What Must I Know If I Am to Draw Closer to My Messiah and To Become More Like Him?
A Summary of what every believer should know.
While the best way of teaching the Bible may be to go through the Bible, expounding verse by verse, many sitting under such teaching may never come to know the great foundational truths of the Word of God, or may never come to know these truths in a timely manner. It is for this reason that this list of foundational truths, with proofs, is offered as a supplement to Bible teaching from the pulpit.
Questions and Answers (with proofs)
Q. What is the chief purpose of man?
A. Man’s chief purpose is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31), and to enjoy him for ever (Ps. 73:25–26).
Q. What is God?
A. God is Spirit (Jn.4:24), infinite (Job 11:7), eternal (Ps. 90:2; 1Tim. 1:17), and unchangeable (Jas. 1:17) in his being (Exod. 3:14), wisdom, power (Ps. 147:5), holiness (Rev. 4:8), justice, goodness and truth (Exod. 34:6–7).
Q. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only (Deut. 6:4), the living and true God (Jer. 10:10).
Q. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one God, the same in essence, equal in power and glory (1 Jn. 5:7; Matt. 28:19).
Q. How did God create man?
A. God created man, male and female, after his own image (Gen. 1:27), in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness (Col 3:10; Eph. 4:24) with dominion over the creatures (Gen. 1:28).
Q. What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the state wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death. (Gen. 2:17)
Q. Did our first parents continue in the state wherein they were created?
A. Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the state wherein they were created, by sinning against God, (Eccl. 7:29) by eating the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:6–8).
Q. Who is Satan, the Devil, Lucifer?
A. He is an evil angel, the first to commit sin, and the one who caused Adam and Eve, and all their offspring, to fall in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1).
Q. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity to, or transgression of the law of God (1 Jn. 3:4).
Q. Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression?
A. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression (1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:12).
Q. Into what state did the fall bring mankind?
A. The fall brought mankind into a state of sin and misery (Rom. 5:18).
Q. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that state whereinto man fell?
A. The sinfulness of that state whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin (Rom. 5:19), the want of original righteousness, (Rom. 3:10) and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin (Eph. 2:1; Ps. 51:5), together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it (Matt.15:19).
Q. What is the misery of that state whereinto man fell?
A. All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God (Gen. 3:8, 24), are under his wrath and curse (Eph. 2:3; Gal. 3:10), and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever (Rom. 6:23; Matt. 25:41).
Q. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery?
A. God having, out of his good pleasure from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life (2 Thess. 2:13), did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery, and to bring them into a state of salvation by a Redeemer (Rom. 5:21).
Q. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?
A. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Tim. 2:5), who being the eternal Son of God, became man (Jn. 1:14), and so was and continues to be God and man, in two distinct natures and one person for ever (1Tim. 3:16; Col. 2:9).
Q. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A. Christ, the son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body (Heb. 2:14), and a reasonable soul (Matt. 26:38; Heb. 4:15), being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, and born of her (Lk. 1:31, 35), yet without sin (Heb. 7:26).
Q. What offices does Christ execute as our Redeemer?
A. Christ as our Redeemer executes the offices of a prophet (Acts 3:22), of a priest (Heb. 5:6), and of a king (Ps. 2:6), both in his state of humiliation and exaltation.
Q. Wherein did Christ’s humiliation consist?
A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition (Lk. 2:7), made under the law (Gal. 4:4), undergoing the miseries of this life (Isa. 53:3), the wrath of God (Matt. 27:46), and the cursed death of the cross; (Phil. 2:8) in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time (Matt. 12:40).
Q. Wherein consists Christ’s exaltation?
A. Christ’s exaltation consists in his rising again from the dead on the third day (1Cor. 15:4), in ascending up into heaven, and sitting at the right hand of God the Father (Mk. 16:19), and in coming to judge the world at the last day (Acts 17:31).
Q. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us (Jn. 1:12) by his Holy Spirit. (Tit. 3:5–6)
Q. How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
A. The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us (Eph. 2:8), and by it uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling (Eph. 3:17).
Q. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit (2 Tim. 1:9) whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery (Acts 2:37), enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ (Acts 26:18), and renewing our wills (Ezek. 36:26), he does persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel (Jn. 6:44–45).
Q. How does effectual calling work since man in his natural state is dead to the things of God?
A. Effectual calling works because God opens the hearts of His elect to receive Him, by causing them to be regenerated or born again (John 3:8, Acts 16:14).
Q. What benefits do they who are effectually called, partake of in this life?
A. They who are effectually called, do in this life partake of justification (Rom. 8:30), adoption (Eph. 1:5), sanctification, and the various benefits which in this life do either accompany, or flow from them (1 Cor. 1:30).
Q. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins (Rom. 3:24; Eph. 1:7), and accepts us as righteous in his sight (2 Cor. 5:21) only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us (Rom. 5:19), and received by faith alone (Gal. 2:16; Phil. 3:9).
Q. What is adoption?
A. Adoption is an act of God’s free grace (1 Jn. 3:1), whereby we are received into the number, and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God (Jn. 1:12; Rom. 8:17).
