SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION

Transcription

1 SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION OLD TESTAMENT Job 19:25 I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. Psalm 22:1;7-8;16-18 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord, they say, let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. Page 1 of 7

2 Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away tears from all faces; he will remove his people s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. Isaiah 53:3-6 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. Page 2 of 7

3 NEW TESTAMENT Luke 24:1-6 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Acts 4:33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God s grace was so powerfully at work in them all. 1 Corinthians 15:54-56 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 2:15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. 1 John 5:4 For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Page 3 of 7

4 SALVATION ARMY DOCTRINE We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has by his suffering and death made an atonement for the whole world so that whosoever will may be saved. [SA Doctrine #6.] We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgement at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked. [SA Doctrine #11.] The New Testament describes Christ's sacrifice as a victory over sin and over the powers of evil which imprison humanity. By our faith in what he has done for us we participate in the achievement of Christ s sacrifice. The Cross, the place of seeming defeat, is actually the place of triumph. Christ's victory on the Cross becomes our victory (Colossians 2:13-15). [The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine, p. 130.] By the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christians enter into the new relationship with God that is described as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). New life begins when we participate in spirit in this great act of God. To turn away from our sinful life and to come to Christ in repentance and faith is to experience a kind of death (Romans 6:1-11; Colossians 3:3). We are called to the same obedience to God and letting go of self that led Jesus to the Cross (Luke 14:27). When we put our faith in Christ we come to new life by receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Resurrection is not only something that happened to Jesus Christ, it is also, very powerfully, something that happens to his followers Page 4 of 7

5 (Ephesians 2:4-7). In Christ all of us experience power over the twin enemies of sin and death. We will all die physically, but that ultimate death, which is the consequence of sin, has no more power over us (Hebrews 2:14-16). When we turn to Christ we begin immediately to be part of the new humanity that has been brought into being through his death and Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:14-22). Because of our fallen human condition, the new life cannot be experienced in its entirety now, but the risen Christ is our hope for the future, guaranteed by the living presence of the Holy Spirit in us (1 John 3:2) [The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine, p. 131.] SALVATION ARMY TRADITION About Victory The Atonement of Jesus Christ The Need of Atonement Page 5 of 7

6 SALVATION ARMY QUOTES The Cross Oh how men will sing about the Cross, amuse and ornament themselves with the Cross, weep oceans of tears about the Cross, which means painful and ignominious death, not only to the Master who hung upon it, but to the loves and lusts He died to destroy; but as to making it the tree on which they are crucified, on which they die to the power, and charm, and fascination of a vain, fashionable, frivolous, God-hating world, that is quite another thing. William Booth, Salvation Soldiery The Resurrection In the presence of the resurrection of Jesus all other miracles pale as do the stars before the rising sun. It is the crowning evidence that He is the Son of God. - Samuel Logan Brengle, Resurrection Life and Power It was a death that made an end of death, and a burial that buried the grave. - Bramwell Booth, Trumpets of the Lord Victory Now to be more than conqueror is not merely to put down the enemy, but to rise to higher heights upon his prostrate form. To be more than conqueror not only to withstand the blows of the weapons in the enemy s hand, but to seize these same weapons and use them in an aggressive attack upon the enemy. - Milton S. Agnew, More Than Conquerors His victory over death, and in history, His lesser victories in our lives, are pledges of a greater victory yet to be. - Harry Dean, Power and Glory Page 6 of 7

7 The victories of holiness can be won in our factories and kitchens and back streets. Indeed, that is where they must be won if an unbelieving generation is to be persuaded of the truth of this Christian doctrine. -Frederick Coutts, The Call to Holiness Page 7 of 7