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WE BELIEVE that
God is the Eternal King. He is infinite, unchangeable, 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 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, revealed 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 law breakers. 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 the Spirit,
for healing, and for the recognition and empowering of those whom
God has ordained to lead and serve the Church.
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.
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 all
are 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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