The whole system of Christianity may be regarded as having its foundation in the existence of one God. (See THEISM.) Next to this may be placed the doctrines of the Fall of Man through disobedience which separates the individual from the service and fellowship of God resulting in punishment in a future and eternal state due to humankind being utterly incapable of bringing about their own deliverance from sin and misery. To this end God sent His Son to save sinners, to deliver them from hell, to make them holy, and partakers of the eternal joy and glory of heaven through the atoning grace of Jesus Christ.
Those who regard Christ as merely human cause atonement or reconciliation with God to depend on the repentance of man for their salvation whilst the life and death of Christ are represented as merely an example to us of obedience, virtue, and piety in the most trying circumstances thus negating the doctrines of a propitiatory sacrifice, a substitutionary atonement, and an imputed righteousness with Christ thus making it impossible for divine redemption to succeed by not acknowledging the divinity of Christ.
The aforementioned doctrines of salvation however, are all consistently maintained in connection with the doctrine of the Trinity and the generally received doctrine as to the person of Christ. The very incarnation of the Son of God is regarded as a glorious display of divine love and a wonderful exaltation of human nature: whilst a personal enjoyment of the highest dignity and bliss of which humanity is capable in the favour and fellowship of God for ever, is to be attained by faith in Jesus Christ.
The indissoluble connection between faith and salvation arises from the divine appointment, and secures a moral harmony, as it provides for bringing into operation in accordance with the intellectual and moral nature of man-of most powerful and excellent motives for all that is morally good, the partakers of salvation being thus fitted for the fellowship of Him into whose favour they are received; and as it prevents the possibility of any of them taking to themselves, or giving to others, the glory that salvation, which they really owe to Christ, and which they must therefore ascribe to Christ, as God is a God of truth, and truth must reign in the kingdom of Heaven.
Salvation is accorded by all Christians to the grace of God. The mission of Christ was an act of supreme sacrifice which must be ascribed to His love for which we are indebted to Christ. The doctrine of grace for Christians generally is due to the personal relationship of the believer to Christ, and faith in Christ is ascribed to the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God, the third person of the God-head, and so to the grace of God.
Bibliography (modem only):
A. C. Bouquet, Is Christianity the Final Religion?, 1921; G. B. Foster, Christianaity in its Modem Expression, 1921; J. H. Jowett, God—Our Contemporary, 1922;.R.. 0. Faithfull, The Word of Christ, 1923, B. G. Parsons and A. S. Peake (ed.), An Outline of Christianity, 1926; 0. Gore, Christ and Society, 1928; W. R. Inge, Christian Ethics and Moral Problems, 1930; W. Temple, Christian Faith and Life, 1931; A. Schweitzer, Christianity and Religions of the World, 1932; A. C. Headlam, Christian Theology, 1934; H. G. Wood, Christianity and Civilisation, 1942; E. W. Barnes, The Rise of Christianity, 1947; W. A. L. Elmslie, How Came Our Faith, 1948.
