Session 1: Introduction & Foundation

What is Basics?

Welcome to the Hickory Corners Bible Church Basics class! This class is meant to be a 9-session class with the goal of providing you with a good and clear overview of both what we believe as a church body, and also to help you understand how we operate on account of that belief.

Sessions 1 through 8 will cover:

The foundation of this church

The creation and fall

Redemption through Christ Jesus

Things related to the End and Eternity

Ecclesiology, meaning the organization and overview of the Church

Our local ecclesiology worked out

Godly living in the present age

Ordinances for believers.

The final, ninth session is going to be a question and answer opportunity you will have with the leadership of the church. I will encourage you to jot your questions down as we go through each week and get them to me, so that we can address all of your questions together during that session together. Of you have a question, someone else may have the same one!

We won’t be going significantly in-depth into each subject, since that could easily expand this class into a lifetime-long journey. You will find that although we list several verses for each of these parts of our Statement of Faith, there are many more portions of Scripture that support each from both the Old and New Testaments, but we find that these are appropriate to convey the meaning.

And even as I say this, I think it’s important that if you have questions or feel like you need a more in-depth discussion on any of the subjects we will cover, please jot that down and send that to me. We may be able to address it in the future as a group through the question and answer session, through a future teaching or preaching subject, or we can also have a more one on one discussion.

And so, considering that this first session is meant to lay out the most basic foundation for everything else, we will today begin with Scripture, and then what it reveals about God, the trinitarian nature of God, the person of the Father, the person of the Son, and the person of the Holy Spirit, and then finally we’ll discuss the prominent place of Jesus Christ within the scriptures.

The Scripture

The most basic, most foundational component of everything we believe here at Hickory Corners Bible Church is rooted not in tradition nor in logic, but in the holy Scriptures. We of course call them “holy” because they are the very words of God. We read in 2 Peter 1:3, “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

How has God ‘granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness’ (2 Pet 1:3)? What should this mean to us as we go about our daily lives?

The answer to this question has ramifications which permeate the whole of our existence. After all, what else is there outside of life and its antithesis, death; or else godliness and its antithesis ungodliness? This truly is a meaning-of-life type of question.

Now there are many who either in laying out the groundwork to answer this question look fondly to the traditions of men, or to the wisdom and learning of the brightest among them, whether you are talking about intelligence, or wit, or science. But we here at Hickory Corners Bible Church believe that those approaches are not only wrong, but are in fact detrimental as a basis for either life or godliness.

Genesis 6:5 LSB

Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

What is the effectiveness of tradition? John Owen rightly pointed out in this verse that God had given the world an experiment, if you will, to demonstrate just how good man was at keeping traditions. God had created Man in Genesis 1, called the entirety of His creation good, gave him a helper in his wife, a job, and a command to follow in Genesis 2, and by Genesis 3 Adam and Eve have now sinned by violating that one command they were given. God demonstrated for them the covering of their sin through the shedding of blood, and expelled them from the Garden, and in doing so they discovered they could no longer have that joy of walking in the Garden as they spoke directly with their creator. You would think they’ve learned their lesson and passed that information down to their children, you would think the knowledge of God would be conveyed carefully and accurately, but within just a short handful of generations we read in Genesis 6 that this knowledge and obedience to God is all but lost, with the singular exception in the one man Noah.

So, clearly, tradition has already been proven by God as to be entirely insufficient as a means of Himself providing “everything pertaining to life and godliness”, so we must also reject this notion that “traditions” are a reliable guide.

What about the intellect and wisdom of man?

1 Corinthians 1:27–28 LSB

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are,

Just this one small passage from the abundance of writing on this theme shows and declares that God has rejected this notion, too, even declaring in 1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.”

So clearly once again, we must emphasize that what we as a race come up with on our own, is wholly insufficient to reveal anything eternally worthwhile, let alone everything, “pertaining to life and godliness.”

Where then are we to turn?

