Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: 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, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
My Core Beliefs
I began a five-month investigation as an atheist in early 1971 to determine three major claims of Christianity. My investigation looked at – (1) Does God exist? (2) Is the Bible a credible ancient historical document? (3) Did Jesus of Nazareth exist, and did He die on a Roman cross and rise from the dead?
I became a Christian following my investigation and these became my core beliefs:
- God exists. God is Self-Existent. God is the only Necessary Being. Everyone else and everything else is contingent on God’s Existence. God is the God of the Bible. God is One Being in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- The Bible is a compilation of Sacred Writings (66 Books), inspired by the Eternal Holy Spirit of God. Holy men of God spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). The Writings of the Bible are historically credible and verifiable.
- Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God. He received a human body through the miracle of the Virgin Birth. God became ‘flesh’ and lived among humans in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus used that human body to speak to people, heal the sick, work miracles that thousands of people witnessed, suffer and die on a Roman cross in front of a large number of Jews and Gentiles, was buried in a borrowed tomb by two members of the Jewish Sanhedrin as some of Jesus’ followers watched, rose from the dead three days later, showed Himself alive to more than 500 people during a period of 40 days, then ascended to Heaven where He reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords.
- God created the heavens and the earth. He created every living being and everything necessary for their health and wellbeing, including a large host of supernatural angels and the first man and woman. One of those angels deceived the first humans to disobey a direct command from God. God punished the angel as well as the first humans and all of their descendants. All humans are born into a state of ‘separation’ from God because He is ‘Holy’ and they are ‘sinful.’ “Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
- God is “rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us.” Even though humans are “dead in trespasses and sins,” God ‘saves’ us from eternal punishment through His amazing Grace. We are saved by grace through faith, “and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Salvation is all from God. He calls on humans to “believe” (Ephesians 2:1-9).
- Those who believe in Jesus Christ are “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Serving God and obeying Him are the ‘works’ He wants us to do. That was God’s purpose for the first humans, but they sinned against God and became separated from Him. In Christ, those who believe are brought ‘near’ to God “by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
- Those who truly believe in Jesus Christ are saved eternally and “not condemned”, even though they were born under God’s ‘wrath.’ Jesus endured the ‘wrath of God’ on the cross. Those people who believe in Christ, “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Christians, true followers of Jesus Christ, are members of the ‘Body of Christ’ (the true Church) and will ‘endure’ and be rewarded with the gift of eternal life. They will live with Jesus Christ forever in Heaven. Those who do not truly believe in Jesus Christ are condemned already because they have “not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:18-19). No ‘evil’ will enter into Heaven – “anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).
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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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