There are many good people in the world and many who seek to know and obey God. While a
Christian is expected to live a morally good life and to believe in God that is not what makes a
person a Christian. What matters in becoming a Christian is what a person believes about Jesus.
It is how a person relates to Jesus Christ that is the distinctive and essential character of a
Christian.
Jesus of Nazareth announced the coming of the kingdom of God. By the grace of God the poor in
spirit could receive God's love. Jesus himself, in his life and death, made the response of humility,
obedience and trust which God had long sought in vain. As the Uniting Church Basis of Union
puts it, God confirmed and completed the witness which Jesus bore to God on earth, reasserted
claim over the whole of creation, pardoned sinners, and made in Jesus a representative beginning
of a new order of righteousness and love. To God in Christ all people are called to respond in
faith.
When Jesus was called Christ by the apostles it meant that they accepted him as the Messiah
whom God had promised to send. The expected Messiah was a king who would establish the rule
of God and lead people to victory over the enemies of God. Jesus showed them that his victory
would not be like that of earthly kings, for he would humble himself and become their servant,
even to the point of dying a sacrificial death. In this way he overcame sin and death, the enemies
of God and of humanity, which divide people from God and from each other; so he reconciled us
to God and to each other and was given great honour as the King of kings and Lord of lords.
After his victory Christ was raised up to a special place with God and honoured as he had been
from the beginning in which he shared with God in the creation of the world.
Jesus is both truly God and truly human. How that can be is learned from scripture, which
incorporates the witness of those who knew him well, especially the apostles, and it is confirmed
in Christian experience. We believe that Jesus is human and divine; Saviour and Lord; in part
because of the difference faith in him makes to our lives. These are central Christian beliefs,
which are the basis for a life of discipleship.
The Uniting Church acknowledges that the faith and unity of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church are built upon the one Lord Jesus Christ. The Church preaches Christ the risen crucified
One and confesses him as Lord to the glory of God the Father. In Jesus Christ "God was
reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19 RSV). In love for the world, God gave the
Son to take away the world's sin.
Jesus of Nazareth announced the sovereign grace of God whereby the poor in spirit could receive
God's love. Jesus himself, in his life and death, made the response of humility, obedience and trust
which God had long sought in vain. In raising him to live and reign, God confirmed and
completed the witness which Jesus bore to God on earth, reasserted claim over the whole of
creation, pardoned sinners, and made in Jesus a representative beginning of a new order of
righteousness and love. To God in Christ all people are called to respond in faith. To this end
God has sent fort the Spirit that people may trust God as their Father, and acknowledge Jesus as
Lord. The whole work of salvation is effected by the sovereign grace of God alone.
The Church as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit confesses Jesus as Lord over its own life; it also
confesses that Jesus is Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity.
God in Christ has given to all people in the Church the Holy Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of
that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation. The
Church's call is to serve that end: to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the
diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through
which Christ may work and bear witness to himself. The Church lives between the time of
Christ's death and resurrection and the final consummation of all things which Christ will bring;
the Church is a pilgrim people, always on the way towards a promised goal; here the Church does
not have a continuing city but seeks one to come. On the way Christ feeds the Church with Word
and Sacraments, and it has the gift of the Spirit in order that it may not lose the way.
4. CHRIST RULES AND RENEWS THE CHURCH
The Uniting Church acknowledges that the Church is able to live and endure through the changes
of history only because its Lord comes, addresses, and deals with people in and through the news
of his completed work. Christ who is present when he is preached among people is the Word of
God who acquits the guilty, who gives life to the dead and who brings into being what otherwise
could not exist. Through human witness in word and action, and in the power of the Holy Spirit,
Christ reaches out to command people's attention and awaken faith; he calls people into the
fellowship of his sufferings, to be the disciples of a crucified Lord; in his own strange way Christ
constitutes, rules and renews them as his Church.
Jesus announced the coming of the Kingdom of God, which he demonstrated by his teaching and
his deeds of power or signs, such as acts of healing and his friendship with outcasts, which
showed the victory of God over powers of evil and reconciled people to God. The signs of the
kingdom were also the signs of the Messiah being present. It was through the work of the
Messiah that the foundations were laid for a new way of life on earth for people in a new
relationship to God.