2 Timothy 3:16–17 LSB

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We are to turn squarely and specifically to Scripture, and to Scripture alone, for everything pertaining to life and godliness. In fact, Peter would continue in that same epistle we looked at earlier, continuing to demonstrate that experience is likewise not sufficient to such a task:

2 Peter 1:16 LSB

For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but being eyewitnesses of His majesty.

2 Peter 1:17–18 LSB

For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”— and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

No, says Peter – even with this experience under our belt, there is and even surer way to know what the will of God is, going on…

2 Peter 1:19 LSB

And we have as more sure the prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

2 Peter 1:20–21 LSB

Know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes by one’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

And so, here at Hickory Corners Bible Church, we look specifically to the Word of God as our final authority for faith and practice – meaning that it is the foundational basis for everything we do, and everything we believe. Here’s the crucial statement for you:

We believe the Holy Scriptures, the sixty-six (66) books, of both the Old and New Testaments, to be the verbally inspired Word of God, the final authority for faith and practice, inerrant, infallible and God-breathed through Spirit-controlled men. We believe the Bible to be the true center of Christian union and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions will be tried. Matthew 5:18; Romans 15:4; II Timothy 3:16-17; II Peter 1:20-21

What is the implication of our doctrine of Scripture?

Because our starting point is fixed firmly on the authoritative Word of God, you should increasingly discover that everything we do here at Hickory Corners Bible Church comes back to this one most basic foundation. In an earlier age, this was often called the “regulative principle”, that divine revelation is the sole rule of divine worship, that everything we do and believe ought to be founded upon some precept or example taken from the Word of God, both in our personal lives, but also and especially in the life of the church where we gather together to worship God.

What is the Scripture we read and use? Where did it come from?

Now, as we worship God together, you will notice that here at Hickory Corners Bible Church, we have been using the Legacy Standard Bible. We believe that this is presently the best translation available, and is based on the New American Standard Bible’s 1995 update. Both of these – the LSB and the NASB’95 – are very good and useful. Now remember that the Bible wasn’t written in English – the Old Testament was written mostly in ancient Hebrew and certain portions in ancient Aramaic, and the New Testament was written in Koine Greek. And we do believe that the LSB is the best translation available, which is why Jeff and I preach and teach from it, and Pastor Rich uses the NASB’95. The question that we ask as we consider any translation is first and foremost whether or not it is faithful in its entirety to the original languages. There are some other good translations out there, but these are the ones we recommend here.

But the key element of this whole doctrine of Scripture is that we organize our church based in principles found in Scripture. Our constitution or bylaws ought to be written based on scriptural principles, our policies ought to be in conformity to God’s will as revealed in Scripture. How we receive money and pay our bills ought to be in conformity to God’s will as revealed in Scripture. How we interact with one another here on Sunday ought to be in conformity to God’s will as revealed in Scripture. How we interact with our community ought to be in conformity to God’s will as revealed in Scripture. Every single part of who we are and what we do ought to be in conformity with God’s will as revealed in Scripture! And so, we have rightly spent the bulk of our time here in this first session of Basics giving this the majority of our time.

Read Paul’s encouragement and reminder to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15-17. List out at least 5 different ways that God uses Scripture for the believer. What does the statement in verse 17 tell us about the purpose of Scripture?

God

But there is a close second to Scripture in our foundations, and indeed so close a second that the two are inextricably intertwined. For Scripture is not scripture on account of man’s thinking, but on account of God’s acting and communicating in a supernatural manner. You cannot have Scripture without God, as Peter had proclaimed in 2 Peter 1:21, “For no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

We must recognize and celebrate that the general nature of Scripture is not to put down man’s thoughts, but rather it serves as a written record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. He is the God who speaks, who spoke the world into existence, who breathed into the nostrils of a lump of clay and brought that clay to life as a man! When we said that Scripture is the “verbally inspired Word of God”, we realize that it by its very nature is communicating to us the nature of God Himself. And you don’t have to go very far in Scripture to see the first attribute of God - turn to the first page of your Bible to see the inescapable truth of God in Genesis 1:1,

Genesis 1:1 LSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God existed before the beginning. He existed before light and darkness, He existed before the creation of heaven, He existed before land and sea, He existed before even time came into existence. We see this confirmed even in Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were born Or You brought forth the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.”

