The words the church uses to speak of the faith, explained: a short definition, the Scripture behind it and where the word came from.
A
- Adoption 양자 됨Adoption is God's act of free grace by which he receives those who believe in Christ as his own children, so that they call him Father and share all the privileges and inheritance of his family. Justification is the judge's verdict; adoption is the Father's welcome into his home.
- Allegory 알레고리Allegory is a way of reading in which the persons, events and words of a text are taken to point beyond their literal meaning to another, spiritual meaning. Some passages of Scripture are written this way; but allegorical interpretation that is not anchored in the context and the author's intent easily reads into a text what it does not say.
- Amillennialism 무천년설Amillennialism is the view that the thousand years of Revelation 20 are the present age, from Christ's first coming to his return. In this age Satan is bound so that he cannot stop the gospel, and Christ reigns with his saints; at his return come one resurrection, one judgment, and the new heavens and new earth.
- The Anabaptists 재세례파The Anabaptists were a radical movement of the sixteenth-century Reformation. They held that the church is the fellowship of those who have repented, believed and chosen to follow Christ, and so they baptized only those who confessed faith. Refusing the sword and the oath, they were persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike; the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish are their heirs.
- Apocrypha 외경The Apocrypha is the Protestant name for books such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees, found in the Greek Old Testament used by the early church but not in the Hebrew Bible. Protestants do not count them as canonical; the Catholic Church receives them as deuterocanonical Scripture, and the Orthodox also receive them in their Old Testament.
- Apologetics 변증학Apologetics is the branch of theology that shows why the Christian faith is true and worthy of belief, and answers the questions and objections raised against it from Scripture and reason. Its aim is not to win arguments but to give anyone who asks a reason for our hope, with gentleness and respect.
- Arianism 아리우스주의Arianism is the teaching of Arius, a fourth-century presbyter of Alexandria, that the Son is not eternal God but the highest of creatures, made from nothing before all ages. Against it the Council of Nicaea (325) confessed that the Son is true God, of one being with the Father.
- Arminianism 아르미니우스주의Arminianism is the teaching that comes from the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius and the Remonstrants who followed him. It holds that God chooses in Christ those he foreknows will believe, that Christ died for all, and that the grace God gives to everyone before they can respond may be resisted. Through John Wesley and Methodism it lives on in many evangelical churches today.
- The ascension 승천The ascension is the risen Christ's going up into heaven, forty days after Easter and in his disciples' sight, still bearing his human body, to sit at the right hand of God. From there he reigns over all things, intercedes for us and sends the Holy Spirit, and he will come again in the same way he went.
- Assurance 확신Assurance is a believer's knowledge that he or she is in God's grace and has eternal life. It rests on God's promises in Christ, confirmed by the Holy Spirit's witness that we are God's children and by the fruit of a changed life. It grows with faith, and it can be shaken and renewed.
- Atonement 속죄Atonement is Christ's work, above all in his death on the cross, of dealing with our sin and bringing sinners back to God. It springs from God's love, and Scripture describes it with several pictures: sacrifice and ransom, reconciliation and victory, and the penalty Christ bore in our place.
- The attributes of God 하나님의 속성The attributes of God are the perfections Scripture reveals in him: his holiness, love, justice, wisdom and power, his eternity and his unchanging faithfulness. They are not parts that make God up but different ways of describing the one undivided God as he has made himself known.
B
- Baptism 세례Baptism is the sacrament in which, as Christ commanded, a person is washed with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It signifies union with Christ, the washing away of sin, new life and entry into his church. All churches confess one baptism, but they differ over who should receive it, how it is given and what it accomplishes.
- Believers’ baptism 신자의 세례Believers' baptism is the practice of baptising only those who have repented and professed faith in Jesus Christ for themselves. Baptists, Mennonites and other Anabaptists, and many Pentecostal and free churches hold it, seeing baptism as the believer's confession of having died and risen with Christ, and most baptise by immersion.
- Biblical theology 성경신학Biblical theology is the branch of theology that follows how God's revelation unfolds step by step through the history and covenants of Scripture until it reaches Christ. It hears what each book and era says in its own setting, and traces how it fits into the one story of the whole Bible.
- Bishop 감독A bishop is an overseer appointed to watch over and care for the church; the word comes from the Greek episkopos. In the New Testament it names the same office as elder, but from the second century it came to mean one leader over a church's elders and deacons, and the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican churches hold that office to be handed down from the apostles.
C
- Calvinism 칼뱅주의Calvinism is the theological tradition that comes from John Calvin and the Reformed churches. Broadly it means the whole of Reformed theology, centred on God's sovereignty and glory and the authority of Scripture; narrowly, the doctrines of grace confessed at the Synod of Dort (1619): that God freely chose a people in Christ, whom the Spirit surely brings to faith and keeps to the end.
- Canon 정경The canon is the list of books the church receives as inspired Scripture and as the rule of its faith and life. The church did not create these books but recognised them through long use and discernment; Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches share the same twenty-seven New Testament books, while the extent of the Old Testament differs between traditions.