God made people for fellowship with their Creator, but because of sin they were separated from
him and unable to fulfil their potential to become children of God. In order to thus fulfil God's
purpose for human life, sin had to be overcome.
Sin which separates people from God, makes them strangers of God who may become his
enemies. Any kind of selfishness or pride can be an act of rebellion against God. Being estranged
from God and from his purpose for humanity, sinners will also be estranged from one another,
failing to recognize others as having the same potential to become children of God. God has
revealed ways in which people should live so as to avoid sin and keep a good relationship with
himself and with other people. One important revelation of the way to live was in the
commandments of the old covenant with the people of Israel, a covenant or relationship which
people broke.
People who were estranged from God are restored to a relationship of trust in God by making
themselves one with Christ, by giving their allegiance to him who shared in the nature of God the
Creator and was a perfectly faithful representative of God. In this way people of faith enter into a
new covenant, a new relationship of trust, as members of a fellowship in which the life of Christ is
shared and celebrated.
The church is the fellowship of people who have faith in Christ.
To have faith is to share in the life of Christ and thus to share in the fellowship of other believers
who also share in his life. The life in which believers share is the life of the risen Lord Jesus
Christ, into which people are led by the God the Holy Spirit. Jesus provided special ways of
sharing in his life through the Holy Spirit and these include the sacraments of baptism and holy
communion.
Just as arms and legs are members of a human body with different functions, so in scripture
members of the church are seen as like the various limbs and organs of a body with Christ as the
head. If they truly serve him they work together in harmony, valuing the contributions of each
other, serving a common purpose, employing their various gifts of the one Spirit. Other ways in
which the church is understood as a single body depending upon Christ include being like a
building of which Christ is the chief cornerstone, or like a family in which members are adopted
children with Christ as the eldest brother. Members of the church are not just individual believers,
but people related to each other and to Christ himself in the Spirit.
There was a special outpouring of the Spirit of God on the early members of the church. On the
Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, came upon the followers of Jesus when there were gathered
together after he had risen from the dead and ascended to be with God is heaven. The Holy Spirit
who came upon the believers in the church was the same Spirit who was known to the people of
the old covenant. He came on them with great power so that they were enabled to fulfill the
mission Jesus had given them to make him known throughout the world, baptizing people in the
name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit members of the
body are nourished continually for their life and work, especially in the church by carrying out the
command of Jesus to remember him in the Lord's Supper.
Baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the church.
People are made members of the body of Christ through baptism, in which the sign of washing is
used to signify the cleansing of a life from the power of evil that is in the world and the entry of
that person into a life of discipleship through faith in Jesus Christ. The change that comes about
through baptism is the work of the Holy Spirit.
When members of the church eat and drink the consecrated bread and wine in the Holy
Communion of the Lord's Supper or Eucharist they receive, by the Holy Spirit, the life of the risen
Christ who is present in these signs and in the fellowship of those who gather in his name. This
way of sharing in the life of Christ carries out his command to remember him, especially his
sacrificial death and his glorious resurrection. It is a great blessing in which all members are
expected to share. In the unity of the fellowship at this table of the Lord, Christians are related in
love to all other members of the body of Christ in the universal church throughout the world
today, and to those who have lived and died at an earlier time. That universal fellowship is the
one holy catholic and apostolic church, without which it is not possible to celebrate the Eucharist,
and for this reason a person who is recognized as a representative of the wider church and its
apostolic tradition normally presides at each celebration.
The special sign of a sacrament is a means of grace, because it is a particular way God has
provided through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit for his free gift of love for human beings
to be received by them. The sign employed in a sacrament is a powerful symbol in which the
faithful rely upon God to answer their prayers for the fulfilment of the promise for which the
sacrament was given to the life of the church, so that people might be changed and enjoy
fellowship with God and with one another.
The two sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper are commanded by Christ in the gospels to be celebrated in the church, and there are other signs of the grace of God which in some Christian traditions are called sacraments of the church.
