Top Ten Theological Truths Every Young Christian Should Know

(The following summary of doctrine was created at the request of the leadership for the Youth Ministry Lab at its 2011 meeting. YML recently drew a great number of young people and their ministers together for worship and instruction in Fort Worth, Texas, where numerous decisions were made to follow Christ into salvation and service. It is offered for general readership here.)

The Trinity: The one true God who created all things, who redeems believers, and whom believers worship is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; God the Trinity is eternally one God in three persons.

The Bible: God reveals all the truth we need in order to know of Him, to be reconciled to Him, and to live for Him in the 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, which comprise Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture is the perfect Word of God with full authority over mankind, because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit, who kept the original autographs free from error, who preserves the text through history, and who testifies its full trustworthiness while illumining its meaning to us.

Creation and Providence: On the basis of His love, the triune God created all things, visible and invisible, out of nothing, sustains all things providentially, and will bring all things to their proper end for His glory.

Humanity and Sin: The triune God created humanity, male and female, in His image. He gave mankind dominion over the earth and commanded him to be fruitful and multiply. God intended the man and his wife for a faithful lifelong marriage exclusively with one another, the man at the head of his family. However, Adam with all of his descendents rebelled against the Creator. Thus, human beings come under a sentence of condemnation to eternal death through their own sin. Humanity was driven from the holy presence of God because of sin.

Jesus Christ: In order to restore mankind and bring him to eternal life, God the Father sent His only begotten Son, the eternal Word of God and second person of the Trinity, to unite Himself forever with humanity in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ was conceived of a virgin by the Holy Spirit, lived a sinless life, taught us the words of God, died a propitiatory death on the cross as a once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, arose from the dead on the third day for our justification, ascended to reign enthroned at the right hand of the Father, and will one day return to render judgment on all creation.

The Holy Spirit: God sends the eternal Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, into the world to accompany the proclamation of the Word of God and convict men of the sin of unbelief, of the coming judgment on the ruler of this world and those in the world, and of the righteousness that is available freely to all sinners through faith in the Son of God. The Holy Spirit comes to reside in new believers, providing them with the seal of promise that God will complete His work of salvation, with spiritual fruit to characterize their lives, and with spiritual gifts for the edification of the church, especially the gift of proclamation.

The Beginning of Salvation: In salvation, when a person hears the Word of God proclaimed and truly believes by grace, the external righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to the believer as justification, thus saving him from condemnation; at the same moment, the Holy Spirit sovereignly regenerates or transforms the believer with faith and repentance so that this person now begins to follow Jesus Christ in salvation.

The Christian Life and the End: As salvation continues, a believer is assured of perserverance unto eternal life, but must consistently seek to grow in holiness through hearing, reading, and knowing God's Word and the Holy Spirit's work of sanctification. Salvation will one day be completed in God's work of glorification, when believers shall receive transformed bodies in the first resurrection as Jesus returns to reign. At the end of the millennium, Christ shall judge all with the eternal consequence of heaven or hell. By grace, believers are united with God and one another, entering the eternal presence of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

The Church: All believers must regularly and faithfully worship God with the church, the gathered congregation of true believers, hearing the Word of God proclaimed and observing the Lord's ordinances, beginning with believers-only baptism by immersion as a sign of faith and continuing with regular celebration of the meaningful memorial of the Lord's Supper, submitting to redemptive congregational discipline.

The Great Commission: The church, inclusive of all believers as a royal priesthood in Christ, was commissioned by the Lord, beginning in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, to go to the entire world until the end, to proclaim the Word of God so that whosoever will believe should become disciples of Jesus Christ, to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them all things contained in the Word of the Lord, of which this is a mere summary.

The Trinity ~ Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Recently, Dr. Bob Pearle, the senior pastor of Birchman Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, asked me to take three Wednesday night Bible Studies and lead our people to focus on the doctrine of the eternal Trinity. A number of people within and without our church have queried me regarding access to these lectures. Unfortunately, the hour-long lectures were only partially recorded. However, providentially, a pdf version of the Trinity lectures is available here. May God--the God who reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit because He is eternally so--bless you as you ponder His beauty through His Word.

The Empire of the Holy Spirit

Michael A.G. Haykin has drawn upon a lifetime of biblical studies, spiritual experiences, and focused scholarship to write a popular volume on the Holy Spirit and spirituality entitled The Empire of the Holy Spirit: Reflecting on Biblical and Historical Patterns of Life in the Spirit, published by BorderStone Press. This is perhaps the most important book yet written by a prolific author. In eleven chapters, beginning with a discussion of why Christians believe that God is Trinity and the Holy Spirit is one of the three persons sharing in the Godhead, Haykin demonstrates how orthodox theology may be presented in a popular format.

There are four things to note about Haykin's sources and methodology: First, Haykin exposits Scripture at length with regard to its teachings about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. I did not discover one instance in which I found the author to have missed Scripture's presentation of pneumatology, including matters of emphasis. Second, Haykin has read the early church fathers deeply but wears his profound knowledge of Patristic history and theology with humility and without any trace of pretension. Even as he draws upon Irenaeus, Basil, and Hilary, the citations are always appropriate to the discussion and always illuminating. Third, Haykin draws upon his long interest in the eighteenth-century Puritans, especially the pioneers of the missionary Baptist movement. The illustrations from this period do not dominate the text, though his studies therein have dominated his career for many years. Fourth, Haykin engages with contemporary expressions of spirituality, both Christian and non-Christian, evaluating them with both judiciousness and gracefulness. If you want to know what the German philosopher Martin Heidegger contributes to postmodernity or where the pop spirituality of Eckhart Tolle has gone astray, Haykin provides a succinct and accurate Christian response.

At 180 pages, this slim volume was not intended to function as a systematic exploration of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in all of His glorious deity and powerful works, but nevertheless it does touch upon much of what a traditional systematic text would. Many of the chapters were presented in other venues, both spoken and written, but the book does not read as a compilation of chapters but rather flows seamlessly from one subject to the next. What is unique about the presentation is that more contemporary issues are not addressed until the end of the book, which means that some of the more culturally relevant portions will not be discovered until the book is nearly completed. And yet, this may also be a strength, for the book is biblically relevant from cover to cover.

Although I might quibble with some of the matters presented herein, such as Haykin's construal of the Spirit's movement of grace in salvation as "irresistible," I found myself in almost wholehearted agreement with nearly every word. While Haykin acknowledges that he was once involved in the Charismatic movement popular in the 1970s and is involved in the Calvinist movement that is currently the rage, these are merely secondary even tertiary matters in this book. Haykin has not set out to prove or disprove Charismatic theology or Calvinist theology, but to bring the reader closer to an understanding of what true "spirituality" is. And that true spirituality is, according to Haykin, a biblically-faithful, God-honoring, personally-embracing love for God and His church through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

This little treasure, The Empire of the Holy Spirit: Reflecting on Biblical and Historical Patterns of Life in the Spirit, comes with my highest recommendation.