Q. What is sanctification?
A. Sanctification is the work of God’s Spirit (2 Thess. 2:13), whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God (Eph. 4:24), and are enabled more and more to die to sin, and live to righteousness (Rom. 6:11).
Q. What are the benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?
A. The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification (Rom. 5:1–2, 5), are assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), increase of grace, perseverance in it to the end (Prov. 4:18; 1 Jn. 5:13; 1 Pet. 1:5).
Q. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at their death?
A. The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness (Heb. 12:23) and do immediately pass into glory, (Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8; Lk. 23:43), and their bodies, being still united to Christ (1 Thess. 4:14), do rest in their graves (Isa. 57:2) till the resurrection (Job 19:26).
Q. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?
A. At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory (1 Cor. 15:43), shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment (Matt. 10:32), and made perfectly blessed both in soul and body in the full enjoying of God (1 Jn. 3:2) to all eternity (1 Thess. 4:17).
Q. What shall be done to the wicked at their death?
A. The souls of the wicked shall at their death be cast into the torments of hell (Lk. 16:22–24), and their bodies lie in their graves till the resurrection, and judgement of the great day (Ps. 49:14).
Q. What shall be done to the wicked at the day of judgment?
A. At the day of judgment the bodies of the wicked being raised out of their graves, shall be sentenced, together with their souls, to unspeakable torments with the devil and his angels for ever (Dan. 12:2; Jn. 5:28–29; 2 Thess. 1:9; Matt. 25:41).
Q. What did God reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?
A. The rule which God first revealed to man for his obedience, is the moral law (Deut. 10:4; Matt. 19:17), which is summarized in the ten commandments.
Q. What is the sum of the ten commandments?
A. The sum of the ten commandments is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbour as ourselves (Matt. 22:37–40).
Q. Which is the first commandment?
A. The first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
Q. Which is the second commandment?
A. The second commandment is, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”
Q. Which is the third commandment?
A. The third commandment is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.”
Q. Which is the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment is, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor they cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
Q. How is the Sabbath to be sanctified?
A. The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days (Lev. 23:3), and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God’s worship (Ps. 92:1–2; Isa.58:13–14), except so much as is taken up in the works of necessity and mercy (Matt. 12:11–12).
Q. Which is the fifth commandment?
A. The fifth commandment is, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
Q. What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment?
A. The reason annexed to the fifth commandment is, a promise of long life and prosperity—as far as it shall serve for God’s glory, and their own good—to all such as keep this commandment (Eph. 6:2–3).
Q. Which is the sixth commandment?
A. The sixth commandment is, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Q. Which is the seventh commandment?
A. The seventh commandment is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
Q. Which is the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment is, “Thou shalt not steal.”
Q. Which is the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment is, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
Q. What is the tenth commandment?
A. The tenth commandment is, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, or his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.”
Q. What is forbidden in the tenth commandment?
A. The tenth commandment forbids all discontentment with our own circumstances (1 Cor. 10:10), envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, (Gal. 5:26) and all inordinate emotions and affections to anything that is his (Col. 3:5).
Q. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A. No mere man, since the fall, is able in his life perfectly to keep the commandments of God (Eccl. 7:20), but does daily break them in thought, (Gen. 8:21) word (Jas. 3:8), and deed (Jas. 3:2).
Q. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of various aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others (Jn. 19:11; 1 Jn. 5:15).
Q. What does every sin deserve?
A. Every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come (Eph. 5:6; Ps. 11:6).
Q. How may we escape his wrath and curse due to us for sin?
A. To escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin, we must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (Jn. 3:16), trusting alone to his blood and righteousness. This faith is attended by repentance for the past (Acts 20:21) and leads to holiness in the future.
Q. What is faith in Jesus Christ?
A. Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace (Heb. 10:39), whereby we receive (Jn. 1:12), and rest upon him alone for salvation (Phil. 3:9), as he is set forth in the gospel (Isa. 33:22).
Q. What is repentance to life?
A. Repentance to life is a saving grace (Acts 11:18), whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sins (Acts 2:37), and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ (Joel 2:13), does with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it to God (Jer. 31:18–19), with full purpose to strive after new obedience (Ps.119:59).
Q. What are the outward means whereby the Holy Spirit communicates to us the benefits of redemption?
A. The outward and ordinary means whereby the Holy Spirit communicates to us the benefits of Christ’s redemption, are the Word, by which souls are begotten to spiritual life; Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, Prayer, and Meditation, by all which believers are further edified in their most holy faith (Acts 2:41–42; Jas. 1:18).
Q. How is the Word made effectual to salvation?
A. The Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convicting and converting sinners, (Ps. 19:7) and of building them up in holiness and comfort (1 Thess. 1:6), through faith to salvation (Rom. 1:16).
Q. How is the Word to be read and heard that it may become effectual to salvation?
A. That the Word may become effectual to salvation, we must attend to it with diligence (Prov. 8:34), preparation (1 Pet. 2:1–2), and prayer (Ps 119:18), receive it with faith (Heb. 4:2), and love (2 Thess. 2:10), lay it up into our hearts (Ps. 119:11), and practise it in our lives (Jas. 1:25).
