[29-14] Why Must We Return to the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit? (1 John 5:6-8)

 

 

 

 

 

         The question, “Why must we return from the Nicene Creed back to the gospel of the water and the Spirit?” does not arise from a mere suggestion to slightly modify a doctrine, but from an urgent plea that we must recover the very essence of the gospel. 

This issue is not an assertion meant to shake the traditions of the church, but a call to return to the reality of salvation that the Bible has testified to from the very beginning.

         The Nicene Creed played a historically vital role in clearly proclaiming that Jesus is true God and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of the same essence. 
Through this creed, the church was able to defend the divinity of Jesus Christ and clearly establish the foundation of faith known as the Trinity.

         However, the Nicene Creed only tells us who Jesus is; it is silent on how He took on the sins of the world. 
The core structure of salvation—when and in what way sin was transferred to Jesus—is not explained within it. 
In this vacuum, the gospel of the church gradually drifted in a direction that emphasized only the cross, and an understanding of atonement without the reality of the transfer of sin, repetitive repentance, and a consciousness of incomplete salvation came to occupy the center of faith.

         However, the salvation to which the Bible testifies has had the structure of water and the Spirit from the very beginning.
Jesus actually took upon Himself the sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and for those sins He had taken upon Himself, He was judged under the righteousness of God on the cross, and the Holy Spirit testifies to the completion of all that salvation.
This gospel is not a series of disconnected events but a single, connected flow of salvation, and it was the original form of salvation that the early church believed and preached.
Only within this structure, where the water, the blood, and the Spirit testify as one, does the gospel become complete.

         Today, many believers, in their life of faith, constantly find themselves facing the same questions.
Why do I still feel like a sinner? Why, even after repeatedly repenting, do I have no assurance that my conscience has been cleansed? Why does my assurance of salvation waver?
The reason is not complicated. It is because they do not know, and therefore cannot believe, when their sins were transferred to Jesus.
The Bible states that a clear method for the imputation of sin exists. In the Old Testament, sin was transferred to the sacrificial offering through the laying on of hands, and in the New Testament, the baptism of Jesus is the event that appeared as the reality of the Old Testament’s sacrificial law.
A cross without the baptism may acknowledge the judgment, but it neither knows nor can explain how the sins were transferred.
As a result, a gospel from which baptism is missing causes people to remain in a consciousness of sin for their entire lives.

         In the gospel of the water and the Spirit, being born again is not an abstract concept but an actual event.
Jesus clearly stated that “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”
Here, the water is not a symbol or a metaphor but refers to the actual event of the baptism that Jesus received from John the Baptist.
Only when one believes this gospel is the blotting out of sins accepted not as a doctrine understood with the head, but as a fact; only then is the conscience actually washed clean, and the believer’s identity is transferred from that of a sinner to that of the righteous.
This is not a born-again experience that is merely repeated in words, but the reality of salvation that was completed in history.

         Therefore, the restoration we speak of is not about denying the Nicene Creed.
Rather, it is a call to return to the gospel that the apostles preached before the Nicene Creed—that is, to the original form of salvation to which the Bible testifies.
The doctrine of the Trinity tells us who God is, but the gospel of the water and the Spirit completes how that God has saved us.
If the Nicene Creed is the framework of faith, then the gospel of the water and the Spirit can be said to be the blood and life that flow within that framework.
Ultimately, the reason we must return from the Nicene Creed to the gospel of the water and the Spirit is clear.

         It is because the Bible clearly testifies to the actual event of the imputation of sin, which that creed fails to speak of, and because only that gospel actually transfers a person from a sinner to the righteous.
This is not an assertion to create a new doctrine, but a restoration to the gospel that the early church believed and preached, and a return to the essence.

 

 

 

         The difference between the gospel of the early church and the post-Nicene gospel stems not from a simple difference in emphasis, but from a difference in the very structure of understanding salvation. The gospel that the early church preached was the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and it was a gospel that testified to the entire process of salvation as a flow of actual events.

On the other hand, the post-Nicene church, in the process of organizing doctrine centered on the creeds, proceeded in the direction of conceptualizing and systematizing the gospel.

         At the center of the early church’s gospel, the structure of salvation that begins with the baptism of Jesus was clearly situated.
By receiving baptism from John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Jesus actually took on the sins of the world, was judged for that imputed sin on the cross under the justice of God, and through the testimony of the resurrection and the Spirit, proclaimed that salvation was completed.
This gospel was a salvation accomplished once for all, in which the baptism, the cross, the resurrection, and the Spirit are connected as one, and believers, by believing this fact, lived as those who dwell in the already completed salvation.

