BIBLE
We believe the Bible (39 Old Testament books & 27 New Testament books) to be the only inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God. We believe the Bible is the final authority in every area it addresses. It's authority stands regardless of how a person might feel. We believe the authority of Scripture is incumbent upon every individual Christian, as well as for the church collectively. Therefore, we strongly emphasize the systematic teaching of God’s Word, book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse.
2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:21; John 10:35
CREATION
We believe God created everything in six literal days. We believe God rested on the seventh day, giving us our basis for a seven-day week. We believe the straightforward language of Genesis gives no room for millions of years or a gap theory. We believe attempts to reconcile Darwinian Evolution with Biblical Creation compromise the gospel itself. The Bible clearly reveals that death, disease, & corruption are the consequences of sin entering the world through Adam and this is the reason God promised to send a Savior. Darwinian evolution is directly opposed to Biblical Creation because death, disease & corruption are viewed as necessary mechanisms for the overall process & progress of life leading up to the evolution of humanity.
If man is the net result of successive evolutionary processes, then death, disease & corruption cease to be the problem from which the Bible says we need redemption. Evolution makes the gospel irrelevant because it undermines the primary reason humanity needs a Savior, which is to rescue us from death, disease, & corruption introduced by sin. On evolution, the negative consequences of sin cease to be negative and are instead viewed as beneficial elements toward human progress which must be embraced.
When Christians attempt to harmonize Darwinian Evolution with Biblical Creation, they unknowingly compromise the gospel and dismiss the very reason Jesus came to the earth; which is to redeem humanity from the sting of death which is sin.
Genesis 1:1-2:3; Genesis 3:1-24; Romans 5:12-15; 1 Corinthians 15:54-57
TRINITY
We believe that there is one God who is Triune in nature. God eternally exists as three separate and distinct persons and yet He is One in essence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe all things were created by Him and for Him. Since all members of the Trinity are equally God, all three persons of the Godhead are worthy of worship.
Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 45:21-22; Matthew 28:19; Colossians 1:16
James 1:17-18; Matthew 6:9-10; John 5:26-28
John 1:1-3, 14; John 8:54-58; Philippians 2:5-6
Genesis 1:1-2; Acts 5:3-4; 1 Corinthians 3:16
Genesis 1:26; Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:32; Matthew 28:19; John 10:30; 1 Timothy 2:5
SON
We believe in the Incarnation of God the Son. The 2nd Person of the Trinity became a human being in the person of Jesus Christ. The Incarnation did not diminish His Deity in any degree, but He did become fully human and simultaneously remained fully God. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary. Mary gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem and He lived a sinless life that we could never live. Jesus’ death was a substitutionary atonement for all mankind. He was raised from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God until all His enemies are made His footstool.
HOLY SPIRIT
We believe the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. We believe the Holy Spirit regenerates, indwells, and seals every believer in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is a Person, and He empowers us to live as witnesses for Christ. We believe that all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available to His church today, yet those gifts must be operated in a balanced and orderly fashion in accordance with God’s Word. Spiritual gifts are never meant to draw attention to ourselves but are intended to magnify the gospel and glorify God as we aim to build one another up in the faith.
HUMANITY
We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in His own image. He created them sinless, equal in value, & dignity with the express intent of living our lives in union with Him as His image-bearers who will bring forth His glory throughout all the earth, as we freely live for Him.
We believe Adam's sin completely marred God's image in humanity and has subsequently separated humanity from Him, rendering us in need of redemption & reconciliation. Even though sin mares & separates, it never erases God's image from humanity. Therefore we believe all human life is sacred and of inestimable worth from the moment of conception in all its dimensions, this includes pre-born babies, the aged, those who are physically or mentally challenged, or any other stage or condition from conception through natural death and are therefore called to defend, protect, and value all human life.
We believe humanity is only able to correctly image God while living in reconciled union with Christ. Since sin separates us from God, man is incapable of imagining God as originally designed, in full union with Himself and is incapable of reconciling himself to God or saving himself from judgment. The only way humanity can be saved and reconciled back to a living union with their Creator and image God as He intends is by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ.
Genesis 1:26-28; Ephesians 5:22-6:4; 1 Timothy 3:1-7
THE FALL
We believe Adam’s Fall in the Garden introduced death, disease & corruption into the world and the very nature of all humanity itself. While all people are still created in the image of God, Adam’s sin had affected the entire human race. All people are sinners by nature and all choose to sin. Since all sin, all fall short of the glory of God and need a Savior. Thankfully God has provided humanity with an incorruptible & perfect Savior, Jesus.
We believe salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and there is no good work, save the work of Christ, which is capable of providing salvation.
We believe that God is not willing any should perish but that all might repent and call upon the Lord and be saved.
