What is an "Essential" of Christianity

Reformed Ex-mormon

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Hi, I'm Pastor Brayden. I hope you're having a blessed day today. And today we're going to ask the question and explore and I hope

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Truly that we can answer the question. What is an essential of Christianity?

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Not what are the essentials? but what is an essential of Christianity and What we're talking about is what is the primary doctrine the first importance doctrine and it's an essential meaning that you must

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Believe in this in order to be saved. You must believe in this in order to be a Christian. You cannot deny these things

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And consider yourself Christian you just can't it would Violate how

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God has revealed himself to be in the scriptures and this is not a parameter that's set up by me You or any other?

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Man or woman for the last 2 ,000 years. This is the parameter of God on what an essential is

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So what are essentials what what where does this word come from what do we mean by this

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I Think in order to answer this we have to we have to talk about two different categories of essentials

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Both of these these two different categories primary and secondary Essentials are equally

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Essential meaning that if you denied either a primary or a secondary You are cannot be a

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Christian you are not saved and if you deny any essentials found in the Bible today I would ask that you would repent and believe in the gospel the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and look to him alone as your only means of salvation

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So what is a primary? essential of Christianity It's when the

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X is given and a Y is given along with it in Conjunction with those things and then and an example of this would be two different examples of this would be in John chapter 3 verses 1 through 12 and John chapter 8 verses 23 through 24.

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These are just two examples In John chapter 3, we see Jesus saying to Nicodemus that you must be born again

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In order to enter into the kingdom of God This is an essential a primary essential of Christianity.

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The X is given and a Y Jesus says that the X is this you must be born again and the

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Y that is in conjunction with being born again in Order to enter into the kingdom of God.

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You can't be a Christian and not be born again You cannot enter into the kingdom of God and not be born again

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This would violate what God Jesus himself has set up as an essential of being a follower of him

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Another essential would be like I said, John 8 23 through 24 Jesus says in there unless you believe

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I am Ye shall die in your sins the X that Jesus gives in that text is that belief in him as I am the

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God in flesh fully God fully man the great I am from Exodus and and use over 6 ,000 times in the

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Old Testament that I am unless you believe Jesus is the I am Ye shall die in your sins

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The Y is that if you deny Christ of who he is that I am you will die in your sins

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That's the Y that is given in there We see this throughout much of what Jesus says an

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X and a Y that is given an example of a secondary Essential and once again, it is just as equally important as a primary

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But a secondary is when the X is given and a Y is assumed

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X is given and a Y is assumed not that the Y is given but it is obvious that it can be assumed

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An example of something like this would be Jesus's virgin birth to deny

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Jesus's virgin birth would be to Violate an essential of Christianity would be to violate

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Old Testament prophecy It would be to violate the New Testament record It would be to deny

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Jesus of the immaculate conception being the eternal sonship that he has between him and the father

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It would be to deny him as the better Adam our new federal head. It would be to deny his deity of being fully

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God In his incarnation it would be to deny those things And so that would be where the

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X is given and the Y is assumed It does not clearly state in those scriptures about Jesus's virgin birth

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It does not clearly say that you have to believe in this in Order to be born again or in order to enter into the kingdom of God or in order to be saved

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It does not clearly say that but it can be highly assumed that that's the Y behind it equally as important as a primary

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Essential another example of something like this would be the Trinity that God is one being existing in three persons co -equal co -eternal

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Undivided but distinct in their persons We would see this from the book of Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation and to deny

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God of this Trinitarian this Trinity that he is Would be to deny

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God whom he has revealed himself to be that would be a secondary Essential of Christianity that there's one

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God that exists in three persons the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit So once again the this is a primary doctrine

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That are the essentials that consist of the primary and secondary essentials of Christianity That is primary doctrine of things of first importance something that every

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Christian every church that proclaims Jesus Christ as he's revealed himself to be in the

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Bible will not disagree upon If they disagree upon it the parameter set by God means that they aren't

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Christian. They aren't saved They if a church is disagreeing with this they're not a church. They they are violating the

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Word of God so what is a secondary doctrine and a tertiary doctrine since we're talking about a primary doctrine as such of the essentials a secondary doctrine would be things that a

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Christian from denomination to denominations Christians that Agree on the primary doctrines those essentials that we talked about They agree on those things, but they disagree on things that aren't clearly stated in the scriptures