- Catechism 요리문답A catechism is a manual that teaches the main points of the Christian faith in questions and answers. Most explain the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the sacraments; Luther's Small Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Shorter Catechism are among the most widely used.
- Christian perfection 그리스도인의 완전Christian perfection is the teaching that in this life God can so fill a believer's heart with love for God and neighbour that love rules the heart and life. John Wesley and the Methodist and Holiness traditions also call it entire sanctification; it is not freedom from mistakes or weakness, but a grace received by faith that goes on growing.
- The church 교회The church is the people God has called together by the gospel: the body of which Christ is the head and the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. It is one church embracing believers of every time and place, and it is also each local congregation gathered for worship around the word and the sacraments.
- Church discipline 권징Church discipline is the church's use of the authority Christ gave it to watch over its members' teaching and life, to admonish and rebuke those who fall into sin, and, if they will not turn, to keep them from the Lord's Table and the church's fellowship. Its aim is not punishment but to win the sinner back, keep the church holy and honour Christ's name.
- The Church Fathers 교부The Church Fathers are the pastors and teachers of the early church, from the generation after the apostles to roughly the eighth century, such as Ignatius, Irenaeus, Athanasius and Augustine. The church has honoured them as fathers in the faith; evangelicals value their witness highly while testing it, like all teaching, by Scripture.
- The clarity of Scripture 성경의 명료성The clarity of Scripture is the teaching that what we must know, believe and do to be saved is set out in Scripture so plainly that not only scholars but ordinary believers, using the ordinary means of reading and hearing it, can understand it well enough. It does not mean that every part of the Bible is equally easy.
- Common grace 일반 은총Common grace is the goodness God shows to all people, believers and unbelievers alike. By it he gives sun, rain and food, restrains sin, and lets learning, art and social order flourish. It does not forgive sin or save anyone, but it preserves the world and gives the gospel room to be heard.
- The communion of saints 성도의 교제The communion of saints is the fellowship of all who are united to Christ: in the Spirit they share in Christ and his gifts, and in love they share their gifts, graces and goods with one another. Confessed in the Apostles' Creed, it binds together in Christ the church on earth and the saints already with the Lord.
- Confession of faith 신앙고백To confess the faith is to say aloud, before God and others, what we believe in our hearts. A confession of faith is also a document in which a church sets out at length the doctrine it has learned from Scripture, such as the Augsburg, Belgic and Westminster Confessions; Protestants hold these as standards under Scripture.
- Congregational polity 회중 정치Congregational polity is the form of church government in which each local church, under Christ as its only head, governs itself, and the members together make its chief decisions, such as calling pastors and officers, receiving members and exercising discipline. Baptist, Congregational and many free and independent churches follow it.
- Conscience 양심Conscience is the moral witness God has placed within every person: the power of the heart to judge our thoughts and deeds as right or wrong, and so to accuse or defend us. Because sin can dull or mislead it, conscience must be corrected by God's word, and it is made clean by the blood of Christ.
- Consubstantiation 공재설Consubstantiation is a name for the view that in the Lord's Supper the bread and wine remain, while Christ's true body and blood are present in, with and under them. It usually refers to Lutheran teaching, but Lutherans do not use the word and speak instead of a sacramental union between the bread and Christ's body.
- Conversion 회심Conversion is a sinner's turning, by God's grace, from sin to God through faith in Jesus Christ. It has two sides: repentance, turning away from sin, and faith, turning to Christ. It may happen in a moment or grow over years, and the turning goes on for the whole of the Christian life.
- Covenant 언약A covenant is a solemn bond of promise that God makes with people: he binds himself by his promise and calls his people to be faithful to him. At its heart is the promise, I will be your God and you will be my people, and the covenants of Scripture find their fulfilment in the new covenant sealed in Christ's blood.
- The covenant of grace 은혜 언약The covenant of grace is the covenant God made after the fall, freely promising sinners life and salvation in Christ and giving by his Spirit even the faith it requires. Reformed theology reads the covenants of Scripture, from the first promise of the gospel to the new covenant, as this one covenant administered differently in different ages.
- The covenant of redemption 구속 언약The covenant of redemption is the eternal agreement that Reformed theology teaches between the Father and the Son before the world began: the Father gave the Son a people, and the Son undertook to become man and redeem them. The Spirit applies that redemption to them, and the covenant of grace is rooted in this eternal pact.
- The covenant of works 행위 언약The covenant of works is the Reformed name for the first covenant, in which God set Adam before the fall as head of the human race, promised him life on condition of perfect obedience and warned of death for disobedience. Adam broke it; Christ, the second Adam, rendered that obedience for us.
- Covenant theology 언약신학Covenant theology is the Reformed way of reading the whole Bible through the covenants God has made: the covenant of works, the covenant of grace, and the covenant of redemption in which the covenant of grace is rooted. It sees the Old and New Testaments as one covenant of grace administered differently, and Israel and the church as one people of God in Christ.
