the original Greek, are literally overseers from among the local elders [all the older men] and are discerned for 17 qualifications as per Titus 1:4-9, Timothy 3:1-7. The fine ministering gifts such as preaching, teaching, serving, giving, exhortation, organization, and mercy are ministries; every Christian should have one. The qualifications presented in Titus and Timothy for overseer and deacon are for functions. These are the only functions the apostles left us. There is no "office of" allusion in the original literal Greek. They didn't have seminaries. They did not hire and fire lesser known men from outside the assembly. The Greek word mis-translated church means "called-out-ones"; never called a building.

The religious order, from the 4th Century, incorporated a semblance of the Jewish ordinances and holy days which are not valid under Grace. It was about 1300 more years until the Reformation but the churches still didn't quite figure it out. The ordinances and holy days are promoted as unquestioned tradition today. It is the greatest compromise to weaken Christianity back into a pagan works program.

Galatians 1:8-9 , "But even if we, or an angel out of Heaven, should preach the gospel to you beside the gospel we preached to you, let him be accursed." Revelation 22:18-19; incl. all scripture, "For I testify together with everyone hearing the Words of the prophecy of this Book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add upon him the plagues having been written in this Book. And if anyone takes away from the Words of the Book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the Book of Life, and out of the holy city, and of the things having been written in this Book." 2Timothy 2:15, “Be eager, study to present yourself approved to God, a workman unashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.” Rightly dividing is comparing scripture with scripture for a comprehensive understanding.

The Lord hates division. Romans 16:17 Man's choosy spirit, has caused the confusion of multitudes of denominational churches. It must be concluded that most Christians have some error; even though they claim to believe in scripture. The solution is to simply abide by the most reliable Textus Receptus literal Greek translation to settle all doctrinal issues; in the language God chose for his apostles to communicate.

The recent KJ3 LITV is a Literal Version of the Textus Receptus Majority Greek text of the New Testament, word for word, to be as precise as originally intended. A child can understand it! No paraphrasing nor "dynamic equivalence." A study (S.I.Hayakawa) of synonyms reveals that synonyms have different shades of meaning! All "popular" translations of the New Testament since 1881 are from the compromised 5th Century Gnostic Greek text from Alexandria Egypt: The Alexandrian Text... also called the "Critical Text", Nestle-Aland Greek Text, Westcott-Hort, or Novum Testamentum Graece; identified in the forward of your grossly paraphrased modern NIV Bible. The King James Version is from the legitimate Textus Receptus but terminology was inserted for ecclesiastical control by the clergy/laity system, such as: Rule over, Obey, Submit; and "office of" Bishop or Deacon has not the slightest implication in the original Greek text! See "The Great Ecclesiastical Conspiracy" www.awildernessvoice.com/GEC.html .

A true Bible must contain the words of God, only His words, and no words added from the minds of men (such as paraphrases, synonyms, mistranslations, traditional biases, interpretations, etc.).

I want to know exactly what GOD'S WORD says!

See the KJ3 Literal Version: http://www.thewordnotes.com/litv/litv.htm

Alan Hemenway                                    Most of all, the Lord desires close
www.ChurchGrowth.cc                         fellowship with you. The best way is
www.MauriceJohnsonArchives.com     through prayer which is talking to God
September 18, 2021, Edited March 31, 2024           anytime, on anything, in any posture.