You Must Work Hard For Your Salvation 

     God created the universe and human being. He has made subservient to man’s nature. Since the creation of Adam and Eve, God’s plan has always been to save all human being. God himself took the initiative of his will to reveal himself to man in order to save him after all. The relentlessness of God wanting to save the man is a tangible manifestation of his immense love towards humankind. After the fall of Adam and Eve, God could have broken his relationship with human. Instead, he confined himself to chase both Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. But he did not take away the possibility of forgiveness in order to retrieve and save them anyway. It is evident that God in his mercy, entered into alliance and agreement with the man, his own creature. He did it with Noah after the flooding. He did the same with the Israel people after leaving Egypt and finally sealed another covenant with humanity through Jesus' blood his own son. Any agreement between the parties is the law between them. The layers say the validity of an agreement depends on the degree of compliance with the terms thereof by the parties concerned. It lies in the alliances between human and God.

      But human always violates this alliance not God. Because God always demands human to obey him and stop from doing evil. Human must be subscribed to the Ten Commandments as God decreed at the top of Mount Sinai. Through the history, God has conditioned the fulfillment of its promise to respect the right of his commandments. “If you behave righteously and keep my commandments, I will give you rain in due season, I will give peace in your land, and you will sleep without anyone scaring you (Leviticus 26: 3-46).
The fundamental difference between the new covenant in Jesus Christ and the previous alliances that God and man have established lies into that. The former alliances have a character of global and universal salvation. The old alliance concerned exclusively with Israel, while the alliance with Jesus' sacrifice is potentially beneficial to all mankind. According to the Kimbanguist theology, human will be saved when these three conditions are met: God’s grace, faith in God and his messiah and good works. The first condition depends only on God as he never fails to his commitments. Since Jesus death, he gave a potentially grace to humanity. Kimbanguist theology doesn’t admit that by grace alone man might be saved. Because grace is one of the three requirements that condition the salvation.

    Simon Kimbangu affirmed that there are Christian men and women who will not inherit eternal life because of not following faithfully God’s commandments. Christ himself pointed that not all that says lord, lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do right. The apostle Paul says those who belong to Christ have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful. (Galatians 5:24) that is to say, whoever is guilty of fornication, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, discord, jealousy, anger, selfishness and murder will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Consequently, the kimbanguist church rejects the thesis of collective salvation. Each individual must work hard for his salvation as the lord will return to reward each one according to his work. That is why kimbanguists insists on its Christians to live a spiritual life tending always on holiness as recommended by God. The Kimbanguist theology imposes a strict obligation to its church members. Despite its radical appearance, there is not intransigence on the issue of salvation. The kimbanguist theology doesn’t neglect the fact that God’s love is great towards humankind. It is written that the lord is slow to anger but quick to forgive. the kimbanguist theology does not accept the assertion that God’s love is unlimited. Few illustrations may prove this: God’s love toward the Israelites had not prevented them from being punished every time they sinned. Almost all of the generations that were led out of Egypt had perished before reaching the land of Canaan. Who does not remember that those Israelites that God himself delivered from Egypt gave themselves thereafter as captives to the hands of other nations? What should we conclude from what happened to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah? What was indeed the fate that God finally reserved to wicked generation who inhabited the earth in Noah’s time? The kimbanguist theology warns against the danger of overestimating God's love.

The fact that Kimbanguist theology rejects the notion of unlimited divine love in respect to humanity. This doesn’t mean obliterating the concern that the lord has towards the humanity. Although the kimbanguist church does not have a narrow vision of this love nor a grim and vengeful. If this was the case, it should be hard to explain doubtless that Jesus sacrifice just enrolled in the course of his love. As he has full of love to the humanity, he prefers to agree with the condition of his salvation rather than imposing. Christ believers make their daily experience on patience and divine love. If God was not love in being tough to human for a slight sin, no one would live. The long-lasting God’s patience towards human wickedness in which some say that God’s love is unlimited, and hell exist only in the imagination of those weak-minded people.
In fact, human has a tendency to deliberately abuse God’s patience as St Paul says, “it should instead be our profit to produce repentance”. If salvation depended exclusively to God without human participation, there is no doubt that all humanity would benefit. But Christ himself proved that this is not the case. As of the kimbanguist theology, Jesus through his sacrifice, created first the three conditions of salvation for every human. That is grace. In the other hand, the divine love is one of most important condition but not sufficient to produce salvation. Human must find mechanism to grant salvation. Grace has already been provided by God. The kimbanguist theology reduced the following equation: Salvation=grace +faith + good works
Precisely because of human presence in the society, they are many who refuse to have faith in God and obey his commandments. That’s why Kimbanguist rejects the idea of a collective salvation. After all Christ never said that. But yes, each one will be rewarded according to his works. Kimbanguists makes much of repentance. Although Christ has recommended to pardon victim several times, there is no need to abuse God’s generosity and magnanimity. In the kimbanguist theology, repentance works better if the person in sin seeks to adopt radically a positive behavior that marks a complete rupture to each individual’s past bad behavior. The penitent must feel the gravity of his sins and thereafter act in order to stop the same mistakes from happening over and over.

Repentance And Confection

The conception of repentance and forgiveness as understood and practiced by the kimbaguists is in contradictory with the practice of excommunication. Clearly, the church cannot excommunicate anyone. but all perpetrators of a serious misconduct are put into a state of discipline. Which means to prohibit them to take part in the sacraments for a specific period of time not more than six months. But it can also be longer than six months in case of willful violation of regulations prescribed to any matter. During this given time, the perpetrators must be in contact with pastors for a special sermon aimed at his spiritual and moral rehabilitation. The acts of repentance must be tied to confection. For kimbanguists, a full repentance requires that each one is bound to a sincere confession of his sins. Although, there is a possibility for people to confess to a pastor, the kimbanguist church also considers more on confessing in front of people. It’s to mention that this is not an imposition. but it is also the most common used in the kimbanguist church. The person confesses his sins and humbles himself before God and his fellows who serves as witnesses to a such confession to help intercede with the lord in favor of that person as he or she feels lonely. It is easier to commit sin than confessing in presence of people. We must believe that there is no way to hide ourselves to God, that’s why the person in guilty must take his shame and embarrassment out and be stimulant.