- Creation 창조Creation is the work of the triune God who, freely and by his word, made out of nothing the heavens and the earth and all things in them, visible and invisible. The world he made is good; it is not part of God but depends on him, and it exists for his glory.
- Creation out of nothing 무로부터의 창조Creation out of nothing is the teaching that God did not make the world from material that already existed or from his own being, but brought all things into existence from nothing, by his will and word alone. Nothing besides God is eternal; everything else has received its being from him.
- Creed 신조A creed is a short statement of the heart of the Christian faith, learned from Scripture and confessed together, such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. Creeds are used at baptism, in worship and in teaching, and they mark out the faith that Christians hold in common.
D
- The decrees of God 작정The decrees of God are his eternal purpose: what he determined before all time, by the wise and holy counsel of his will, to bring about, and which he carries out in creation and providence. Reformed churches confess that the decree covers whatever comes to pass; Lutheran, Arminian and Wesleyan traditions, each in its own way, relate free human choices to God's foreknowledge rather than to his decree.
- Dispensationalism 세대주의Dispensationalism is a system of reading Scripture which holds that God governs history through distinct periods, or dispensations, and that Israel and the church are two distinct peoples of God. Systematized by John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century and spread by the Scofield Reference Bible, it expects God's promises to Israel to be fulfilled literally in the future.
- Doctrine 교리Doctrine is what the church believes, teaches and confesses on the basis of Scripture: its teaching about God, Christ, salvation, the church and the rest. Creeds, confessions and catechisms sum it up, and the church is called to test its doctrine by Scripture and to guard sound teaching.
- Donatism 도나투스주의Donatism was a fourth- and fifth-century schism in North Africa which held that the church must be a body of the pure, and that sacraments given by clergy who had betrayed the faith were void. The church rejected it, teaching that Christ is the true giver of the sacraments, so a minister's sin cannot make them invalid.
E
- Ecumenical council 공의회An ecumenical council is a gathering of bishops representing the whole church to settle grave questions of faith and order. Seven councils, from Nicaea (325) to the Second Council of Nicaea (787), are received by East and West alike, and most churches confess what the first four taught about the Trinity and the person of Christ.
- Effectual calling 효과적 부르심Effectual calling is God's inward call by his Word and Spirit, by which he convinces people of their sin, enlightens them to know Christ and renews their wills, so that they truly come to him. Reformed theology distinguishes it from the outward call of the gospel, which goes to everyone who hears.
- Elder 장로An elder is an officer appointed in the New Testament to oversee, teach and shepherd a local church; the New Testament also calls the same people overseers, or bishops. Today the word names the ruling elders who govern with the minister in Presbyterian churches, the priests of the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican churches, and often the pastors of congregational churches.
- Election 선택Election is God's gracious choosing, before the foundation of the world, of a people in Christ to be his own, to save them and make them holy. God chose Israel not because they were greater but because he loved them, and he has chosen the church freely in Christ. Traditions differ on what that choice rests on.
- Eschatology 종말론Eschatology is the teaching about the last things: death and what follows it, Christ's return, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, and the new heavens and new earth. Scripture teaches that the last days began with Christ's first coming and will be completed when he comes again.
- Essence 본질Essence is what God is: the one divine being that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share. The three persons do not divide it among them; each has it whole, and so they are one God, not three.
- Eternal life 영생Eternal life is not only life that never ends but the life of knowing and sharing fellowship with the eternal God, the life that is in his Son. Believers receive it now, by faith, and will enjoy it in full when they are raised to live in the new heavens and new earth.
- Evangelicalism 복음주의Evangelicalism is a Protestant movement that grew from the eighteenth-century revivals and runs across many denominations. It stresses the supreme authority of the Bible, the cross and Christ's atoning death, the need for conversion and new birth, and an active faith that spreads the gospel and serves others. Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Pentecostals and many others share the name.
F
- Faith 믿음Faith is believing what God has said to be true and, above all, receiving and resting on Jesus Christ alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel. It is not a payment to God but the empty hand that receives his grace, and it shows itself in love.
- Filioque 필리오케Filioque is the Latin phrase the Western church added to the Nicene Creed, confessing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and also from the Son. The Orthodox churches, holding to the creed as it stood in 381, do not accept the addition, and it became one of the issues in the division of East and West.
- The five solas 다섯 솔라The five solas are five Latin phrases, each built on sola, meaning alone, that sum up the Reformation's teaching: Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and the glory of God alone. Together they confess that salvation is God's free gift in Christ from first to last, and that Scripture is the final authority by which we know it.
- Free will 자유의지Free will is the human capacity to think, want and choose for oneself without being forced. Christians agree that we are responsible for our choices and cannot turn to God without his grace; they differ over how grace renews the will and how it works together with human choice.
- The fruit of the Spirit 성령의 열매The fruit of the Spirit is the Christlike character that the Holy Spirit, dwelling in believers, grows in them: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gifts differ from person to person, but this one fruit is to grow in every Christian.
