STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
THE BIBLE
We hold the Bible to be the very word of God, breathed out by Him, as He Inspired men to write the Scriptures by His Spirit. With God as its author, the Bible is without error, or fault. It is the Christian’s highest authority, and also the local church’s highest authority. All churches and Christians are to joyfully submit to the words of the Bible. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself, His mission, and His purposes, given graciously to humanity.
GOD
There is one God. This God is one (Deuteronomy 6), revealed to us in three different persons: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son nor the Spirit. The Son is not the Father nor the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father nor the Son. Each person of the Trinity is uniquely distinct, but all are God, of the same essence and substance. The Godhead is not divided, with each part making up a whole, but rather, each member is fully God.
GOD THE FATHER
God the Father, in His sovereignty, rules and governs all of creation in a
providential way. The aim of this providential acting is that He is working all
things according to the counsel of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace. He
is caring and benevolent towards all creatures, and has worked to save a people
for His Son, from every nation, all tribes, peoples, and languages.
GOD THE SON
Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity. We affirm the Nicene Creed,
when it declares that Jesus is “God of God, light of light, true God from true
God.” Jesus, eternally begotten of the Father, came to earth, born of the virgin
Mary, conceived of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was both fully God, and fully man. He
lived a perfect life, never sinning, and claimed that He was the Messiah, the one
to save people from their sins. The Jews rejected this claim and had Him put to
death on the cross, but this was the plan of God. On the cross, Jesus bore the
punishment for the sins of all who would believe in Him. When God’s justice
toward sin was completed, Jesus physically died and was buried. On the third
day He rose again. Scripture says this resurrection was Jesus’s vindication
(Romans 1:4), meaning every claim He made was true and that God was pleased
with Jesus’s sacrifice and accepted it on behalf of sinners who trust in Jesus.
Jesus soon after ascended into heaven, and now reigns, seated at the right hand
of the throne of God, and He will come back again “to judge the living and the
dead”, and the righteous will shine like the Son in the Kingdom of His Father. In
the meantime, Jesus has given His people (the Church) a mission: Proclaim that
repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all
nations, and make disciples of all nations (Luke 24, Matthew 28). This mission
will not fail. He will have as an inheritance, people who have believed in Him
from every nation, tribe, people and language.
GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead. He has personhood, and is not
to be mistaken for a type of “force”. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to exalt
Christ, convict sinners of unrighteousness, give new life through regeneration,
indwell the saints as a guarantee of their inheritance, and empower the mission
of Jesus in the lives of His people.
HUMANITY
Humanity is created in the image of God. Therefore, each and every person has dignity, worth, and value, inside the womb, or outside the womb, disability or no disability. Each person’s greatest need is to be forgiven of their sin and
reconciled to the God who created them. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, humanity’s highest purpose is to, “Glorify God, and enjoy Him forever”.
HUMAN SEXUALITY
With the Bible as our standard, we believe and affirm that there are two genders, male and female. God created man and woman in His image before sin entered the world, and therefore this design of humanity is good, wise, and caring. God’s design for the good expression of sexuality is in the context of a marriage covenant between one male and one female.
SALVATION
Salvation involves many aspects. It is first and foremost an event that happens in the life of a person when they are reconciled to God the Father through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, brought about by the Holy Spirit. We are saved from God’s wrath, by God’s Son, and for God’s glory. Salvation is not by works, but by the free gift of God to any who repent and believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
THE CHURCH
The church is made up of two components: the church visible, and invisible. The church visible is each local body of believers who gather together to pray, to sing, to hear the Word preached, and to participate in the two ordinances. This is often times referred to as the local church. Local churches are Jesus’s plan A for reaching and discipling the nations. The church invisible is made up of all true believers in Jesus, past, present and future. It is referred to as the Bride of Christ, and the Body of Christ. The invisible church will be made visible at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, when all the redeemed are gathered together.
THE ORDINANCES
We believe there are two ordinances; baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism, as seen in the New Testament, is done by immersion and is for professing believers of Jesus Christ only, who have repented of their sin and are trusting in Christ alone for salvation. Baptism is the first step of obedience in following Jesus Christ, and is therefore a prerequisite to church membership. It is a public declaration that a person has been crucified and risen with Christ. The Lord’s Supper is also for believers only, as it is a participation in the body of Christ, and only members of His body should partake in it. It is done to remember our Lord’s death and also proclaim His second coming.