Catechism
The word Evangelion (the Gospel) means "good news". Four books of the New Testament called the Gospels (in harmony with the rest of the Scriptures) tell the story of God's actions regarding the following issue. People were separated from God by their sins and could not help it. Moreover, sin brought the distraction of God's design for His creation. However, God's plan included the solution to the problem. Jesus Christ, God and the Son of God was born as a man, lived a perfect, sinless life, and died in our place, achieving atonement by taking our sins and securing his righteousness for those who believe in Him. He inaugurated the new age, the era of the Holy Spirit and the church, thus fulfilling his promise and advancing his initial plan.
Sin is not only "wrongdoing"; it is the ultimate contamination of humans that created an abyss between The Creator and His Creation. It originated with Adam's and Eve's betrayal of God's love and trust and disobedience to His order. The Bible's authors say we are "conceived and born in sin" (Psalms 51:5) and "died in Adam" (1 Cor 15:22).
Sin made all humankind unacceptable to the Lord and enslaved them to itself (John 8:34). As sinners, we are estranged from God and His purpose, subject to guilt, shame, self-destruction, and other bad things. We are unable to change the situation. Consequently, we are doing the bidding of God's enemy, making him "look" all-powerful instead of fulfilling God's will, which is good, acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:2). We are headed to the ultimate death that we deserve ("the wages of sin is death," Romans 6:23) and often do not even understand it (Mark 4:12).
All that was set in motion by Adam’s sin and like a disease transmitted to all humankind (Romans 3:10, 23, Psalms 51:5.) Thus, we all "bear the genome of sin" that affects who we are and what we do. In Romans 5, Paul explains that sin came through one man, Adam, making Adam responsible for "original sin." Sin is a corporate problem that destroys individuals, families, societies, and all creation, and there was no solution for that problem until God broke into the situation.
Jesus's death accomplished the atonement, reconciliation between God and humans. There are different images to explain it like a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28), sacrifice (Hebrew 10:10), marketplace (1 Corinthians 6:20), and others. We believe He took our sin upon himself (Romans 4:25); there were no other solutions (Acts 17:2-3) because it was the only way For God to stay Himself in reaction to sin and free us from it. This view is called "penal substitution" because our penalty was laid on Jesus. It is the only view that is consistent with God-given rituals in the Old Testament (for people to understand that their sins needed to be dealt away with), what He talked to His people through the prophets (Isaiah 53:4), and the way the authors of the New Testament understood it (Hebrews 9:28, 10:12, 1 Peter 2:24, and others).
It is vital to see that He gave those who believe in Him redemption and forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7-10), freedom for the original sin and guilt, actual sins, and imputation of Christ's righteousness (Romans 5:19), adoption into God's family as His children, power, and authority to play a role in a drama of God's salvation. The critical point is that He took out sins and punishment and lived a life of righteousness and fulfillment of God's plan for humans. Calvin pointed out that He was the perfect King, Priest, and Prophet, God's role for humans, that we have previously failed. That changes our perspective on the new life in that reconciliation. Apostol Peter saw it when he said that we are now supposed to be "a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus is our King and Lord, and as His committed subjects, we now do His bidding.
The other thing we can mention is that Jesus defeated the enemy and saved us from his power (Colossians 1:13, 1 John 3:8). We are engaged in spiritual warfare for His purposes, knowing that the defeat of the enemy will be manifested in fullness.
There are different views about "for whom" Christ died if we are trying to single out a group of people. Even the narrowest view on that group states that no one who comes to Christ will ever find no salvation for them. Christ said, "Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away" (John 6:37 b).
However, the first part of this verse has different interpretations: "All those the Father gives me will come to me." One view is usually called Calvinism and is often explained using the abbreviation TULIP. T stands for total depravity, humans' ultimate sinfulness and inability to deal with it. Unconditional election (U) states that people can not deserve or somehow please God to be saved. Before the creation, God chose some people to be a part of his redemptive plan ("predestination"). Paul's teaching in Romans 9:11-13 supports this view, Jacob was chosen over Esau, who God "hated," while "loving Jacob" in order that "the election plan could stand." More scriptures support that view, like Romans 11:1-6, where Paul refers to the remnant of 7,000 He kept for Himself and others. That way, the atonement limited ("L") to a number of the elect. I in TULIP stands for Irresistible Grace. If you are one of the elect, God has the power to turn you to Himself, save you, change you, and take you to eternity. Ephesians 2:1-10 for example, shows how all His work is to turn us to life from being dead in sin. "P" is for the Perseverance of the Saints, which means that elect people cannot lose that election because it is not up to them; God's power and love will sustain them. They can only backslide but will come back. Moreover, those who did not come back have never been saved in the first place (1 John 2:19).
