Statement

 

I. THE SCRIPTURES We believe that the Bible, verbally and plenarily inspired in the original manuscripts, is God’s Word: infallible, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient in all matters pertaining to faith and life.
 

II. THE GODHEAD We believe that the Godhead eternally exists in three persons… the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… and that these three are one God, having precisely the same nature, attributes, and perfections, and worthy of precisely the same homage, confidence, and obedience. God, the Father We believe that the Sovereign God is Creator of all people, the Father of the nation of Israel, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the spiritual Father of all who believe in Christ. God, the Son We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became fully human, without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, in order He might reveal God and redeem sinners. We believe that after living a sinless life during which time He performed many miracles, He accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice. We believe that our redemption and salvation are guaranteed by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is now in heaven exalted to the right hand of God, the Father, where as High Priest He fulfills the ministry of intercession and advocacy for His people. He is also the Head of the Body (His Church) for which He will personally and imminently return. God, the Holy Spirit We believe that the eternal Holy Spirit restrains sin and convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He is ever present to testify of Christ; seeking to occupy believers with the Son of God and not with themselves nor with their experiences. At the moment of salvation He permanently regenerates, indwells, baptizes, and seals the believer. Experientially He fills, gives gifts diversely, teaches, leads, assures, and prays for believers.

III. ANGELS, FALLEN AND UNFALLEN We believe that God created and innumerable company of sinless, spiritual beings, known as angels; that one, Lucifer, son of the morningĀ – the highest in rank- sinned through pride, thereby becoming Satan; that a great company of the angels followed him in his moral fall, some of whom became demons and are active as his agents in the prosecution of his unholy purpose. We believe that by his own act of rebellion, Satan introduced sin into the universe and led our first parents into transgression; that by choice, he is the enemy of God and of God’s people; that he was judged at the cross, now rules as the god of this world, and will be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night forever at the end of his final rebellion. We believe that a great company of angels kept their holy estate and are before the throne of God being sent forth as ministering spirits to the saints.

IV. CREATION AND HUMANITY We believe that God directly created the universe from no preexisting substance. We believe that human beings were originally created in the image and after the likeness of God, but fell through sin, and, as a consequence of sin, lost spiritual life becoming dead in trespasses and sins, and consequently became subject to the power of the devil. We also believe that this spiritual death, or total depravity of human nature, has been transmitted to the entire human race, Christ Jesus alone being excepted; and hence that every child of Adam is born into the world with a nature which not only possesses no spark of divine life, but is essentially and unchangeably bad apart from divine grace.

V. SALVATION We believe that salvation comes to individual sinners only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, apart from any human merit through His substitutionary atoning sacrifice. In order to be saved, sinners must experience a new spiritual birth wroth by a sovereign God through the power of His Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This birth is instantaneous and not a process, and is evidenced by newness of life. We believe that justification is an act of God in which He declares the believer to be righteous on the basis of faith in Christ and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believing sinner. As such, we believe that those who are born again are eternally secure, possess everlasting life, will not come into condemnation, have passed out of death into life, and shall never perish.

VI. THE CHRISTIAN’S WALK We believe that we are all called with a holy calling, to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and so to live in the power of the Spirit that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But the flesh with its fallen Adamic nature, which in this life is never eradicated, being with us to the end of our earthly lives, needs to be kept by the Spirit constantly in subjection to Christ, or it will surely manifest its presence in our lives to the dishonor of our Lord. We believe that the qualities required of a spiritual leader are clearly revealed in the Scriptures.

VII. THE CHURCH We believe that the Church, the Body and Bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism, made up of all born-again persons of this present age. We believe that the Church began at Pentecost and that a believer is placed in the Church by the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. We believe that the universal Church consists of all believers everywhere, and that the local church consists of believers who assemble together in one locality.

VIII. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST We believe that Jesus Christ will return to the earth to establish His righteous reign over the earth. This coming will be visible, personal, premillennial, and in power and great glory.

IX. THE ETERNAL STATE We believe that at death, the spirits and souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation pass immediately into His presence and there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the glorified body when Christ comes for His own, whereupon souls and body reunited shall be associated with Him forever in glory; but the spirits and souls of the unbelieving remain after death conscious of condemnation and in misery until the final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium, when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the lake of fire, not to be annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.