Please Note: The following reflects what I personally believe. However, I do not place these beliefs on the same pedestal as the historic doctrines of the Christian faith—those wrestled with in the Early Church and culminating in the Council of Nicaea. This faith statement is my attempt to express personal nuances and theological convictions within the broader framework of Christian doctrine. It is not intended to stand alongside the foundational doctrines of the faith, but rather to elaborate how I, personally, understand and live them out.

 

Because of Jesus, I trust that the world we live in has a grand story with a beginning, middle, and end. We – living in this world – are unavoidably part of this story. It’s a story of God, God’s creation, and us. 

Chapter 1: God & The Plan

I believe God is the ground of all being – relational, personal, eternal, creative, holy, and love. This God is One, yet mysteriously can be seen in Three. We have called this one-in-three-three-in-one mystery the Trinity, and have called each threeness of God The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (John 14:11). This is the picture of God discerned by the early church and affirmed in later church councils.

I believe God created the universe out of love, and creation is therefore sacred. God created the first humans in His image, with a calling to care for the untamed Earth and live in relationship with God, each other, and creation (Gen 1:26-28). God’s plan was for humanity to work with Him to move creation forward. One day, God would co-rule creation with His people, as a human King, and be in close relationship with us; God being “all in all” (Eph 1:3-12).

Chapter 2: The Rebellion & The Rescue

I believe humanity went against God’s calling. While good things like culture, family, and innovations can align with God’s purposes, they became mixed with decay, suffering, and injustice as we sought to redefine good and evil for ourselves (Gen 3:1-4; Romans 1:18-25). When we worship creation instead of the Creator, we unwittingly give over our power to co-rule the world to that which ought not to have powers in the first place – the creation and the heavenly being – and these forces take our power and in turn enslave us. Whether or not the Devil originated in this moment or as a pre-existing being, Scripture nonetheless identifies a principal Evil now at work behind all rebellion (And this Evil is still luring us into evil to this day). All of this chaos is the unraveling of the world (Romans 5:12; Colossians 1:21) known in theological terms as “the fall”, and our part in this rebellion event is called “sin”, meaning to miss the mark of what God created us to be. As the human story continued to unfold, sin became etched into us and into the creation, and carries through us by every subsequent generation. The suffering, evil, and injustice experienced up to this very day – on both a personal and systemic level – is a result of the continual unfolding of the fallenness of the world. As such, no human is left unscathed from this reality of a fallen world. 

Yet, I believe God promised to fix the broken world and restore His plan for creation. This plan focused on a person named Abraham: God blessed him so that all people could be blessed through him (Gen 12:1-3, 15:4-6). Abraham’s descendants, the Hebrew people, became enslaved in Egypt. Yet God liberated them, gave them an identity, and renewed their mission to bless all people. However, they themselves became part of the problem, rebelling against God and failing in their vocation to be the light of the world. All hope seemed lost – yet despite their rebellion, a hopeful remnant always looked ahead, trusting in God’s rescue plan (Isa 40-60).

Chapter 3: The Rescue Becoming Fulfilled

I believe the rescue plan was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God’s rescue came through the Hebrews, but became focused in Jesus as their representative (Gal 3), thus their vocation being fulfilled in Jesus’ faithfulness in being the Light of the world to the nations. Also, Jesus is the Human King God promised for the future of creation (Eph 1:7). In His incarnation, God took the decisive step forward to uniting heaven and earth through Jesus. Some people expected Jesus to overthrow the Roman Empire (The Zealots), while others thought God’s rescue would come through greater religious devotion (The Pharisees). Jesus defied both expectations: He taught that overcoming darkness and political powers would come through radical love and service to all people, including enemies (Matt 5-7), and He challenged the religious leaders for turning their faith into an idol that blinded them to God’s work in Him.

I believe Jesus healed people physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually (Matt 4:23-25) and welcomed the broken and outcast into His Kingdom (Luke 5:32). These were signs of God’s healing Kingdom breaking into the world to restore creation (Luke 4:16-21). Jesus warned that rejecting His Kingdom would destroy individuals and society (Matt 7:13), for doing so would be to reject the very remedy of our fallen world that we are all both victims of and complicit in – but following Him would lead to a healed life in Him, ultimately unto participating in God’s Kingdom on Earth (Matt 16:24-25). I believe this is still true today.

Chapter 4: The Climax – Rescue Fulfilled

I believe Jesus was arrested, tried, and executed. However three days later, God raised Him from the dead. This event is the decisive moment in God’s plan to heal the world (Acts 13:28-30). For creation to move toward its completion, God had to defeat the powers of death, evil, sin, oppression, and injustice that began with humanity’s rebellion and now keep us in their tight grip. To include us in His restored world, God condemned these powers without condemning us. It is as if sin, evil, and death are like a snowball that we created that has, is, and will come full circle and come back to destroy us. But on the cross, Jesus allowed the powers to do their worst to Him, exhausting their strength and responding to us with forgiveness. In this way, He condemned sin on the cross without throwing the evil He exhausted back onto us, thus defeating evil and setting us free (Rom 3:22-26, 8:1-2, Col 2:15). He dies in our place, allowing the cross to become for us the place where we experience healing and cleansing —cosmically, socially, and individually (Isa. 55). This victory is woven into the fabric of all history and creation, and allows now for creation to move forward to New Creation.

