by David Cox
[d01] v1 ©2006 www.davidcox.com.mx/tracts
This tract can be freely reproduced

This tract explains the con­cept of a “fun­da­men­tal of the faith” show­ing where Christ taught a pri­or­ity of cer­tain key beliefs as being absolutely essen­tial to hold and pro­tect over all other beliefs. The tract then traces a brief list of these fundamentals.

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He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foun­da­tion on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehe­mently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that with­out a foun­da­tion built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehe­mently, and imme­di­ately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great. Luke 6:49

Jesus pro­posed the con­cept of fun­da­men­tal­ism, that there are cer­tain essen­tial parts of the Scrip­tures (bib­li­cal beliefs) that in erring on them it would result in the perdi­tion of every­thing, even your soul in hell and your salvation.

The Exis­tence of Fundamentals

Mat 23:23–24… ye have omit­ted the weight­ier mat­ters of the law, judg­ment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swal­low a camel.

Jesus rebuked the Scribes and Phar­isees because they both­ered the peo­ple with their human opin­ions and rules that they got from tra­di­tions and twist­ing Scrip­ture, and in the process, they lost every­thing of real value, even true sal­va­tion. For all their reli­gious zeal, it served them noth­ing. Equally God gives the strongest con­dem­na­tions against the false prophets and teach­ers that have changed the gospel to be some­thing else that does not ren­der sal­va­tion in the end, nor works in other ways (Gal 1:6–9).

The words of Jesus about found­ing our faith and Chris­t­ian life before God upon “a rock” are very impor­tant. It is so impor­tant that Jesus pro­poses that to err in this is to not be saved and fall into a “great ruin.” (Luke 6:48–49) We can dif­fer with other good Chris­tians on some issues, but there are cer­tain mat­ters that are so impor­tant (fun­da­men­tals) that to deny these teach­ings or to err on them is to inval­i­date being really saved.

The Cri­te­ria for a Fun­da­men­tal of the Faith

The Fun­da­men­tals have to come from the very essen­tial part of our faith, and are only to be dis­cerned from the Scrip­tures. These are the cen­ter­pieces of Chris­t­ian doc­trine, the cen­ter con­cerns seen in the Bible such as: God, His Deity and Char­ac­ter, Jesus Christ, sin, sal­va­tion, the per­son and work of Jesus, the real­ity of human sin­ful­ness and need, the approval of the work of Jesus by God (which is the res­ur­rec­tion), things deal­ing with the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and recep­tion of this sal­va­tion by man, such as the Scrip­tures, and the imma­nent return of Jesus in judg­ment, and finally the belief in fun­da­men­tals of the faith and sep­a­ra­tion from those who refuse them.

Jude 1:3–4… that ye should earnestly con­tend for the faith which was once deliv­ered unto the saints. For there are cer­tain men crept in unawares,… ungodly men, turn­ing the grace of our God into las­civ­i­ous­ness, and deny­ing the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

God advised us of the attack against our faith from peo­ple that sup­pos­edly are “one of us” and who will change the grace and Christ lib­erty to be license (there are no rules or moral restric­tions) try­ing to enslave us in their sys­tems, who deny­ing God as an author­ity and as the Sav­iour. God demands that we watch out for these peo­ple and their attacks, and oppose them. Fun­da­men­tal­ism essen­tially is hold­ing firm this fight against error and false prophets.

What are the Fundamentals?

(1) The inerrancy and suf­fi­ciency of the Scrip­tures (this is refer­ring to the orig­i­nals auto­graphs). We can­not speak with cer­tainty of any­thing if the source of all our knowl­edge is con­t­a­m­i­nated with error, impre­cise state­ments, and fal­si­ties. We have to begin with the Bible being the true and sure mes­sage of God as God wants us to have it. More­over we have to affirm this, and only the Scrip­tures are suf­fi­cient in inform­ing us of how to be saved (Psa 19:7 con­vert­ing the soul), to serve God, and to please God in our lives (live in God’s will) Psa 12:6–7; Rom 15:4; 2Tim 3:16–17; 2Pet 1:20. The twist­ing or per­vert­ing of the Word of God is equal to los­ing our sal­va­tion (perdi­tion) 2Pet 3:16.[1]

