What We Believe

The Bible, is the God-breathed written revelation of God, His work, and His purposes in the world. God’s Word has been accurately delivered through various human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit. Scripture is necessary and sufficient for a proper knowledge of God, self, and salvation. We affirm its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct. Scripture must not be added to or taken away from. As we devote ourselves to God’s Word, we commune with God himself and are fortified in faith, sanctified from sin, strengthened in weakness, and sustained in suffering by his unchanging revelation in Scripture.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God begotten of the Father and conceived by the Holy Spirit, was appointed by the Father to be the Mediator between God and humanity, fully God and fully man in one person without confusion. In His earthly life, Christ perfectly obeyed God’s law and willingly suffered and died on the cross as a substitute for sinners, satisfying divine justice and reconciling God and man. Through His resurrection, ascension, and ongoing intercession, Christ effectively applies redemption to all whom the Father has given Him. He alone is prophet, priest, and king of the church, and no other mediator between God and man is needed or permitted. One day, he will return to judge all peoples and angels, putting all his enemies under his feet and dwelling with his people forever.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, who is fully God, who proceeds eternally from the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and to apply the benefits of Christ’s work to the elect in regeneration and sanctification. After Christ ascended to the Father’s right hand, the promised Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost and ushered in the new era of the Spirit’s fullness, indwelling believers at the moment of salvation, empowering them for life and service. The Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows spiritual gifts, helps, teaches, sanctifies, empowers, and guides every believer. The Spirit is the bond of our union with Christ, the seal of our salvation, the firstfruits of our redemption, and the guarantee of our inheritance.

God created man, male and female, in his own image as the crown of creation and the object of his special care. Although humanity was created upright and in fellowship with God, Adam’s willful transgression of God’s command brought sin into the world. Through this original sin, guilt was imputed to all humanity, and human nature became corrupted, leaving all people spiritually dead, wholly inclined toward evil, and unable to please God. Man’s trespass of God’s command brought enmity with God and the curse of death. This corruption extends to every part of our human nature and results in our wilful, sinful rebellion against God. While humanity was plunged into sin, the world was subjected to futility, death, and decay. Apart from Christ, all sinners are subject to God’s righteous wrath and condemnation. Although humanity has fallen from our original standing with God, all people still bear God’s image and are worthy of fundamental human dignity, protection, and preservation.

The Gospel is the good news that God saves sinners by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, revealing salvation that was promised after the Fall and fulfilled in Christ. The gospel stands as the core message of the Bible, which in all its parts testifies to God’s saving acts culminating in the person and work of Christ. This message is to be preached to all people without distinction, calling sinners to repentance and faith. While the outward call of the Gospel is universal wherever it is proclaimed, its saving power is effectual only for those whom God enables by His Spirit to believe. Thus, salvation is entirely of God’s grace from beginning to end.

Saving faith is a grace worked in the hearts of the elect by the Holy Spirit through responding to God’s Word in faith. By this faith, believers receive and rest upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, trusting not in themselves but in His righteousness and promises. With a renewed heart and mind, we receive Christ and rely fully on him for salvation, turning from our sinful, self-seeking way of life to love and follow Christ in joyful obedience. Compelled by grace, believers grow in the knowledge of God, obey Christ’s commands, walk by the Spirit, mortify sin, and pursue God’s priorities and purposes. This faith is living and active, producing obedience, repentance, and perseverance, though it may vary in strength. Perseverance is also a gift of God in Christ, who preserves his own and keeps them safe forever. True faith grows through the ordinary means that God has appointed for our growth: the Word, prayer, and fellowship with other believers.

The church is the universal and invisible body of Christ that consists of all the elect throughout history that is visibly manifested in time through local fellowships of believers, local churches. The local church is the focal point of God’s plan to mature his people and save sinners. In the local church, believers commit to being accountable to one another under the headship of Christ, collectively submitting to, instructing, admonishing, and caring for one another under the oversight of their ordained leaders (elders). Elders occupy the sole office of governance and are called to teach, oversee, care for, and protect the flock that God has entrusted to them. In keeping with God’s created design, Scripture reserves the office of elder for men. Deacons, also men, provide for the various needs of the church through acts of service. A true church is marked by the faithful preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the faithful exercise of restorative church discipline. As the body of Christ, the church exists to worship God, to edify and mature his people, and to bear witness to Christ and his kingdom in all the world. Christ is unwavering in his commitment to build his church and will surely bring it to maturity.

Men and women are both made in the image of God and are equal before him in dignity and worth. God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and it is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride, the church. Husbands are to love, nourish, and cherish their wives. Wives are to respect their husbands. We believe that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage. We affirm that it is sinful to engage in or approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such engagement or approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

At the appointed time known only to God, Jesus will visibly and gloriously return to earth in power as Judge and King to whom every knee will bow. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the saved and the unsaved; the saved unto the resurrection of life and the unsaved unto the resurrection of damnation. The purpose of the final judgment is to display the glory of God’s justice in the eternal conscious punishment of the wicked and the glory of His grace and mercy in the eternal reward of the righteous. Those saved by Christ through faith, whose names are written in the book of life, will be welcomed into everlasting joy with God. The certainty of this coming judgment calls all people to live in holiness, watchfulness, and hope, longing for the appearing of Christ and the consummation of all things with the new heavens and the new earth.