The Biblical section is founded on divine revelation. In other words, Biblical teaching has its fundamental fact base that in the Bible we have a revelation of God. We will not speculate as humans do when they philosophise, but we will look into God’s book and listen to a revelation from God.
My supposition is that the Bible is the Word of God, so the authority of the Word of God is the authority of the Christian. I will only attempt a brief summary: if we do agree with what the Bible says and what man is, then Christ has done what the Bible has said he has done. As a result of this, man may become what the Bible says he may become.
In this case, what parades under the term “Christianity” in liberal churches is not Christianity at all. Liberal Christianity does not deserve the designation of Christianity, for it does not hold to the essential, fundamentals of the New Testament and Old Testament revelations. There are three simple features in Biblical Christianity.
1. Man as Created
The Bible states that man is the unique and special creation of God. He is not the product of evolutionary progresses. Man was placed in the Garden of Eden, in covenant relations to God. Man was told that he was able to do this, but not able to do that. It is said in Genesis 2:16-17, “forth the part of that pact”. He was made Lord of the creation, like the Psalmist mentioned in Psalms 8:1-9.
2. Man is Fallen
Genesis 3 sets forth the thought that we learn from this sin, that sin does not exist in man’s finiteness, for he was finite when created and when God said what he saw was very good. Sin is not finiteness; sin is essentially unbelief. Often we here preachers say that sin is rebellion against God, the desire to be God, or the desire to be autonomist. But these are just effects of sin. Sin implies that God does not mean what He says and what He conveys in His Word. As a result of this, I will rebel against Him. Therefore, because of man’s unbelief, he fell.
Despite his fall and God’s judgement, sin is now like a cancer. It permeates his whole being and his emotions, so that they are not pure. It permeates his mind, so that he is blinded to spiritual things. It also touches his will, so that He has no free will. When he falls from God’s enablement, he wills that of which is contrary to the will of God. His will is the result of his innermost being—his understanding. Consequently, because he is touched by sin, his will is touched by sin. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to create a new man so that man has a will to exercise. Thus, he may be freed from sin, as a result of the workings of the Holy Spirit within his heart.
The entire redemptive process is the divine plan of renewal in the image of God (Colossians 3). Hence, it is the work of God after we have fallen, after the Holy Spirit has worked within us, after we have been given new life through a new birth, to renew us into the place and status that we had in the beginning—Adam in the image of God.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30)
3. The work of salvation is to realise these facets of man’s nature.
It is no wonder why modern man is so confused. His liberal, idealistic, and humanistic faith has been shattered by two world wars, violence, enmity, and other forms of evil. The result is that he has lost his sense of God and lost his sense of himself, no longer having any Christian influence. He no longer lives by the empty perfume bottles, smelling some of the odours that came from Christendom centuries ago. Now, he is in the grip of despair. For he is not what he was created to be, yet deep down he knows there is something there that is unanswered by his own environment.
▪ Without the knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God.
▪ Our endowments lead to Him.
▪ Only when we look at ourselves, are we are able to come to know God fully and completely.
▪ Without the knowledge of God, there is no knowledge of ourselves. Since we are in the image and likeness of God, the need know ourselves is obvious. True self-knowledge can come with the knowledge of God, for we are made in the image of God.