
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 as 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 Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of the 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.
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 worshipped.
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