Seek ye first the kingdom of God

We believe God did not save people merely to rescue them from hell. He saved them with a future purpose in view, a purpose connected with inheritance, rulership, reigning with Christ, and participation in the coming kingdom. For someone coming from typical evangelical teaching, this is often one of the biggest shifts in understanding the purpose of salvation.

Salvation of the spirit (Justification) is by grace through faith. It is a one-time, complete event in the Christian’s past, that can never be lost or forfeited.

Salvation of the soul (sanctification) is an ongoing present activity being performed in the lives of every believer. This salvation is earned by works and can be lost or forfeited.

f the spirit is the Christian’s past, completed salvation, received entirely on the basis of Christ’s finished work. It is what most Christians simply call “being saved.”

We believe the Judgment Seat of Christ is a serious accounting of the believer’s life, not simply an awards ceremony.

Christians will give an account of how they lived, served, and responded to God’s Word. There can be reward, approval, inheritance, and rulership, but there can also be loss, forfeiture of inheritance, and serious consequences.

This does not mean a Christian can lose eternal salvation. It means a saved person can lose something very significant in the coming kingdom.

We believe the New Testament has to be understood in light of the Old Testament. The truths we find in the New Testament did not just appear out of nowhere.

They were already laid out in the Old Testament through types, patterns, history, and prophecy. The New Testament opens those truths up and helps us understand what God had already established.

This is especially true when it comes to the coming kingdom. We believe the kingdom is one of the central themes of Scripture.

Much of the New Testament was written to people who were already saved and deals with how they live after salvation, their faithfulness, their inheritance, their rewards, and whether they will reign with Christ.

These passages are not mainly about how a person gets eternal life. They are about what God expects from someone who already has eternal life and what is at stake for them in the coming kingdom.

When you understand the Old Testament foundation, a lot of the New Testament passages about inheritance, rewards, the salvation of the soul, overcoming, and reigning with Christ begin to make much more sense.

We believe biblical types are one of the primary ways God teaches truth. The people, events, institutions, and experiences recorded in the Old Testament were not included simply as history.

They were also given as patterns that point forward to greater spiritual truths revealed in the New Testament.

Types do not replace the plain meaning of Scripture. They help explain and develop what God has already revealed. When a type is properly understood, the Old Testament pattern and the New Testament fulfillment agree with each other.

This is why we believe passages involving Adam, Israel, Egypt, the wilderness, Canaan, the tabernacle, sacrifices, and other Old Testament events are essential for understanding subjects such as salvation, inheritance, the coming kingdom, the Christian life, and reigning with Christ.

God established the pattern first, then later opened up its fuller meaning.

We believe the Word of the Kingdom has largely disappeared from modern Christianity.

Many churches still clearly teach how a person is saved, but they often fail to teach why that person was saved. Scripture places great emphasis on the coming kingdom, inheritance, the salvation of the soul, Christian accountability, and reigning with Christ.

Over time, these truths have been neglected, misunderstood, or replaced by teachings that focus almost entirely on eternal salvation.

As a result, many Christians understand how to receive eternal life but know very little about the purpose of the Christian life and what is at stake at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

At this time, TeachingChurch.net is 100% online. Our focus is on supllmenting, not replacing, the local church. In cases where a doctrinally sound church is unavailable we offer support through bible study and correspondence.