WE BELIEVE that God is the Eternal King. He is an infinite, unchangeable
Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love.
From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three
persons of one substance, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
equal in power and glory.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through
his Son, His eternal Word, God created, upholds and governs all that
exists: the heavenly places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth,
every living thing and mankind. God created all things very good.
WE BELIEVE that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against
God, taking a host of angels with him. He was cast out of God's presence
and, as a usurper of God's rule established a counter-kingdom of
darkness and evil on the earth.
WE BELIEVE that God created mankind in His image, male and female, for
the relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the
temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin,
sickness and God's judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall,
Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God's good creation.
Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam's original
sin. Human beings are born in sin, subject to God's judgment of death
and captive to Satan's kingdom of darkness.
WE
BELIEVE that God did not abandon His rule over the earth which he
continues to uphold by His providence. In order to bring redemption, God
established covenants which revealed His grace to sinful people. In the
covenant with Abraham, God bound himself to his people Israel,
promising to deliver them from bondage to sin and Satan and to bless all
the nations through them.
WE BELIEVE that as King, God later redeemed His people by his mighty
acts from bondage in Egypt and established His covenant through Moses,
revealing His perfect will and our obligation to fulfill it. The law's
purpose is to order our fallen race and to make us conscious of our
moral responsibility. By the work of God's Spirit, it convicts us of our
sin and God's righteous judgment against us and brings us to Christ
alone for salvation.
WE BELIEVE that when Israel rejected God's rule over her King, God
established the monarchy in Israel and made an unconditional covenant
with David, promising that his heir would restore God's kingdom reign
over His people as Messiah forever.
WE BELIEVE that in the fullness of time, God honored His covenants with
Israel and his prophetic promises of salvation by sending His only Son,
Jesus, into the world. Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the
Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man in one person, He is humanity as
God intended us to be. Jesus was anointed as God's Messiah and
empowered by the Holy Spirit, inaugurating God's kingdom reign on earth,
overpowering the reign of Satan by resisting temptation, preaching the
good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising
the dead. Gathering His disciples, He reconstituted God's people as His
Church to be the instrument of His kingdom. After dying for the sins of
the world, Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, fulfilling
the covenant of blessing given to Abraham. In His sinless, perfect life
Jesus met the demands of the law and in His atoning death on the cross
He took God's judgment for sin which we deserve as lawbreakers. By His
death on the cross He also disarmed the demonic powers. The covenant
with David was fulfilled in Jesus' birth from David's house, His
Messianic ministry, His glorious resurrection from the dead, His ascent
into heaven and His present rule at the right hand of the Father. As
God's Son and David's heir, He is the eternal Messiah-King, advancing
God's reign throughout every generation and throughout the whole earth
today.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church at
Pentecost in power, baptizing believers into the Body of Christ and
releasing the gifts of the Spirit to them. The Spirit brings the
permanent indwelling presence of God to us for spiritual worship,
personal sanctification, building up the Church, gifting us for
ministry, and driving back the kingdom of Satan by the evangelization of
the world through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works of
Jesus.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ
and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe in the
filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience,
for ministry today. We believe in the present ministry of the Spirit
and in the exercise of all of the biblical gifts of the Spirit. We
practice the laying on of hands for the empowering of those whom God has
ordained to lead and serve the Church.
WE BELIEVE that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and
that all people are sinners by nature and choice. All people therefore
are under God's just judgment. Through the preaching of the Good News of
Jesus and the Kingdom of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God
regenerates, justifies, adopts and sanctifies through Jesus by the
Spirit all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord
and Savior. By this they are released from Satan's domain and enter into
God's kingdom reign.
WE BELIEVE in the one, holy, universal Church. All who repent of their
sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior are regenerated by the Holy
Spirit and form the living Body of Christ, of which He is the head and
of which we are all members.
WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the Church:
water baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both are available to all
believers.
WE BELIEVE that God's kingdom has come in the ministry of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that it continues to come in the ministry of the Spirit through
the Church, and that it will be consummated in the glorious, visible
and triumphant appearing of Christ - His return to the earth as King.
After Christ returns to reign, He will bring about the final defeat of
Satan and all of his minions and works, the resurrection of the dead,
the final judgment and the eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal
conscious punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in all and
His kingdom, His rule and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens
and the new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which righteousness
dwells and in which He will forever be worshiped.
WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy
Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original
manuscripts. We receive the sixty-six books of the Old and New
Testaments as our final, absolute authority, the only infallible rule of
faith and practice.