G
- General revelation 일반 계시General revelation is God's making himself known to all people at all times through creation, providence and the human conscience. It shows that God exists and is mighty, divine and good, so that no one is without excuse, but it does not make known the gospel by which sinners are saved.
- The gifts of the Spirit 성령의 은사The gifts of the Spirit are abilities and ministries that the Holy Spirit freely gives to each believer as he wills, to build up the church and serve others. They are rightly used in love. Christians differ over whether gifts such as prophecy, tongues and healing continue today.
- Glorification 영화Glorification is the final stage of salvation, in which God frees those who belong to Christ wholly from sin and death and makes them, body and soul, like Christ in his glory. It is completed at Christ's return in the resurrection of the body, when believers will see God and enjoy him for ever.
- The glory of God 영광The glory of God is his majesty and splendour, the shining forth of all that he is. It is displayed in creation and in salvation, above all in the face of Jesus Christ, and human beings were made to honour that glory by praising and enjoying God, and at last to share in it.
- Gnosticism 영지주의Gnosticism is the name given to a number of second-century movements which taught that the material world was made by a lesser creator, not the highest God, and that salvation comes through secret knowledge given to a few. The church answered with the goodness of creation, Christ come in real flesh, and the apostolic faith open to all.
- Good works 선행Good works are deeds that God commands in his word, done from true faith and for his glory. Scripture teaches that we are not saved by good works but created for them; they are the fruit of faith, the grateful and loving response of those God has saved.
- Grace 은혜Grace is God's free and undeserved favour toward sinners, and the gift of his help and life that flows from it. It is shown above all in Jesus Christ. Grace forgives the guilty, and it also renews them, teaches them to live, and keeps them to the end.
- Guilt 죄책Guilt is the state of a sinner who is answerable for his sin before God's law and deserves its penalty. It is our real standing before God, not the same as feeling guilty; because Christ bore the guilt of sinners in their place, those who believe are forgiven and freed from condemnation.
H
- Hell 지옥Hell is God's final punishment of the unrepentant after the last judgment, to be cut off from his gracious presence. Jesus warned of it more solemnly than anyone, and most of the church has confessed it as a punishment without end.
- Heresy 이단A heresy is a teaching that denies or distorts a central truth of the Christian faith, such as the Trinity, the person of Christ or salvation by grace, and is held stubbornly after correction. It differs from honest disagreement among faithful churches; its opposite is orthodoxy.
- Hermeneutics 해석학Hermeneutics is the study of the principles and methods for understanding and interpreting Scripture rightly. It asks what a text meant when it was first written, through its words, grammar, history, context and genre; how it fits within the whole Bible and its witness to Christ; and how it applies to us today.
- Historical theology 역사신학Historical theology is the branch of theology that studies how the church in each age has read Scripture and understood and confessed the faith, and why it spoke as it did in the face of the questions it met. Listening to those who believed before us, it helps theology today to be more faithful to Scripture and more humble.
- Holiness 거룩Holiness is God's majesty, by which he is set apart above all he has made, together with his purity, by which he is utterly free from evil. The holy God sets apart people, places and times for himself, and makes his people holy as he is holy.
- The Holy Spirit 성령The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, true God, worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. The Lord and giver of life, he spoke by the prophets, and he gives new birth, dwells in believers and glorifies Christ.
- Humiliation and exaltation 비하와 승귀Humiliation and exaltation are the two states through which Christ passed for our salvation, his lowering and his raising. He humbled himself in being born, living under the law, suffering, dying and being buried; he is exalted in his resurrection, his ascension, his session at God's right hand and his coming again.
- The hypostatic union 위격적 연합The hypostatic union is the joining of Christ's divine and human natures in the one person of the Son of God, without mixture and without division. There are not two persons in Christ: the eternal Son took a human nature and made it his own, and he keeps it for ever.
I
- Illumination 조명Illumination is the Holy Spirit's work of enlightening the minds and hearts of those who read or hear Scripture, so that they understand, believe and love what God has revealed in it. The Spirit adds no new revelation to Scripture; he enables us to receive the word already written.
- The image of God 하나님의 형상The image of God is the unique standing God gave human beings when he made them like himself, to reflect him in his world and to care for it on his behalf. Sin has defaced the image but not erased it, so every person has dignity; in Christ, the true image, it is being renewed.
- Immutability 불변성Immutability means that God does not change in his being, his character, his purposes or his promises. Because he is perfect, he can neither improve nor decline, so his love and faithfulness are always the same and his people can rely on his word completely.
- Imputation 전가Imputation is God's act of reckoning to one person what belongs to another. Scripture teaches that our sin was counted to Christ and that his righteousness is counted to those who believe. It is a verdict that settles our standing before God, not a change within us, and it explains the ground of justification.
- The incarnation 성육신The incarnation is the eternal Son of God becoming truly human, with a real body and a human soul, without ceasing to be God. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, he became one of us in order to save us, and he remains God and man for ever.