The Godhead

But that’s not all that Genesis 1 teaches us, if we go down to verse 26, we read Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””

You will notice, that God refers to Himself in a plural sense here, and then in Deuteronomy 6:4 He declares through Moses, “Hear, O Israel! Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one!” Why? How?

Ephesians 4:4–6 LSB

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

We say it this way in our Statement of Faith:

We believe in one triune God, eternal in existence, and infinite, intelligent Spirit, Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, inexpressibly glorious in holiness and worthy of all possible honor, confidence and love; that in unity of the Godhead there are three (3) Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, co-equal in power, co-eternal in being, co-identical in nature, co-equal in divine perfection and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption. Gen 1:26a; Exodus 20:2-3; Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 90:2; Jeremiah 10:10; Matt 28:19-20; John 4:24; Ephesians 4:4-6.

But the attribute that most describes God is His holiness. Each person of the Trinity is holy. We see that when God calls Himself “holy” in Leviticus 20:26, “‘Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.” The Seraphim in the throne-room of heaven called out of Him in Isaiah 6:3, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is Yahweh of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory.” Revelation 4:8, “And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within, and day and night they do not cease to say, “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.”” God similarly describes Himself as holy, He describes Himself as love, He describes Himself as just, He describes Himself as light, He describes Himself as merciful. And each person of the Trinity is perfect in each of these qualities. It’s not that God meets the standard of holiness, of love, of just-ness, of mercy, of perfection, it’s not even that He defines those standards. No, the only right way for our finite minds to grasp it is to say that God is the standard. And no created thing, whether in heaven or on earth, seen or unseen, can even remotely approach that standard. To behold His holiness in our minds will out of hand emphasize our unholiness – that’s what caused Isaiah to cry out in distress in Isaiah 6:5 “Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.””

And yet we must likewise recognize the unity between each person of the Trinity, as Jesus the only-begotten Son of God, says in John 10:30 ““I and the Father are one.””

Three distinct persons of the Trinity, co-equal in power, in eternality, in perfection, yet each has a distinct office, a particular manner in which the three work harmoniously together.

Read Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8. Why do we call holiness, love, mercy, and perfection attributes that are intrinsic to the nature of God, rather than emotions that He can pick up and set aside at will?

Read Jesus’ High Priestly prayer (John 17:1-26). What does this tell us about the relationship between Jesus and the Father?

Read Romans 11:33-36. What does this tell us about the nature of God?

God The Father

It is right and good and proper for us then to consider first the Father.

We believe in the supremacy of the Father. He is perfect, immeasurable in greatness of power, truly righteous and holy. He has given all things into the hand of His Son whom he loves. He has life in himself and raised the Son from the dead. The Father, for whom we exist, draws us to the Son, through whom we exist. Matthew 5:48; John 3:35, 5:26, 6:44; Romans 6:4; 1 Corinthians 8:6, 15:24-28; Ephesians 1:19, 4:24

John’s gospel is very much a help to us, here, so let us look for a moment at those verses:

John 3:35 LSB

“The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.

John 5:26 LSB

“For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;

John 6:44 LSB

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

Even among men, we understand that you cannot give something which you do not yourself possess. What the Father gives the Son is His by right of ownership to give.

Read John 17:1, Luke 11:2-4, Acts 1:7, Ephesians 3:14, Colossians 1:3, Philemon 3, James 1:17, and 2 Peter 1:17. What do all of these tell us about God the Father? Why should our prayers be addressed to the Father?

God the Son, Jesus Christ

The God the Son, even, did not do His own will, but rather the will of His Father, here is just one example also from the gospel of John, since we are already there:

John 12:49–50 LSB

“For I did not speak from Myself, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. “And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”

Paul summarized the actions and attitudes and deference to the Father by Jesus Christ to the Philippian believers in Philippians 2:5-11

Philippians 2:5–7 LSB

Have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men.

