As we seek to understand the ways of God and dive deeper into the pages of Scripture, there might be some words that you hear or see that you may not know.
I know when I first started, it seemed like there were so many words I didn’t understand and I just nodded along as if I did, too embarrassed to admit I didn’t. I felt like everyone else knew what they meant but me and it made me feel bad.
The truth is, many other people are nodding along too, pretending to understand what they mean. 😆
So instead of nodding like we understand when we don’t and defrauding those around us, let’s get to know them well and write these 15+ words you may not know as a believer upon our hearts, together. ❤️
20 Words You May Not Know As a Believer
I fully admit to you that some of these will take some real thought-provoking meditation and prayer to understand them and that’s OKAY!!! 💯
Don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed that you don’t know them or that it might take you a while to learn them. Some of the theologies are really hard to grasp at first and everyone learns at a different pace.
For the harder words, take one each week. Use this as a checklist to start learning a new word each week and really diving deep and understanding the doctrine behind it.
The more we study out God’s Word and His precepts, the more in line with Him we will be! So it’s all about carving out that special time for Him and learning about Him, spending time with Him, and learning key words like this is a great use of that special bonding time with our Lord and Savior. 🥰
I feel like learning these words is also a great way to honor our Pastor. He works SO hard to bring us the truth of the gospel each week, working and studying countless hours that we do not see, nor do we know, but the fruit of his lips make it evident, he’s taking his role God has placed upon him so very seriously.
To honor and revere him, to respect him as our shepherd and leader, it’s a good idea to study out words like this so that we understand when he speaks to us. If we are learning and growing as a believer in Christ, then HE is doing his job well. He is accountable to God for how he brings us all up (1 Peter 5:1-4), so we must be doing a good job on our own (1 Peter 5:5), honoring him AND God in our daily study of the Bible.
Again, take one word at a time and learn it well…
1) Revelation
There is a book in the Bible called Revelation, but there is a meaning behind the word; The book in the Bible isn’t what we’re referring to here. This type of revelation refers to the general revelation of God to man. This is how God reveals Himself to us.
Throughout the Bible, we see verses that make it clear to us that God expresses Himself (His nature, traits, attributes, qualities, characteristics, laws, and commands) to us.
We experience the revelation of God through His creation (Psalm 19:1, Psalm 97:6), His redemptive work in our lives (see: sanctification), and also as we hear and read His Word. Romans 1:19-20.
When you became a Christian, you experienced the Spirit of God revealing Himself (His grace and free gift of salvation – Ephesians 2:8) directly to you.
As we live our lives and line our hearts up to His, He will reveal Himself to us through His Word.
2) Salvation
Salvation means to be saved or delivered from sin and its eternal consequences. Often you may hear someone say they were saved from the penalty of sin.
The penalty (or consequences) of sin include forever having to experience the wrath of God and His condemnation in Hell, being separated from Christ forever. God’s holy and righteous standard was broken by our sin and His condemnation is the judgment and punishment for that sin.
On the cross, Jesus suffered an excruciating death in order to pay the penalty for our sins – all of them, past, present, and future. It’s important to remind ourselves that God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ to the cross as an act of love towards us as sinners (John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8-9).
Salvation happens when we hear the gospel (also called the good news) and by faith we believe. We then repent of our sins, turn from them, and make God Lord of our life. God is the one who grants a sinner repentance or the ability to repent (Acts 11:18, 2 Timothy 2:25).
It’s in His mercy that God allows us to feel extreme remorse, guilt, and/or conviction for our sins that it may lead to salvation.
At our salvation, we begin to see everything differently. We start to see ourselves as God sees us, not as the world or we have seen ourselves. We no longer fear God’s wrath and judgment and now see Him as our merciful and loving heavenly Father that we want to devote our lives to loving, serving, and obeying. John 14:15.
Genuine salvation can never be lost (Romans 11:29, Romans 8:38-39, Jude 1:24-25). Once a sinner is saved, they are safe and secure in their Father’s arms. They are redeemed (1 Peter 1:18-19), justified (Romans 5:1), become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), and set apart for Christ for the glory of God (1 Peter 2:9), the testimony of Christ (Romans 12:1-2), and for good works (Ephesians 2:10, 2 Timothy 2:21).
