About

What We Believe

We believe that Jesus Christ is God the Son, and that only through Him we can be reconciled back to God and receive eternal life. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has commanded us to go and make disciples of all nations until His return.

Statement of Faith

The Holy Scripture, The Word of God

We believe that the Holy Scriptures, consisting of the 66 books listed below, are the very word of God breathed out by Him and recorded by various human authors. The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge leading men to salvation, faith, and obedience. We believe the Holy Scriptures are without error in their original manuscripts. 

The 66 books of the canon are the only books that are God-breathed, and consist of the following:

The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are not part of the Canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority to the Church of God.

The Godhead / The Trinity

We worship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confounding their persons nor dividing the essence. 

The three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three distinct persons, but their divinity is one, their glory equal, and their majesty coeternal. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, all uncreated, yet there are not three Gods but one God.

God the Father

God the Father is spirit and infinite, and has existed eternally without beginning or end. He is outside of time and space, as He created them, and is not subject to their limitations. The Father is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omnipresent (able to be in all places at one time).

The Father is uncreated, self-existent, and self-sustaining. He is perfectly holy, just, merciful, and loving.

God the Father, in His infinite wisdom, reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

God the Son

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He was truly God and truly man. Jesus perfectly revealed and followed the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and weaknesses, identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. 

He honored and fulfilled God’s divine law by his active, personal, and perfect obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin and death. 

He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples, as well as 500 other followers as the person who was with them before his crucifixion. 

He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of the Father where He is the One Mediator between God and man.

He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. 

Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

God the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired men of old to write the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit was not created nor begotten, but He proceeds from the Father and from the Son. 

His function and role is to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness to lead sinners to repentance.

He testifies with our spirit that we are children of God if indeed we are found in Christ Jesus.

Through illumination He enables men to understand the truth of God’s word. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the body of Christ. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption. 

His presence in the christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.

Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, time and space, and spoke everything into existence from nothing. 

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all present and active at the time of creation. 

By Christ all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

God created mankind in His own image as male and female. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

All of creation testifies to the existence and power of God.

Sin, The Fall of Man

Through Adam, who was our representative in the Garden, “sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

In the Garden of Eden, God commanded Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Being tempted and deceived by Satan, Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she gave the fruit to her husband Adam who was with her and he ate. They willingly disobeyed God, and committed the first sin.  The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.

As a result, God pronounced curses over the creation and this life. However, we see God’s plan for redemption through His son Jesus Christ from the very beginning when He tells Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All of us are descendents of Adam, and because of his original sin, we are born into the sin nature. Original sin may be defined as a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul.

With no recuperative powers to enable him to recover himself, man is totally depraved. Man’s salvation is therefore wholly of God’s grace through the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Law of God (Law of Moses / 10 Commandments)

God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart, and a particular command to not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and promised life with obedience, and death with disobedience. 

The same law that was first written in the heart of man to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall was delivered to Moses by God on Mount Sinai in ten commandments, and was written on two tablets. The first four commands contain our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man. This is commonly referred to as the moral law.

Every person, whether saved or not, is obligated to obey the moral law of God found in His word.

Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or to deem the Law irrelevant, but came to fulfill and strengthen the obligation to obey it.

The Law of God is not contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but complies with it, and the Spirit of Christ subdues and enables the will of man to obey the law freely and cheerfully.

As God’s creatures we are required to do what is right. God demands that we live according to His moral law, which He has revealed to us in the Bible. God’s law is the ultimate standard of righteousness and the supreme norm for judging right and wrong. As the sovereign God, He has the authority to impose obligations on us, to command our obedience, and to bind our conscience. He also has the power and right to punish disobedience when we violate His law.

Christ the Mediator

God the Father chose His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, before the foundation of the world to be the mediator between God and Man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of His Church, the Heir of all things, and the Judge of the world, to whom He gave a people to be His seed, and to be redeemed by Him in time, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified.

Jesus, the Son of God and the second person of the Godhead, one in substance and equal with the Father, took upon Himself man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common temptations, yet without sin. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, so that the two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and humanity, were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion or confusion. This one person is truly God and truly man, Jesus, the one Christ and Mediator between God and man.

