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For us, the Father is God, just as the Son and the Holy Spirit are also God. Insofar as the essence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is concerned, they are all the same God, as our faith in them is the same faith. For instance, because the Father is the Almighty God, the Son is also the Almighty God. The three Persons of the Holy Trinity, in other words, are in their essence the same God. We thus believe accordingly, that the three Persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are fundamentally and completely one. As such, in order for us to build the foundation of our faith in the Word of God, we must be anchored in this Word of truth.

1.         From the Old Testament

(1) First of all, the Old Testament clearly shows that God is one: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

(2) At the same time, however, the Old Testament also tells us unmistakably that God exists in several persons: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26); “‘Come, let Us go down there and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech’” (Genesis 11:7). From these passages we can see and believe that God exists not in single person but in multiple persons.

2.         From the New Testament

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God to us. But God exists in three independent persons. This truth is revealed in unequivocal terms also in the New Testament.

(1) That the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist as separate persons is clearly evidenced by the account of Jesus’ baptism that marked the beginning of His ministry: “When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:16-7).

This passage describes the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, when the Triune God is revealed. From this passage we know that Jesus is the Son of God, that the Holy Spirit works with Him, and that the Father declared Him to be “His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased.” Through these manifestations the Triune God is revealed. Jesus could fulfill all the righteousness of God because He took all the sins of mankind with His baptism received from John. This is why He had to die on the Cross for us, and this is “the righteousness of God” that the Father fulfilled through His Son. That Jesus took all our sins on Him by His righteous act of baptism is the very righteousness of God, and this truth is affirmed by both the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit exist as separate persons, but are the same God for us.

(2) Matthew 28:19 also reveals that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, as Jesus commanded His disciples to “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—that is, in names of the three separate persons of the Trinity.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each an independent person, but at the same time they are the same in that they all are the same God. As such, when we believe in God, we believe in one God as the united entity of the three persons.

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as professed by the Christian faith is the self-existing God, different from all other deities. Some other religions believe that Jesus is only one of the many prophets, but this is simply not true.

For us, God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Despite the fact that this truth is readily and sufficiently attested by the Scriptures, there are many who do not realize this. This is so because those who do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit approach the concept of Holy Trinity with their human rationality and logic, which makes them impossible to understand. Those who are not born again cannot understand the Triune God. But for those of us who are born again, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is our one God, in whom we place our absolute faith.

“And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14).

Yahweh.” Appearing in the Scriptures for over 5,300 times, Yahweh is the most common name by which God revealed Himself to mankind. The Jewish people held God’s name as sacred, and they were very careful in invoking or calling Him by His name (Exodus 3:14). Bestowing great respect upon the name of Yahweh, they later adopted and used another name, Adonai, to call upon God. The meaning of this name is the Lord of all, in the following manner: 1) One that exists; 2) One that is the Lord of life; and 3) One that always was, always is, and will be exist forever by Himself.

We call God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The name of the Son of God the Father is Jesus Christ. This name means He who saves His people from their sins.

Our desire is that the Apostles’ faith be handed down to us in its unadulterated purity. This is our wish, and the hope of every Christian. Their faith should have been handed down to us sufficiently in written texts after their death. However, the true faith of the Apostles is revealed only in their Epistles, and this is why we are struggling to share and spread their faith.

What, then, is the faith of the Apostles? Strictly speaking, the Apostle’s Creed was made after the passing of the Apostolic Age. It is, in other words, a testament of the Apostles’ faith recorded by the generation who came after them.

The Apostles’ faith is the faith in the works of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The baptism that we receive when we accept God as our Savior requires from us the faith that confesses the following: that Jesus’ baptism has cleansed all our sins; that through the blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross all our sins were accordingly judged; and that Jesus was sent by His Father as the Savior of sinners. Thus, when one believes that all his/her sins are redeemed by the baptism and blood of Jesus, he/she then receives the Holy Spirit from God.

