What are the essentials of the Christian faith?

We must begin by making a frank assertion. We can and must be dogmatic as to the revealed essentials of the Christian faith. The being of the Godhead, His creatorial work, the incarnation of the Son of God, the atoning character of His death, the glorious meaning of His resurrection and ascension, the place and portion of the believer in Christ, the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of the saints thereat, the full inspiration of Holy Scripture, the resurrection of the wicked dead, and their eternal judgment—all these we must affirm with emphasis and resolve.

It is well perhaps, in view of the infidelity which is spreading everywhere, to begin by saying that I hold, and I can add that we firmly hold, all the foundations of the christian faith - the divinity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one God, eternally blessed - the divinity and humanity of the Lord Jesus, two natures in one person - His resurrection and His glorification at the right hand of God - the presence of the Holy Ghost here below, having descended on the day of Pentecost - the return of the Lord Jesus according to His promise. We believe also that the Father in His love has sent the Son to accomplish the work of redemption and grace towards men - that the Son came, in that same love, to accomplish it, and that He has finished the work which the Father gave Him to do on earth. We believe that He has made propitiation for our sins, and that after having accomplished it, He ascended to heaven - the High Priest seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

That the Father has been revealed in the Person of the Son, that there is a divine Person on earth, the Holy Spirit, and that there is a Man in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the essence of Christianity. All blessing for the Christian rests on the great work of redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross, but we never could have received the divine blessing procured for us through the death of Jesus apart from His resurrection from among the dead. One of the great truths of Christianity is that there will be the raising from the dead of all who have died. The fundamentalists among the Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead, but it was not until the Son of God came into the world that the truths connected with resurrection were revealed.

The truth of Christianity consists in the revelation of the Father in the Person of the Son, and that there is a divine Person on earth, the Holy Spirit, and a Man in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. All blessing for the Christian rests on the great work of redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus on the cross, but we never could have received the divine blessing procured for us through the death of Jesus apart from His resurrection from among the dead. One of the great truths of Christianity is that there will be the raising from the dead of all who have died. The fundamentalists among the Jews believed in the resurrection of the dead, but it was not until the Son of God came into the world that the great truths connected with resurrection were revealed.

The faith is the whole body of Christian doctrine that was once committed to the saints. We can think of it in its parts, in its foundation truths, or in relation to its topstone in the purpose of God concerning His Son; but in whatsoever way we view it, it brings Christ before us as the One in whom we learn all that God is, whether in His nature of love, His disposition of grace towards men, or as the centre of all God’s thoughts, both in relation to His present place at God’s right hand, or in relation to the coming day, when everything shall be headed up in Christ for the pleasure of God.

These verses are the touchstone for the Christian who wants to be biblical. Biblical Christians believe that Christ is God and that He died for our sins. Biblical Christians believe that by nature they are sinners, spiritually dead, and that their only hope of salvation from sin is faith in Christ's death and resurrection. Biblical Christians believe they have a Bible that is inspired by the living God, and it is the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

Regarding God and Jesus Christ: Hindus do not believe in a personal, loving God, but in Brahma, a formless, abstract, eternal being without attributes, who was the beginning of all things."' They believe that Jesus is not God but just one of many incarnations, or avatars, of V'shnu. Christians believe that God is an eternal, personal, spiritual Being in three persons ‑ Father, Son and Holy Spirit (see Matt. 3:13‑17; 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). Jesus Christ is God as well as sinless man and He died for our redemption (see John 1: 13,14; 1 Pet. 2:24). Regarding sin and salvation: Hindus call sin "utter illusion" because they believe all material reality is illusory. They seek deliverance from samsara, the endless cycle of death and rebirth, through union with Brahma, which is achieved through devotion, meditation, good works and self‑control. Christians believe that sin is prideful rebellion that leads to eternal separation from God after living only one life, not many (see Rom. 3:23; Heb. 9:27) and that salvation is gained only through believing in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Rom. 3:24; 1 Cor. 15:3).

Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

(Vv. 3, 4). Immediately he sums up the glad tidings under three heads. First, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”. This brings before us the great propitiatory work of Christ for all the world, foretold in all the Scriptures, for the law sets it forth in figure, the Psalms present it experimentally, and the prophets announce it prophetically. Secondly, Christ was buried, the complete evidence of His death and the solemn fact that all His links with man after the flesh are severed. Thirdly, “He was raised the third day, according to the Scriptures”, the everlasting witness that the power of death is broken, the devil defeated, and God is glorified.

The Apostle carefully remarks that the gospel he preached, he had “received”, as we know from another epistle, “by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). To reject his gospel is, therefore, to question the revelation of Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture.

If Paul was an apostle, and delivered to them especially the glad tidings, it was what he too received; he pretended to no more than a faithful discharge of the trust the Lord had reposed in him as a witness concerning Himself. He received it, as we are told elsewhere, immediately from Christ. There was no intermediate channel, but a direct revelation and a personal charge. And what is the foundation laid? "That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." (Ver 3.) Not for ourselves merely, not at all for our good ways, but for our bad, "for our sins." Who could have said or thought it but God? And He has said it, not only now in the gospel, but from of old in the scriptures. From Genesis to Malachi all was a preparing the way for Christ to die for our sins. The law witnessed to it in the sacrifices; the Psalms declared that the sacrifices were but temporary, and that the Messiah must, and would, do the will of God; and the prophets showed that He would do it by suffering and death when Jehovah should lay on Him the iniquities of His people. Without the death of Christ for our sins, not only has the gospel no foundation, but the Old Testament has no adequate meaning or worthy end.

But God would give the amplest evidence. So it is added to Christ's death (ver. 4), "and that he was buried." Only here is made no mention of the scriptures. This is reserved for the immense fact of the resurrection: "and that he was raised the third day according to the scriptures," which is followed by the repeated appearances, of course without any such attestation. It is not merely an accessory fact or corroboration of Christ's death. His resurrection is the grand pivot of the chapter, the display of God's glory as regards man, the fullest answer to all unbelief, and the knell of Satan's power. This was the truth which the enemy sought to undermine among some at Corinth; but the result, under the grace of God, is the complete demonstration of its certainty, and of its all-importance.