Website owner:  James Miller

Salient teachings of the New Testament

   Q. What are the salient teachings of the New Testament?

   A. The following:

     - The natural nature of man is bad.  Man is naturally bad, a 
         constant transgressor of God's law, wicked, deceitful at 
         heart;  at enmity with God, a sinner deserving hell. 

     - Redemption of man through the death of Christ on the cross; 
         Christ dying for the sins of the world; Christ's death on 
         the cross as constituting the supreme sacrifice for sin, 
         thus providing a way for man to be forgiven his sin and 
         allowed to go to heaven; Christ's blood constituting an 
         atonement for sin, an appeasement for sin, in the eyes of 
         God; God himself coming down to earth in the form of man 
         (as Jesus Christ) and being crucified on the cross as an 
         ultimate blood sacrifice to pay for the sins of man and 
         thus opening the way for man to go to heaven. 

     - Being born again; becoming a new creature in Christ Jesus; 
         being born into "true life"; accepting Christ as personal 
         savior and becoming a bond servant, a "love servant" of 
         his and thus becoming part of the "special people", the 
         "children of God", bound to him by choice and love, 
         headed for eternity in heaven with him and purchased from 
         out of death and hell by the death of Jesus on the cross; 
         being one of those who have drunk the "living water", eaten 
         the "bread of life", and now have the "true life", a life 
         accepted by and reconciled to God, a life committed to 
         him; a "new man" not conforming to this world, but living 
         in accordance with the precepts of God alone.

     - This world is divided into two groups, the children of God 
         and the children of the world; those who have been born 
         again and those who have not; the new man and the natural 
         (old) man; the saved and the unsaved; the "alive" and the 
         dead; the redeemed and the unredeemed; the Christians and 
         the world.  The children of God are told that they will 
         be scorned, ridiculed, hated and persecuted by the world.  
         The redeemed, the regenerated, those who have been taken 
         from out of the world and given the "true life" are 
         completely different from the men of the world  -- they 
         have completely different feelings, values, attitudes and 
         outlooks.  They are different at heart.  They are 
         basically good while the world is basically bad; they 
         have meaning and purpose, true values, true perspective 
         toward things, while the world drifts and is misguided by 
         false values, attitudes and viewpoints. 

     - The existence of hell, a place of eternal torture and 
         punishment. 


   Jan 1974