- The indwelling of the Spirit 내주The indwelling of the Spirit is the Holy Spirit's personal presence within every believer and within the church, making them God's temple. Through the Spirit Christ dwells in us; the Spirit assures us that we are God's children, makes us holy, and will give life to our mortal bodies at the last.
- Inerrancy 무오Inerrancy is the conviction that Scripture, as God originally gave it, is without error in everything it teaches and affirms. Because God, who cannot lie, is its author, the Bible is wholly true and trustworthy.
- Infant baptism 유아세례Infant baptism is the baptism of believers' young children, before they can profess faith for themselves. Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Presbyterian, Anglican and Methodist churches practise it, holding that God's promise and grace come before the child's response; Baptists and many other evangelicals baptise only those who profess faith.
- Inspiration 영감Inspiration is the Holy Spirit's work of moving and guiding the writers of Scripture, so that what they wrote in their own words and styles is truly the word of God. Scripture is therefore fully human writing and at the same time breathed out by God.
- The intermediate state 중간 상태The intermediate state is the condition of a person between death and the resurrection of the body at Christ's return. Most churches teach that those who die in Christ do not sleep unconscious but are with the Lord and at rest, yet still waiting for the resurrection.
J
K
L
- The last judgment 최후 심판The last judgment is Christ's judgment, in justice, of all people raised from the dead at his return. Everyone will give account of their lives before him; the righteous will go into eternal life and the wicked into eternal punishment. For those who are in Christ, there is no condemnation.
- The law 율법The law is the teaching and commandments God gave his people: in the narrow sense the law given through Moses at Sinai, at its heart God's holy will summed up in the Ten Commandments. The law is holy and good; it shows us our sin, leads us to Christ and shows us how to live, but no one is made right with God by keeping it.
- Law and gospel 율법과 복음Law and gospel name two things God's word does. The law tells us what God requires and so exposes our sin; the gospel freely promises what Christ has done for us, and so justifies and gives life to sinners. The church has taught that the two must be neither confused nor separated.
- Liberal theology 자유주의 신학Liberal theology is a movement in Protestant thought, strongest from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, that sought to restate Christianity in the light of modern reason, historical study and religious experience. It read the Bible chiefly as a record of human religious experience and stressed Jesus as teacher and example; evangelicals judged that it lost the gospel's centre: Scripture's authority, sin, atonement and resurrection.
- The Lord’s Supper 성찬The Lord's Supper is the meal Jesus instituted on the night he was betrayed, in which the church shares bread and cup to remember and proclaim his death and to share in him and in one another. Every church keeps it, but the traditions understand differently how Christ is present at the table.
M
- Memorialism 기념설Memorialism is the view that the Lord's Supper is above all a meal of remembrance, where believers recall Christ's death, give thanks for his grace and confess their faith. The bread and cup are signs of his body and blood and are not changed, and Christ is present by his Spirit among his people. It is linked with Zwingli and held by many Baptist and free churches.
- Merit 공로Merit is the worth of a deed that makes it deserving of reward. Christians confess together that sinners are saved not by their own merit but by the merit of Christ, his obedience and death; they differ over whether good works done in grace merit reward and eternal life.
- Messiah 메시아Messiah is Hebrew for ‘anointed one’, and Christ is the same word in Greek. The Old Testament promised a king from David's line whom God would anoint and whose kingdom would last for ever; the church confesses that Jesus of Nazareth is that promised Messiah and that in him the kingdom of God has begun.
- The millennium 천년왕국The millennium is the thousand years of Revelation 20, in which Satan is bound and the saints reign with Christ. Christians have read it in different ways, premillennial, postmillennial and amillennial, depending on when they place it and how they understand it.
- Modalism 양태론Modalism is the teaching that the one God appears at different times or in different roles as Father, as Son and as Spirit, but is not three distinct persons. Also called Sabellianism after the third-century teacher Sabellius, it was rejected by the church, which confesses one God eternally in three persons.
- Monophysitism 단성론Monophysitism is the teaching that after the incarnation Christ has only one nature, in a way that obscures his true humanity, as if it were no longer like ours. Its best-known teacher was the fifth-century monk Eutyches, and the Council of Chalcedon (451) rejected it by confessing Christ in two natures, without confusion or change.
N
- Natural law 자연법Natural law is the basic moral order God wrote into human nature and conscience at creation: principles of right and wrong that people without the written word can still know, in part, by reason. The church has held that its content is that of the moral commandments of the Decalogue. It is not the same as the physical laws of nature.
- Nestorianism 네스토리우스주의Nestorianism is the teaching, named after Nestorius, a fifth-century bishop of Constantinople, that so separates Christ's divine and human natures as to divide the one Christ into two subjects, the Son of God and the man born of Mary. The Council of Ephesus (431) rejected it and confessed Mary as Theotokos, the bearer of God.
- The new covenant 새 언약The new covenant is the covenant God promised through Jeremiah and Jesus Christ established in his own blood: God writes his law on his people's hearts, remembers their sins no more, and gives all of them to know him. Christ is its mediator, and in the Lord's Supper the church receives the cup of this covenant.