The Lord Jesus willingly submitted to the Father and undertook the office of Mediator. He was born under the law and perfectly fulfilled it, enduring crucifixion for the sins of the elect, and died, was buried, and remained under the power of death, yet saw no corruption. On the third day He rose from the dead with the same body in which He suffered, with which also He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of His Father, making intercession, and shall return to judge men and angels, at the end of the world.

The Lord Jesus, in His perfect obedience, offered Himself up to God as a sacrifice, fully satisfying the wrath and justice of His Father, and purchased, not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father had given to Him.

Although the work of redemption was not actually done by Christ until after His incarnation, the virtue, efficacy, and benefits of Christ’s work were applied through faith to the elect of the Old Testament who lived before the incarnation and work of Christ.

Repentance

Our Lord Jesus calls all men to repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel, recognizing that we have broken God’s law and are in need of His forgiveness.

Though all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and there is not a righteous person on earth who does good, God in His abundant mercy gives the free gift of repentance to His elect unto salvation through His son Jesus Christ.

We are called to repent and be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of our sins, and promised that upon doing this we will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We are called to repent and return to God, so that our sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, and it is every person’s duty to repent of their particular known sins.

Salvation - Justification, Sanctification, Glorification

Salvation is an ongoing process in the life of a born again believer that is initiated through justification, sustained through sanctification, and finally completed through glorification by God and God alone.

Those whom God chose for salvation before the foundation of the world, whom He effectually calls, he also freely justifies by an act of His sovereign grace, and not by any act or merit of the person who is justified.

Those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

We are saved and being saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone. 

Being justified means that we are no longer guilty, but are declared righteous before God. Our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross, and His righteousness is imputed to us, and there is therefore now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

We are sanctified, or made holy, and conformed into the image of Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the ongoing work of God’s grace whereby He enables believers to put sin to death in their lives and conforms them more and more into the image of Christ. The Word of God, the sacraments, prayer, church discipline, and suffering are the means by which God brings about sanctification in the lives of believers. Though sanctification is incomplete in this life, it will be brought to completion in the glorification of believers on the last day.

Glorification, the final benefit of redemption and our salvation, is sanctification made perfect. The Holy Spirit is the agent of the glorification of God’s people. God will immediately glorify all believers in the resurrection on the last day, conforming them perfectly to the image of His risen and glorified Son. The glorification of believers will include being renewed to perfection by God, without sin, in their glorified bodies.

As Jesus was glorified in His humanity in His resurrection from the dead, so all who are united to Him by faith will be partakers of the same glorification.

Assurance and Preservation of Salvation

Those who confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead are certainly assured of their salvation, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 

All who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. Those who are in Christ have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by whom we cry out, “Abba! Father! The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

Those whom God has chosen and redeemed in Christ, effectively called and sanctified by His Spirit, and given the gift of faith, can neither totally nor finally fall out of salvation, but will be preserved by God to the end and be eternally saved. This is not a license to sin, but an assurance of God’s faithfulness towards His redeemed in Christ. Those whom God has redeemed will over time bear fruit in keeping with repentance and will desire sin less and less.

The preservation of the saints does not depend on their own free will or ability, but upon the unchanging decree of God’s election flowing from the free and unchangeable love of God the Father, upon the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ and union with Him, the oath of God, the abiding of His Spirit and the seed of God within them, and the nature of the covenant of grace.

We are promised by our Lord Christ that all those whom were given to Him by the Father will come to Him and that He will certainly not cast out, and that He came to do the will of His Father, which is that He shall lose nothing of which He was given by the Father, but that He shall raise it up on the last day.

The elect will never be separated from God’s love in Christ. Nothing in this life, prospectively in death, or eternally in the future can sever a true believer from his relationship to God. All the elect will be kept secure by God, and Christ will never remove His saving love from one of His own. The true believer perseveres, not because he is strong in himself, but because he has the power of God’s indwelling Spirit. His perseverance does not keep his salvation safe but proves that his salvation is safe. God will keep and protect the person who truly belongs to Him.

