What We Believe

We believe that all the authors of the entire Old and New Testaments wrote by the guidance of the Holy Spirit (i.e., verbal inspiration). Those books are completely inerrant and infallible in the original writings. They are the final authority for faith and practice, and the means through which believers behold Christ.

2 Timothy 3:16-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Galatians 1:11-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:13

We believe in one God, eternally existing in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have precisely the same nature, perfections and attributes, which make them worthy of precisely the same worship and trust.

Matthew 28:18-19; Mark 12:29; John 1:1-2,14, 4:24, 10:30; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 1:1-3; Revelation 1:4-6

We believe in His eternal deity. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of all who believe in Christ. He has blessed believers with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Only the Father knows the time of our Lord’s return for His Church.

John 1:12; Ephesians 1:3; Acts 1:6, 7

We believe in His eternal deity and Sonship, virgin birth, death for the penalty of the sins of all mankind, bodily resurrection, present intercession for the saints; and in His personal, premillennial, pretribulational, and imminent return. He is both fully God and fully man.

Matthew 1:18-25; Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 5:1-9; Revelation 3:10, 20:1-6

We believe in the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit. Certain ministries have been committed to Him in this age. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He is responsible for the regeneration, indwelling, enlightening, and sealing unto the day of redemption of every believer in Christ. He baptizes each believer into the one body of Christ (the Church) and into the person and work of Christ (His death, burial, and resurrection). He transforms each believer into the image of Christ as the believer beholds Christ in the word of God.

John 3:6, 16:7-11; Romans 6:1-6, 8:9, 29; 1 Corinthians 12:13; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:30, 5:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:7; 1 John 2:20-27

We believe that man was originally created in the image and likeness of God, but that he sinned by disobeying God. He thereby incurred spiritual and physical death. Spiritual death, which is separation from God, has been transmitted to the entire human race, the man Christ Jesus being the only exception, so that all are sinners by nature and practice.

Genesis 1:26, 27, 2:17, 6:5; Psalms 14:1-3, 51:5; Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-19, 5:12-21, 8:6-7; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 2:1-3

We believe that, because God so loved the world, the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to die for our sins. He took the penalty for our sins upon Himself on the cross, according to the Scriptures. Our redemption from sin has been accomplished solely by His shed blood and death. No repentance, no feeling, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to any supposedly spiritual rules, can add in the least degree to the value of the finished work of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 64:6; Matthew 26:28; John 1:29, 3:5, 18; Romans 3:25-26, 5:6-9; 2 Corinthians 5:14, 21; Galatians 3:13, 6:15; Ephesians 1:7, 2:8, 9; Philippians 3:4-9; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:5-14; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:18-19, 23

We believe that when any unsaved person exercises faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, he passes positionally from spiritual death into spiritual life and is immediately justified from all things and is immediately accepted before the Father as Christ, His Son is accepted. His personal history in Adam terminated and he is eternally united and established positionally in Christ, and is one with Him forever. The person who believes is from that moment of belief saved from the penalty of sin, which was due him in the past, is now being saved from the power of sin (nature) in the present life, and will be saved from the presence of sin (nature and practice) when he goes to be with Christ for eternity. Once saved, the believer has a new nature and is positionally separated from and no longer under slavery to the sin nature, but the sin nature indwells the believer until he is present with the Lord.

John 5:24; Acts 13:39; Romans 5:1, 6:1-11; 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, 15:1-18; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:17, 6:15; Ephesians 1:3, 2:4-9; Colossians 2:12, 13; 1 John 4:17, 5:11-12

We believe that every one who is born again is kept by God’s power and is secure in Christ forever. The assurance of salvation through knowledge of God’s Word is the privilege of every believer.

John 5:24, 10:27-30, 13:1, 14:16-17, 17:11; Romans 8:29, 35-39; 1 Corinthians 1:4-8; Hebrews 7:25; 1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 2:1-2, 5:13

We believe in the personality and subtlety of Satan. He is the devil, the author of sin, and the adversary of God and man, but as a created and fallen being he is not equal to God. Satan is a judged and defeated foe, thus rendered powerless in a believer’s life by the cross of Christ. Satan is alive and well and tempts believers and blinds the minds of the unsaved so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The Lord strengthens and protects believers from Satan and the believer’s battle against Satan is entirely in the standing in who we are in Christ. Satan shall be eternally punished in the lake of fire.

Job 1:6-7; Isaiah 14:12-17; Matthew 4:2-11, 25:41; John 12:31, 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; Ephesians 6:10-17; Colossians 2:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; 1 Timothy 3:7; 2 Timothy 2:26; Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:2, 10

We believe that the soul and human spirit of those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do, at physical death, immediately pass into His presence to be forever with the Lord and that the believer’s physical body will be resurrected as a glorious spiritual body and reunited with the believer’s soul and spirit. The souls of unbelievers, however, remain after death in conscious misery until the final judgment at the Great White Throne at the close of the millennium, when they shall be cast into the lake of fire, separated eternally from the presence, power and glory of God.

Luke 16:19-31, 23:43; 1 Corinthians 15:35-44; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Revelation 20:11-15

We believe that the Church, which is now the body and shall be the bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of born-again persons, originated at Pentecost and to be taken up bodily at the rapture.

1 Corinthians 12:12-14; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 1:22-23, 5:25-27; Colossians 3:14-15

God has instituted baptism by water (immersion), and the Lord’s Supper to be observed until His return.

Acts 2:47, 14:27, 20:17, 28-32; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

We believe that the establishment, continuance and biblical leadership of local Churches is clearly taught and defined in the New Testament.

Acts 14:23, 20:17, 27-32; 1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-11; 1 Peter 5:1-4

We believe that Scripture is to be interpreted according to its grammatical and historical context, including that God, Who does not change, deals in a different manner with the Gentile nations, the people of Israel, and the God-created body of heavenly saints called ‘the Church’. We believe that all who are saved of all time are saved entirely by faith in Christ, either looking forward or back to the cross.

John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 11:1, 2; 1 Corinthians 9:17, 10:32; Ephesians 1:10, 2:11-22, 3:2; Colossians 1:25