Besides baptism and the Eucharist, other signs such as the ministry of reconciliation, confirmation,
marriage, ordination and the last rites have a sacramental character and are well defined means of
grace for which particular actions are performed with prayer under the authority of the church.
The gift of the Holy Spirit is implied in baptism. The laying on of hands as a sign of that gift can
be performed at the same time or at another time than the celebration of a person's baptism. The
laying on of hands with prayer for the gift of the Spirit for discipleship is normally included in the
celebration of baptism where the person being baptized has sufficient understanding to confess the
faith of the church, and it is often performed at a later time when people who have been baptized
as infants confess the faith and commit themselves to serve Christ.
The Church as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit confesses Jesus as Lord over its own life; it also
confesses that Jesus is Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity.
God in Christ has given to all people in the Church the Holy Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of
that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation. The
Church's call is to serve that end: to be a fellowship of reconciliation, a body within which the
diverse gifts of its members are used for the building up of the whole, an instrument through
which Christ may work and bear witness to himself. The Church lives between the time of
Christ's death and resurrection and the final consummation of all things which Christ will bring;
the Church is a pilgrim people, always on the way towards a promised goal; here the Church does
not have a continuing city but seeks one to come. On the way Christ feeds the Church with Word
and Sacraments, and it has the gift of the Spirit in order that it may not lose the way.
CHRIST RULES AND RENEWS THE CHURCH
The Uniting Church acknowledges that the Church is able to live and endure through the changes
of history only because its Lord comes, addresses, and deals with people in and through the news
of his completed work. Christ who is present when he is preached among people is the Word of
God who acquits the guilty, who gives life to the dead and who brings into being what otherwise
could not exist. Through human witness in word and action, and in the power of the Holy Spirit,
Christ reaches out to command people's attention and awaken faith; he calls people into the
fellowship of his sufferings, to be the disciples of a crucified Lord; in his own strange way Christ
constitutes, rules and renews them as his Church.
SACRAMENTS
The Uniting Church acknowledges that Christ has commanded his Church to proclaim the Gospel
both in words and in the two visible acts of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Christ himself acts in
and through everything that the Church does in obedience to his commandment; it is Christ who
by the gift of the Spirit confers the forgiveness, the fellowship, the new life and the freedom which
the proclamation and actions promise; and it is Christ who awakens, purifies and advances in
people the faith and hope in which alone such benefits can be accepted.
BAPTISM
The Uniting Church acknowledges that Christ incorporates people into his body by Baptism. In
this way Christ enables them to participate in his own baptism, which was accomplished once on
behalf of all in his death and burial, and which was made available to all when, risen and ascended,
he poured out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Baptism into Christ's body initiates people into
Christ's life and mission in the world, so that they are united in one fellowship of love, service,
suffering and joy, in one family of the Father of all in heaven and earth, and in the power of the
one Spirit. The Uniting Church will baptize those who confess the Christian faith, and children
who are presented for baptism and for whose instruction and nourishment in the faith the Church
takes responsibility.
HOLY COMMUNION
The Uniting Church acknowledges that the continuing presence of Christ with his people is
signified and sealed by Christ in the Lord's Supper or the Holy Communion, constantly repeated
in the life of the Church. In this sacrament of his broken body and outpoured blood the risen
Lord feeds his baptized people on their way to the final inheritance of the Kingdom. Thus the
people of God, through faith and the gift and power of the Holy Spirit, have communion with
their Saviour, make their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, proclaim the Lord's death, grow
together into Christ, are strengthened for their participation in the mission of Christ in the world,
and rejoice in the foretaste of the Kingdom which Christ will bring to consummation.
What do you mean by the "Holy Spirit?"
We have referred already to the work of the Holy Spirit, described as God with us, who is the
source of the life and energy of the church, the body of Christ. We have recognized that the Spirit
gives each member of the body gifts for discipleship, and is the means by which the sacraments
are effective.
Christians refer to the Day of Pentecost as the birthday of the church because that was when the Holy Spirit came with great power on the gathered followers of Jesus and they began to share the gospel so that many people believed and joined their fellowship. Jesus himself was empowered by the Holy Spirit.