The Church, The Body of Christ

The universal church, which may be called invisible, consists of all of God’s elect who have been, are, or will be gathered into one, under Christ who is the head, and is the spouse and the body of Christ. 

The visible church, which is universal under the Gospel, consists of all those throughout the world that profess Jesus Christ as Lord, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God. 

To this universal church, Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world, and causes them to be effective by His own presence and Spirit according to His promise.

Even the purest churches on earth are subject to mixture and error, however there shall always be a universal church on earth to worship God according to His will.

We, as members of the church, should not forsake the gathering together for the edification of one another, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. In gathering together, because we have come to share in Christ, we are to encourage each other so that none of us may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 

It is also the duty of the church of the living God, as a whole and as individual members, to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world, and to stand as a pillar of the truth of God’s Word.

The Great Commission

Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth by His Father, and has commanded us to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them all that Jesus has commanded us.

This is the final command given to us by Jesus before He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father where He now sits interceding for us as we carry out this command. 

This command to make disciples is given by Jesus to all of His followers, not only to those who are in ministry or church leadership.

The great commission comes down to two commands: baptize and teach. When someone professes faith in Jesus and believes that God raised Him from the dead, we are to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then we are to teach them to obey all that Christ has commanded us.

Jesus promised us that He would be with us until the end of the age when He comes back to gather all of His people.

The Ordinances: Baptism and The Lord’s Supper

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the ordinances given to us by the Lord Jesus Himself to be continued in His church to the end of the world.

Baptism

Baptism is the initial sign by which we are admitted to the fellowship of the church, that being engrafted into Christ we may be counted children of God. It is a public confession to all of our peers that we are submitting to the lordship of Christ and commit our lives to Him.

Baptism is an ordinance given by Jesus and is a sign of the believer’s fellowship with Christ in His death and resurrection, of being engrafted into Him, of remission of sins, and being brought to life in Christ to live and walk in the newness of life.

Those who confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in their heart that God raised Him from the dead, and profess repentance towards God, and faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, are the proper subjects of the ordinance of baptism. 

We are to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

We teach baptism by way of full immersion as the proper form of this ordinance.

The Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s supper was instituted by Jesus the same night that He was betrayed, to be observed in His churches until His return for the remembrance of His sacrifice and death, confirmation of the faith of believers, for our spiritual nourishment and growth in Him, and to be a bond and pledge of our communion with Him and with each other. 

In this ordinance Christ is not offered up to His Father, nor is any real sacrifice made at all for remission of sin, but only a memorial of that one offering up of Himself by Himself upon the cross, once for all.

The Lord has appointed His ministers to pray and bless the elements of bread and wine, in order to set them apart from a common to a holy use, and to take the bread and wine themselves, and to give both elements to the participants in the church.

The bread represents the body of Christ, and the wine represents His blood that He spilled for us. Though they are often called the body and blood of Christ, they still remain only bread and wine. The elements at no point change into the actual body and blood of Christ, but are only representations. 

Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this ordinance, also partake inwardly by faith, spiritually receiving and feeding upon Christ crucified, and all the benefits of His death. 

We are commanded to examine ourselves and our hearts in taking the elements of the Lord’s Supper. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

Only those who are believers in Christ Jesus and have been baptized into the body of Christ are fit to take the Lord’s Supper. Therefore, any nonbeliever is not fit to take the Lord’s supper, and in doing so are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord and eat and drink judgment upon themselves.

Spiritual Gifts

Spiritual gifts are those qualities and empowerments that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit give to the people of God in order to make them effective in ministry. When God’s people use these gifts in service to one another, the entire church is built up in faith, hope, and love.

We teach that all of the spiritual gifts found in Scripture, both ordinary and miraculous gifts, are in use in the church today. 

These gifts were given to the church by God for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

The miraculous gifts are given with clear order and structure of how they are to be utilized in the church.

The abuse of these gifts is not only damaging to the church / body of Christ, but is also offensive to God and sinful.