We can therefore ask the following question to those who wish to be baptized: “Do you believe that when Jesus was baptized by John, all your sins were taken from you and placed on His shoulder instead?” When the answer is, “Yes, I believe that all my sins and all the sins of the world were taken upon by Jesus,” we follow with another question: “Do you then believe that Jesus, having shouldered all your sins by being baptized by John, shed His blood on the Cross?” Those who answer affirmatively are then baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Faith in the Triune God begins with the confession, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth.” Only to those who believe and confess this, the Apostles could baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The true Christian faith was granted to only those who believed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. That is why God’s Church was built upon the foundation of the twelve disciples’ faith.

The origins of the Apostles’ Creed go back to the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., signed by the Roman Emperor Constantine. Given the historical background to the changed status of Christianity, turning from an outlawed religion to the official, state religion of the Roman Empire, this radical change generated significant and growing interests in Christianity among all Romans. What was needed then was a standard of faith for these new believers wishing to become a part of God’s Church.

The Apostles’ Creed has its origins in this need, and owes its existence to the people who came after the Apostolic Age. Its present form was handed down to us after being compiled and repeatedly revised by various religious councils that followed the Apostolic Age. This is why the present Apostles’ Creed must be reinterpreted through the faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the differentiated faith of Christianity and the true faith. To spread this Christian faith throughout the world, we must know and believe how Jesus took the sins of mankind upon Himself, how He made these sins disappear, and how He has given human beings their eternal life.

But there are countless religions in the world. And each religion has its own deities. The difference between these deities and the Christian God is that while the former are merely human constructions, the latter is the God who exists by Himself. To believe in the Christian God, one must abandon all these false gods of the man-made religions. Without this, all efforts are fruitless. The reason why we see before our eyes such a confusion of faith about God is because of the lack of knowledge in the Creator God and His name.

In the Mongolian Empire there was a god called “Buruhung.” This god is not said to have created the world, yet the Mongolians still worship “Buruhung” as their god even to this day. As such, even as they believe in the Christian God as their own God, they also believe in their national god. This makes them impossible to have true faith. If one believes that the Christian God is the same as their national god, he cannot meet the true God professed by the Christian faith. This is why we must bear witness to the Triune God of Christianity.

Why is it so hard for the true Christian faith in God to enter into all the nations of the world? It is because many of them cannot distinguish the difference between their gods and the Christian God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This other reason of such difficulty is that Christianity has failed to keep and preach the truth of the remission of sin, the gospel of the water and the Spirit throughout its history.

Christianity that was introduced into the Mongolian Empire made too many compromises with the existing national religion, so as to avoid any conflict of faith with the dominant Buddhist doctrines, and this resulted in the failure of the Christian truth to blossom. The Christian truth of atonement cannot be made compatible with the Buddhist doctrines. This truth of atonement means that Jesus took upon all the sins of the world for the sake of mankind, died on the Cross in our stead, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved those who believe in Him.

But one of the Buddhist doctrines is an aversion to killing. The core truth of Christianity is the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and this truth entails Jesus’ baptism of the bearing of sin and His bloodshed on the Cross. But because of the Buddhist doctrine that prohibits any killing, the Word of the bearing of sin and the death of Jesus could not be accepted or believed as it was. The Christian doctrine of atonement, therefore, could not coexist with the Buddhist doctrine of conscience.

As a result, Christianity in the Mongolian Empire eventually ended up becoming absorbed by Buddhism, and it can no longer be found in Mongolia. When the Church in the Mongolian Empire faced tribulations and persecutions, moreover, many Christians fled to Buddhist temples with little hesitation and easily converted themselves to Buddhism, and thus leading to the eventual demise of Christianity in that nation.

The biggest reason as to why Christianity disappeared from the Mongolian Empire has to do with the fact that the Mongolian faith in the Triune God was not certain. They saw “Buddha” and Jesus as the same God. This is what led to the eventual disappearance of Christianity from the Mongolian Empire.

