Part 2: Bible Studies for the Hungry Christian

A course of study for turning students into teachers

Lesson One: Who Are You Calling A Christian?

One of the most common assaults on new believers is their very assurance of salvation. There is probably not a Christian that ever walked the earth who didn't at one time or another begin to question whether that "blessed event" ever really took place. But the assurance that it did should not come from emotions or memories, neither of which is terribly reliable. It should come from knowledge, from assurance of objective facts, because these are much more difficult to undermine. Assurance of salvation is the anchor of the rest of our spiritual journey, so it must be fastened to rock, not sand.

When the lost see the words "Jesus Saves", many of them ask, "saves from what?". It used to be that the general population had some vague idea of the basic sinfulness of mankind against a holy God, but no more. People today are self-assured and see no need to be saved from an unseen danger. They are told they are just highly evolved animals, or they will be reincarnated, or they will just disappear when they die. There is a growing distain for the very concept of absolute truth, so before you can offer the saving gospel to them, the first thing you must do is determine what they believe and where they're coming from. You can only present the gospel to them once they are to the point where they accept the idea of absolute truth and that they have sinned against God.

But how do you get there, especially if you yourself are not well-grounded in the Word? How can you present the gospel when you're not sure what it is? How can you explain sin and judgment if you never studied what the Bible says about them? The typical "lite" answers we get in quarterlies don't sit well with the average unbeliever. They don't just want to know what you believe, they want to know why you believe it, and you must be prepared beyond parroting phrases you read in a pamphlet or tract. Knowing the "Romans Road" is a start, but some people like to go off-road. So let's see what the Bible actually says about sin and salvation.

Sin

Sin is first seen in Genesis. Those who would allegorize this book remove the very basis for the gospel itself, because if the account of the Garden of Eden is only figurative, then we have no reason to insist that sin or judgment or salvation are real. We'll get more into the proper handling of context later, but for this lesson we'll assume that the events of Genesis 3 are real and historical. There are a several views within "orthodox" Christianity on the matter of "original sin", but regardless of our particular assumptions, we need to see what's actually taught in scripture. Nothing illustrates the importance of this more than the concept of original sin.

To start, looking at the very first instance of sin in Gen. 3, this is what we see: God put people in what we would call a paradise, where there was only one thing forbidden, to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. The people disobeyed and curses followed. These curses involved causing the serpent to "eat dust" and crawl on his belly and Adam to have to work hard for his food. But what do we NOT see? A curse on the spirit of man. All the curses listed in Genesis 3 are on the physical world: people and animals were now mortal, and the earth would produce thorns and thistles. Of all the places in the Bible where such a monumental curse as the death of man's spirit should be shown, this would be it, but it simply isn't there. What is there is that Adam and Eve could not cover their own sins; God had to do it. They were then thrown out of the Garden and from God's direct physical presence.

All sorts of counter-arguments arise, but they'll have to wait. Right now we're going to specific scriptures to show the lost that they are in fact lost. But we need a little more than just the account of the first sin, because as I said, this passage only tells us how we all became mortal and why the ground produces thistles, and why sin requires a sacrifice. Now turn to Romans 3:23 and 5:12. There we see that, like Adam and Eve, all of us have also committed sin. What exactly is sin? It's rebellion against God, doing what He said not to do and/or failing to do what He said we must (James 4:17). All who are old enough to know right from wrong have done wrong, making us infected with sin. As evidenced by the need for animal sacrifice and then that of Jesus, God in the flesh, we cannot rid ourselves of sin (Eph. 2:1-10).

So the two main scriptures to use when showing the lost that they are in need of a Savior are those passages listed above in Genesis and Romans. It shows the origin of sin and our personal participation in it, and that we are all helpless to be rid of it.

Salvation

Now that we have established the fact of sin and its consequences, we need to find the solution. Look through these passages:

It can be clearly shown to the unbeliever that there is only one Solution, Jesus the Christ. We must believe in Him alone for our salvation, but we've got to pin down exactly what that means. So many people who prayed the so-called (but scripturally unfounded) "sinner's prayer" are vulnerable to doubts later on because they were never given a clear explanation of what it means to believe in Jesus for salvation.

There is a world of difference between saying you "believe in" the tooth fairy and you "believe in" your best friend. In the former, you're saying you simply believe in someone's existence, but in the latter you're saying you have absolute confidence in someone. All too often, we take the first meaning when discussing saving faith when we should be taking the second, which is not just a belief but a conviction. A conviction can be illustrated like this: if an experienced guide tells you a rope bridge across a deep ravine is safe but you won't go across, yet you insist that you trust the guide, who are you fooling? You have no conviction that the guide is trustworthy, but you say you do just for appearances sake. But if you actually step on the bridge and follow the guide across, you have a conviction that the guide is trustworthy; you believe in him.

To believe in Jesus is to trust Him with your life, to hold as a deep conviction that He is who He claims to be and who the Bible shows Him to be. And what does the Bible say about Him? That He is divine (another study), that He is a unique Person of the one true God, that He took away the sin of the world by dying for us and then rising from the dead, and that any who put their trust in Him alone will be saved (i.e., get to live eternally in heaven after this life is over).

But be careful: some religions, such as Mormonism, will appear to believe this-- until you pin them down on their terms. They believe in millions of gods and that people who live very good lives of faith in "the god of this world" will themselves become gods of other planets. Notice that they believe in one god-- but only for this world. So in fact they do not believe in the God of the Bible, because He says of Himself, "Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! Truly I am God, I have no peer; I am God, and there is none like me" (Isaiah 46:9). There is no hint of anything being beside or above the One True God of the Bible.

Also be aware of the fact that so many other religions claim a "Jesus" in one way or another. Islam, for example, believes Him to be a prophet, but not divine and not the Son of God and not to have been crucified for anyone's sins. Other religions hold Him to be a "Christ figure" or "enlightened one" who attained divinity by the practice of some version of Hinduism or other religious discipline. Clearly this is not the real Jesus of the Bible. Jesus Himself is called the Creator (see Colossians 1:15-20), the Son of God (many passages), even "the everlasting Father" (Isaiah 9:6).

The point I want to emphasize is that one's faith must not only be a firmly held conviction, but it must be in the right Object. No other "god" or "Jesus" is the right object of faith for salvation. Going back to the bridge illustration, suppose there was another person also claiming to be the guide, but this one tells you there are other ways across the ravine and you should follow him instead. This is Satan's strategy, to impersonate and cause doubt, drawing away those who don't want to take the "constricted and narrow way" (Mt. 7:13). To put faith in another "Jesus" or "God" is to follow the wrong guide who will lead his followers to destruction.

So carefully define your terms, and know exactly which scriptures back up your claims when you present the gospel. You yourself must be convicted of the truth of sin and the identity of the only Savior, and have absolute confidence in Him alone for your salvation.

©Paula Fether
2005 - 2007
All scripture quotations are from the TNIV translation of the Bible unless otherwise noted.