Our Beliefs

 

The ultimate authority in all matters of faith, order, and morals is and must be the Scripture alone. However, in the face of doctrinal confusion, controversy, and human weakness, it is necessary for the church to set forth its understanding of the Scripture on primary matters of faith and practice. Thus, we adopt as our articles of faith and doctrinal statement the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 as an excellent, though not inspired, expression of the teaching of the Word of God. We find it to be an aid in controversy, a confirmation in faith, a means of edification in righteousness and a basis for church unity. We agree with Charles Spurgeon:

“This ancient document is the most excellent epitome of the things most surely believed among us. It is not issued as an authoritative rule or code of faith, whereby you may be fettered, but as a means of edification in righteousness. It is an excellent, though not inspired, expression of the teaching of those Holy Scriptures by which all confessions are to be measured. We hold to the humbling truths of God’s sovereign grace in the salvation of lost sinners. Salvation is through Christ alone and by faith alone.”

A brief summary of what we believe follows. For further elaboration and Biblical support see the link to the 1689 Confession (click here for full confession). We believe:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments as originally given are the inspired and infallible and inerrant Word of God, and are the sole, supreme, and all-sufficient authority in every matter of Christian faith and practice.

2. One living and true God, Sovereign in creation, providence and redemption, subsisting in three persons – the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit – the same in substance, and equal in power and glory. 

3. The eternal Sonship and essential, absolute, and eternal Deity, and true and sinless humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ; His virgin birth, death, and burial; His physical resurrection and ascension into heaven; His present intercession for His people, and His coming again in power and glory.

4. The personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, through Whom the sinner is born again to saving repentance, and faith, and by Whom the regenerated are sanctified through the truth.

5. The fall of mankind in Adam, by which they have totally lost their original righteousness and holiness, and have come under the righteous condemnation of God.

6. The personal and unconditional election in Christ of a multitude which no man can number unto everlasting salvation, out of God’s pure grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works in them.

7. The personal and eternal redemption from all sin and the penal consequence thereof, of all God’s elect, by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

8. The effectual calling of all the elect by the grace of God through His Word and Spirit out of the state of death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ.

9. The justification of sinners by faith alone, through the atoning death and resurrection and imputed righteousness of Christ.

10. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, which is composed of all his true disciples, and in Him is invested supremely all power for its government. According to His commandment, Christians are to gather in local churches. To each of these churches He has given authority for administering order, discipline, and worship. The officers of the churches are elders and deacons.

11. The Lord Jesus Christ has instituted two ordinances to be observed by His church; that of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

12. Baptism is an ordinance of the Lord Jesus, obligatory upon every believer, wherein he is immersed in water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of his fellowship with the death and resurrection of Christ, of remission of sins, and of his giving himself up to God to live in newness of life.

13. The Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of Jesus Christ, to be administered with the elements of bread and the fruit of the vine. It is to be observed by his churches till the end of the world. It is in no sense a sacrifice but is designed to commemorate his death, to confirm the faith and other graces of Christians, and to be a pledge, and renewal of their communion with him and of their church fellowship.

14. The final perseverance in the state of grace of all those who have been elected by the Father, redeemed by the Son, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, so that they shall never perish, but have eternal life.

15. The bodies of men after death return to dust, but their spirits return immediately to God, the righteous to rest with Him and the wicked to be reserved under darkness until the day of judgment. At the last day, the bodies of all the dead, both just and unjust, will be raised.

16. God has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world by Jesus Christ, when every one shall receive according to his deeds. The wicked shall go into everlasting punishment and the righteous into everlasting life.