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Statement of Faith
Basic Beliefs
The Scriptures
The Holy Bible
was written by men divinely inspired
and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a
perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for
its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without
any mixture of error, for its matter.
God
There is one and only one living and
true God.
The
eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but
without division of nature, essence, or being.
God the Father
God as Father reigns with providential
care over His
universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream
of
human history according to the purposes of His grace.
God is Father in truth to those who become children
of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
God the Son
Christ is the eternal Son of God.
In His incarnation
as Jesus Christ, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He honored the divine
law by His personal obedience, and in His death on the
cross, He made provision for the redemption of men
from sin.
God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God.
He exalts
Christ. He convicts of sin, of righteousness and of
judgment.
He enlightens and empowers the believer
and
the church in worship, evangelism, and service.
Man
Man was created by the special act
of God, in His own
image, and is the crowning work of His creation.
By
his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin
into the human race.
The sacredness of human
personality is evident in that God created man in His
own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore
every man possesses dignity and is worthy of respect
and Christian love.
Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption
of the whole man,
and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ
as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained
eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest
sense salvation includes regeneration, sanctification,
and glorification.
God's Purpose of Grace
Election is the gracious purpose of
God, according to
which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies
sinners.
All true believers endure to the end.
Those
whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His
Spirit will never fall away from the state of grace,
but shall persevere to the end.
The Church
A New Testament church of the Lord
Jesus Christ is a
local body of baptized believers who are associated
by
covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel
and
seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.
This church is an autonomous body.
The New
Testament
speaks also of the church as the body of Christ, which
includes all of the redeemed of all the ages.
Baptism & the Lord's Supper
Christian baptism is the immersion
of a believer in
water.
It is an act of obedience symbolizing the
believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen
Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of
the life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of
life in Christ Jesus.
The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act
of obedience
whereby members
memorialize the death of the
Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
The Lord's Day
The first day of the week is the Lord's
Day.
It
commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead
and should be employed in exercises of worship and
spiritual devotion.
Last Things
God, in His own time and in
His own way, will bring
the world to its appropriate end.
Jesus Christ
will
return personally and visibly
the dead will be
raised;
and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The
unrighteous will be consigned to Hell.
The righteous
will receive their reward and will dwell forever in
Heaven with the Lord.
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