Doctrinal Statement
Holy Scriptures
We believe the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God and that the writings of the Old and New Testaments are inspired to the extent that God chose the very words from the human writers’ vocabulary so that it is the very word of God, and inerrant in all its assertions and teachings. The Bible is, therefore, the only infallible authority for both doctrine and life. Since this is true, it is the special revelation of God to man and the only basis for true Christian unity. We believe the King James Version translation of the Bible is God’s choice to be used for preaching and teaching the English-speaking people.
(2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:19-21; Matthew 5:18; Hebrews 4:12; Acts 1:16; Mark 12:36; John 10:35, 16:12, 13, 17:17)
The Godhead
We believe God is supreme in His Person, eternal in His being, absolute in His attributes and glorious in His perfection. We believe in the Trinity and we believe in the Triune God, eternally existing in three persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–each co-eternal in being, co-equal in power and glory. We believe God created the universe in six literal, 24-hour periods, and we reject evolution, the Gap Theory, the Day-Age Theory and Theistic Evolution as unscriptural theories of origin. God is personal, spirit, omniscient, sovereign, perfect, immutable, and eternal in His being, holiness, love, wisdom and power. We believe that God is absolutely separate and transcendent as its Creator, yet everywhere present in the world as the sustainer of all things. God is self-existent and self-revealing in His relationship with His creation.
(Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:35, 6:4; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-3, 14, 14:10, 26; Romans 1:2-4; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 4:3-6)
The Fall of Man
We believe that man was created in the image of God and by choice fell into sin and death. Hence, every person is sinful and under condemnation to eternal judgment. We believe that man was created by a direct act of God in the image and likeness of his Creator. By disobedience to the revealed will of God, man forfeited his reign over the earth and fell from his created state and standing with God. Therefore, all men are universally sinful both by nature and choice and are totally depraved, devoid of the righteousness required by the law. All men are thus alienated from the life and family of God, without excuse, under the righteous judgment and wrath of God, and have within them no possible means of salvation.
(Genesis 1:27; Romans 2:23, 5:12-19; Isaiah 53:6; Ephesians 2:1-3)
Salvation of Sinners
We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace and that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. We believe in the salvation of man by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the Cross. We believe that salvation is the free gift of God, by neither merit nor secured in part nor in whole by any virtue or work of man, but received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom all true believers have as a present possession the gift of eternal life, a perfectly righteous standing, and sonship in the family of God by a new birth. We believe that the Cross of Christ is redemptive, substitutionary, and propitiatory and the only basis of reconciliation for all sinners who believe and that there is no possible salvation outside of Jesus Christ and His shed blood.
(John 3:3-6, 16, 10:28, 29; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8-10; 1 Timothy 2:5, 6; 1 Peter 1:18-23)
The Security of the Believer
We believe that those who receive Jesus Christ as Savior are eternally secure. Our security rests totally on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as a result, we have assurance of eternal life. We believe that the true believer is forever secure as a redeemed possession of God. This security is founded on the full payment of the believer’s sin by the Cross of Christ in His substitutionary atonement and God’s proof of receipt of that payment in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sole condition of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work. His positive expression of faith has as its negative side repentance and rejection of any other basis of salvation. Therefore, the security of the believer is not conditioned upon his circumstances or emotional experiences or strength, but it is an acceptance of that basis of reconciliation, which has already been accepted by God. The believer is the possession of God, which is the opposite of lost. He is secure because God has taken the responsibility for His elect.
(John 10:27-30; 1 John 2:1-2; Romans 8:31-34, 38,39; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Hebrews 13:5)
The Church
We believe that the church is a local, visible congregation of scripturally baptized believers, practicing New Testament Principles, believing its doctrines, observing its ordinances and exercising its autonomy. We believe that a local church is an organized body of believers immersed upon credible (public) confession of faith in Jesus Christ, recognizing only two offices (pastor and deacon), sovereign in polity, and bonded together for work, worship, mutual edification, observance of the ordinances and the worldwide proclamation of the good news of the Gospel. The church is distinct from Israel, but autonomous, with Christ as its head.
(Matthew 28:19, 20; Ephesians 1:22, 23; Acts 2:41-47; Ephesians 4:11-13; 1 Corinthians 12)
The Person of the Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the executive of the Godhead and that He executes the Plan of God for our conviction and salvation. Christians are partakers of the Holy Spirit and empowered for service by Him. We believe the Holy Spirit is a person possessing all the attributes of Deity. And that He convicts the unbeliever of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. He regenerates, seals, indwells, fills the believer and bestows gifts upon believers for service. He teaches the believer and sets him apart for a holy life. We believe the Bible repudiates the Charismatic emphasis upon the experiential oriented tongues and ecumenical practices as any ministry of the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit is the Commander-in-Chief of missions and that His testimony is not of Himself but Jesus Christ and the redemptive truths centered in Christ.
(John 14:16, 17, 16:8; Ephesians 1:13, 14; I Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:9, Acts 5:3, 4)
The Person of Jesus Christ
We believe in the virgin birth of Christ, His Deity and sinless life, His vicarious death, along with His bodily resurrection and ascension and in His personal, premillennial return. We believe the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the second person of the Godhead, God in the flesh, virgin born as no other man has ever been born nor ever will be born. He lived an absolutely sinless life and became the sinner’s voluntary substitute on the Cross of Calvary through His vicarious death for man’s sin. Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day, securing eternal assurance of redemption’s full payment and the satisfaction of God’s righteous indignation toward sin. He ascended bodily into Heaven and he will come to rapture all the redeemed to be with Himself. His coming for believers is imminent and will be personal, pretribulational and premillennial.
(Isaiah 7:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14:3; 2 Corinthians 5:19-21; 1 Peter 2:22, 3:18)
The Personality of Satan
We believe that Satan is a person, the author of sin and the cause of the Fall of Man, that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man, and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire.
(Job 1:6-7; Isaiah 14:12-17; Matthew 4:2-11, 25:41; Revelation 12:7-12. 20:10)
Civil Government
We believe that God has ordained and created all authority consisting of three basic institutions: 1) the home, 2) the church, and 3) the state. Every person is subject to these authorities, but all (including the authorities themselves) are answerable to God and governed by His Word. God has given each institution specific biblical responsibilities and balanced those responsibilities with the understanding that no institution has the right to usurp authority upon the other. The home, the church, and the state are equal and sovereign in their respective biblically assigned spheres of responsibility under God.
(Romans 13:1-7; Ephesians 5:22-24; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13-14)
Human Sexuality
We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery, transgender and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that God disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender by surgery or appearance. We believe that the only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman.
(Genesis 2:24, 19:5, 26:8-9; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; 1 Corinthians 5:1, 6:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; Hebrews 13:4; Genesis 2:24; Romans 7:2; 1 Corinthians 7:10; Ephesians 5:22-23)
Heaven and Hell
We believe in the eternal blessedness of the saved in Heaven and the eternal punishment of the lost in Hell. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the saved and lost, secured by the bodily resurrection of Christ. The spirits of the saved at death go immediately to be with Christ in Heaven, their lives and works shall be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ for the determination of rewards or the loss thereof, which will take place when Christ comes for His own in the Rapture. The spirits of the unsaved at death descend immediately into Hades where they are kept under punishment until the Great White Throne Judgment. At this time, their bodies shall be raised from the grave and they shall be judged and cast into the eternal Lake of Fire, the place of final and everlasting punishment.
(John 5:28, 29, 4:2; Revelation 20:14, 15, 21:4; Matthew 25:46)