- The new heavens and the new earth 새 하늘과 새 땅The new heavens and the new earth are the whole creation as God will make it new at the last day, set free from sin, death and the curse. There God will dwell for ever with his risen people, in a world where righteousness is at home.
O
- Of one being (homoousios) 동일 본질Homoousios, meaning of one being or of one substance, is the Greek word the Council of Nicaea used in 325 to confess that the Son shares the one divine being of the Father. He is not merely like God, nor the highest creature, but true God, as fully God as the Father.
- Omnipotence 전능Omnipotence means that God is able to do all that he wills, and nothing can thwart his purposes. It does not mean that he can act against his own nature, by lying or denying himself, but that the power of the holy and good God has no limit.
- Omnipresence 편재Omnipresence means that God is not confined to any place but is wholly present everywhere. Because he is spirit, without body or parts, he is not spread thinly through space but fully present in every place, so that no one can escape him and anyone, anywhere, may come to him.
- The order of salvation 구원의 서정The order of salvation is the arrangement of the ways the Holy Spirit applies Christ's saving work to a person, such as calling, new birth, conversion, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification, showing how each relates to the others. Much of the order is logical rather than chronological: it shows what rests on what.
- Original sin 원죄Original sin is the sin and death that came on the whole human race through Adam's first disobedience, and the sinful condition every person has from birth as a result. It is the root of all the sins we commit, and since no one can free himself from it, everyone needs the grace of Christ.
- Orthodoxy 정통Orthodoxy is right belief and right teaching: the faith Scripture teaches and the church has confessed together in the ancient creeds, the opposite of heresy. It means keeping the faith once delivered by the apostles without adding to it or taking from it, and true orthodoxy issues in right worship and a life of love.
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- Pelagianism 펠라기우스주의Pelagianism is the teaching of Pelagius, an early fifth-century monk, that Adam's sin did not damage his descendants' nature, so that by the nature and free will God gave them people can keep the commandments and live righteously. The church condemned it and confessed that without God's grace no one can turn to God.
- Penal substitution 형벌 대속Penal substitution is the teaching that Christ stood in the place of sinners and bore the penalty their sins deserved: God's condemnation, curse and death. In this way God is just and also justifies the ungodly, and the one who bore the penalty is the Son of God, who gave himself willingly and in love.
- The perseverance of the saints 성도의 견인The perseverance of the saints is the teaching that those whom God has effectually called and sanctified will never totally or finally fall away from faith and grace, because God keeps them to the end and brings them to salvation. It is confessed by the Reformed churches and many Baptists; several other traditions teach that a true believer can abandon faith.
- Person (hypostasis) 위격A person, or hypostasis, is what the church calls each of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each person has the whole divine essence and is fully God, yet each is truly distinct from the others in their eternal relations. The same word names the one person of Christ, who is both God and man.
- Pietism 경건주의Pietism was a renewal movement that arose in German Lutheranism in the late seventeenth century, seeking a faith not held only in the head but rooted in a reborn heart and a holy life. Through Spener, Francke and Zinzendorf it spread Bible reading, small groups, works of love and missions, and it deeply shaped Wesley and the evangelical movement.
- Postmillennialism 후천년설Postmillennialism is the view that Christ will return after the millennium, a long age of righteousness and peace brought about as the gospel, in the power of the Spirit, spreads through the whole world. On this view the thousand years may stand for a long age rather than a literal thousand years.
- Practical theology 실천신학Practical theology is the branch of theology concerned with the places where theology becomes the life of the church: preaching and worship, pastoral care and counselling, teaching, mission and service. It asks how God's word is to be proclaimed and obeyed in the church and in Christian lives today.
- Predestination 예정Predestination is God's eternal purpose concerning the salvation of human beings. Scripture speaks above all of God marking out his people beforehand in Christ, to be conformed to the image of his Son as his children. Traditions understand differently what it rests on and whether it extends to those who are lost.
- Premillennialism 전천년설Premillennialism is the view that Christ will return before the millennium, raise his people and reign on earth for a thousand years, after which come the last judgment and the new creation. It has two main forms: historic premillennialism, found among early Fathers, and dispensational premillennialism, systematised in the nineteenth century.
- Prevenient grace 선행 은총Prevenient grace is the grace of God that comes before any human turning to him, awakening the conscience and enabling a person to respond to the gospel. Wesleyan and Arminian Christians teach that God gives it to everyone, so that each person, helped by it, may accept Christ or refuse him.
- The priesthood of all believers 만인 제사장The priesthood of all believers is the teaching that everyone who believes in Christ is a priest, who through Christ and no other mediator may come to God, pray for others and offer their whole life to God. Recovered with force at the Reformation, it does not abolish the church's offices but means that all believers share one standing before God.
- Propitiation 화목Propitiation is Christ's offering of himself as the sacrifice that turns away God's holy wrath against sin and wipes our sins away. It is not something people do to calm an angry God; God himself, out of love, gave his Son to make it.
