LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
The Foundations of the House of God
The author recognizes the existence of eight essential foundations, on which the house of God should be built.
Romeu Bornelli
The Holy Scriptures are the self-revelation of God and of His supreme purpose. We live in days in which the necessity to return to the Scriptures is desperately urgent. While we are dancing around what is not essential, God's enemy, the devil, is able to accompany us in this dance!
The first great necessity for the restoration of Lord's testimony is the restoration of His Word. That's what we see, for example, when the people of God returned from the Babylonian captivity. According to the record of Ezra (Ezra 3), when that remnant returned under the command of Zerubbabel, the first thing to be restored in Jerusalem was the altar (Ezra 3:2-3). The altar, typologically, speaks of the cross, of the work of the Lord fulfilled at Calvary. Immediately after comes the record of the installation of the foundations of the house of God (Ezra 3:8-13).
This means that, for the restoration of the testimony of the Lord in His church, we must be founded upon and persevering the "doctrine of the apostles" (Acts 2:42), that is to say "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone" (Ephesians 2:20). When the foundations of the temple were laid, the opposition of the enemies rose against them, "intimidating them", and trying to "frustrate their purpose", writing accusations against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. (Ezra. 4:4-6).
These are also the attitudes of Satan when the eyes of the people of the Lord begin to be opened by the revelation of the Word of God, to contemplate that work finished on the cross with more clarity and effectiveness, and when the foundations of the apostolic doctrine begin to be restored, establishing the saints as a "holy temple in the Lord" (Ephesians 2:21).
Eight essential foundations
I believe that the Holy Spirit set down eight essential, indispensable foundations in the Holy Scriptures that are like columns of biblical revelation, on which the house of God should be built. The church of the living God is a pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15) and, as such, it should sustain and proclaim the content of the truth that was deposited within it. These foundations follow the process of biblical revelation and they constitute the pillars that have been established in the Church through the centuries of edifying work by the Holy Spirit. In summary, they are:
The Trinity. The being of God and His attributes and the divine triune constitute the first foundation. The astonishing truth regarding the unique tripersonal Being of God has immense implications in what it says regarding the work of redemption and the existence and life of the church, as we see for example in John 17. The vision and the biblical understanding of Christ in eternity, the Word that was "with God" and that "was God", are fundamental to our adoration. How many attacks from false teachings the Church in its beginnings had to face in order to establish this unique foundation! The trinitarian controversies of the IV century were battles against heresies like the Manichaeism, or the Arianism and the apollinarianism, for example.
The Incarnation - the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Son of God, the Second Person of the glorious Trinity took on human nature (and not a human person otherwise we would be two people in Jesus Christ, as the heresy of Nestor taught) with a human spirit, human soul and real human body, rather than an apparent one (as the docetists like Cerinthus said, the opponent of the apostle John in Ephesus). The importance of the understanding of each aspect of the two natures, divine and human, perfect and full, is fundamental to the correct understanding of the perfection and glory of our redemption, because as Anselm of Canterbury said, in the XI century, he was the man that had a debt with God, but only God could pay this debt in an acceptable way, worthy of Himself, and that's why our Redeemer had to be fully God and fully man!
The propitiation. Our Lord was at the same time the expiatory sacrifice that reconciled us with God (1 John 2:2 and 4:10), the place of the propitiation or of the encounter between God and man, as typified by the covering of the ark of the covenant called propitiation (Rom. 3:25), and the agent of the propitiation, that is to say who made propitiation for our sins (Heb. 2:17). Our dear Lord is at the same time the offering, the offerer and the place of the offering. What a perfect atonement!
Justification by Grace through Faith. This was the foundation of the house of God specially restored in the XVI century, in the Reformation. So fundamental is our full knowledge of this foundation that Martin Luther says that upon this foundation alone the Church would stand or would crumble! Our God is the "just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus " (Rom. 3:26). The epistles to the Romans and the Galatians are especially about so rich a foundation.
Christ's resurrection. His bodily resurrection is not only the foundation of our future resurrection (1 Cor. 15), but also of the perfection of the sacrifice that he offered of Himself on the cross before the Father. His resurrection is the proof that God accepted His propitiatory sacrifice for us. If Christ didn't resurrect, our preaching, our faith and our hope are in vain (1 Cor. 15:14, 17-19). In Romans 4:25, in this unique verse, we have these last three foundations intertwined in interdependence, when it says that Christ "was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification."
The Holy Spirit. The Person and the work of the Holy Spirit is a central matter in the Word of God. The Holy Spirit in the Trinity as the Spirit who comes from the Father and comes from the Son, being the Perfect Love that unites the Lover (the Father) and the Beloved (the Son). The Holy Spirit that reveals, regenerates, indwells, transforms, forms the Son's character in the many children of God, unites the believers in a single body, etc.
The Church. God didn't leave this matter, so essential to His heart, without full revelation in His Word; on the contrary, our concepts are so often distorted regarding Christ's Body that they need to be corrected by the study and illumination of the Holy Spirit and by the power of His life that indwells in us, so that as the Church we can be an expression of the manifold wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:10). The vital union of the Church with the Head, with the other members, the ministry of the whole body, the plurality of gifts, the government, etc., are all vital matters in the New Testament.
The second coming of the Lord. This is the foundation that is placed as that which finishes the House of God. It is the redemption for which the creation groans, our spirit groans and the Spirit of God also groans (Rom. 8:22, 23 and 26) until it is fulfilled. There is great content in the Word on this matter of the Parusia of our Lord, our burning expectation. We will be transfigured to see His glory, to participate in His Kingdom, to enjoy His intimate company without mundane interferences! Diverse aspects related with the Parusia are revealed in the Word, and they are a foundation of our faith and Christian life.
The Lord's legacy for us
These foundations are in a "summarized way ", the essence of that which God, in His Word, wanted to reveal Himself to us, and His supreme purpose.
May our hearts examine them with diligence and prayer so that our eyes are opened to know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints", and not to think that these are academic, arid or only doctrinal matters. There is no more sublime occupation for us than to contemplate the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ in this His legacy for us in His Word.