SOME FUNDAMENTALS - CHRISTIANITY

It might be said that Christianity is a system of teaching and practice inaugurated by Christ and sealed in His death. It became fully established by His exaltation to the right hand of God and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We no longer have Christ here personally, but we still have His teaching, and people follow Christ and in their measure are marked by the features of Christ. In Christ God has been revealed in the fulness of divine grace, and wherever Christianity is fully embraced there is salvation, life, joy, hope and satisfaction.

Christ was the greatest Teacher that ever lived, but He not only taught, He exemplified perfectly in His walk and ways all the truth He taught. Now the teaching continues, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, 1 Cor 2: 13. Jesus and His teaching were vigorously opposed from the beginning to the end of His pathway. The religious leaders of Israel pursued Him and eventually in violent hatred delivered Him to Pilate. By the hand of lawless men He was crucified and slain. But God raised Him from the dead.

He left behind Him a few faithful followers, and these were the nucleus of a great company formed later by the coming of the Holy Spirit into that wonderful body known as the assembly. Thousands in those early days were added and they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking bread and prayers, Acts 2: 42. So Christianity became firmly established.

Then bitter persecution broke out, but the enemy's champion who breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples was met personally by the Lord and by the transforming power of divine grace was converted into the greatest lover of Christ. So fully was he brought into conformity to Christ and His teaching that he was able to say later, "For me to live is Christ" Phil 1: 21. To the Corinthians he wrote, "Be my imitators, even as I also am of Christ" 1 Cor 11: 1. It has been well said that Christianity is Christ. So Christ is to be expressed in every individual Christian and every local company walking in the light of the assembly.

The power of Satan is still directed against Christ and the assembly. He seeks by every possible means to overthrow all that is of Christ here, but the Lord has assured us that hades' gates will not prevail against the assembly. The testimony to Christ must go through to the end and every true-hearted believer will want to go through with it. Many have turned back when facing difficulties through lack of personal links of communion with the Lord, or because they were not established in the basic features of the truth. The fundamentals of the Christian faith will strengthen all of us (particularly those who are young) to be here in living testimony for Christ and to bring fresh features of Christ into the local assembly.

W.E.Ellis