Eternal life can come about only to those who are saved from their sins by believing in the true God of Christianity as their own God, regardless of who and where they are. We must therefore believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and in the Triune God. These are the foundation of our faith in God’s Church, and we must also bear witness to this truth. This truth is none other than the faith of the Apostles that this book speaks of. There is only one God in the entire world, and He is the Triune God. His name is “Yahweh,” or “Jesus the Savior,” or the Holy Spirit. He is the true God not only for Christians, but also for all the religious.

(1) Those who directly received the calling by Christ to spread the gospel of the water and the Spirit (Mark 3:13; Luke 6:13; Galatians 1:1).

(2) Those who lived with Christ and witnessed His works on earth. The disciples of Jesus Christ were witnesses to the fulfillment of the righteousness of God through Christ’s life (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 9:1).

3) Those who, being filled by the Holy Spirit, received the power to fulfill the works commanded by Christ (Acts 15:28; 1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 1 John 5:9-12).

(4) Those who were given the power to perform miracles to bear witness to the gospel of the water and the Spirit on this earth. God gave great power to the Apostles so that Jesus Christ may be revealed through them as God the Savior (Acts 9:38; 2 Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:4).

(5) Those who received a special calling, as well as special blessings, from God (Acts 9:15; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 2:8).

The authority given to the Apostles is the authority to forgive people’s sins, and as such, ignoring those who have this authority will lead to one’s destruction.

Jews believe in God, the Creator of the universe, who rules over the life and death of mankind and the rise and fall of nations, as their Father. In the Old Testament, God’s name is called “Elohim” or “Jehovah,” but in the New Testament it is Jesus Christ who is called as God.

Jesus Himself called God as “God the Father (John 6:27),” “Our Father who is in Heaven (Matthew 6:9),” “the Holy Father (John 17:11),” and “My Father (John 20:17),” teaching His disciples repeatedly to ensure that they would take His teaching to their hearts.

In Christianity, we become true believers by encountering and believing in Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God His Father, and God the Holy Spirit. Christians must know who exactly is this God that they believe in.

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Christians Believe in God as the Father of All Mankind

Christians believe in the Triune God as the fundamental Author of mankind—that is, they believe God to be both the source and the nurturer of life. God created mankind, and saves and nurtures the saints through His Church.

Because the God of Christianity created the whole universe and made human beings in His own image, He is the Father of all mankind. When a missionary preached the gospel to some native Americans for the first time, an old chief asked him, “Did you say that God is our Father?” The missionary replied earnestly, “Yes!” The chief then asked again, “Are you saying that God is also my Father then?” The missionary answered, “Certainly!” Suddenly, the chief’s face turned bright, extended his hands, and said, “Then you and I are brothers!” In God the Father, all human beings are brothers and sisters physically. Their spiritual fraternity, on the other hand, is made complete when they believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

True world peace is found only when people encounter and serve God the Creator who is the root of mankind. If human beings, remaining ignorant of God, seek after only the roots of their own ancestors and pursue chauvinistic nationalism, humanity will surely be self-destroyed by pride, covetousness, jealousy, hatred, conflict, and war. As such, we must all become the spiritual children of God by faith within the gospel of the water and the Spirit that God has given us.

It is God the Father who gives us warm morning sun lights, beautiful sunsets, the four seasons, and the day and night. And it is He who feeds and nurtures all life forms, both mankind and animals, by bringing down rain and snow and giving us the abundant fruits of the earth. This is why Psalm 100:3 sings, “Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”

Because God knows how our bodies function, He feeds us with the appropriate products for each of the four seasons. For example, because we sweat a lot from the heat of summer, God gives us fresh and juicy fruits such as peaches, watermelons, tomatoes, grapes, and others.

In particular, we cannot help but be amazed by the wonderful inner-workings of our own bodies. Now it is well known that the life of human beings is found in their blood, but this was already written in the Scripture over 3,500 years ago (Leviticus 17:11). This blood circulates inside our bodies for over 675 km in a single day. If we were to walk any distance over 40 km in a day without resting, we would all be exhausted in no time. Yet our hearts circulate blood for over 675 km in just a single day, without any rest at all for 365 days a year. We switch off lights when we go to sleep, but our hearts are never switched off. Who, then, is pumping these hearts? It is the Father of life who works in the innermost mysteries of life that we do not know.

