In this book I have the burden to cover the speciality, generality, and practicality of the church life. In this chapter I will begin to cover the speciality of the church life. We all must know what it is in the church life that is so special.
The speciality of the church life is the faith. In the New Testament the word faith is used with two different meanings. First, it means the action of believing (Rom. 5:1; Eph. 2:8; Heb. 11:1). We have faith in the Lord Jesus, and this is the action of believing. This is the subjective meaning of the word faith. There is also the second meaning, that is, the objective meaning of the word faith. Faith used in this way refers to the things in which we believe, the object of our faith, our belief (Titus 1:4; Rev. 14:12; 2 Tim. 4:7). So when we say the speciality of the church life is the faith, we mean the faith which is the object of our believing. This is what we call our Christian faith. As Christians we have a unique faith.
Paul said he fought the good fight and kept the faith (2 Tim. 4:7), and he also charged Timothy to fight the good fight of the faith (1 Tim. 6:12). Jude told us to contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). The faith mentioned in these verses does not mean our believing action, but refers to the things in which we believe for our salvation and for the church life. All the verses listed at the beginning of this chapter are related to this. Thus, the faith is something unique, something specific, something special. Therefore, in the church life we have only one thing that is specific or special. That is the faith, our Christian faith, which is composed of the beliefs concerning the Bible, God, Christ, the work of Christ, salvation, and the church.
The Bible is the Word of God. We believe that the Bible, word by word, is divinely inspired by God (2 Pet. 1:21), as the breath of God (2 Tim. 3:16). The genuine Christians do not have any doubt about this point. We must believe that the Bible is God’s infallible Word.
God is uniquely one, but triune, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 3:16-17; 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 2:18; 3:14-17; Rev. 1:4-5). The Godhead is distinctively three, but They are not three Gods separately. In the Old Testament and in the New Testament the Bible tells us definitely that God is one (Deut. 4:35, 39; Psa. 86:10; 1 Cor. 8:4; 1 Tim. 2:5).
Among the Christians there were some who believed that the Father was one Person and the Son was another Person, but the Spirit was just a power. Others believe that the Three of the Godhead-the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-are three separate Gods. These concepts, strictly speaking, are heretical. We all have to believe that, according to the divine revelation of the Holy Word, our God is uniquely one.
We have only one God who is triune. Yet, we are unable to define Him thoroughly because our mentality is so limited. Actually, we cannot even define ourselves very well. We know that we have a spirit, a soul, a heart, etc., but it is hard to define them. How then could we define the Triune God so thoroughly? We could only believe what is clearly revealed in the Holy Word, that is, God is one but triune. This is the second item of our Christian faith.
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