This is the Record

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11).

“This is the record,” declared the Apostle John; this is the sum and substance of all that is written and preached. God, out of His pure free-grace, is pleased to give unto us ETERNAL LIFE. This life is the spiritual life lost in the fall – life free from sin, sorrow, and death forever.

This life is in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! Not only purposed in Him, promised through Him, and purchased by Him, but HE IS THAT LIFE! (Col. 3:4)

He that hath the redeeming Christ, the interceding Christ, the indwelling Christ hath life!

Pastor Henry T. Mahan (bulletin 1984)

“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”

(I Corinthians 1:30).

Christ is my wisdom, therefore, I seek no knowledge of God or salvation apart from Him, nor do I try to form some clever argument of my own by which to persuade God to bless me.

Christ is my righteousness therefore, even as I try to do what is right, I make no claim to God’s goodness by any other merit than the merit of Jesus’ goodness and righteousness.

Christ is my holiness, so I present to God nothing by which to set myself apart from others besides the Lord Jesus, by whose death I have been set apart from the world and to God.

Christ is my redemption, so I bring no payment in my hand, nor any promise of future payment as I boldly approach God’s everlasting throne of grace. I rest assured that, as Jesus is my redemption, I owe nothing, therefore, need bring nothing, even as I ask for the choicest blessings of this life and the next.

Pastor Joe Terrell

To make a thorough study of all that is wrong with man, all of the specific consequences of the fall, would be a considerable undertaking requiring great time and effort. Yet we know that unless the Lord opened our hearts and understanding to His truth, we would yet be entirely ignorant on the subject.

But if God is pleased to just show us Christ crucified, one glimpse of the Son of God at Calvary, will make us to know what we are. The horror of what we are. And that same glimpse, of that same One, will reveal how God made right all that is wrong. For the elect of God, all that we are and all that He is, is revealed at the cross; our condemnation, and our sure hope, in one look. We preach Christ crucified.

Pastor Chris Cunningham

Saved By Hope

“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?” (Romans 8:24).

What does this mean when the apostle Paul says we are saved by hope? It does not mean that we are justified before God by some religious experience or feelings or a mere wish of good things to come upon me because of things that I have done in the flesh. The true hope every believer enjoys is the good hope of saving grace based upon the very testimony of God found in the Holy Scripture (Psalm 130:5), that is salvation based upon the promise of God who cannot lie (Heb. 6:18) and who cannot fail (Isa. 42.4). The hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is by Him, through Him and to His glory (Psalm 71:5; Rom. 11:33-36).

Notice these precious promises found in the word of the Lord describing this hope of salvation every believer receives and enjoys.

Rom. 5:1-2; “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

Rom. 15:13; “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”

Col. 1:27; “Christ in you is the hope of glory.”

2 Thes. 2:16; “Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.”

1 Tim. 1:1; “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope.”

Titus 2:13; “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus.”

Heb. 6:18-19; “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.”

1 Peter 1:3; “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”