- Providence 섭리Providence is God's continuing work of upholding, caring for and governing everything he has made, and leading it to his good purpose. Nothing, from the history of nations to a single sparrow, is left to chance; God even turns evil to good, yet he is never the author of evil.
- Purgatory 연옥Purgatory is the final purification which, the Catholic Church teaches, those who die in God's grace but not yet fully purified undergo before entering heaven. The Orthodox churches have not defined it as doctrine, and Protestant churches reject it.
- The Puritans 청교도The Puritans were Reformed Protestants in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England who sought to purify the Church of England further according to Scripture. They gave themselves to Word-centred worship and preaching, the Lord's Day, family worship and a practical godliness lived before God, and left the Westminster Standards and the writings of men like John Owen and John Bunyan.
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- The rapture 휴거The rapture is the catching up of living believers, together with the risen saints, to meet the Lord in the air when Christ returns. Christians agree that this will happen, but differ over whether it is part of his one visible return or a separate event before a time of tribulation.
- Reconciliation 화해Reconciliation is the restoring of peace between God and people who were his enemies because of sin, through the death of Christ. God began it and accomplished it at the cross; the gospel announces it to everyone, and those reconciled to God are called to be reconciled to one another.
- Redemption 속량Redemption is release by the payment of a price, as when a slave or captive is bought free. Christ gave his life as the ransom that sets us free from sin, from the curse of the law and from death; we already have forgiveness through his blood, and we wait for the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection.
- The Reformation 종교개혁The Reformation was the sixteenth-century movement to renew the Western church by the word of God. It recovered the gospel that sinners are justified by grace through faith in Christ, and the supreme authority of Scripture. From it came the Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican churches and the Anabaptists, and it spurred reform within the Catholic Church.
- Regeneration 중생Regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit by which a person dead in sin is given new life and born into God's family. Often called the new birth, it is something no one can do for themselves; God alone does it. Those born again begin a new life of faith, repentance and love for God.
- The regulative principle 규정 원리The regulative principle is the Reformed conviction that public worship should include only what God has commanded or appointed in Scripture, so that nothing Scripture does not prescribe may be added as a part of worship. It differs from the normative principle of Lutherans and Anglicans, which allows what Scripture does not forbid and agrees with the word.
- Renaissance humanism 인문주의Renaissance humanism was a movement of learning that began in fourteenth-century Italy and spread across Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its cry was back to the sources: read the classics, the Bible and the Fathers in their original languages. It is not modern secular humanism, and through work like Erasmus's Greek New Testament it helped open the way to the Reformation.
- Repentance 회개Repentance is turning from sin to God: seeing sin for what it is, grieving over it and hating it, and, laying hold of God's mercy in Christ, turning to him with a purpose of new obedience. It is more than regret. It is a change of mind and direction, both God's gift and our response.
- The resurrection of Christ 부활The resurrection of Christ is Jesus' rising bodily from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion and burial. He did not return to his old mortal life but rose in a glorified body that will never die; his rising declares him the Son of God and is the firstfruits of the resurrection of all who belong to him.
- The resurrection of the body 몸의 부활The resurrection of the body is the raising of all the dead to bodily life at the last day, when Christ returns. Those who are in Christ will be raised in bodies continuous with their present ones yet changed, imperishable and glorious, like the risen body of Christ.
- Revelation 계시Revelation is God making known what we could never find out for ourselves, himself and his will. He shows himself to all people through creation and conscience, and he has spoken and acted among his people, above all in his Son, Jesus Christ; that revelation now comes to us in Scripture.
- The righteousness of God 하나님의 의The righteousness of God is his perfect rightness: he always does what is right, keeps faith with his promises, judges justly and saves his people. In the gospel the phrase also names the righteousness God freely gives in Christ to those who believe, so that they can stand before him.
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- Sacrament 성례A sacrament is a holy rite instituted by Christ in which visible signs, such as water, bread and wine, set forth and confirm the promise of the gospel: Christ and his grace. Protestant churches confess two sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper; the Catholic and Orthodox churches confess seven.
- Sanctification 성화Sanctification is the work of God's Spirit by which those who belong to Christ are set apart for God and made holy, more and more like Christ in heart and life. It begins when we are joined to Christ and grows throughout life; it is distinct from justification, God's verdict on our standing, but never separate from it.
- The satisfaction theory 만족설The satisfaction theory is the account of the atonement set out by Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century: sin is a debt of honour owed to God, and Christ, being God and man, paid it in full and more by freely giving his life. The idea that Christ satisfied God's justice has shaped Western teaching on the cross ever since.
- Scholasticism 스콜라 신학Scholasticism is the theology of the medieval Western schools and universities, from about the eleventh to the fifteenth century. It sought to understand by reason the truths received by faith and to set them in order through precise definitions and questions argued for and against. Anselm, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas are its great names, and Protestant theologians later took up its method.