Not everyone, even among evangelicals, shares that view. After all, Paul urges us to pray, and he states that God wants everyone to be saved and know the truth. (1 Tim 2:4). John says God loved the world (not just some people). Although the remnant theme is present in the story of God's actions, it looks like He intends that remnant to be the beginning of something big, like in the story of Noah. The point is not to reduce the numbers but to start anew. Arminianism reacted to TULIP, saying that election is conditioned by faith and that the atonement was for everyone. Only those who responded by faith enter, but the Holy Spirit must assist them; they sometimes can resist sin and even fall out of grace and lose their salvation. Scriptures that support that view are Romans 1:16-17, John 4:42, John 3:16, and Romans 5:1-2 - they all talk about our faith, which seems to play a role in the process of salvation, bringing us to the issue of saving faith. Nevertheless, before we go there, we must note that the discussion between the two groups has continued till these days, and there are different modifications within both views.
These two theories reflect the complexity of the atonement theology and give us an excellent framework to move forward. There are other theories, many of which present outlooks that seem partial and ignore important ideas developed by the New Testament authors.
"By grace, you have been saved through faith," Paul states in Ephesians 2:8. Grace is why we are saved. There are many definitions of grace, and all of them point out that it is God's attitude towards us who do not and cannot deserve or somehow get anything good. However, God still has the way not only to erase our sins but to offer to us "exceedingly above all things that we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20). Thus, the understanding of grace has two elements in it: our complete disability even to come close to gaining anything with God, and His unthinkable mercy and love that brings us back into His fullness. Grace reveals God's character to us. Paul uses the word "grace" almost 100 times; he says that it was poured into him (1 Timothy 13:14), it conquered sin and death (Romans 3:24-26), he felt grace is the essence of the Gospel, the news is about grace (Acts 20:24). The New Testament authors see grace as an initiator of our salvation, and that grace demands an adequate response.
Surprisingly, that adequate response is bot to be good boys and girls. Paul says we are saved by grace through faith (quoted above). Jesus often talked about faith. He said: "just believe" before he performed miracles (Mark 5:36); He praised a woman for her faith that "saved her" (Luke 7:50); He asked his disciples to believe in Him as they believed in the Father (John 14:1). He demanded the kind of faith that can produce fruits out of season! (Mark 11:22). He expressed His anxiety over doubts that he would find faith in people upon His return (Luke 18:8). Salvation is for those who believe in Him (John 1:12, Mark 16:16 and others). Faith partners with grace in Paul's thinking; salvation needs faith (Romans 3:27, Romans 5:1-2, Romans 1:17, Romans 5:1-2). God initiates and keeps bringing good changes in us, but it is not done without our faith in Him.
“Through” or “by” faith, we are deemed righteous. The end of Romans 4 and the beginning of Romans 5 open our eyes to how faith works for our justification. Paul talks about Abraham, who had enough faith to believe in what God promised, and because of that, God saw him as righteous. Immediately, Paul says we have the same righteousness because Jesus was "delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." St. Augustine explains in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion" (Book III, Chapter 11) that God in His perfection demands actual righteousness. We do not have that one, so God declares us righteous because he imputes us the righteousness of Christ. A justified Christian for Augustine, “by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous” (ibid).
Now we are justified, free of any penalty, and then what? Can we go and have fun? We can, but it is a different kind of fun. Justification is a gracious gift that begins the journey. Here, the Calvinists' idea of unlosable salvation comes in handy. The One who started that process, God, is committed to finishing it and bringing it to perfection, as Paul explains in Philippians 1:6. This process is called "sanctification." It is guided by the Holy Spirit (by whom Jesus is with us till the end) to the ever-deeper knowledge of God, His character, His will, His goodness, His design, and transformation into Christ's image through personal and intimate relationships, gifts, worship, and prayer. The changes in us are expected to be truly dramatic. We are being regenerated. Our idea of what fun is has changed!
So, what is that process all about? It is about being changed into Christ's image through the union with Christ. Although we do not lose our personality, speaking about that union, Paul goes as far as saying that it is not him who lives anymore, but Christ lives in him (Galatians 2:20). We are "predestined" to be "conformed into the likeness" of Jesus (Romans 8:29). That work in us is done by the Holy Spirit, who comes to "be with us forever" (John 14:16), that is what Jesus said to His disciples before he physically left them. When He was with them, it affected their lives, and now the Spirit will do the same work to be in Him, and He is in us. Jesus said it would be better if he could leave because the Spirit would be able to come (John 16:7). It looks like He preferred the work of the Spirit for that unity to what He could do restricted by the human body. The Spirit communicates the Word of God and produces the desire to do His will, the effort, and the fruit (Philippians 2:13, Galatians 5:23).
It is about Him changing us so that we can help change His world. The Spirit leads us to use the power and the authority to fulfill our parts in God's bigger plan for His creation, the epic battle between principalities and powers and the forces of the Kingdom of God. Although Satan was defeated on the cross by Jesus, we have a role to play in a finishing operation led by the third person of the Trinity from within us, planned and directed by The Father.
The church is designed to be actively involved in this plan. We are all members of one another, the body of Christ, and the church. The journey in front of us is challenging but very exciting. We are given everything and even "predestined" to the glorious perfection of ultimate union with God, ultimate victory over the enemy, and ultimate love with God and one another.