This question deserves careful consideration. In answering this question I mean by “church”, the Lord’s church, the church that is identical in name, doctrine, practice and organization with the church that you can read about in the New Testament! I am not referring to religious bodies that have been founded by men, either Catholicism or Protestantism. By the expression “saved” I mean forgiven of past sins, redeemed, and has become a child of God.

Many people think that they can be saved outside the church as well as in it—that they can be Christians outside as well as in the church. They reason that as long as they are good neighbors, good husbands or wives, good parents that all is well. Rather than thinking that something is true one should be concerned with what the Scriptures teach. The Word of God furnishes us with everything that pertains to life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3; 2 Tim. 3:16-17). Since this is true then let us consider what the Bible has to say concerning this question. » Continue reading “Is It Possible To Be Saved And Not Be A Member Of The Church?”

It is truly possible for a person to know that he/she is saved and is ready to meet God. In fact, God intends and desires us to have this assurance.

First, Paul shows very clearly that the man outside of Christ cannot live the Christian life. He said, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good {is} not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish” (Rom 7:18-19). It is essential for one to understand that it is not the condition of the Christian that is here described. A failure to understand this may lead to the repulsive error of Calvinism which contends that one may serve God with the spirit while at the same time practicing sin with his body. The condition Paul describes in these verses could never be true of the Christian. The Christian is not “carnal and sold under sin?” » Continue reading “Can A Person Really Know That He Is Saved?”

At the very heart of the gospel message is the Cross of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:23-24). One of the reasons Jesus died and shed His blood was to establish redemption for mankind. Paul in writing to the church in Ephesus said, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7).

One of the great unchanging, immutable, principles of the Divine Government is the truth that, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” The Hebrew writer pointed this out when he wrote, “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22). » Continue reading “At What Point Does The Blood Of Christ Save Us?”

The charge is often made that baptism is excluded from the plan of redemption because it is a “work.” And since no one is saved by “works” (Eph. 2:9), baptism cannot be essential to salvation.

Is baptism a meritorious human work? Absolutely not. It cannot be a meritorious human work because our Lord commanded it when He said, “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

The Bible clearly teaches that we are not saved by works (Titus 3:4-7; Eph. 2:9). Yet the Bible also clearly teaches we are saved by works (James 2:14-24). Since the Bible does not contradict itself, it is obvious that two different kinds of works are under consideration in the above passages. » Continue reading “Is Baptism A Human Work?”