DOCTRINAL STATEMENT OF FAITH

We believe that Holy Scripture has God for it’s author; therefore, it is the infallible, inerrant, and inspired Word of God as found in the original manuscripts and that God has preserved His Truth down through the centuries thus making it the only sufficient and certain rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

We believe the Lord our God is the one and only living and true God, loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, infinite, immutable, eternal, sovereign, holy, and perfect. He hates all sin, but is willing to forgive sinners who come to Him in repentance through the drawing of the Holy Spirit. In His divine Being there are three persons that we call the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the eternally pre-existent Son of God Who incarnated Himself in human flesh and entered the world by means of the virgin birth. His coming to earth was to satisfy the righteous demands of God’s wrath upon sin. Jesus paid the only acceptable sacrificial substitutionary payment for sinful man in His death on the cross. He gave proof of His deity by His resurrection from the dead on the third day following His crucifixion.

We believe that man was created perfect, but voluntarily fell from his sinless state thus making all men depraved in nature and spiritually dead. As a result, all mankind has become by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, and the subjects of death unless set free by the grace of God in Jesus Christ Who intercedes today for believers at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

We believe man brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall into sin and that it pleased God to make a covenant of grace, wherein He freely offers eternal life and salvation to sinners by Jesus Christ. By grace through faith sinners can be saved and receive the promise that all those that are ordained unto eternal life will be granted His indwelling Holy Spirit, Who makes it possible for man to be willing and able to believe. This covenant of grace was first revealed to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and then eventually completed in that eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son in the redemption of the elect. By the grace of this covenant alone can any of the posterity of Adam ever be saved.

We believe that God will effectually call by His Word and Holy Spirit, those whom God has predestinated unto eternal life. This effectual call is, out of that state of sin and death in which we are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening our minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God by renewing our wills. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man who is dead in sins until being quickened by the Holy Spirit.

We believe that justification is granted to those whom God effectually calls and pardons their sins by accounting and accepting them as righteous for Christ’s sake alone. By resting only upon Christ and His righteousness, we, by the gift of faith have the righteousness of Christ imputed to our account. Therefore, resting on the righteousness of Christ and His righteousness alone is the instrument of justification. Through His sacrificial death on the cross, Christ did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified. Jesus took the penalty due the sinner and in their stead became the Substitute and satisfied the divine justice of the Father.

We believe that sanctification is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit that produces growth in grace for those who are effectually called, learning how to be quickened and strengthened in all saving graces to the practice of true holiness. Even though the effectually called are born again, there still abides remnants of the old nature from which comes a continual and irreconcilable war between the flesh that lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. In the end, the sanctifying Spirit of Christ will overcome and bring the believer to ultimate victory.

We believe saving faith is a grace bestowed upon the elect by God enabling the believer to trust Christ to the saving of their souls. It is a work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word of God. This faith, although it be different in degrees, may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree genuine and will grow and mature giving evidence of being real.

We believe that repentance is a gift given to those whom God effectually calls. In His covenant of grace, God has mercifully provided that believers who sin be renewed through repentance. God has made through Christ in the covenant of grace the preservation of believers unto salvation that no sin can bring damnation on them that repent.

We believe in the perseverance of the saints, meaning that those whom God has accepted in the beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, and given the precious faith of His elect, can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace. This perseverance of the saints does not depend upon their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election, which flows from the free and unchangeable love of God. Eternal security is a guarantee given to God’s elect.

We believe that only those who are born again by grace through faith shall have the assurance of salvation. Temporary believers, or false professors, are unregenerate and only deceive themselves with false hopes of eternal life. Genuine assurance is founded on the blood and righteousness of Christ and the inward presence of the Holy Spirit witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God thus producing fruit as a testimony of spiritual adoption. Good works can never pardon from sin, but those who truly repent will demonstrate their salvation by their works.

We believe in the evangelization of the world with the Gospel message of Christ. The teaching of the gospel is the outward means of revealing Jesus Christ, but men who are dead in trespasses may be born again only by the quickening regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. The commission given to believers is to be witnesses of God’s saving grace and proclaim that message of redemption to everyone in the world, as we trust the power of the Holy Spirit to call out God’s elect unto Himself.

We believe that the universal church is the invisible body of true believers that Scripture calls, the elect. These make up the Bride of Christ and recognize Christ alone as their Head. The church consists of all believers throughout the world who make up the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ living under His Lordship. The only two ordinances of the New Testament church are baptism and the Lord’s supper. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error and some visible churches have so degenerated as to become no Churches of Jesus Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Therefore, believers are to worship God according to His will and not allow the local assembly to become a mere social institution or religious lodge.

We believe that the bodies of men after death will return to dust, but their souls will be immortal. The souls of the righteous enter into a state of paradise where they are with Christ waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. The souls of lost sinners are cast into hell where they remain in torment and under darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. At the last day, the saints will be changed and all the dead raised up with new bodies. The bodies of the unjust shall be raised to dishonor.

We believe that there is coming a day when God will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ. Not only will the apostate angels be judged, but also all persons outside of Christ will give account of their sin. The judgment of believers will be a judgment of works done while upon earth in the power of the Holy Spirit. The purpose of God’s judgment is to manifest the glory of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect and His justice in the eternal damnation of the unregenerate. The righteous shall enter into everlasting reward, but the wicked that know not the transforming power of Jesus Christ shall be cast into everlasting torments.

We believe Jesus Christ is coming again. That day is unknown to men, but we need to be watchful and faithful, striving to live holy so that we may ever be prepared for His coming. At the time of His return, Christ will make all things right and cast Satan, the god of this age, into his final destination in the Lake of Fire. In the Second Coming of Christ, He will establish a new heaven and a new earth where dwells only righteousness and the elect shall be heirs together with Christ.