continued from inside…

name of the Lord shall be saved.’15 ‘Ask and it shall be

given unto you,’16 or more correctly, ‘keep on asking.’

Jesus spoke of the wide gate and the broad path that
lead to destruction, commenting that ‘many go in this Reformed Congregational Church
V 
way.’17 On the other hand He spoke of a small gate
and a narrow path that leads to life. Though there be

I Q
few that find it, He exhorts all who hear His message
to ‘strive to enter in.’ This is the way to saving faith.
Strive, seek, call on God’s name. Never rest until you
know that salvation is yours.
What is a Christian?

I
n a word, a Christian is someone who has been
‘saved.’ Now ‘saved’ is a bit religious sounding, so
we need to provide a definition. If you were an
Israelite or a Greek living in the time of Jesus, it would
Coram Deo currently meets to you be quite an ordinary word that meant to be
at the Dana Point Youth Facility ‘delivered’ or ‘rescued.’ Now if a Christian is someone
who has been delivered or rescued the question needs
34451 Ensenada Place to be asked, ‘From what?’

“… earnestly contending for the faith once for all delivered …”

Dana Point Harbor, CA 92629
Most people would answer, ‘Hell.’ It is easy to
Sundays: 11:00 am understand this reply, after all, what are most people
scared of when they contemplate the afterlife but the
and at 33145 Santiago Drive, thought of endless punishment? Biblically, however,
Dana Point, CA 92629 the answer is not ‘hell,’ but ‘God.’ This may surprise
you, but both the Old Testament and the New make it
Wednesdays: 7:30 pm very clear indeed that what the saved are being saved
from is God Himself. Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Fear hell,’ but
‘Fear Him who can cast you into hell.’1 In Revelation
the worst horror of judgment is not the lake of fire,
but the presence of an angry God. We are told of those
Reformed Congregational Church

who will be, ‘tormented with fire and brimstone in the

presence of … the Lamb.’2
Dana Point, CA 92629-4047

The proclamation - ‘For God so loved the world,’ - is

only found once, and in one gospel.3 This is not to
Post Office Box 4047

deny - or water down - the love of God (which is

implied throughout Scripture), but reminds us of the
15
Acts 2: 21 need to understand that love biblically; that is, against
16
Luke 11: 9
17
Luke 13: 23-24 continued on inside…
Post Script: This is an exploration document, and not
1
meant to represent any final doctrinal position for Coram Luke 12:5
2
Deo Church. Revelation 14:10
3
© Copyright 1995, Anthony D. O’Sullivan John 3:16
continued from cover…
the backdrop of God’s wrath. The warning ‘flee from the
wrath to come,’4 is spoken of, or alluded to, many times
in the gospels, particularly marking the beginning of the
preaching ministry of John the Baptist,5 Jesus,6 the twelve
Apostles7 and the seventy disciples.8 The most
‘theological’ Epistle on salvation, Paul’s letter to the
Romans, opens with the same fearful truth, ‘… the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men …’9
As to the cause of this wrath, it is found in man himself.
The world around us likes to speak of the human race in
rather generous terms, and constantly seeks to excuse the
bad things we have done - together and as individuals - in
terms of ‘mistakes,’ or ‘deprived social conditions,’
‘educational ignorance,’ ‘bad experiences,’ and so on. The
Bible bluntly denies any and all excuses for our bad
behavior, calling such things sin against a holy God, and
explaining them in terms not of man’s depravation, but
man’s depravity. In the Bible God doesn’t pity man
because of his sin, but rather condemns him because of
his vileness. In other words, men stink, and we stink
because of what we are by nature. In Romans chapter
three, the following unglamorous account is given of
what God sees in the human race, and each one of us:
There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who
understands, There is none who seeks after God; All have
turned aside, together they have become useless. There is
none who does good, There is not even one.10
Given the corruption that is in man, and God’s righteous
hostility towards every single one of us, the question of
salvation or deliverance seems quite an important one - to
say the very least! It is at this point that the Bible speaks
of God’s love, for God’s love is seen in the truth that man
may be saved, but it needs to be asked, how?
4
Matthew 3:7
5
Luke 3:7
6 for us to do is ask for this gift, ‘All who call upon the
Luke 13:1-5
7
Matthew 10:1, Mark 6:7, Luke 9:1
8
Luke 10:1-20
9 11
Romans 1:18
10
Romans 3: 10-12
How is a Person Saved from this Wrath?
T
hrough Christ, and Christ alone. The Bible tells us
that everything necessary to deliver us from the
well-deserved wrath of God has been done for us in
the Person of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Colossians,11 the writer tells us that this Christ, who is,
with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Eternal and
Everlasting God, left His glory in heaven and became fully
human, while remaining fully God. That having taken
upon Himself human nature, He submitted Himself to the
Law to keep it perfectly (as we ought to have done), and
then died taking the punishment due our sins (taking the
death that we deserve). In doing these two things Jesus
satisfied the wrath of God.
“…if you don’t have
faith, you are as much
under the wrath of
God as if Jesus didn’t
die…”
That is good news, good news indeed, but it needs to be
remembered that Jesus did not satisfy God’s anger for
everyone - only for those who have faith. If you don’t have
faith, you are as much under the wrath of God as if Jesus
didn’t die. Without faith you are still ‘a child of wrath,’
still ‘condemned,’ still a God hater, still His enemy, still
hated by Him, still going to hear those words, ‘Depart
from me you who are cursed, into the lake of fire prepared
for the devil and his angels.’12
All that Christ did has no value for us until we have faith.
In this context, the questions, ‘What is faith?’ and ‘How
may I have it?’ are the most important that could be asked.
Colossians 1: 15-22
12
Matthew 25:41
What is Faith?
The writer to the Hebrews provides the following
definition:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.13
T
his is very precise language. The writer is
determined that we understand that faith is
certainty, and that on a level which exceeds what
may be known at a natural level, what we can
understand by reason, logic and deduction. Given the
common understanding among many who call
themselves Christian this definition is surprising. Many
of us have been taught that faith is ‘a leap in the dark,’
that it is hoping that something is true when we are not
sure, that it is an act of surrender or commitment, that
it is something we do to close the gap that exists
between us and God.
But faith is not what we do, it is what God does in us.
Faith is God speaking to me in such a way that I am
fully convinced of the truth of who Jesus Christ is and
what He has done. It is God telling me, that His Christ,
is my Christ, that He who died for the sins of many,
died for my sins. That He who bore the wrath of God,
bore it for me. That God who is merciful and
compassionate, is merciful and compassionate to me.
How May I Have Faith?
I
f faith is what happens when God speaks to me, it is
pretty obvious that Paul got it right when he said,
‘Faith … is the gift of God.’14 Faith is something
that God gives me. Paul says something else in this verse
that is very important concerning our understanding of
how to obtain faith, ‘it is by grace …’ Grace declares
God’s willingness to give freely, without reference to our
works, to any of the bad things we have done, or (as
importantly) to any of the ‘good’ things. All that is left
continued on back panel…
13
Hebrews 11: 1
14
Ephesians 2: 8-9