Beliefs

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Scripture is written by man, but inspired by God.  Stylistically, it is influenced by the human author, but it is breathed out by God.  God said nothing different than what was written.  He said no more and no less.  He used the human writers as organs to produce His Word.  Proof of the scripture’s inspiration can be found in several places throughout the Bible.  The Apostle Peter wrote about how the Holy Spirit spoke through David in the Psalms (Acts 1:16).  He also mentioned how no prophecy has ever come from man, but from God as the Holy Spirit carried them along (2 Peter 1:21).   Jesus also spoke about how the Holy Spirit spoke through David (Matthew 22:43-44).

Scripture is inerrant in that it is completely true and without error at any point.  It is inspired by God who cannot make a mistake or lie.  Every word of it is completely infallible.  Arguments for inerrancy can be found throughout the scriptures just like inspiration.  Psalm 12:6 argues for the purity of the words of the Lord and compares His words to silver “purified seven times.”  Psalm 119:89 refers to the Word of the Lord as “firmly fixed.” Proverbs 30:5 says that “every word of God proves true.”  

The Word of God has all authority over our lives.  It is our only rule of truth.  It is complete and useful for all issues that we encounter in our lives,  Even if it doesn’t mention a situation specifically, there is still application to be made.  The Bible is the absolute standard of truth given to man for life (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  Nothing in the Bible is false and it is completely trustworthy. 

Inspiration, inerrancy, and authority work together and inform one another.  Since the Bible is the Word of God (inspiration) it is true (inerrant), because God cannot and does not lie.  Since God is sovereign we must accept the scripture as authority.  It is a reflection of who God is and His character.  If we are going to submit to something as our total authority we need to know that it is completely inerrant. Since our God is inerrant we can consider anything He says or inspires to also be inerrant.  Any potential contradictions in the scriptures are misunderstandings by the reader and should be studied further.  The Bible is able to be understood without any special qualification of the reader and it is how God speaks to us.  His Word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) but it never changes, just like God does not change.  He, and His Word, are the same as it was when it was written (Hebrews 13:8).  Because the Word is the same we can trust it, rather than trusting the ever changing world and trends.

The Trinity is a word we use to describe the nature of God.  It means that God is three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each person fully God, and that there is only one God.  God is three-in-one, three distinct persons, one being.  Each person of the Trinity has equal authority as God, and while there is no hierarchy, the Son willingly submits Himself to the Father.  The three are interpersonal with one another and completely undivided.  They exhibit different roles, the Father being Creator, the Son being the Savior, and the Holy Spirit being the Helper, but they are all one in nature.  Many people try to describe the Trinity in analogies, but they all fall short of truly showing the nature of the Trinity.  A main pitfall of analogies is modalism: the belief that there is one God appearing at different times in three different modes, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I reject that doctrine as false and claim that all three persons exist at the same time as one God.

Even as important and central to the Christian faith as this doctrine is, the word “Trinity” is not used in the Bible to describe God, but there are plenty of examples throughout the Old and New Testaments to support the doctrine of the Trinity.  At the very beginning of the Bible we can see the plurality of God being referenced by God Himself in Genesis 1:26 when He says “Let us make man in our image.”  God also repeats this pattern in Genesis 3:22 and 11:7 which makes the case for a God with multiple persons.  At that point in the Bible we don’t know who the other persons are other than God the Father, but if we look ahead to John 1 we understand that Jesus, the Son, referred to as “the Word” has been present since the beginning.  The Holy Spirit is found in Genesis 1:2 hovering over the waters.  He has been there since the beginning as well.  Every part of the Trinity has always been in existence.  Jesus didn’t just show up in the New Testament and the Holy Spirit didn’t start to exist when Jesus ascended into Heaven. 

In the New Testament, God the Father introduces Jesus as His Son in Matthew 3:16-17 at Jesus’s baptism.  In talking about baptism, Matthew discusses the authority of all persons in the Trinity.  In Matthew 28:18-20, also known as the Great Commission, Jesus says that He has been given all authority, and also mentions the Holy Spirit as one to baptize in the name of.  Jews in the Old Testament did not encounter the Holy Spirit in the same way that Christians today do.  While the Holy Spirit was present in the Old Testament and referenced by David in Psalm 51:11, He did not come to dwell in believers until after Jesus’s death.  Jesus talked in John 14 about how the Holy Spirit would come to be a Helper and to bring the scriptures to memory.  All persons of the Trinity are present and involved in election as referenced in 1 Peter 1:2-3, and in Jude 1:20-21 pertaining to faith and eternal life.

The term “Sola Fide” means “by faith alone.”  Trusting in Jesus Christ alone for salvation means that God’s pardon for our sins is received only through faith in Jesus that He is our Savior, which excludes all works that we could do to gain that salvation.  No one else but Jesus has done the work to save us from eternal death.  Hebrews 10:9-14 says that we are perfected once for all time through Christ’s sacrificial death.  We don’t help Him save us by our works.  Every person has fallen short of God’s standard of perfection and we are completely incapable of obtaining that standard ourselves (Romans 3:23-25).  The gift of salvation is free to us (Romans 6:23), though it cost Jesus His life.  The only action required from us is belief in Christ that He is who He says He is.  

In order to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation we need to understand what Jesus did to give us our salvation.  Jesus, fully God and fully man, came to earth as a baby, lived a sinless life in order to be the perfect sacrifice, died a horrific death on the cross, and rose again from the dead.  That death was supposed to be for us. Our sins have condemned us to eternal death, but if we believe that Jesus is our Savior, His righteousness has been imputed to us.  He has made the unrighteous, righteous in God’s sight (1 Peter 3:18).

Trusting in Jesus is not just praying one time at the altar when you were 7 years old and nothing ever changing.  Trusting in Jesus is a daily faith that believers have that He is the Messiah and that His death was enough to atone for our sins, that even on our worst days His death was once and for all to save us from an eternity separated from God in Hell.  Trusting in Jesus is also not living perfectly according to the law.  Galatians 2:16 tells us that no one will be justified by the law.  The law can’t save us and we can never keep it perfectly enough.  For some people who grew up with a legalistic background that is a really hard mindset to let go of.  We will have counselees who are just exhausted from trying to keep the law, but they’re not trusting Jesus that He is enough to save them.  

Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that we have been saved by grace.  Salvation is free to us, we don’t have to earn it like many other religions claim.  There’s a reason for that.  Even if we could earn our salvation by perfect works, then those who attained it (which is unattainable) could boast in their goodness. Only God is good.  Only God gets the glory.  Trusting in Jesus for our salvation glorifies God and removes any contribution that we could make.  He doesn’t need our help for salvation.

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