         However, the post-Nicene gospel was gradually reorganized into a cross-centered doctrinal structure.
The baptism of Jesus was treated not as a core event of redemption, but as an example of obedience or a subsidiary scene, and the explanation of when and how sin was transferred to Jesus disappeared from the center of the gospel.
As a result, the cross was emphasized, but it became established as an atonement missing the actual process of the imputation of sin, and salvation began to be perceived not as an already completed event, but as a state that must be continually maintained.

         This difference is also clearly revealed in the understanding of the Holy Spirit.
In the early church, the Holy Spirit was the One who testifies to and confirms the salvation that Jesus accomplished, and the One who dwells in believers, giving them boldness and assurance.
On the other hand, in the faith structure after Nicaea, the Holy Spirit was often reduced to an emotional experience or a subsidiary role that helps with the life of faith.
Accordingly, the focus of faith also shifted from faith in the fact of salvation to examining the state of one’s own faith.

         The standard of biblical interpretation also changed.
The early church interpreted the Bible centered on the testimony of the apostles and actual events, and understood the tabernacle, sacrifices, and the Day of Atonement of the Old Testament as the reality within the ministry of Jesus Christ.
The baptism of Jesus was accepted as the event that fulfilled the way sin was imputed through the laying on of hands in the Old Testament sacrifices.
However, after Nicaea, as creeds and doctrinal systems became the standard of interpretation, the Old Testament came to be dealt with mainly on the level of symbols or ethical lessons.

         This difference in understanding the gospel directly influenced the believer’s identity and the results of faith.
The early church believers recognized themselves as righteous, a new creation, and as those who stand in the sanctuary of God.
Their repentance was not a condition to obtain salvation, but a fruit of life acknowledging it within the already received salvation.
The conscience was in a state of having been cleansed, and the fruits of faith appeared as boldness and assurance, freedom and gratitude.
On the other hand, in the post-Nicene faith structure, the believer came to define themselves as still a sinner, and repentance became a repetitive condition to obtain the removal of sin.
As a result, the conscience was continually accused, and faith came to remain in fear and anxiety, and constant self-examination.

         In the end, it can be said that the early church was a church that clearly preached when sin was transferred to Jesus, whereas the post-Nicene church was a church that doctrinalized the gospel centered on who Jesus is.
As the gospel of the water and the Spirit disappeared, the clear assurance of the removal of sin also became faint along with it.
What the post-Nicene church lost was not the cross itself, but the baptism of Jesus that was before the cross, that is, the actual event of the imputation of sin.
Restoring this fact is the very path to returning to the gospel of the early church.

 

 

 

         If we examine the Gospel of the Early Church, the Gospel of the Reformation, and the Gospel of the Modern Church in a single flow, we can clearly confirm that the history of the church is not a simple process of development, but a process in which the structure of the gospel has been gradually changed and reduced.

The difference between these three eras goes beyond the difference in historical background and is directly connected to the question of how salvation was understood and with what identity the believer came to live.

         The early church was a church built upon the direct testimony of the apostles.
The center of the gospel they preached was the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and salvation was proclaimed as a succession of events that actually happened.
They preached that Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the world at once by receiving baptism from John the Baptist in the Jordan River, that He resolved that imputed sin on the cross under the judgment of God, and that salvation was completed through the resurrection and the testimony of the Spirit.
This gospel was the event that fulfilled the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the Day of Atonement as reality, and believers lived in boldness and freedom, recognizing themselves as the righteous and a new creation dwelling within the already completed salvation.
Repentance was not a condition to obtain salvation, but a fruit that naturally bore in the life after salvation, and the conscience stood before God in a state of having been cleansed.

         The Reformation arose amidst a strong backlash against the clericalism and works-based salvation of the medieval Catholic Church.
The gospel of that era was summarized as a cross-centered doctrine of justification, and the truth of being declared righteous by faith was powerfully proclaimed.
However, in this process, because they also inherited the faith of the Nicene Creed as it was, the structure of sin imputation inherent in Jesus’s baptism was not sufficiently explained and was pushed aside as a symbolic event.
Salvation was still treated as important, but its structure focused on forensic and doctrinal explanations rather than on the flow of events.
As a result, the believer’s identity was placed in the tension of being righteous and a sinner at the same time, and repentance took its place as a means to maintain faith.
Although there was a certain peace in the conscience, a limitation remained in reaching the assurance that sin was completely washed away.

