Faith Statement: What We Believe

The Person & Work of Jesus Christ
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man while maintaining His essential Deity. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary to reveal God, redeem man, and resolve the invisible struggle among the angels by the total defeat of Satan. We believe that Jesus Christ fully accomplished our redemption through His substitutionary sacrificial death on the Cross. The Father accepted totally the pouring out of His soul unto death (ISA 53:9-12) as the propitiation of sins. The Father's acceptance of His death is dramatized and realized by His literal physical resurrection from the dead (LUK 1:35; JOH 1:1; ROM 3:24-26; ROM 4:24-25; 1CO 15:1-4; 2CO 5:21; HEB 9:22; HEB 13:20-21; 1PE 1:3-5; 1PE 1:18-20; 1PE 2:24; 1PE 3:18). We further believe that even now, the Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven having been supremely exalted by God the Father. He sits at the right hand of God where He fulfills the ministry of Great High Priest, intercessor, and advocate for believers. Jesus Christ is the irrefutably acknowledged Head of the Church, which is His body. He will return to crush all the enemies of God (ROM 8:34, EPH 1:19-23, HEB 7:25-27, 1JO 1:1-2).

The Eternal Security of the Believer
We believe all believers are secure forever. All believers have the right to personal assurance of their eternal security (JOH 10:27-30; ROM 8:1; ROM 8:38-39; 1CO 1:4-8; 1TH 5:23-24; HEB 10:14).

The Blessed Hope
We believe that the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the air. He will receive to Himself believers who have died and believers who are alive at His coming. Also known as the "Rapture" or "Translation of the Church" (1CO 15:51-57; 1TH 4:13-18; TIT 2:11-14).

Sovereignty
We believe God, existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is sovereign. He exercises supreme and absolute rule over all creation as a part of, and consistent with, the essence and attributes of deity (1CH 29:11-12, DAN 4:35, PSA 24:1, EPH 1:11, 1TI 6:15). However, God in His sovereignty will not violate the free will of man. The free will of man and the sovereignty of God coexist by divine decree (1TI 2:4-6, ROM 5:8-10; ROM 5:32-33; ROM 16:24-25; JOH 3:16; JOH 3:36).

The Church
We believe that the Church, which is the Body and will be the Bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of all born-again believers of this Age, irrespective of their affiliation with Christian organizations (EPH 1:22-23; EPH 5:25-27; 1CO 12:12-14).

The Eternal State
We believe the soul and the human spirit of those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation immediately pass into His presence at the moment of physical death. The soul and the human spirit remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the body at His coming. At this time, soul, human spirit and body reunite, and shall forever be associated with His glory. The souls of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery until the final judgment of the Great White Throne at the close of the millennium. At this time, the soul and body reunited shall be cast into the eternal Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to be salted with everlasting destruction and banished from the presence of the Lord forever (LUK 16:19-26; LUK 23:43; 2CO 5:8; PHI 1:23; 2TH 1:7-9; JUD 6:7; REV 20:11-15).

The Responsibility of the Believer
We believe once born again, the believer is to desire the sincere milk of the Word. Continually nourished by it, he may grow spiritually in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is God's desire that first every man be saved, and secondly that every believer in Christ come to intimately know Him through the inculcation of the Word of God (1TI 2:4). The effectual work of God's Word brings the believer into adjustment with God's purpose, plan, and will. The internal execution of God's Word brings glory to the Lord (ROM 12:1-2, 2CO 13:9, 1TI 4:6, 1PE 2:2, 2PE 3:18).