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So an example of this would be Eschatology you might have one church that believes in pre -millennialism another one that in post -millennialism and another one in Amillennialism they all agree on the essential that Jesus Christ the second person of the

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Trinity God and flesh is Going to come again. They all agree with this. They will all say

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Lord come quickly They agree on that essential but they disagree on what they they will argue from the same exact scriptures in the method and the means that this will be done and It's a good thing that they do this because they're searching the scriptures to try to understand these secondary

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Doctrines there's not a why that can be assumed or given in those texts because there is no essential there

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They seek God in the way that he's revealed himself to be as a primary and they seek

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Their their best understanding in these secondary doctrines And so that's a secondary doctrine a tertiary doctrine would be that which is not spoken of in the scriptures a tertiary would be something

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Like should we sing hymns or contemporary music in church? Should we do communion before or after the sermon should we have children be?

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Integrated in our church and listen to the pastor in the same method It means that the parents are listening to it, or should we have them in a separate room?

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For youth ministry or youth groups. This would be a tertiary Doctrine things that we can argue from the text for for why we are for it and for why we are against things

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But things that are not clearly taught in the scriptures And so that's the the difference between a primary doctrine all the way down to a tertiary doctrine

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And so we're focusing on that that what is an essential and so in order to help us better Understand what an essential is we we should discuss what heresy is

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Heresy is anything that goes against the Word of God and just like we have two different categories for what an essential is

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We should also have two different categories for what heresy is There is inside heresy.

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There is two different categories, which would be one is damnable and one is non damnable Meaning if the damnable heresy is anything that goes against the primary and the secondary essentials of Christianity So if I for example was to deny

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Jesus Christ is that great I am in John 8 I said no He was just a man that he was not

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God in flesh or that he elevated himself out to Godhood in his ascension or That he wasn't born of a virgin or that he is a separate

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God and being from the Father if I was to say those Kind of things that would be damnable heresy that goes directly against and is in conflict and in contradiction to what the

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Word of God Revealed that is damnable heresy Because it violates the essentials a non damnable heresy would be such as a

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Christian who Agrees on the essentials that believes in it that has been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone

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Saying I don't need to go to church While it's true.

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You don't need to go to church in order to have salvation You should go to church because that's how the scriptures has revealed us to do what we should do that We should not forsake the gathering of the

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Saints and that we should seek fellowship amongst our brethren and and so on and so forth That will be in corporate worship to our

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God So that would be a non damnable heresy Another example of this would be baptism

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Somebody that's saved by having faith in Christ alone for their salvation is saying I don't need to be baptized.

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And yes, it's true You don't need to be baptized. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't be baptized

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It means that you should absolutely proclaim to the world in this open expression the death burial and resurrection that has saved you and to did not do so Would be contradictory to what

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God has told us that he would like us to do that He wants us to do that He commands us to do and so that's the difference between a damnable and a non damnable heresy and it's important to ask these kind of questions

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Because an essential is Directly dealing with the gospel message the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and we have in Galatians chapter 1 8 9

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It says but even though we are an angel from heaven should preach to you another gospel Contrary to that which we have preached to you

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Let him be accursed as we have said before so I say now again If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you have received let him be

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Accursed anathema the gospel message Incorporates and encompasses all the essentials of Christianity.

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So if you deny Jesus as being God in flesh you deny his death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ According to scriptures as we see in first Corinthians 15 1 through 4 you deny the

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Jesus that we see in that text It every essential of Christianity has implications in the gospel message and so it's important as those that believe in those essentials to identify what essentials are that X and the

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Y so that when We see somebody that is saying something that is contradictory to God's Word We can be quick to rebuke and tell them to repent believe in the gospel

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And once again, if you're an unbeliever somebody that denies the essentials of Christianity I would ask you today open up the

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Word of God and look for the X And the Y the essentials of Christianity look to Christ crucified as your only means of salvation.

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I Hope that this video has blessed you and I hope that it has helped you understand what an essential of Christianity is

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Hi, I'm pastor Brayden I hope you're having a blessed day and I thank you for watching this video as a

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Christian It is my goal to give God glory alone and to proclaim the gospel message unto all the nations

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The gospel message is the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ God in flesh the great

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I am the perfect lamb and the high priest the only means of our salvation

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According to scriptures and that through having faith in that alone for your salvation

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You will be saved Repent and believe in the gospel once again.