(2) The Per­son and Work of the Sav­iour, Jesus Christ. 2Jn 1:9–11 Whoso­ever trans­gres­seth, and abideth not in the doc­trine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doc­trine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doc­trine, receive him not into your house, nei­ther bid him God speed: For he that bid­deth him God speed is par­taker of his evil deeds. We can say with cer­tainty that any­body who denies Jesus Christ[2] as the Sav­iour can­not pos­si­bly be saved, and has erred in the very heart of sal­va­tion. John refers to these most impor­tant points about Jesus and his ori­gin[3] and his sub­stance (eter­nally God, but incar­nated[4] 1 Jn 2:23; 4:2–3; 2 Jn 1:7), in his birth by the Vir­gin Mary, and his deity[5], If Jesus isn’t impec­ca­ble (with­out any sin Heb 4:15) then his sac­ri­fice for us would have been in vain. If he was not fully human, one of us, then he could not have iden­ti­fied with the human race. If he was not com­pletely God[6], then his sac­ri­fice would not have been suf­fi­cient for the sal­va­tion of the entire world.
The Trin­ity – God is defined in 1 John 4:8, 16 thusly, “God is love.” More­over John makes the argu­ment that any­body who does not love[7] (taken godly love as part of their char­ac­ter and soul), sim­ply is not saved. Love needs 3 things to exist: he who loves, he who is loved, and the evi­dence of that love. This is the rela­tion­ship within God that explains the dif­fer­ent per­sons of God, or the Trin­ity[8]: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and defines our rela­tion­ship with each one of these.

The atone­ment for sin through the sub­sti­tu­tion of Jesus Christ on the cross in our place[9]. This is the very thing we believe in to save us. With­out faith it is impos­si­ble to be saved (Heb 11:6). We are just (we have merit before God) because of our faith (Rom 4:4–5) and not because of any­thing else. The Jews erred in this Rom 10:3–4.

(3) Sin and the inabil­ity of man to gain merit before God, and his need of the mercy of God. This we can express in another way, the sal­va­tion of man is only through the grace and mercy of God (who paid the price obtain­ing sal­va­tion to offer) and it is by means of faith (how man gets it), and we are not saved through good works[10].

Antin­o­mi­an­ism[11] – 1 John 1:8 declares that we are all sin­ners, and 1:10 affirms that none are saved if we deny that we are sin­ners. Accord­ing to 1 John 1:6, even the Chris­t­ian of the N.T. has moral restric­tions. If we deny that we are obliged to fol­low the moral exam­ple of Christ (in the process mak­ing him “Lord” Rom 10:9) then we deny that sal­va­tion saves us from sin and makes us right­eous like Christ. It is pow­er­less then? We are not saved just by fol­low­ing Christ’s exam­ple, but those that refuse to sub­mit their lives to God’s will[12] and to fight sin just don’t have sav­ing faith.

(4) The bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion[13] of Jesus Christ from the grave. The Bible says that Jesus, being com­pletely God and com­pletely man and with­out sin, died for the sins of the world on the cross of Cal­vary, shed­ding his blood, and dying at the end. On the third day, Jesus rose from the grave in a demon­stra­tion of the approval of God for his sac­ri­fice. This is the essence of Christianity.

(5) The imma­nent return of Jesus Christ in judg­ment and to close the book and fin­ish the time that God has given man to accept sal­va­tion. Acts 1:11 and John 14:3 make clear that Jesus will return the same way he left. The books of Daniel and Rev­e­la­tion give us an ori­en­ta­tion about the final events of this time when God cuts short the work on the earth. Accord­ing to these, God will judge with vio­lence the world and human­ity for the sin of not seek­ing God. 1 Thess 1:10 says that the return of Jesus is for the pur­pose of remov­ing the saved from the earth[14] and this pend­ing judg­ment. Although the exact sequence and order of these events are not as clear as we would like them to be, but the fact is that Jesus will return in any moment. This fun­da­men­tal is the motive which causes us to do every­thing pos­si­ble to live piously, to serve God with all our being, to evan­ge­lize, pray, and preach all that we can. Because the time is short, we want to be found faith­ful towards reach­ing the unsaved which will go to hell when God fin­ishes every­thing, so the fun­da­men­tal­ist works hard because the time of grace is end­ing quickly.

