A Salvation Catechism
A catechism is a teaching method using questions and answers. A catechumen is a student who is learning by this method. Catechisms relate to confessions of faith that are expansions of creeds. The purpose of these theological tools is to explain sound doctrine, in our case, of the Christians faith.
The doctrine of salvation is formed from the many Bible passages that reveal what God has done and is now doing to deliver His chosen people from His wrath against their sins against Him. Also, stated positively, salvation is eternal life, body and soul, granted to the elect through regeneration of the soul and the future resurrection of the body. It is the exclusive work of God that brings His beloved into union with Christ, who loved them and died for them.
- What is salvation?
The plan and purpose of the Triune Godhead to deliver the people of God from the just consequences for their sins. It also incorporates them into God for eternity.
2. What is sin?
Sin is lawlessness. It is disobedience against the Holy God and the righteous Law revealed from heaven.
3. What are the consequences of sin?
The wages of sin is death. It is appointed for a man to die once and then comes God’s judgment.
4. What punishment does God issue in His just judgment of sinners?
Guilty sinners are punished in the torment of fiery hell in the eternal lake of fire, which is called “the second death.”
5. Why is the punishment for sins so severe?
Each offense of sin, whether it is inherited from the first man, Adam, or practiced by the individual sinner, is a crime against the infinite majesty of Almighty God.
6. Who are the people of God to be delivered from God’s eternal wrath to come?
They are elect of God from before the foundation of the world. They are the redeemed of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are the born again of God’s Holy Spirit.
7. What actually saves God’s chosen people?
God saves His chosen people. The precious blood of Christ shed on the cross of Calvary where Christ died for the sins of God’s chosen people as their substitute sacrifice.
8. Is everyone saved from God’s wrath?
No, only the chosen remnant for whom Christ died and to whom the Spirit baptizes and indwells are saved.
9. What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
It is the entry point of the Spirit into one’s soul. It is the sinner’s entry point into the church.
10. What is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?
It is the permanent abiding of the life of God in the soul of the regenerated believer.
11. Who is the believer?
Believers are God’s elect people, redeemed by Christ, and who are made alive by the Spirit, who grants them the gift of faith. They are said to have faith “in Christ.”
12. How is one found “in Christ”?
By God’s doing, He establishes and anoints each soul who He transfers into Christ’s kingdom.
13. What does the saved believer believe?
The believer believes the truth as it is in Jesus, who claimed to be the truth of God who is true.
14. Where do I learn about Jesus and the truth of God to be believed?
The Bible is the revealed Word of God, which is the written Word of truth.
15. Does the Bible tell me how I am saved?
Yes, if you belong to Christ then you have been saved by God’s grace through the gift of faith granted to you.
16. Why am I still going to die if I am saved from sin, judgment and wrath?
Your soul was spiritually dead from the conception of your biological body because of Adam’s sin and your biological body is a body of accumulated sins that must die. As a believer, your soul was made alive, spiritually, and in the resurrection to life, you will have a new and glorified body.
17. What must I do if I am not a believer?
Trust God by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. This is the work of God…that you believe in His only begotten Son, who He sent into the world to save His people from their sins.
18. What am I believing about Jesus Christ?
Believe that Jesus is the one and only Son of God, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, who was enfleshed, born of the Virgin Mary, born under the Law, was without sin, and who suffered as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world, for the chosen people of God given to Him by God the Father.
Believe that His sacrificial death and blood atonement for sin is exactly what is acceptable to God for the forgiveness of all your sins according to the covenant of grace established and perfectly kept by God, who has secured victory over sin, death, the world, Satan and his demons.
Believe that Jesus was raised from the tomb of death and ascended into heaven to be gloriously enthroned at the right hand of the Father in majesty from whence He shall come again to judge the living and the dead, having received all authority in heaven and on earth for He must reign and His kingdom is forever.
If you believe all that as it is written in the Bible, then you are the recipient of the riches of His grace, being a vessel of mercy prepared for glory. Give thanks without ceasing. Walk by the Spirit who is now working in the souls of God’s elect, redeemed, regenerate, believers who are being made holy as He is holy and by whom we shall be presented to the Father, holy and blameless on the last day. This is why salvation is so great.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
June 8, 2022