The air that human beings breathe, the water that they drink, and the food that they eat have all been given by God clearly. This is why Jacob, a man of faith, said, “The God who has fed me all my life long to this day (Genesis 48:15).” Also, to the ungrateful people of Israel, Isaiah said, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the LORD has spoken: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me; The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master's crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider (Isaiah 1:2-3).’”

As such, we must realize that it is God who feeds and nourishes our souls. God is the nurturer and the Father of all mankind.

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We Must Recognize God as the One Who Has Saved Us from the Sins of the World

The love of God that has saved us from our sins is unlimited and eternal. But the history of mankind changes, and its religions also change countless times. But the love of God is never-changing, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

People’s carnal love cannot last forever. Emotionally stirred, we only think that it is love, but it changes in no time. What changes constantly is none other than emotion. The carnal love of human beings is always selfish and self-centered.

But the truthful love of God is absolute, sacrificial, and eternal. This is why the Bible tells us that God loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son. This is how He has saved us from the sins of the world. As such, Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.^”; John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”; and 1 John 4:10 says, ^“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” We must believe in God, but we must also be saved from all our sins and receive eternal life by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

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God Hears Our Prayers

The paternal relationship between a father and a child is a relationship where blood and flesh are shared. Likewise, those who believe in God become His children by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His blood as the gospel of the remission of sin. This is how they can live in one house altogether. While we are on this earth, none other than God’s Church is the house of the saints, and when we leave this world behind, our house is the eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

The blessing of calling God as our own Father and being saved from all our sins is made possible only within the faith that believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Romans 8:15 thus says, “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” This is a marvelous fact, and absolutely true! The true gospel of the water and the Spirit is the gospel that forgives everyone from all sins. It is by faith, therefore, that we can be forgiven of all sins.

And the Holy Spirit can come to only those who have been forgiven of all their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. And only those who have received the Holy Spirit can become His sons and daughters. And by their faith in the Lord, they can all receive whatever they ask God in the name of Jesus Christ. John 16:23 therefore states, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.”

God is the Father who, no matter how much His believers continue to call upon His name, is neither annoyed nor reproachful (James 1:5).

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We Must Believe in God as the One Who Would Give Us Our Inheritance

Those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by the Lord have become His adopted sons and daughters. As Romans 8:15 states, “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’”

And if they have become God’s sons and daughters, then this means that they will most certainly enjoy their inheritance of the afterlife. As Romans 8:17-18 says, “And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Here, the word “heirs” is emphasized three times, meaning those who would succeed God—that is, His own inheritors.

Galatians 4:7 also states, “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” The phrase, “joint heirs with Christ,” tells us that we are the ones who will inherit everything that the God of Christianity has. By ourselves, we cannot even dare to enter the Kingdom of Heaven without the faith that believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. But by believing in the baptism and blood of God’s only begotten Son, we can receive the remission of our sins, and then enter the Kingdom of Heaven. John 6:39 states, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”

The confession of the faith in the Apostle’s Creed is the declaration of the Apostles’ faith that affirms how exactly they believe in God. As such, this faith must begin with the confession, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”

The reason for doing so is because we want to have the faith that God wants from us. Leading the life of faith is for each individual to believe in the Triune God, for faith begins by thus knowing and believing in God the Almighty. This faith reflects the desire to have the faith that God wants from us. When we believe in God, it is impossible for us to reach the conclusion that God created the universe by engaging in our own deductive thinking or experiments. We reach this conclusion only by believing the Word of God the Creator.

When it comes to the issues that we cannot directly authenticate and prove by ourselves, we can only accept the authoritative Word. The Word of the Scriptures is the authoritative truth. The prophets and the Apostles are the Bible writers who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is God the Savior who healed people from their incurable illnesses and raised even the dead to live again. Inspired by God, the prophets wrote God’s Word from the account of God’s creation of the universe to His salvation through His Son Jesus. And by believing in their writings as they are, we can ascertain the truthfulness of His Word, and meet the God of truth.