(6) A belief in the fun­da­men­tals and a prac­tice of sep­a­ra­tion against those who do not hold the fun­da­men­tals or who live in sin. Part of the fun­da­men­tals of the Chris­t­ian faith is a real­iza­tion and pri­or­i­tiz­ing of the fun­da­men­tals for what they are: essen­tial for sal­va­tion, essen­tial for pleas­ing God, and essen­tial for fel­low­ship with other Chris­tians. This belief causes us not to accept just whomever that says “he is a brother is Christ” if he does not align him­self with the essen­tial truth of the Word of God. If they do not resort to and live in these fun­da­men­tals, involv­ing them­selves in them such that their atti­tude is to reject sin and affirm these teach­ings of Scrip­ture, then we must cut our fel­low­ship and com­mu­nion with that per­son, church, or group. This is essen­tially church dis­ci­pline against an unre­pen­tant “brother” who refuses to work to change his life of sin and error. If we deal with a group or church instead of an indi­vid­ual, it is called eccle­si­as­ti­cal separation.

We can­not pro­claim eter­nal pun­ish­ment on these peo­ple (John 5:22) because God has left this for Jesus, but nei­ther can we accept these peo­ple as broth­ers with­out the cri­te­ria of cor­rect doc­trine and con­duct. We see the many bib­li­cal con­dem­na­tions against false prophets, false teach­ers, and against false brethren, and we con­clude that doc­trine and con­duct is what deter­mines our recep­tion of some­one as a brother and our fel­low­ship with him or not. We also see in 1 Corinthi­ans 5 that God con­demned the church for not exer­cis­ing dis­ci­pline and sep­a­ra­tion when it had rea­son to do so, in the case of open sin with­out repentance.

“In essen­tials, unity; in non-essentials lib­erty, in every­thing, char­ity” - Augus­tine

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[1] 2 Pet 3:16 puts the empha­sis on a high view of inspi­ra­tion in Scrip­ture, and a healthy method of inter­pret­ing the Scrip­tures. This is at the heart of fun­da­men­tal­ism and really being saved.

[2] We should see many reli­gions pro­pose other sav­iours, but the Bible is exclu­sive in its focus on Jesus. To know him and have is to be saved, and to not is to be eter­nally lost. 1 Jn 5:11–13, 20; 1 Tim 2:5; Acts 4:12. John 5:23; 20:31.

[3] Ori­gin: Isa 7:14; Mat 1:23; Luke 1:27

[4] “Com­ing in the flesh” is a sign of his humil­ity, which arro­gance and haugh­ti­ness is the oppo­site. Bro­ken­ness and humil­ity are essen­tial to the Chris­t­ian life.

[5] Deity: John 1:1; 20:28 Hebrews 1:8–9

[6] Belief in the mir­a­cles are fre­quently iden­ti­fied as a fun­da­men­tal, because this proves His deity.

[7] This love is for Christ 1 Cor 16:22 and for the redeemed 1 John 3:10, 14; 4:8.

[8] Trin­ity: I John 5.20, John 8:58; 10:30

[9] Atone­ment: Acts 20:28; Romans 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7; Hebrews 9:12–14, 22; 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21;

[10] By faith, not by Works: Rom 4:4–5; 3:27–28; Gal 2:16–3:29; Tit 3:5; Eph 2:8–9.

[11] Antin­o­mi­an­ism – That Chris­tians are nei­ther under the law nor moral restric­tions of any type.

[12] Will of God: Mark 3:35, 1 John 2:17 he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. Eph 6:6 Not with eye­ser­vice, as men­pleasers; but as the ser­vants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;
To be saved is to sub­ject one­self to the will of God.

[13] Res­ur­rec­tion: Lukes 24:36–46; 1 Cor 15:1–4; 15:14–15; Romans 10:9; 1 John 4:2–3; 2 John 1:7

[14] Rap­ture of the believ­ers: This is a tak­ing away of the believ­ers from the earth. 1 Th. 4:16.