3) Atonement
Atonement is what Jesus did on the cross for us. It’s basically summed up in one word: reconciliation. It’s the act of making amends for something done wrong (like wiping a chalkboard clean). Psalms 103:12.
We are sinners through and through. The Bible says that there is not ONE without sin (Romans 3:10) and anyone who says they do not sin, they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them (1 John 1:8).
So we, as believers, understand we sin and sin is such a major deal too. God takes it absolutely seriously and if we sin and don’t care about it, it grieves His heart. Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2). Think about Jesus on the cross, right before He died He said, “Why do you forsake Me?” God was turning His back on His own Son because Jesus was taking the sin on Himself for us. Our sin became His sin and God couldn’t bear to look at His own Son while that was happening as God cannot look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13).
It grieves our Father. Think about another time in the Bible when God was so grieved by our sin. In Genesis 6:6, it says, “And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” That’s when He called Noah to build the ark.
Not only does sin grieve our Father and separate us from Him, but it evokes His righteous wrath (Romans 1:18).
Sin is a big problem and we can’t save ourselves so God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on our sin as a substitute for us. HE paid the penalty of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23). Jesus dying on the cross was His atoning work (1 John 2:2). It was the act that made us reconciled (a clear slate) with God.
4) Evangelism
When we evangelize, it means that we are sharing the gospel with others. We are proclaiming the actual facts to them, which is different than just sharing our life experiences as a Christian.
See more posts about Evangelism here.
5) Sanctification
Sanctification is an ongoing process of becoming more Christ-like, becoming more and more holy each day. It’s the process of spiritual growth and development resulting in maturity.
Unlike justification, this is an ongoing event and is never complete this side of heaven because we cannot reach perfection until heaven. We are perfected in heaven, in part because God cannot look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13) and that’s where He lives.
6) Second Coming
The second coming of Jesus Christ refers to His final return to earth (before the new heavens and earth – Revelation 21:1) where He will judge the wicked and gather up His remaining elect (Christians). Only God the Father knows the day or time when this will occur (Matthew 24:36).
7) Exalt
Exalt means to lift up. To lift something up. When we exalt God, we lift Him up to a glorified position, His true and proper place.
Glorifying God should be the goal of everything we do in life and the measure by which we make decisions.
We are also called to exalt and built each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11, Hebrews 10:24).
8) Righteousness
God is perfectly righteous – we are not. Righteousness refers to God’s holy perfection. He is completely separated and set apart from sin. And without the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, we have no hope of attaining or measuring up to meet God’s high, holy, and perfect standards.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
9) Justification
Justification is a one-time event or act that occurs the moment we become Christians. We immediately stand justified before God. This means that we are declared righteous and just in God’s eyes because of Christ’s righteousness that’s been imputed to us.
Imagine a courtroom scene. Satan is the attorney attacking us and hurling insults against us, charging us with sin. He’s not wrong, because we have sinned (Romans 3:23). God the Father is the judge and Jesus is OUR attorney. Jesus comes along and says, “Yes, this person has sinned, but I paid their debt on the cross. No longer are they guilty, but rather, justified before the Lord our judge and maker.”
This is justification.
10) Imputation
When we become Christians, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. At the moment of our conversion, His righteousness becomes attributed or credited to us. We now stand blameless (positionally) before God because of this amazing act of Jesus for us.
11) Substitutionary
Christ died a substitutionary death, meaning that He died in our place. God imputed all of our sins to Christ on the cross.
When Jesus Christ bore or took upon Himself all of our sins (1 Peter 2:24), He experienced the full brunt of the wrath of God in order that we might be saved.
In dying a substitutionary death, Jesus Christ satisfied the wrath of God. The payment required for sin is death (Romans 6:23). That’s why they offered animal sacrifices to God before Christ’s death. Once Jesus died, animal sacrifices were no longer needed ever again. Jesus paid the penalty once for all. Hebrews 10:1-12.
