We Believe

 

1. WE BELIEVE that God is the eternal King. His kingdom is everlasting. He reigns in absolute holiness, justice and love. From all eternity, He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. As Father, He is the Source of all things; as Son, He is the Mediator of all things; as Spirit, He is the Sanctifier of all things.

2. WE BELIEVE that from His eternal throne, through His Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds and governs all that exists: the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, all living things and man, and it is good.

3. WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him, was cast out of God’s presence and established a counter- kingdom of darkness and evil on the earth.

4. WE BELIEVE that God created man in His image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan to become their own god, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness, and God’s judgment of death on the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God’s good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam’s sin and is subject to God’s judgment of death and Satan’s kingdom darkness.

5. WE BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the earth, which He continues to uphold by His providence. Starting with Abraham, He established His covenant of grace, binding Himself unconditionally to His people Israel, promising to redeem them from bondage to sin and Satan, and to bless all the nations through them.

6. WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people by His mighty acts from bondage in Egypt and established His covenant of law, revealing His perfect will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law’s purpose is to order our fallen race and to make us conscious of our moral responsibility. It convicts us of our sin and God’s righteous judgment against us and brings us to Christ alone for salvation.

7. WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God’s rule over her as King, God established the monarchy in Israel and made an unconditional covenant with David, promising that his heir would restore God’s kingdom reign over His people as Messiah forever.

8. WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with Israel and His prophetic promises of salvation by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus, into the world to deliver us from Satan’s kingdom, to die for our sins, to be raised from the dead, and to fulfill the covenant of blessing given to Abraham.

9. WE BELIEVE Jesus, God’s Messiah, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man. He is humanity as God intend us to be. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus inaugurated God’s kingdom reign on earth, overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the kingdom, healing the sick, casting our demons and raising the dead. Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted God’s people as His Church to be the instrument of His kingdom.

In His sinless, perfect life, Jesus met the demands of the covenant of law and in His atoning death on the cross. He took God’s judgment for sin which we deserve as law-breakers and, thereby, disarmed the demonic powers.

The covenant with David was fulfilled in Jesus’ birth from David’s house, His Messianic ministry, His glorious resurrection form the dead, His ascent into heaven and His present rule at the right hand of the Father. As God’s Son and David’s heir, He is the eternal Messiah-King, advancing God’s reign throughout every generation and throughout the whole earth today.

10. WE BELIEVE that the Father and the Son poured out the Holy Spirit on the Church on Pentecost in power, baptizing them into the Body of Christ and releasing the gifts of the Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. The Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence of Jesus to us for spiritual worship, personal sanctification, building up the Church, gifting us for ministry, and driving back the kingdom of Satan by the evangelization of the world.

11. WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the exercise of all of the biblical gifts of the Spirit. We believe in the laying on of hands for the empowering of the Spirit, for healing, and for recognition and empowering of those whom God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.

12. WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit has inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that they have delivered the written Word of God to the Church without error. We receive the books of the Old and New Testaments as our final, absolute authority, the only rule of faith and practice.

13. WE BELIEVE that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and that all people are sinners by nature and choice. We all, therefore, are under God’s just judgment. Through the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates and baptizes by the Spirit all who repent of their sins and confess Jesus Christ as Lord and King. By this, they are released from Satan’s domain and enter into God’s kingdom reign.

14. WE BELIEVE that all who believe and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior and repent of their sins, are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the universal Church, the living Body of which Christ is the head and all are members.

15. WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the Church: water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both are available to all believers.

16. WE BELIEVE that God’s kingdom has come in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that it continues to come in the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Church, and that it will be consummated in the glorious, visible and triumphant appearing of Christ, His return to the earth as King with the final defeat of Satan and all of his minions and works, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment and the eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in all, and His kingdom, His rule and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be worshipped.