The Holy Spirit distributes these gifts to the church according to God’s will, and are not measures of a person’s spiritual maturity or superiority.

Satan is able to imitate these spiritual gifts, thus they are not to be used as a form of proof that someone is speaking the truth of God or acting on His behalf and according to His will.

Angels

Angels are spiritual beings created by God who are sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.

Angels fall into two categories: the “unfallen” angels and the fallen angels. Unfallen angels are those who have remained holy throughout their existence and accordingly are called “holy angels.” By contrast, the fallen angels are those who have not maintained their holiness.

Holy angels fall into special classes, and certain individuals are named and mentioned. 

Michael the archangel is likely the head of all the holy angels. 

Gabriel is one of the principal messengers of God. He was entrusted with important messages such as those delivered to Daniel, Zechariah, and to Mary.

Most holy angels are not named in the Bible but are described only as “elect angels.”

The expressions “principalities” and “powers” are used of all angels whether fallen or holy.

Some angels are designated as “cherubim,” which are living creatures who defend God’s holiness from any defilement of sin.

“Seraphim” are another class of angels mentioned only once in Scripture in Isaiah 6:2-7, and have the function of praising God, being God’s messengers to earth, and are especially concerned with the holiness of God.

Holy angels were present at creation, the giving of the Law, the birth of Christ and His resurrection, the ascension of Christ, and they will be present at the rapture of the church and the second coming of Christ. 

The fallen angels are described as fallen from their first estate. Led by Satan, who was originally a cherub, the fallen angels defected, rebelled against God, and became sinful in their nature and work.

Fallen angels have been divided into two classes: those who are free and those who are bound. 

Of the fallen angels, Satan alone is given particular mention in the Bible.

When Satan fell, he drew after him one third of the angels. Of those, some are reserved in chains awaiting judgment. 

They are Satan’s servants in all his undertakings and share in his doom. 

Humans do not become angels when we die.

Death

At death, our bodies return to dust and see corruption, but our spirit immediately returns to God who gave it. The souls of the redeemed are made perfect in holiness and are received into paradise, where they are consciously with Christ, and behold the face of God waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. The souls of the unredeemed are cast into hell where they remain in torment and utter darkness until the final judgment.

Resurrection from the Dead / The Return of Christ / Eternal Judgement

God has appointed a day when He will judge the world, when not only the apostate angels shall be judged, but also everyone who lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds. And to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil. 

On the last day, the saints who are alive shall not sleep, but be changed, and all who are dead shall be raised up with the same bodies and shall be united again to their souls forever.

The bodies of the unjust will be raised to dishonor, and the bodies of the just will be raised to honor by the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of God appointing this day is for the manifestation of His mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect, and for the manifestation of His justice in the damnation of the condemned. The righteous will go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing, which shall come from the presence of the Lord; but the wicked who do not know God or obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.

Eschatology

We recognize that the church has disagreed on the different eschatological views throughout church history, that this is a secondary issue not , and that we may be wrong. That being said, we, as a church, fall under the category of mid-tribulation classical premillennialism.

We teach that in the final days of human history, the church will be present for the first 3.5 years of tribulation, and will be taken up by Christ before the 2nd 3.5 years of tribulation known as the ‘great tribulation’. After this we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ “so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” We will then take part in the marriage supper of the Lamb where we will be united with Christ forevermore. After this and before the return of Christ to judge the earth, the great tribulation is taking place on earth. At the end of the great tribulation, Christ will return with His bride to judge and wage war on earth. This will begin the millennial reign of Christ on earth, where He will reign and rule on earth for 1,000 years while Satan is bound, no longer able to deceive the nations. “When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations…to gather them together for the war…” They will surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire from heaven will come down and devour them. The devil who deceived them will be thrown into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night forever. After this the great white throne judgment will take place where the dead, great and small, will be judged from the things which were written according to their deeds. Then death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire, along with all those whose names were not found written in the book of life. The earth will then be destroyed by fire, and the new heaven and new earth will be ushered in where the holy city, the new Jerusalem will come down out of heaven from God and all those who are in Christ will be ushered into eternity.