In Christianity, people who really believe in Jesus as the Savior believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that saves them from all their sins. Because the protagonist of this gospel is Jesus, we take what Jesus said as ours by believing in His Word. We must all believe in the Word of the God of Christianity, for we need the Savior as we were all born as sinners from our very birth. Sinners can be saved when they believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that Jesus has given them. This is the truth that God has bestowed on mankind.

<Acts 8:14-24>
"Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, 'Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.' But Peter said to him, 'Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.' Then Simon answered and said, 'Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.'"

< Roman 7:5-13 >

“For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.”

Ø      I praise the Lord who has led me until now

I praise the Lord who has led me to meet you, the precious people of God again. I sincerely thank Him for having blessed me to live a happy life to this day. God has been always with me and had mercy on me, even though there have been times when I felt discouraged, experienced hardships, agony and weaknesses within myself on many different occasions. He has been alive and by my side throughout my life, in both my troubles and joys. There never was an instance when He left me alone, not even for a second.

How much God has blessed us! Were God like us, He would perhaps have had mercy on us for two or three times, but would eventually have run out of patience. But God is not man, and His patience has no limit. He continues to bestow His ceaseless mercy on us, regardless of whether we do good deeds or not, whether we obey His Word or not. With such loving God, we cannot help but praise, worship and serve Him. King David praised the Lord throughout his entire life, thanking Him for taking care of him every time he was in trouble through the hardships in his life. He confessed, “For by You I can run against a troop, by my God I can leap over a wall” (Psalm 18:29).

How much God has blessed us! We cannot praise Him enough. Would we be satisfied if we built a church as large as the whole world? Would we be satisfied if we built a church that reached the sky? Of course not! We can build the biggest and the most beautiful church that we can ever imagine, but it is not the size or the beauty of the church that matters, but the fact that God works preciously at calling souls, making them hear His Word and allowing them to be born again by believing in His Word. And there is nothing we can do but only praise our Lord for all these blessings. We give thanks to God for allowing us to serve Him, bearing the fruits of His works from what, surely, would have been only wasted lives otherwise.

Aren’t you thankful that God lets you sit in this new retreat center? Our God has blessed us with His boundless grace and has kept us as the apple of His eye. Who are we and what have we done to deserve all His love? We are no one, and we have done nothing. And yet God has made us precious before Him, not because we have anything to show for, but because we have been born again. We were anything but precious before we met Jesus Christ. God made us, who were foaming in our madness and wandering in the desert, destined to die and vanish away into dust and ashes, His children.

How beautiful and great is the love that God has given us! Praise the Lord! Of the many souls in this world, God has saved us with His unconditional love in His righteousness. There is more to salvation than just deliverance. It means that our souls are now in communion with God. It means that His love is now ours. It means that His blessings, too, are ours to claim.

It is by the amazing guidance and encouragement of God that we still find ourselves in His church. Had God not kept us here, how could we be here? Had He not loved us and blessed us, how would we have been able to preach the gospel and serve Him? We can serve God because He is alive, is with us, and has blessed us.

If the Lord had neither kept nor blessed us, we couldn’t have praised Him before, or even now. God has loved, blessed, encouraged and covered us with His merciful hands so that we might serve, follow, praise and worship Him. Is this not true? We praise the Lord with all our hearts for His amazing work and His endless love for us.

God has done so much for those whom He has saved. That He has delivered us, and that He continues to strengthen the faith of the born-again saints, are the proof that God is holding us, and that He is protecting us. God works and fulfills His will through us.

I believe that God has blessed all His churches, the congregations of the born-again, around the world and will bless them forever. We have experienced much hardships, yet God has always been with us, made us endure and continue doing His works, strengthened our spirits and prepared our hearts to have the faith needed to receive more blessings. How great His grace is! I give thanks to the Lord once again.