- The second coming 재림The second coming is the return of the ascended Jesus Christ at the end of the age, in person, visibly and in glory. He will judge the living and the dead, raise the dead and make all things new; no one knows the day or the hour, so the church waits watchfully.
- Semi-Pelagianism 반펠라기우스주의Semi-Pelagianism is the teaching that God's grace is necessary for salvation, but that the first step of faith can come from the human will, which grace then helps and completes. It arose among monks in fifth-century southern Gaul; the Council of Orange (529) rejected it, confessing that even the beginning of faith is a gift of grace.
- Special revelation 특별 계시Special revelation is God's making himself and his saving purpose known to particular people at particular times, in words and in deeds. Given through patriarchs, prophets and apostles and completed in his Son, Jesus Christ, it now comes to us in Scripture.
- Spiritual presence 영적 임재Spiritual presence is the Reformed teaching that in the Lord's Supper Christ's body remains in heaven, yet the Holy Spirit unites those who receive in faith to Christ, so that as they take the bread and cup they truly feed on him and all the benefits of his death. Spiritual here means not less real, but by the Spirit.
- The sufficiency of Scripture 성경의 충분성The sufficiency of Scripture is the teaching that everything God wills us to know for his glory, our salvation, faith and life is either set down in Scripture or can rightly be drawn from it. Nothing may therefore be added to it, by new revelations or human traditions, as binding on the conscience.
- Systematic theology 조직신학Systematic theology is the branch of theology that gathers what the whole of Scripture teaches on each subject, such as God, humanity, Christ, salvation, the church and the last things, and sets it out in an ordered and coherent whole. Also called dogmatics, it seeks to answer the questions of each age from the teaching of the whole Bible.
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- Theology 신학Theology is thinking and speaking about God, and about everything he has made and saves, on the basis of what he has revealed, above all in Scripture. It is faith seeking to know God more deeply, so it belongs not only to scholars but to every believer, and true theology leads to worship and obedience.
- Theotokos 테오토코스Theotokos is Greek for ‘God-bearer’, the title for Mary upheld by the Council of Ephesus in 431. It is first a confession about Christ: the child Mary bore was not a man later joined to God, but the Son of God himself, who became man.
- The threefold office 삼중직The threefold office is the teaching that Christ holds together the three offices of prophet, priest and king. He is the prophet who makes God's will known, the high priest who offered himself once for all and lives to intercede for us, and the eternal king who rules and keeps us by his Word and Spirit.
- Total depravity 전적 타락Total depravity is the teaching that since the fall sin has corrupted every part of human nature, mind, will, affections and body, so that without God's grace no one can turn to God or do any good that saves. It does not mean that everyone is as wicked as possible; the image of God and conscience remain.
- Tradition 전통Tradition is the faith, teaching and practice handed on from one generation of the church to the next. Protestants place every tradition under Scripture and test it by Scripture; the Catholic and Orthodox churches receive Holy Tradition, together with Scripture, as the way God's word is handed on.
- Transubstantiation 화체설Transubstantiation is the Catholic teaching that at the consecration in the Mass the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed into the substance of Christ's body and blood, while only the appearances of bread and wine remain. It explains the Catholic confession that Christ is truly, really and substantially present; Protestant churches do not accept it.
- The Trinity 삼위일체The Trinity is the Christian confession that the one God exists eternally as three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The three share one divine being and are each fully God, yet they are truly distinct: not three gods, and not one person appearing in three roles.
- The two natures of Christ 두 본성The two natures of Christ is the church's confession that Jesus Christ, one person, is fully God and fully man. In his divinity he is of one being with the Father, in his humanity he is like us in every way except sin, and the two natures are neither mixed together nor divided.
- Typology 예표Typology is the reading of real persons, events and institutions of the Old Testament as patterns God gave in advance of Christ and his salvation. Adam, the Passover lamb and the bronze serpent are types; their fulfilment in Christ is greater than the shadow. Because it rests on actual history, typology differs from allegory, which looks for hidden meanings in a text.
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- Union with Christ 그리스도와의 연합Union with Christ is the real, spiritual bond by which the Holy Spirit joins believers to Christ, so that his death and resurrection, his righteousness and his life become theirs. Every blessing of salvation, including justification, adoption and sanctification, flows from this union, though believers never become Christ or share his divine essence.
- The universal church 보편 교회The universal church is the one church made up of all who believe in Christ, in every time and place. It is what the creeds call the catholic church: not the name of one denomination, but a confession that the church embraces every nation and holds the whole faith.
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- The visible and invisible church 보이는 교회와 보이지 않는 교회The visible and invisible church are two ways of seeing the one church. The invisible church is the whole company of true believers of every age, fully known only to God; the visible church is the community on earth that professes the true faith and gathers under the word and sacraments. The distinction is chiefly a Protestant one.
- Vocation 소명Vocation is God's calling: first his call to come to Christ and belong to him, and then his call to serve him and love our neighbour in our own place, in family, work and society. The Reformation taught that not only the ministry or the monastery but every honest work can be a calling from God.