SALVATION
We affirm that the Gospel is the good news that God has made a way of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for any person. This is in keeping with God’s desire for every person to be saved.
We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral thought and action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, there is not a single sinner who is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.
We affirm that the penal substitution of Christ is the only available and effective sacrifice for the sins of every person. We believe that Christ died, not just for those who will be saved, but also for the sins of the whole world. We believe that God does not impose or withhold this atonement without respect to a person’s free will. We believe that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and be saved.
We affirm that grace is God’s generous decision to provide salvation for any person by taking all of the initiatives in providing atonement, freely offering the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in uniting the believer to Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith. We believe that people can resist the convicting work of the Spirit in their life and that God grace does not negate the necessity of a free response of faith. We believe that faith stands in contrast to good works and as such, faith is not a meritorious work that earns salvation.
We affirm that any person who responds to the Gospel with repentance and faith is born again through the power of the Holy Spirit. He is a new creation in Christ and enters, at the moment he believes, into eternal life. We believe God sovereignly choses to regenerate sinners in light of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit and sincere repentance. Therefore, regeneration does not precede repentance and salvation, it is the result of salvation.
We affirm that, in reference to salvation, election speaks of God’s eternal, gracious, and certain plan in Christ to have a people who are His by repentance and faith. Election does not mean God predestined certain people for salvation and others for condemnation before the foundation of the earth. We believe the Bible teaches Christ is the Elect One and anyone who turns to Him in repentance and faith are elect by virtue of their new position in Christ, i.e. what the New Testament refers to as “being in Christ/Him.”
We affirm God’s eternal knowledge of and sovereignty over every person’s salvation or condemnation. God’s sovereignty and knowledge do not require Him to cause a person’s acceptance or rejection of faith in Christ.
We affirm that God, as an expression of His sovereignty, endows each person with actual free will (the ability to choose between two options), which must be exercised in accepting or rejecting God’s gracious call to salvation by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. In regards to salvation, we do not believe there is an “effectual call” for certain people that is different from a “general call” to any person who hears and understands the Gospel.
We affirm that when a person responds in faith to the Gospel, God promises to complete the process of salvation in the believer into eternity. This process begins with justification, whereby the sinner is immediately acquitted of all sin and granted peace with God; continues in sanctification, whereby the saved are progressively conformed to the image of Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit; and concludes in glorification, whereby the saint enjoys life with Christ in heaven forever and this sealing of the Spirit at the moment of salvation cannot be broken.
We affirm that the Lord Jesus Christ commissioned His church to preach the good news of salvation to all people to the ends of the earth. We affirm that the proclamation of the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and is God's means of bringing any person to salvation. We believe that salvation is not possible outside of a faith response to God's revelation and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
BAPTISM & THE LORD'S SUPPER
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead.
The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby the church, through the partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer as they reflect on their union with Him and one another all while anticipating His second coming.
GENDER, MARRIAGE, & SEXUALITY
We believe God wonderfully and immutably creates each individual as male or female according to their created biology. Rejection of one’s biological sex is a rejection of the image of God within that person. We believe that the term “marriage” has only one meaning: the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture. We believe the covenantal union between one man and one woman is designed to reflect the image and nature of God, in a complementary fashion. We believe God intends sexual intimacy to occur only between a man and a woman who are married to each other. We believe God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe any form of sexual immorality (including adultery, fornication, lusts, homosexual attractions, desires, & behaviors, bisexual attractions, desires, & conduct, transsexuality, bestiality, incest, and the use of pornography) is sinful and offensive to God. We believe God graciously offers redemption and restoration to every sinner who calls upon Jesus as Lord, confessing and forsaking their sin, seeking His mercy and forgiveness.
We deny that Christians can claim any identity, sexual or otherwise, which is expressly described as sin in the Scriptures while simultaneously identifying oneself as a Christian. To do so is inconsistent with the Christian life and our new identity in Christ. We believe love always seeks God's best for others and God's best never includes remaining in sin or identifying with sin. God's best involves being set free from sin as we turn to Him in truth.
We believe every person is created in the image of God and must be afforded compassion, love, kindness, respect, and dignity, regardless of their relationship to Jesus. We believe genuine love always seeks God's best in other people's lives. Since it is never God's best to remain in sin, sexual or otherwise, love will confront sin in a Christ-like attitude of humility so others might embrace holiness and their new identity in Christ as God's best.
Genesis 1:26-28; Ephesians 5:22-6:4; 2 Timothy 2:23-26; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
BIBLICAL JUSTICE
We believe in biblical justice and objective truth. We reject Marxist and postmodern critical theories which contradict Christian doctrine by undermining objective truth, inspiring division in the body of Christ, promoting inequality before the law, and corrupting the Gospel. We reject standpoint epistemology, identity politics, socialism, and works-righteousness as elements of a social justice religion that stands opposed to the Gospel and teaching of Jesus Christ.