Q. How do Baptism and the Lord’s Supper become spiritually helpful?
A. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper become spiritually helpful, not from any virtue in them, or in him who does administer them (1 Cor. 3:7; 1 Pet. 3:21), but only by the blessing of Christ (1 Cor. 3:6), and the working of the Spirit in those who by faith receive them (1 Cor. 12:13).
Q. What is Baptism?
A. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, instituted by Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:19), to be to the person baptised a sign of his fellowship with him, in his death, and burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:3; Col. 2:12), of his being ingrafted into him (Gal. 3:27), of remission of sins (Mk. 1:4; Acts 22:16), and of his giving up himself to God through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4–5).
Q. To whom is Baptism to be administered?
A. Baptism is to be administered to all those who actually profess repentance towards God (Acts 2:38; Matt. 3:6; Mk. 16:16; Acts 8:12, 36–37; Acts 10:47–48), and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and to none other.
Q. How is baptism rightly administered?
A. Baptism is rightly administered by immersion, or dipping the whole body of the person in water (Matt. 3:16; Jn. 3:23), in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, according to Christ’s institution, and the practice of the apostles (Matt. 28:19–20), and not by sprinkling or pouring of water, or dipping some part of the body, after the tradition of men (Jn. 4:1–2; Acts 8:38–39).
Q. What is the Lord’s Supper?
A. The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of the New Testament, instituted by Jesus Christ; wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to his appointment, his death is shown forth (1 Cor. 11:23–26), and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporeal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace (1 Cor. 10:16).
Q. What is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper?
A. It is required of them who would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:28–29), of their faith to feed upon him (2 Cor. 13:5), of their repentance (1 Cor. 11:31), love (1 Cor. 11:18–20), and new obedience, (1 Cor. 5:8) lest coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves (1 Cor. 11:27–29).
Q. What is meant by the words, “until he come,” which are used by the apostle Paul in reference to the Lord’s Supper?
A. They plainly teach us that our Lord Jesus Christ will come a second time; which is the joy and hope of all believers (Acts 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:16).
Q. Are there two parts to the second coming of Christ?
A. Yes. First is the rapture (harpazo) in which Christ descends from heaven to the clouds; the dead in Christ are resurrected and together with all living believers in Christ are snatched up to meet Him in the air. He will then take them to the Father’s house in heaven (John 14:2-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52). Second, after the seven year Tribulation, Christ will return to earth to judge those who never accepted Him and to set up His one thousand year Messianic Kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem (Matthew 25:41-43; Revelation 20:11-15).
Q. What happens at the end of the one thousand year Messianic Kingdom?
A. Eternity begins which will last forever and in which God will dwell with all those who have accepted His one and only son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. (Revelation 21:1-5)
Q. Will God ever forsake the Jewish people?
A. Never (Jeremiah 31:35-37).
Q. What is the New Covenant?
A. Jeremiah 31:31–34 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”” Also in Hebrews 8:7-13.
Q. Are both Jews and Gentiles included in the New Covenant?
A. Yes. Both Jews and Gentiles are welcomed into the New Covenant through the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua. The New Covenant was inaugurated at the cross (Ephesians 2:14-16; 18).
Q. When will all Israel be saved?
A. All Israel will be saved when the full number of the Gentiles has been saved (Romans 11:25-27).
Q. What will have to happen for all Israel to be saved?
A. Daniel 9:24 “Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy.
Q. Will the entire Nation of Israel need to repent for rejecting Yeshua as their Messiah?
A. Yes, the entire Nation will repent (Zechariah 12:10).
Q. What is the reason for antisemitism or Jew hatred?
A. Satan is the reason for Jew hatred because when Messiah returns Satan is finished. Messiah will not return until the Jewish people accept His Messiahship and call for Him to return. Therefore Satan’s goal is for no Jewish people to remain. The Jewish people must be completely annihilated. Hosea 5:15, Matthew 23:39, Zechariah 12:10.
Q. What will it take for antisemitism to end?
A. Antisemitism will end when the Jewish Nation accepts Yeshua as Messiah. He will then return and deal with Satan permanently (see 72.).
Adapted from Spurgeon, C. H. A Catechism, With Proofs. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2009. Exported from Logos Bible Study, 4:45 PM February 10, 2025. With edits and additions by Arthur P. Wolinsky.
For someone that grew up with the Baltimore Catechism including the scriptural citations for these basic beliefs is very helpful. There is no substitute for reading the original words. Thanks.
Dr. Art (I always think of you as Rabbi Wolinsky), not having heard from you for a while, but wondering about the state of you, and of Jews who have recognized Jesus as Lord, I went a few days ago to search "Messianic Jewish congregations near Philadelphia" and found "Congregation Beth Yeshua (CBY) of Philadelphia is a part of a spontaneous growing worldwide movement known as Messianic Judaism.
Messianic Jews believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the promised Jewish Messiah whose death fulfills Hebrew scripture in providing a permanent kipporah (atonement) for sin."
A "spontaneous (!) growing(!) worldwide (!)(movement (!) ....All praise to thee, O Lord God.