These are the notes from my ladies’ Sunday School class this morning. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.
What is salvation? What is the gospel? (Cont’d)
I. Recap of our three problems in having a relationship with God.
A. Problem 1: God is holy, and we can’t be in His presence because we’re not.
B. Problem 2: God demands that we be holy as He is holy, but we can’t, due to our sin.
C. Problem 3: Because of our sin, we deserve hell.
II. People without Christ don’t know or care that they have these problems, nor that they need a solution to them. (Ephesians 2:1-3) For all of these reasons, the only way the gap between us and God could be bridged is for God to bridge it Himself. (Genesis 22:1-13)
A. Even our good deeds are tainted with sin. (Isaiah 64:6)
B. God is merciful. He wants us to be reconciled to Himself. (2 Peter 3:9; Romans 5:6-8)
III. God’s solution: Jesus.
A. Jesus was the perfect, spotless sacrificial Lamb. (Hebrews 4:15, 1 John 3:5)
B. On the cross, Jesus absorbed all of God’s wrath towards our sin (propitiation). (1 John 4:9-10; 1 Peter 3:18)
C. If we trust in Christ’s payment for our sin, His righteousness is imputed to us just like our sin was imputed to Him on the cross. (2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9)
IV. How does Jesus’ death bridge the gap between us and God and solve our three problems?
A. (Problem 1) Through Christ, we are made holy and can come into God’s presence to be in a relationship with Him. (Colossians 1:21-22; Ephesians 1:4)
B. (Problem 2) Because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, we are holy, and our sin is forgiven. (Hebrews 10:10, 1 Corinthians 6:11)
C. (Problem 3) Because Christ paid for our sin in full, hell is moot. (John 3:16, 36; John 5:24)
D. Summary: Ephesians 2:1-7
V. Extra Study Resources:
B. “Why Does Christ’s Righteousness Need to be Imputed to Us?”
C. “God Saves Bad People” by Art Azurdia
There you go again. Your poor ladies, do they really sit there and listen to this stuff? Maybe next week they’ll say how refreshing it would be if you actually said something positive about humanity and human endeavour now and again. Selling your brand of crude, intellect-denying extremism must be really tough. Why, I’d probably get better results selling Gay Pride T-shirts at a South Carolina Tea Party rally. Which reminds me.
Here’s a good news story about a human triumph you could maybe use next week. It combines social compassion with a medical breakthrough that has added immensely to overall human happiness. My friend, who is a lesbian, feared that she would never be a mother. But thanks to IVF treatment (and a donor, obviously), her wife has just given birth to twins!
kind regards as ever
Andrew
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You have awesome knowlwdge these.
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@Learn More: Thank you! I’m not sure what ‘knowlwdge’ is, but knowledge has a lot to do with it.
So does education by trained teachers, which encourages you to challenge what you’re told and not to treat the Bible’s hearsay, unverified ‘evidence’ as even remotely true!
Andrew
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