Ø      We can praise the Lord with our whole hearts

“For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:5-6). The Bible says that when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions that were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. However, the Bible also says, “Now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what were held by, so that we should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.”

Can the flesh be delivered from sinful passions? A human being has two facets of existence. One is the flesh and the other is the heart. The flesh cannot reach the righteousness of God however hard it may try. Nor can it keep the Law of God. Our flesh can never keep the Law of God even after we are born again, no matter how hard we try. So the Apostle Paul says, “For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what were held by.”

Romans 4:15 states, “Because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.” We must praise our God with our hearts. God made us praise Him in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter, because we who were held by the Law were already cursed by the wrath of the Law.

The flesh is different from the heart. The flesh is limited but the heart can receive God’s Word and praise Him by faith. The heart can also be delivered from sin.

We have died to the Law. I am dead because I have died to what I was held by. Our flesh is already dead to God. With the flesh, we can neither reach His righteousness nor become justified before the Law of God. The flesh cannot avoid being judged. Yet God the Father sent us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and passed the whole wrath of the Law onto Him, who was then crucified in our place. God thus has enabled us to serve the Lord by faith in the newness of the Spirit, not in the oldness of the letter, which had held us by the Law, under its wrath.

We can now praise the Lord by faith. The heart can praise the Lord, though we still have the flesh. Our hearts can believe that the Lord loves us. We can praise our Lord because we believe that we have died in Christ. God has saved us from the wrath of the Law. God the Father sent His only begotten Son for us, who were held by the curse of the Law and the judgment of God, and when the fullness of the time came, He passed all our sins and the wrath of the Law onto His Son. God has thus saved those who accept His love and believe in Him from their sins, His judgment, and the wrath of the Law. We praise the Lord for wholly saving us from all our sins.

We believe wholeheartedly that God has saved us to His righteousness. We give thanks, praise and glory to God with all our hearts for His love. But can we do these things with the flesh? No. When we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were by the Law, worked in our members to bear fruit to death. The flesh dwells only under the wrath of God.

We are now delivered from this wrath of the Law by faith. God made us serve Him by our faith in His love and salvation, not by the oldness of the letter and not by the Law of God’s wrath, even though we are to be judged by the Law.

None of us can serve the Lord with our deeds. Though we have been born again, we cannot serve Him with our flesh. Is there anyone among us who has been disappointed while trying to serve the Lord with the flesh? We can never serve the Lord with the flesh. The sinful passions always reign the flesh. We cannot serve the Lord with our flesh even after we are born again. We can praise God and serve Him only with our hearts by faith. Therefore, when you praise God, believe with your heart and give thanks for His love. Then, the flesh can become an instrument that follows faith.

I praise the Lord who has saved us from all the wrath of the Law, for I believe in Him with my heart. I give thanks to the Lord. He has wholly saved me. He has delivered me from my daily sins and from the curse of the Law. Let there be no doubt: our Lord has saved us. Despite all our weaknesses and shortcomings, God has saved us because He loves us. How marvelous is it that God would make us righteous, even though we are full of shortcomings? How wondrous is it that God would make us His servants?

We can praise God because He has saved us from the wrath of the Law. We can serve the Lord with the Spirit and with our hearts. We can follow the Lord. We give thanks to the Lord, who has delivered us from our sins and His wrath. Do you give thanks to Him? Did our salvation not reveal just how weak we are? How many times have we failed to live by His will, even though we have tried our best to do so? How many times have we been boastful? How many weaknesses do we have? We can never praise the Lord with our flesh and deeds, not now, nor in the future. We praise God for what He has done with our hearts. Only with our hearts and by our faith can we praise the Lord.

Human beings can receive the Holy Spirit as a gift by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. The Holy Spirit, in other words, is a gift of God that He gives only those who have been forgiven of their sins. Let’s assume for a moment that I gave a pair of sunglasses to someone as a gift, saying, “Enjoy your summer vacation! This is a small expression of my thanks for your help.” If this person were to say to me, “I only have right now, but here, have it for now,” what would all this mean? It would mean that the sunglasses were not a gift but a good he just purchased. A gift is something that is given freely, 100 percent. If we had paid a price for it, no matter how small, then it is not a gift at all.

