Our Beliefs
STATEMENT OF FAITH – OUR BELIEFS
We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments as verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings and providentially preserved for the Church today and that they are of supreme and final authority in faith and life. (2Timothy 3:16-17); ( 2 Peter 1:20-21)
We believe in one triune God, eternally existing in three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – co-eternal in being, co-identical in nature, co-equal in power and glory, and having the same attributes and perfections.
We believe in God, the Father, perfect in holiness, infinite in wisdom, measureless in power; that He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of men; that He hears and answers prayer; and that He saves from eternal death and from hell all who come to Him through Jesus Christ.
We believe in the absolute Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and his virgin birth, his perfect humanity (i.e., it was impossible for our Lord to have sinned), His vicarious death through the shedding of His blood for the remission of sins, His bodily resurrection and ascension, His present high priestly ministry in heaven for believer, and His second coming.
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person; that He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; that He is the Agent of the new birth; that He baptizes all true believers into the body of Christ, indwelling and sanctifying all of them, sealing and thus securing them unto the day of redemption; that He endues, guides, teaches, and helps believers; and that it is the privilege and duty of all the saved to be filled with the Spirit.
We believe that God created the heavens and the earth, including all life, each after its own kind, by direct act and not by the process of evolution.
We believe that man was created in the image of God; that by reason of his sin he fell from his high and holy state; that all human beings since then are born with a sinful nature; and that all who reach the age of moral responsibility become sinners in thought, word, and deed.
We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in virtue of His redemptive work on the cross, and that neither baptism, the Lord’s Supper, nor any other rite, ceremony, or work can avail one whit for the sinner’s salvation. Christ alone saves.
We believe that every saved person possesses two natures: that he has the old nature for the duration of his earthly life, but that provision is made for victory of the new nature over the old nature through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
We believe that sanctification for the believer is immediate, upon acceptance of Christ as Savior, and progressive, continuing to the end of earthly life; and that the progressive phase of sanctification is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the continual use of the appointed means, especially the Word of God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer.
We believe that the saved are called into a life of separation from religious apostasy and from all worldly and sinful pleasures, practices and associations.
We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and woman. We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that God disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender by surgery or appearance. We believe that the only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. (Genesis 2:24); (Romans 1:26-29)
We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ was begun at Pentecost, that it is made up of all regenerated persons from Pentecost to the second coming of Christ, that it is the Body and Bride of our Lord, that it is distinct from Israel, and that her supreme mission is her world-wide commission as set forth by Christ and His apostles.
We believe that Christ committed to the Church the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; that Christian Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer, thus setting forth in symbol his union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection; that the Lord’s Supper is a commemoration of the Lord’s death until He comes; and that, in this ordinance, the Lord’s table should be open to all regenerated persons living in fellowship with and obedience to Jesus Christ.
We believe in “that blessed hope”, the literal bodily, personal, pre-millennial, and imminent coming of our Lord in the air to catch away His Church before the tribulation period; also in the personal, visible and glorious return of Christ to the earth, with His Church, at the close of the tribulation period to judge the living nations and to set up His kingdom.
We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men: the saved to everlasting blessedness at the coming of Christ and, one thousand years later, the lost to the judgment at the Great White throne and then to everlasting, conscious punishment in the Lake of Fire.
We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord, where in conscious bliss they await the first resurrection; that the souls of the lost remain, after death, in conscious misery until the second resurrection.
We believe that every human being has the right to direct relationship with God and is responsible to Him alone in all matters of faith, though the local Church through its officers and members should exert all possible pastoral and brotherly care for brethren that err; that each local Church, according to the New testament, should be independent and completely autonomous and not rightly subject to interference by any ecclesiastical or political authority; and that, therefore, Church and State should be kept separate as having distinct functions, each fulfilling its duties free from dictation or patronage from the other.
We believe that, in this Age of Grace, the Lord’s Day, which is the first day of the week, the day of our Lord’s resurrection, is the proper day for Christian worship and service; and that it ought to be kept sacred to religious purposes by abstinence from all unnecessary secular labor and from recreations and activities which are unbecoming to such a day.
We believe that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” and, therefore, His covenant people, that they, Israel, shall be redeemed and regathered to Palestine from their world-wide Dispersion; and under the personal and millennial reign of Christ upon David’s throne in Jerusalem, shall become the head of the nations, and “the Gentiles shall come to their light and kings to the brightness of their rising.”
We believe that Satan, a fallen angel, is a distinct and real personality, the god of this age, the adversary of Christ and His Church, and that his destiny is eternal punishment in the lake of fire.