12) Rebuke
To rebuke someone is to criticize or reprimand them as a means of pointing out their error(s). Biblical error or false teaching should always be rebuked because the truth of God is at stake.
But when we rebuke someone, it should always be done in love with tenderness, compassion, and mercy and only after prayer and careful examination of one’s own life to weigh any hypocrisy that could be hiding in plain sight.
Likewise, we should never rebuke another for selfish motives and it should be done in private. A good pattern for this is Matthew 18:15-17.
13) Resurrection
Jesus Christ was resurrected, raised from the dead (Mark 16:1-8) by God the Father. The resurrection is what sets Christianity apart and allows us to have complete faith that our salvation is true and secure because Christ demonstrated His power over the grave.
Easter Sunday is often called Resurrection Day because it’s when Jesus rose from the dead and defeated the power of sin once and for all.
14) Marginalized
The dictionary summarizes marginalized as referring to a group of people or someone who experiences things like exclusion or ousting because they are being belittled in value or importance by others. They are seen as “less than”.
Christians have been marginalized as a group and also as individuals for their adherence to biblical truths and authority. The Bible has also been marginalized in that its value and authority have been diminished.
But more than that, there are people in our world that are marginalized each and every day with nowhere to turn. Isaiah 61:1-3 calls us to have compassion for them and to help them.
Jesus is our prime example. In John 9, He heals a blind man. This man He healed had been marginalized by the church before Jesus came along to heal him.
15) Mercy Seat
In Exodus 25:21-22, the mercy seat was the lid to the ark of the covenant. In the Old Testament, God required the shedding of blood from animals to provide a covering for the people’s sins. That had to happen before God could meet with His people.
The death of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10:1-3 shows us how seriously God takes His holiness and our sin. We can’t just approach Him flippantly. In the Old Testament, sinful people had no hope of approaching a holy God without being destroyed (Exodus 33:20). So the priests would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat, which was located on the top of the ark of the covenant.
“And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.” Exodus 25:21-22.
There were many, many rules in order for a priest to be ceremonially clean, and he must be ceremonially clean before entering the Holy of Holies. It was done once a year by the priest and by no one else. It came to be a custom, that they would tie a rope around the priest’s waist so that if he died in the presence of the ark of the covenant for any reason, they could drag out his body without themselves also dying while going in and carrying out the dead body.
Imagine the fear that you’d have to approach God in such a manner. Worrying that one of the regulations wasn’t done properly or you missed something and you’d die. Approaching God is a very serious matter.
Moses was told to take off his sandals when in the presence of God. It was holy ground, the text says (Exodus 3:5).
Isaiah saw God and was utterly fearful as well, stating he was a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5).
Yet so often, we come to God in prayer without worry, concern, respect, or care for our great God. The ark of the covenant is really something fascinating to study out in depth. It’s a beautiful picture, one where you learn just how reverent we should be when addressing our Lord. Studying it instills in us a respectful fear of God.
Jesus is more like our brother and friend, but God the Father, is much, much more serious in personality and character, as any father is, and should be taken seriously as well.
16) Propitiation
Pastor Danny Schillero sums it up like this, “Propitiation is the satisfaction of God’s wrath when Jesus absorbed the anger and the wrath that God has against sin. It was completely absorbed by His Son. And it’s because of that reality that we can live in this freedom that this debt that we owe has been paid.”
In the Old Testament, the mercy seat was the place of propitiation because it’s where the priests would sprinkle the blood from animals that were sacrificed in order to satisfy God’s wrath over our sin.
17) Reconciliation
The only way for us to have a relationship with God is to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ. Until we become Christians, our relationship with God is broken and strained because of our sin. Reconciliation takes place when we, by faith, place our trust in the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5:10-11
Reconciliation is a canceling of our debt, the debt that we incur by our sin.
18) Providence
Providence is God’s care and concern for us. It’s His unyielding power to uphold everything in the universe that He created.
Think about this. When God created the earth, for example, He made it circular and created it to spin on an axis. All the biggest mountains in the world must therefore be level and even.
If He had put all great and big mountains weighing the same measurement on one side and all tiny, small hills on another side, the earth would spin distorted and out of balance. The weights and measurements would not allow for it to spin properly. We would spiral out of control.
