He died to pay the penalty for our sins on our behalf so that we need not.

'True faith - created in me by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel - is not only a knowledge and conviction that everything that God reveals in his Word is true, but also a deep-rooted assurance that not only others, but I too, have had my sins forgiven, have been made for ever right with God, and have been granted salvation. These are gifts of sheer grace earned for us by Christ.'   The Heidelburg Catechism 1563

'Justification is by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone.' John Stott.

The Articles of Religion of the Church of England: Article 11 'We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings: wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.'

2. LIVING UNDER THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL

In Rom.1:16 Paul says the Gospel is 'the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes'. But in Paul's teaching, salvation has three parts to it:

1. I have been saved  - my account with God is settled, my eternity is secure with Him.   

2. I am being saved - as God works in my life to rescue me from the power of sin. 

3. I will be saved - when God finally takes me to heaven.

These are referred to as our 1. justification  2. sanctification   3. glorification. So Rom.1:16 must mean that the Gospel is the power for all three stages, not just for our conversion, as we tend to think.

To be sanctified has two meanings: (1) to be set apart for God and (2) to undergo a life-long process of moral transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit with which we must co-operate. 

But sometimes we can fall into a serious trap in our thinking, either out of confusion, or because deep in our psyche we naturally want to retain some vestige of earning our way to heaven.

Diagrammatically illustrated, we often think like this, BUT 'WARNING!' IT IS WRONG!

We think as if we move on from justification to sanctification and then to glorification, as it were in sequence. Or we may even believe that we can add to our justification by the good deeds that we do in God's power.  But do you see how this way of thinking tends to suggest that it is our sanctification that qualifies us for heaven? In other words, in this thinking how we perform in the Christian life (or God's acquittal plus our performance) is STILL the basis for our acceptance into heaven. But this is quite wrong. 

It is biblical to think as follows:

We must insist that it is our justification - our acquittal by God - that carries us through and gains us entrance into heaven, with absolutely no contribution from us! Do we seriously think that anything we could add by way of our imperfect good living could make what Christ did perfectly more effective?

So the Gospel is the dynamic for our living as well as our conversion. We must NOT leave our justification behind and look for some other basis by which to live. We live our Christian lives under the protection of our justification.

One further table may help us to properly distinguish between justification and sanctification

(With acknowledgements to Geoffrey Paxton)

3. CONFIDENCE IN THE BIBLE

1. The inspiration of the Bible

Let's read a fundamental verse - 2Timothy 3;16 "All Scripture is ..........................." What does 'inspiration' mean? - see 2 Peter 1:21.

But the writers were not robots under God's control; they were real people with personalities. God used these to convey His message.

Think of Jesus Christ: He was both human and divine at the same time - so is the Bible. His humanity never got in the way of His divinity - so it is with the Bible.

The Bible is really a library of 66 books and letters. Write down as many different types of literature as you can think of in the Bible .......................................................

Now write down as many different types of writers as you can think of..........

It took about 1,300 years to write and most of the authors never met each other and yet it is all .........

ONE STORY

By saying the Bible was inspired, we are saying that God ensured that His message is faithfully conveyed by it. We also believe that the Bible is infallible as originally given and for the purposes it was given. It is reliable and will not lead us into error of any kind.

2. The canons of the Old and New Testaments

A canon is an authorised collection of books.

(a) The Old Testament was of course the national archives of Israel. It contains their story in so far as it was part of God's dealings with them in His plan of salvation. In this sense the OT is about God not Israel. So the history is theological and purposeful. In the way God deals with Israel He progressively reveals aspects of the new covenant He is going to establish with his Son. The moral and ceremonial law all point ahead to the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. (For much more on this see the Bible overviews page)

Incidentally, the OT that Jesus knew was in a different order from the one we have. This is illustrated in Matt.23:35 where Jesus refers to the murders of Abel  - in Genesis - and Zacharia - in 2 Chronicles - which was the last book in Jesus' OT. So He was referring to the whole spread of the OT to make His point.

We may find it easier to take the NT as inspired rather than the OT, but of course it was the OT to which Peter and Paul were primarily referring. Also, Jesus frequently referred to the OT - something he was very unlikely to do if it was not authentic. The Apostles similarly had no doubt that the OT was inspired. For example in Acts 1:16 Peter proclaims that the Holy Spirit spoke through David. There are many other examples eg Heb.9:8. See other pages on this web site for further consideration of these issues.

About 250 BC a Greek translation of the OT was undertaken by a group of 72 scholars in Alexandria. This is known as the 'Septuagint' and is signified in notes by LXX. Sometimes quotations for the OT in the NT are taken from the Septuagint and therefore may differ slightly from our OT which was translated straight from the Hebrew.

The plan of the OT looks something like this...

GENESIS:    creation >>>the fall >>>Abraham >>>Isaac >>>Israel in Egypt

EXODUS: slavery in Egypt >Moses>Exodus >the Law >one year post Exodus

LEVITICUS - God lays down the expected religious way for His people

NUMBERS: Israel sets off to the promised land> turns back from lack of faith > gets to Jordan after 40 yrs

DEUTERONOMY - Moses writes the Law again to prepare for entering the promised land

JOSHUA: cross Jordan> occupy the whole land

JUDGES: troubles from internal gods and external enemies> God sends saviours

1 AND 2 SAMUEL > 1 AND 2 KINGS >monarchy>Israel divides> exile

VARIOUS PROPHETS - warn Israel and Judah to return to Yahweh

PROPHETS  speak to People in exile to bring them back to God > hope for future

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH - rebuilding Israel in the promised land.

400 YEARS OF SILENCE BEFORE JOHN AND CHRIST

(b) The New Testament is a collection of  four accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus, plus letters and other documents. Contrary to misleading ideas peddled by some, the 'church' did not give us the NT.  The books we have in the NT were those recognised by the early church as having apostolic authority. They were not selected by a church conference or by referendum. The modern church has no authority to change the Bible or its message.

According to the latest scholarship, the books of the NT were all written by AD 100, the earliest gospel by AD 65 and the last of Paul's letters by AD 60 (an interesting fact). It is important to know that there are over 22,000 complete or part fragments of early documents dating back to AD 200-300, none of which throw any doubt on the text we have. (Other books of the same era, accepted by historians without any question, have only a few supporting manuscripts written a long time after the events.)

See the What is the Bible? page for a more detailed analysis of the Bible

Recommended books:

'According to Plan' by Graeme Goldsworthy pub. by Lancer.

 'The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the OT' by Edmund Clowney 

'Days are Coming' by Mark Strom pub. by Hodder and Stoughton  

'A scenic route through the OT' by Alec Motyer pub. by IVP   

'Gospel and Kingdom' by Graeme Goldsworthy pub. by Lancer 

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