Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Statement of Faith #5-The Salvation of Mankind

Official Assembly of God Statement of Faith #5-Mankind's only hope of redemption is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Conditions of salvation:Salvation is received through the repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost(Spirit), being justified by grace through faith, man becomes an heir of God, according to the hope of eternal life. Evidence of Salvation:The inward evidence of salvation is the direct witness of the Spirit. The outward evidence to all men is a life of righteousness and true holiness.

We learned in the last lesson that all have sinned and that the wages of sin is death.(Romans 6:23)In other words, death must be paid for our sin. God provided a way for our ransom to be paid so that we could continue to have spiritual life after our physical deaths by sending His son, the physical form of Himself and sinless because God is unable to sin. The sacrifice of Jesus is how we receive redemption.

However, there are conditions to receiving this salvation. Just believing in Jesus Christ is not enough. Even Satan believes in Jesus Christ and the demons know His name but they certainly are not able to receive salvation. We receive salvation by recognizing that we are a sinner and that we have a need for redemption and admitting that Jesus Christ is the answer to that.(Romans 10:9) In other words we Admit we are a sinner, we Believe that Jesus Christ is the answer and we Confess that.

Finally, our salvation will be evidenced by a personal knowledge, given to us through the Holy Spirit(Romans 8:16) and will also be shown on the outside by a changed and righteous life(Eph 4:22-24). Does this mean that all Christians never sin again? No. We are all sinners, saved by grace, who still struggle with temptation. We often make bad choices but it is important that we recognize those and repent of our wrongs.

Becoming saved then means that we have become a child of God, adopted into His family. We are now brought into a family relationship with God which gives us all of the rights and privileges of a natural child.(Titus 3:5-7)

This is the Good News!

"He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." Titus 3:5-7

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