THE CHURCH
We believe there is one church, the body of Christ, which consists of men and women from every tribe, people, and nation who have been joined in union with Jesus Christ and thereby receive every saving benefit He alone accomplished by grace through faith. We believe each local congregation of true believers is an expression of this one universal church. We believe the local church plays an important role in the spiritual growth and development of every individual Christian. Therefore, it is important for every believer in Jesus to be connected with a local church body. We believe God has graced every believer with spiritual gifts that are to be used in service and submission to Christ and His Word for the overall edification of His church. While every believer has an important and necessary role to play with in the church, we believe the gift and office of pastor/elder is reserved only for men in accordance with God's created order.
ISRAEL
We believe God's plan for history demands a consistent distinction between ethnic-national Israel and the church. God’s eternal plan includes an ongoing plan for ethnic-national Israel that culminates in Christ's Return and the establishment of His altogether righteous and eternal rule.
We believe the Body of Christ did not exist under the Old Covenant and is a new creation under the New Covenant through the shedding of Jesus' own blood and the impartation of the Holy Spirit.
While on earth, Jesus spoke of building His church in future terms. Jesus did not speak of His church in past terms as if it already existed. Even though Israel was an assembly, called out before the Lord, it was not an assembly called out and set apart in Christ. Therefore, Israel cannot be equated to the body of Christ.
We believe that ethnic Jews can become a part of Christ's church through faith in Jesus the Messiah. We believe all Old Testament saints who died in hope & faith in the promise of Messiah have been grafted into the body of Jesus Christ since His death on the cross, for apart from Christ there is no remission of sin and every spiritual blessing is found in Christ.
We believe the grafting-in of both Jews & Gentiles into one Messianic body of believers, which constitutes the church, does not obliterate anyone's ethnic distinctions, just as it does not obliterate our gender distinctions as male or female. However, in Christ, all "barrier distinctions" which were an integral part of the Old Covenant system operating within the Tabernacle & Temple have been obliterated. Those former barrier distinctions restricted certain groups of people in their ability to draw near to God Himself (His manifest presence in the Holy of Holies) but has now been completely removed in Jesus.
We believe that one day ethnic-national Israel at large will come to recognize Jesus as their rightful Messiah. Today only a remnant of Jewish people have come to faith in Jesus but the Bible predicts a day when Israel, on a national level, will come to recognize and receive Jesus as her Messiah. We believe that the Bible teaches this will occur towards the end of the tribulation which will play a large role in helping Israel recognize Jesus as the Messiah, who will then usher in and consummate the fuller measure of His Messianic Kingdom purposes into the world through Israel.
RAPTURE
We believe in a pretribulation rapture of the church. We believe that the church will be delivered from the “hour of trial” which will come upon all who dwell on the earth, being “caught up” (Raptured) in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air for we have not been appointed unto wrath. We believe the rapture is the initial phase of our Lord’s Second Coming (Parousia) prior to “hour of trial/tribulation” and is distinct from the latter phase of our Lord’s Return (Parousia) when He physically descends all the way to the Earth in glory with His saints at the end of the tribulation period. When Jesus returns to the earth at the latter phase of His Second Coming, we believe the saints will return to the earth with Jesus to rule and reign with Him.
SECOND COMING
We believe in the premillennial return of Christ, to sit upon the throne of David and rule over the house of Jacob (the nation Israel) and the planet for a literal 1,000 years. We believe God will literally fulfill all the land promises He made to Abraham and his descendants (Israel) during these 1,000 years. We believe that at the end of Jesus Christ’s millennial reign upon the earth He will establish a New Heaven and a New Earth with the New Jerusalem as its capital city and rule the entire cosmos, forever from the New Jerusalem.
Genesis 15:18; Revelation 20:1-10; Revelation 21:1-8; Luke 1:31-33; Isaiah 9:6-7
RESURRECTION
We believe in the resurrection of the dead. We believe the resurrection will extend to all men with some being raised to eternal and everlasting life in the presence of the Lord. While others will be raised to shame and everlasting contempt spending eternity away from the presence of God in hell. We believe the resurrection demonstrates Jesus' intention to redeem everything that was lost in the Garden of Eden. God created man with a physical body and gave him a spirit and called His creation good. We believe the goal of Christ's redemption is not for humanity to be set free from our physical body; the final goal of Christ's redemption is the resurrection of our physical body completely free from the curse of sin so we can enjoy God in the fullness of His presence as Adam once did before the Fall. We believe that God will create a new heaven and earth in which righteousness will dwell where redeemed humanity will enjoy & worship God forever in their resurrected bodies. We believe the resurrected Christ will sit on the throne of God in the New Jerusalem forever.