         The modern church, while standing on the doctrines established after the Reformation, has, in the flow of the times, popularized faith and reconstructed it centered on emotion and experience.
The gospel still speaks of the cross, but its meaning has more often been consumed as a symbol of inspiration, sacrifice, and love, rather than the structure of the transfer of sin and judgment.
The baptism of Jesus is hardly ever mentioned, and the very concept of the transfer of sin has disappeared from the language of faith.
The Holy Spirit has come to be understood as a source of emotional experience or power, rather than as the One who bears witness to salvation, and biblical interpretation has also drifted in a subjective and pragmatic direction.
As a result, salvation has been perceived as being in a constantly wavering state, and the believer has remained in the consciousness of still being a sinner, dwelling in repetitive repentance and self-verification.
The church, too, has come to focus on programs, growth, and performance rather than on the proclamation of the gospel.

         If we synthesize the flow of these three eras, it can be said that the early church preached the gospel completed as an event; the Reformation organized that gospel into doctrine while omitting the baptism of Jesus, just as Catholicism did; and the modern church has reduced even that doctrine to emotion and experience.
In this process, the gospel of the water and the Spirit—that is, the event in which sin was actually transferred to Jesus—has gradually become obscure in history.

         What the church needs now is not a new movement or another form of faith.
It is to return to the gospel of the water and the Spirit that the early church believed and preached.
This indeed is the final reformation that still remains even 500 years after the Reformation, and it is the way to restore the essence of the gospel.

 

 

 

         Dear saints, today we stand before a very fundamental question that we must ask again.

It is the question, “Am I truly a person who has been completely saved from sin?”
Many people confess that they believe in Jesus, hold to the cross, offer prayers of repentance, and live a life of faith within the church.
However, in the depths of their hearts, an unexplained question still remains.
It is the question of why I still feel like a sinner, why my conscience is not completely at peace, and why my assurance of salvation wavers.
This is not a problem that arises because an individual’s faith is weak, but a problem that has occurred because they have not fully heard the structure of the gospel.
Therefore, today we intend to clearly examine not the doctrines of men, but the gospel exactly as it is in the Bible, which the early church believed and preached—that is, the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

         The starting point of salvation that the Bible speaks of is the baptism of Jesus.
The very first thing Jesus did as He began His public ministry was the event of being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.
Many churches explain this scene as an example of Jesus’ humility or obedience, or as being for the purpose of showing us the model for baptism.
However, the Bible gives a much clearer testimony than that.

         John the Baptist pointed to Jesus and proclaimed Him as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”
This means that sin was transferred to Jesus actually, not symbolically.
This structure was already clearly established in the Old Testament.
Sin is transferred to the sacrifice through the laying on of hands, and the transferred sin is judged through the shedding of blood.

         John the Baptist was not a mere prophet but the last High Priest who continued the lineage of Aaron, and the moment Jesus was baptized by him was the moment the sin of mankind was officially transferred to Jesus.
Baptism is precisely the transfer of sin, and this is the starting point of salvation.

         Then what is the cross?
The cross is not a vague symbol of love, nor does it stop at being a scene that movingly shows Jesus’ devotion.
The cross is God’s righteous judgment on the sin that had already been transferred to Jesus.
The Bible testifies, “And by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5).

         What is important here is the order.
First, sin was transferred to Jesus through baptism, and that sin was judged on the cross.
If there had been no baptism, what would the cross have judged?
Therefore, the gospel of the cross without the baptism may be able to move people’s hearts, but it cannot completely resolve the problem of sin.
The early church did not preach only the cross. They preached the baptism and the cross as one event of salvation.

         Now we must examine the role of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ came by water and blood, and that it is the Spirit who testifies to that fact.
The Holy Spirit is not one who repeatedly brings about the cancellation of sins, but one who confirms and testifies to the salvation that is already completed.

         Therefore, the Bible declares that our hearts have been sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
When we believe this gospel, we are no longer sinners but the righteous, new creations, and those who have already entered the holy place.
This is the actual change that the gospel of the water and the Spirit produces in the life of a believer.

         Dear saints, what the church needs today is not new programs, nor stronger experiences.
It is the restoration to the gospel that the early church believed and preached.
The gospel that begins at the baptism of Jesus, is completed on the cross, and is confirmed by the Holy Spirit—this is precisely the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
When we believe this gospel, repentance becomes not a repetitive ritual to obtain the removal of sins, but the fruit of life; faith becomes not anxiety but boldness; and we come to live not as sinners but as the righteous.

         Now, the question that remains for us is clear.
We must ask ourselves whether we have known only the cross, or if we believe in the complete gospel that includes the baptism of Jesus.
God is calling us even today, telling us to return to the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you may live as children of God, enjoying true freedom, assurance, and life within this gospel.

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