Statement of Faith

THE SCRIPTURES 
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

GOD 
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

GOD THE FATHER 
God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

GOD THE SON 
Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted as the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission.

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT 
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God. 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.

MAN 
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. Because all are created in God's image, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

SALVATION 
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.

GRACE 
According to God's grace He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. This glorious display of God's sovereign goodness is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. Therefore, it excludes boasting on the part of the sinner and promotes humility in the believer. All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin and grieve the Holy Spirit and bring reproach on the cause of Christ, yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

THE CHURCH 
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers banded together for fellowship and the furtherance of the preaching of the gospel to the ends of the earth. It has two ordinances: baptism and the Lord's Supper. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

BAPTISM 
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 a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, 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.

LORD'S SUPPER 
The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby believers partake of the bread and wine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.

LAST THINGS 
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth: the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to the Lake of Fire, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and dwell forever on the new heaven and earth with the Lord.

EVANGELISM AND MISSIONS 

It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ to endeavour to make disciples of all nations. Missionary effort is a spiritual necessity of the regenerate life and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ.