According To The Whole Counsel Of God (Acts 20:27)
ACCORDING TO THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD (Acts 20:27)
Yeow Chin Kiong
Christianity is the religion of Bible authority. Christians are "disciples" (i.e. learners) of Jesus Christ (Acts 11:26) and therefore imitators of Him in belief and practice (1 Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 4:32 to 5:2). Christians call Him their "Lord" and so must obey His commandments (John 14:15; Matthew 7:21-27; Luke 6:46). God has inspired prophets, apostles and other individuals to record and preserve divine instructions concerning belief and practice in scriptures which tell us how to be saved and progress in good works to remain saved (2 Timothy 3:15-17; Ephesians 2:4-10; Romans 2:5-11).
The scriptures are complete for delivering the faith (as a system of beliefs and practices) necessary for man's salvation from the dire consequences of their sin and communicated to Christians (i.e. "saints") "once for all" (Jude 3). Not to be added to, nor subtracted from (Revelation 22:18-19), these scriptures constitute "the whole counsel of God" that the apostle Paul implied was necessay for man (Acts 20:26-27) and therefore needed to be transmitted unaltered down the generations (2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8). In our time, the obedient reception of this faith,- centered upon the gospel,- brings about the salvation of man's soul (1 Peter 1:9-12).
Complete as it is, this "whole counsel of God" must be "searched" (Acts 17:11) and correctly handled (2 Timothy 2:15) to arrive at the truth contained in God's word (John 17:17). A number of wrong steps may be taken as we study the scriptures to arrive at the truth about our salvation, resulting in us "always learning (but) never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 3:7).
The most obvious error in handling the scriptures is to "pick and choose" from among the scripture references which favour our view of a doctrine and willfully ignore other authoritative scriotures which are necessary for a balanced perspective on a subject. This misstep is contrary to our doctrine or teaching of resting on "the whole counsel of God." All of the Bible is true in what is affirmed in the scriptures (Psalm 119:160). Just as Ephesians 2:8 and Romans 10:10 (both of which do not mention "baptism" when talking about salvation), Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:38 and 1 Peter 3:21 emphatically do. All five scriptures talk about a sinner's salvation and all five must be accepted as true and authoritative. In short, taking ALL of scripture to constitute God's counsel or guidance, His grace, a sinner's faith (or belief) in the gospel, his confession of that faith and repentance of sins AND baptism are necessary to save the sinner. The separate steps of salvation are all necessary for the sinner's salvation because all of their elements are part of God's scripture properly handled.