Chapter 5: Implementing the Fulfilled Rescue

I believe the sign of God’s victory over evil is displayed in Jesus’ resurrection. He now rules as our human King from Heaven, which already intersects with Earth (Acts 1:9-11). As the Risen King, Jesus has offered a royal pardon to all people – the forgiveness of sin (Rom 8:1-2). Through the Holy Spirit, God awakens us to this reality and enables us to trust in Him and His Kingdom as the true version of all reality (Rom 5:18). In such trust, we discover a new life of freedom (Rom 6:1-11; Eph 1:3), a relationship with God, and a mission to represent God in the world (2 Cor 5:18-19). This trust is declared by God as right (i.e., justification). In this new reality, followers of Jesus form ‘the Church’ – God’s new humanity, imperfect but transforming, following Jesus by doing and believing as He did. The global church is outworked visibly in the context of local tight knit communities of Christ shaped and family-like love. The Church’s role is to implement God’s rescue plan by making disciples (Matt 28:18; 2 Cor 5:19-20).

I believe that followers of Jesus gradually become more like Him over their lifetime, through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit empowers us to live out God’s future reality in the present, giving us faith and gifts, convicting, guiding, comforting, and leading us into truth (John 16:8, 13). The Spirit empowers the Church’s mission and moves through all of creation – mysteriously interweaving through all that is good in the world and that which serves the common purpose of renewing God’s good world.

Chapter 6: The Finished Rescue & Plan for Creation Fully Realised

I believe Jesus will return to fully implement what He began. Until then, those who die go to be held within God’s presence, awaiting the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of all things. Since the final judgment—where each person must face the full truth of their lives—has not yet begun, this is a restful state, marked by God’s peace and care.

When He returns, Jesus will raise all people from the dead and heal the world, right all wrongs, and make Heaven and Earth one (Rev 21–22). This is the climax of creation, with sin dealt with along the way. Jesus’ future judgment is Good News—for those who long for justice, for restoration, and for the world to be made right (Matt 25). But it will be confronting, too. I believe this judgment will be like a cosmic truth and reconciliation commission led by Jesus, where all secrets are revealed. Each person will face their rights and wrongs in the presence of both God and the people they have impacted. It will be purging, painful, and necessary—bringing all things to light so that evil can be fully unmasked and defeated. In this sense, final judgment is also purgatory: the place where people are refined, wrongs are exposed, and the possibility of reconciliation is extended.

Those who welcome Jesus’ forgiveness and give their allegiance to Him as Lord—who desire to live in relationship with Him and be formed into His likeness—will finally become the kind of people who long to live in the world He is making and who will now forever freely choose the goodness of God. They will inherit perfect, resurrected bodies and co-rule with Him in the new heavens and new earth. But for those who refuse this reality—even after seeing clearly and fully—I believe God honours their decision. Since God will be “all in all” in the renewed creation, to reject God is to cut oneself off from the very source of life. I personally hold to a view called annihilationism: that those who reject God’s life in the end will, like someone removed from life support, gradually fade into non-existence. This, too, is a form of judgment—one with proportional weight, as they bear the unveiled truth of their lives. As they slowly fade, they carry the shame of what they became and what they chose—the sorrow of how they used their freedom, and the pain of seeing the harm they caused. This is not torment imposed by God, but the soul’s own reckoning in light of the truth revealed by God; this becomes God’s final judgment. And yet, even here, there is a kind of mercy. For there is no endless suffering; only the heavy sorrow of what could have been, followed by silence.

And with evil, death, and the devil destroyed, God will make His home with us. Creation will be fully healed, and history’s great story brought to its promised renewal (1 Cor 15:58).

Chapter 7: Living in Light of This

While God’s Spirit is at work in the world, His ultimate healing happens only in relationship to Jesus. In this way, we are called to recognise Jesus as the Christ and give our allegiance to Him as King.

If you feel moved by this message, lean into that. Leaning in doesn’t mean having all the answers or being free of doubts. It might look like praying (even something simple like, “God, I don’t even know if You’re real, but I want to speak what’s going on in me”), sitting in silence, talking to a Christian friend, attending a church gathering, or researching further. Lean into what is happening for you in this moment and let it guide you forward.

If over time you find yourself ready to embrace faith, remember that faith isn’t about having all the answers. It’s like a trust fall—trusting in a God revealed in Jesus, knowing there’s a purpose to history. In trusting, you enter into a relationship with Jesus, who loves you as you are, but loves you so much He desires your transformation. This life you live is lived—imperfectly—for Him, and in relationship with Him.