Because the Holy Spirit is given only to those have received the remission of sin, when people’s sins disappear from their hearts by believing in Jesus, the Spirit of God then simultaneously and automatically comes into their hearts.

In short, the Holy Spirit is given to the born again the same time they truly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Jesus has perfectly saved those who believe that Jesus accepted all the sins of our entire lifetime passed onto Him when He was baptized, and that He bore all the punishment of sins by shouldering all our sins and all the worldly sins of mankind and being crucified. It is to those who believe in this that Jesus Christ gives the Holy Spirit as a gift.

Because the Spirit of God is a gift given to those who have received the remission of sin, all that people have to do is just accept Him. Because the Holy Spirit is a gift given to any saint who has received the remission of sin, He dwells in the hearts of the saints. Those who have the Holy Spirit in their hearts have the witness of the Word to the remission of their sins.

The Holy Spirit does not come in a hot and electrifying sensation. Nor is He felt emotionally. Far less does the Holy Spirit descend in the state of complete absence of ego as demons are summoned by witchcraft. Because the Bible says, “Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them,” some of you may think and claim that a certain feeling arises when the Holy Spirit descends on you. However, you must know that such an experience is nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, but is merely the sign of being demon-possessed.

There used to be a professor at a seminary who claimed that when the Holy Spirit descends, He descends through the electrified hands. But this is not how the real Holy Spirit descends. You must therefore realize that if there is any spirit that comes into you like this, then this is not the Holy Spirit. Some people mistake demons descending on them as the Holy Spirit. They misunderstand and misbelieve these demons to be the Holy Spirit. When demons come in, people can feel them, but the Holy Spirit cannot be felt. The Holy Spirit quietly descends on us, together with the remission of sin, when we believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit.

Absolute majority of today’s Christians have not been born again by the gospel of the water and the Spirit even as they believe in Jesus somehow. They are still trying to receive the Holy Spirit after a few and even more years since they first believed in Jesus. But, you must realize it is wrong to try to receive the remission of sin and the Holy Spirit separately after believing in Jesus. Trying to receive the Holy Spirit separately after believing in Jesus, they climb up some mountain and pray, and do all kinds of crazy things in church, crying and wailing. These are all symptoms of the demon-possessed.

If we cannot receive the remission of sin once for all when we believe in Jesus, then we cannot receive the Holy Spirit separately later on. If people try to receive the Holy Spirit separately afterward without the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they will be possessed by demons instead. Often, when people go to such places as prayer houses and fervently pray to God to give them the Holy Spirit, they do receive something. But what they receive is not the Holy Sprit, but demons that feign to be the Holy Spirit. You must realize that such happenings are frequent, and that you cannot try to receive the Holy Spirit without the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

To lead a biblically sane life of faith, one must believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. First of all, receive the remission of all your sins by the faith in the true gospel! You will then receive the Holy Spirit as a gift. When Jesus has blotted out our sins of the world with His water and blood, if you remain ignorant of this and only pray ardently to receive the Holy Spirit, you will then end up being seized by demons.

People misunderstand the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and just believe that Jesus has blotted out their sins only with the blood of the Cross. What would have happened had Jesus died on the Cross without first accepting all our sins passed onto Him through His baptism?

The Old and the New Testaments match with each other perfectly. In the Old Testament, sins were passed by laying hands on the head of a sacrificial animal. Likewise, God made Jesus take upon the sins of the world by being baptized by John. Had John not passed the sins of the world to Jesus through baptism, these sins would have still remained as they were, even until now. This is why like the Old Testament’s laying on of hands, Jesus Christ had to take upon all the sins of the world by being baptized by John, the representative of mankind, prior to His being crucified. It was because Jesus Christ was baptized by John that He could go to the Cross and shed His blood.