Now imagine man, bulldozing such mountains.
Kinda gets you thinking, doesn’t it?!
God upholds the weights and measurements of the mountains so we are not tossed around like a warped, inflated basketball. It must be absolutely, perfectly weighted on appropriate sides.
He holds that in His hand. He upholds everything, from the smallest blade of grass to the bigger issues like the mountains.
So when you read something like Psalm 46:2, where it says do not worry even if the mountains are moved into the sea, we shouldn’t. We know that He has all things under control. Nothing is a surprise to Him, nothing shocks Him. He knows the end from the beginning and everything in between (Isaiah 46:10). He has it covered.
This is His providence. It’s not all random. He holds everything in His hand. He alone, sovereignty controls it.
19) Covenant
A covenant is an unbreakable promise, a formal and binding agreement. God never changes (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17, Psalm 102:27) so His promises to us are for sure, something we can count on.
When we make a covenant to God, it is a very serious thing, never to be entered into lightly.
Uzziah broke the covenant with the Lord when he touched the ark of the covenant to stabilize it from falling and died (2 Samuel 6:3-8).
Israel and Judah broke their covenant with the Lord and disaster was decreed against them (Jeremiah 11:9-17).
Leviticus 26:14-33 tells us what can happen when we break a covenant with the Lord. God always blesses obedience and punishes disobedience. Always. If you think you can get away with it, you can’t. The Lord and His Word will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).
20) Trinity
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all equal, one essence, one Deity, but they all hold very DIFFERENT personalities/characters/spirits (2 Corinthians 13:14).
According to Matthew 28:19, the trinity is:
- God, the Father
- Jesus, the Son
- The Holy Spirit
God, the Father is VERY serious. When you are in HIS presence it is, take off your shoes you are in the presence of THE LORD (Exodus 3:5). It is incredibly respectful and you bow because you realize His vast power over everything, including your very life (Isaiah 6:5).
There’s a seriousness there, a reverential awe and righteous fear of the Lord. You don’t speak to Him unless He asks you to speak. You’re just speechless in awe of His majesty and undone.
HE…IS…GOD.
Jesus is a lot less serious. Jesus is like your brother. You can play around with Him, make a joke and it’s okay. You can hang out with Him, feel more comfortable with Him. He’s your buddy, your friend, your brother. He’s still God, still holy, still respectable on all counts. He’s still perfect, but the personality is different.
Jesus answers to the Lord, so He is 100% submissive to God, the Father, just like we should be also. Jesus is a great PICTURE of us, but also of God. He serves as a great MODEL of how God IS and how we should be. It’s the perfect blend between God and man…Jesus.
He lowered Himself to be like man, left Heaven (an amazing place) for US! Because God (and Jesus) care about us so immensely, He died for us. Their love and concern for us is truly incredible.
When spending time with both, God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, I prefer to spend time with God the Father. He’s much more direct, to the point (so it’s easier for me to understand Him), and He’s my favorite. But getting to spend time with God the Father is VERY difficult. Neither can look on sin, so you must be completely holy, CONSTANTLY repenting of your sins (known and unknown) and in a pure heart. You MUST be pure in the moments you spend with either God or Jesus. It’s necessary.
The Holy Spirit lives in us always. We are never apart from Him. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit within us intercedes to God in Heaven on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27). It’s really cool to think about God praying to God for us, for our good, and for the glory of Himself.
Most of the time however, we spend time with angels, who are doing the work of God on His behalf. They communicate with us (through Scripture) and lead us, guide us, and help us.
It’s more rare to be able to get to spend time with God the Father or Jesus, so when those times come, it’s absolutely a “Mary and Martha thing”. You put everything down and you LISTEN. You’re not working, you’re not doing other things. They are holy, perfect, and you are listening to their every Word, blessed to be in their presence.
But when you ARE in God or Jesus’ presence, it’s the most incredible experience you’ll ever know, and the most joyous moments of your entire life!!! 💯
NOTHING, and I say NOTHING, in this world can compare to spending time with the Living God.