Philippians 2:8 LSB

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:9–11 LSB

Therefore, God also highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father.

So then, here is our doctrinal statement on the Son:

We believe in the absolute deity of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ who spoke the world into existence out of nothing; that He is divine as no other man can be, being very God of very God, becoming man, without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful men. Genesis 1:3; Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:20; John 1:1-2, 14; 8:58; Galatians 4:4-5; Phil 2:6-7; Colossians 1:13-17; I John 1:1-3; I John 5:20

Read John 17:5, Galatians 4:4, and Philippians 2:7. Why is it important that Jesus came into the world, rather than being born in the normal sense as you and I?

Read Mark 2:3-12, what authority did Jesus demonstrate that He has?

Read Romans 1:3-4. How was Jesus declared to be the Son of God?

God the Holy Spirit

So now having given a brief overview of the Father and then the Son, now we turn to our brief overview of the Holy Spirit. Let’s start with the doctrinal statement this time:

We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine person; the third member of the trinity, equal with God the Father and God the Son; that He was active in the creation; that in His relation to the unbelieving world He restrains the evil one until God’s purpose is fulfilled; that He convicts of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; that He bears witness to the truth of the Gospel in preaching and witnessing, that He is the agent in the New Birth; baptizing all believers into the body of Christ, indwelling and sealing them, at the moment of salvation, unto the day of redemption. Genesis 1:1-3; Zechariah 12:10; Matthew 28:19; John 1:33; 14:16-17; 16:8-11; Acts 5:30-32; 11:16; Romans 8:14-16, 26-27; I Corinthians 3:16; 6:19-20; 12:11-14; II Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 1:13-14; II Thessalonians 2:7

The Holy Spirit is not called out so blatantly as the Father and the Son in some regards, which is why some have had trouble concerning Him. But even He existed from before the beginning, Genesis 1:2 saying “And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.”

Once again, John ‘s gospel is most helpful for us, saying in

John 14:16–17 LSB

“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him. You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

And again in John 16:8-11,

John 16:8–11 LSB

“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

In point of fact, the Holy Spirit continually testifies of Christ Jesus. 2 Peter 1:21, which we looked at in the beginning, showcases His work: “For no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

Read Isaiah 40:13-14, Psalm 139:7, Hebrews 9:14, and John 16:13. What do these verses tell us about the attributes of the Holy Spirit?

Read John 15:26, John 16:13, and John 16:14. If the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak of Himself but instead of Christ, who should our worship focus upon?

Christ in the Scriptures

There is a reason why these twin doctrines, of Scripture and God, are so very interrelated, and we also believe that this is something important to call out in our doctrine as well:

We believe that all Scripture from the first to the last center around Jesus Christ, in His person, His work, and His first and second comings; and hence, that no chapter in the Bible is properly read or understood unless and until it leads to Him; and moreover, that all Scripture from first to last, is designed for our practical instruction in leading us to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39; Acts 18:28; 26:22-23; 28:23.

Whether it is Jesus Christ saying to the Jews in John 5:39, ““You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that bear witness about Me;” as a rebuke to them, or Jesus speaking to the Cleopas and the other on the road to Emmaus the account of Luke 24:27 “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” , the effect of all Scripture is the same, they center on the Lord Jesus Christ, they teach us our need of Him, the glory of Him, the way we ought to live in Him.

I can think of no better way to end this session than with the doxology Paul gives of Christ Jesus in Colossians 1:15-20,

Colossians 1:15–16 LSB

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

Colossians 1:17–18 LSB

And He is before all things, And in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

Colossians 1:19–20 LSB

For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross—through Him—whether things on earth or things in heaven.

If “all Scripture from the first to the last center around Jesus Christ”, how should that impact how we read and study Scripture?

What lesson ought we learn about life as a Christian as a result of this doctrine? Where should our focus be?

Let’s pray!

Bonus Challenge 1: Look up all of the Scripture references, and map out what part of each doctrine comes primarily from which reference!

Bonus Challenge 2: Can you find other Scriptural references that support each doctrinal statement?