Everyone must all believe in Jesus, who has blotted out the sins of the world with His baptism and blood, and he/she must thereby be remitted of all his/her sins. Only when one’s sins are remitted can he/she receive the Holy Spirit. If someone still has sin in his/her heart even as he/she believes in Jesus, then the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in this person’s heart.

The remission of sin and the Holy Spirit are not received separately. Those who are ignorant of this do not know the whole truth, and so they go to prayer houses or other such places, fast and pray. What do they do when they become too weak to finish that fasting? They think about Jesus’ crucifixion and bear with their hunger, saying to themselves, “My hunger means nothing compared to Jesus’ crucifixion!” There are many such people who are trying desperately to receive the Holy Spirit while living their spiritual lives with their sins remaining intact in their hearts.

What you must know clearly is that fasting per se is not what is important. What is truly important is to know and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by God and thereby have all your sins be remitted by faith. God wants you to know and believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit more than to pray and fast with devotion. Why? Because this is what would bless you.

If someone prays, “Lord, give me the Holy Spirit,” does the Holy Spirit then come to this person even when his/her heart still remains sinful? How can the hallowed Holy Spirit dwell in the hearts of the sinful? Only demons can dwell in such hearts of the sinful. Demons make the hearts of the sinful their houses, while the Holy Spirit makes temples out of and dwells eternally in the hearts of those who have received the remission of their sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the blood of Jesus Christ.

1.                     The Triune God

Must Christians know God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one God, and confess their faith in all of them? Yes. The reason is as follows.

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all led the ministry of creation and gave life to mankind. But God the Father is the Father of the Holy Son. The Son fulfilled the ministries of the remission of sin—that is, He was baptized by John and crucified to save mankind from sin. The Holy Spirit took the task of bearing witness to those who believe that the baptism of Jesus and the blood of the Cross fulfilled the works of the atonement of mankind.

For us to become the perfect people of God, we need the faith that believes in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this way. It is because God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created the universe and us that we have come to exist in this world, and for God the Son to save sinners from their sins, the baptism that fulfilled the righteousness of God and the work of bloodshed on the Cross was required. Because Jesus was baptized by John and thereby took upon the sins of the world, He bore the punishment of these sins that we were supposed to bear and died on the Cross vicariously in our stead.

By doing so, those who believe could finally be freed from all their sins. This truth had been prepared long before, and it is the core ministry of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It is only when we apply this truth to us that Jesus Christ’s work of atonement finally become a work fulfilled for our own sake, and we can be saved from all our sins by believing.

If we had no knowledge of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then we would have been unable to know how the universe was created and who has given us life, and if there had not been God the Son, neither would we have been able to know the way of salvation—that is, how we could pass on our sins—nor what is the basis of our salvation from sin. But if there had been no Holy Spirit bearing witness, then no matter how great of a way of salvation has been prepared, this truth would have been just a pie in the sky, having nothing to do with us at all. Therefore, whenever we confess the faith of the Apostles’ Creed, we must think of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who has created us and given us life, and we must stand firmly on our faith in the truth that these three independent Persons are one God for us.

2.                     God the Holy Spirit

God the Holy Spirit Is Not Just A Power, But He Also Has Character

The Holy Spirit, “Ruwach Qadowsh” in Hebrew, and “pneuma hagios” ( ) in Greek, is the third Person of the Trinity.

The Apostles’ Creed makes a very terse confession of faith in the Holy Spirit, only stating, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” It is very important that the saints know correctly who the Holy Spirit is and what His works are. And we must also know about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which will be discussed later part of this section.

When we confess that we believe in the Holy Spirit, before we think of some mystical power possessed by Him, we must first pay particular attention to the fact that we receive the Holy Spirit only when we believe in God the Father and the works of the Son. Many Christians have a tendency to think that they can receive the Holy Spirit whenever and as frequently as they need Him, but this is a profoundly mistaken thinking. We must realize that the Holy Spirit is not an angel, but He is God to whom we must given our worship and praise. As such, we can receive the Holy Spirit when we believe in God the Father and the works of the Son.