Christ's Grace Research Paper

need for Christ’s grace” (O'Collins 68). Original sin was another doctrine that I had not developed a position on. I struggled with the many aspects of original sin, such as how it relates to the concept of the age of accountability. Ultimately, I believe that Grudem persuaded me into accepting the doctrine of original sin.

The next doctrine I will examine is the doctrine of Christ. Jesus was fully human. One argument for this is the virgin birth in Matthew 1:18-25. Christ took on all human limitations and weaknesses. One example of this is found in Luke 24:39 which says, “see my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” It is important to note that while

The first accept of this, is the concept of common grace. Grudem defines common grace as, “the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation” (Grudem 273). Grudem defines common as a gift to mankind including nonbelievers. I struggled with this concept, for I did not understand why God would bless those who will not experience salvation. This led me to sharing my struggle with my discussion group. Benson Benally, responded by saying that God allows non-believers to experience common grace so that they may eventually reach saving grace. I found this answer to be helpful. Common grace demonstrates God’s goodness, mercy, justice, and glory. The next concept is election. Election is God’s predetermined choice of salvation for some people. Romans 8:28-30 is one of many examples that could support this concept, for it states, “those whom He foreknew He also predestined.” Grudem claims that election is not fatalistic or based on foreknowledge of faith. For his argument, Grudem uses Romans 8:29 which says, “for those whom he foreknew he also

The church is a community of those who have placed their faith in Christ. When discussing churches, it is important to note that not all churches that claim to be true actually are. Additionally, Grudem states that the rare some churches that are more pure than others. Pure and true churches must work together to be unified. John 10:16 says, “there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” This is only possible when churches stay unified. The purpose of the church is to worship God, minster to believers, and minster to the world (Grudem 363-76). The concept that some churches could be more pure than others, at first, troubled me. So, I brought my struggle to the group again. My issue was that to define some churches as more pure than others breeds thoughts of superiority. Caleb Yoder made a great point that if a church was truly more free form false doctrine and more pure than other churches, they would not have those thoughts of superiority. The doctrine of the church encompasses the doctrine of baptism. Baptism, from the perspective of the new testament, is the act of immersing a believer in water as a declaration of their faith. An alternative to this view come from the catholic perspective. First, they believe they believe that infants should be baptized, whereas, other believers believe that children should be baptized at the age of accountability. Additionally, Catholics believe that baptism should be