Doctrine

The evangelical Christian is primarily interested in the personal meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He or she must know that the foundational meaning of Christianity is personal redemption that exonerates from the condition of sin, an inherited soul-curse natural to the human race.  The condition is identified as human depravity.  The Gospel is genuine repentance (sorrow for sin on the part of the individual) and genuine acceptance in faith of the offer of Jesus Christ to deal with that condition.  Change in the person occurs in forgiveness from holy God and a spiritual insemination for belief and conduct of the person exercising faith.  The meaning is that Christianity is a personal experience for persons accepting the plan of God for healing spiritual illness, identified as sin.  It is for the purpose of recognizing Jesus Christ of God as the Redeemer – so to lead to a context of righteousness for life, and a blessed hope of receiving ultimate presence (heaven) with God.  From this basic faith, all else that is labeled Christian proceeds, and is understood through the Judeo-Christian Scripture.  Aids in the context of that which is Christian are Scripture, experience, conscience, assurance, faith reasoning, and the Holy Spirit of God.  Man is not bereft.  Just as there is treatment for life threatening conditions for a fetus emerging from the womb, circumstances over which the fetus has no control, so there is a spiritual handicap inherent in all persons for which the ministry of the Great Physician provides healing.  Christ heals the spiritually bereft soul. 

There is much that follows this primary, fundamental, point of redemption.  The main part of the follow up is holistic growth in the person of faith.  Everything is meaningful, even if marginal to the development of the person.  To the natural education of the Christian, there is added the education of the person in spiritual life and experience.  Important to this is the doctrinal organization of the person. All persons have doctrines, even doctrines of their own practices, good and/or evil. (Colossians 2::22; I Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 13:9).  These latter may pass as culture, philosophy, as natural context, even principles and accidents.  For Christians, the word doctrine is attractive in that it tends to identify the context in which the Christian desires to identify and defend beliefs.  The purist Christian doctrines are biblically originated, clarified and supported from that faith context.  Concepts related to faith (intellect) and conduct (action), put in the holistic context of a person comprises his/her doctrinal position.  When Scripture is the major factor, the doctrine is more likely to be meaningful than when nature’s culture is found stronger in that person.  The first leads to righteousness, the second to a mixture sometimes including carnality.  Carnality does not necessarily mean rank sin, but it may.  Depravity may use interpretations of goodness in personal process.  The cultures of most nations include mixtures of right and wrong.  Scripture addresses the problem.

Mankind tends to live by doctrines.  As noted in verses cited above, there are doctrines of mankind; and doctrines of devils, at odds with the doctrines of God.  In Revelation 2:14, there is reference to the doctrine of Balaam (individual), and in v.15, the doctrine of the Nicolaitans (group).  The Christian has to deal with personal doctrine (nature and/or biblical), and institutional (culture and/or biblical).  Either the personal or the institutional contexts may have errors, large and small, so must be under constant search for truth by the individual and the professional (prophet/minister/institution).  They challenge each other.

Problems arise related to any faith judgment: the Deity (include/exclude); the source (divine/human) of the sacred literature; and, the context (firm or flexible) of its application.  The evangelical Christian accepts the reality of God; believes that he reveals himself in Scripture, and the story of humanity, God and related history; and, that the context for human life pleasing to God is adequately presented in human context.  That context of life meaning, of value judgments, of mortality/immortality, and related themes varies greatly among individuals and peoples so that, given the variety of presuppositions, the contests for doctrines of life cannot be decided in nature.  We need revelation, found in Judeo-Christian Scripture.  This last will be resolved in a final evaluation (judgment).  God will be fair and just.