1. God is
the person who created and sustains the universe. He is a Spirit who fills every
part of heaven and earth. He is the one and only true God who is Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. God is holy, just, all powerful, all knowing, eternal, loving,
and Lord of all.
2. Jesus Christ is God in every way and has existed forever. He is the only begotten
Son of the Father, born in the flesh to a virgin. He is perfect, holy, and
sinless. He is the complete and perfect expression of God the Father, is one
with the Father, and is one with the Holy Spirit. He created, sustains, and
fills the universe. Although He emptied Himself of His heavenly privilege and
apparent glory, He was always God, always possessed the power and perfection of
God, and was always and will always be the same Person as God. He submitted
Himself to the will of the Father, was rejected by mankind, suffered, and died
on the cross for the sins of the world. He was raised bodily from the dead,
ascended into heaven, and now sits at the right hand of the Father. He is the
promised Messiah of Israel. He is the only way to receive forgiveness of sins,
imputed righteous, and eternal life. He is the one and only Savior of the world
and the only way to know God. His Spirit dwells in ever reborn believer. He is
coming again to rapture and resurrect the saints, restore Israel, judge the
nations, and establish His Kingdom on earth.
3. Purpose of the Crucifixion
- Jesus Christ came to earth to give Himself
as the first and final sacrifice for the sins of the world. His death is a
complete and timeless substitutionary sacrifice, a ransom for every sin that has
ever been or ever will be committed. This gift must be received by faith in
order to be ratified as an irrevocable covenant in the believer's
life.
4. Eternal life is the free
gift of God to anyone who receives Christ and is
born of His Spirit.
5. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone.
6. The New Birth is essential for salvation and for living a life of obedience
to and fellowship with God.
7. Assurance of Salvation - Every believer can and should be assured of their
salvation. It is impossible for any born again believer to lose their salvation
in any way by any means. Regeneration through the Holy Spirit eternally seals
and guarantees the salvation of every believer.
8. Baptism of the Holy
Spirit - Every believer who receives Christ as
their Savior is immediately baptized in the Holy Spirit once and for all time.
No additional anointing or baptism of the Spirit or is needed or possible. Jesus
Himself makes every believer complete and fulfills our every need.
9. Authority of God's Word - The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament are the
written Word of God and are historically accurate and absolutely, exclusively
trustworthy. They are the highest authority in all matters of truth, doctrine,
practice, and revelation for all mankind and each believer. No other writing,
revelation, teaching, experience, or prophesy has the authority of God's Word.
No translation is exclusively inspired or authoritative.
10. Born into Sin - Every person in the world is born into a fallen state of
sin: selfish, dishonest, and hostile to God. Every person on Earth is or was on
their way to judgment and punishment for their sins and an eternity in hell
without hope and without God. Only repentance and faith in Christ can change the
outcome of this certain fate. Sin is not only thought and action but also he natural state of the
human heart. Trying to live a righteous life without being reborn of God' Spirit
is impossible. Doing good deeds, keeping a set of rules, or following a religion
have no power to change the sinful nature of the human heart.
11. The Church consists of every truly reborn believer in Christ throughout
the world. No single organization, hierarchy, fellowship, or authority today can
truthfully claim to be the one and only true church. Jesus Christ, the Gospel,
and the Word of God hold exclusive authority in the Church.
12. Baptism and Communion are the only sacraments given by Christ to be observed by the
Church. Neither is necessary to be saved or to be declared righteous before
God.
13. Satan is a powerful spiritual being, a fallen angel who became the
embodiment of evil when he rebelled against God and became His adversary.
Together with the the demons, he controls the world as it continues to rebel
against God. He attacks and accuses believers to render them fruitless but is
effectively fought with faith, truth, righteousness, the Gospel of Grace,
Assurance of Salvation, and the Word of God.
14. Hell is
real, an everlasting fire where those who have rejected God's salvation will be
justly punished for their every sin. While there will be different severities of
punishments for different types of sin, hell is an eternal, conscious, and
inescapable condition of all who die without Christ.
15. We come directly to God through
Christ; listen, believe, and obey His Word and
Spirit without any other intermediary. No church, person, minister, group,
hierarchy, ritual, theology, government, priest, doctrine, saint, family,
fellowship, translation, or publication has any authority, ability, or right to
come between God and the individual believer. Every believer is a priest before
God, free from all spiritual authority except the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
16. Faith without works is not
dead. Faith is not completed by works. Works are
not the other side of faith. We are saved and made righteous before God by faith
and faith alone. No one can be saved by depending upon works in any way for
salvation.
17. Obligations of the
Believer - Every believer who has received
Christ is obliged to present their bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Every
believer is called to live a life of faith, prayer, witness, fellowship, love,
generosity, and praise in obedience to the written Word and the leading of the
Holy Spirit. Every believer's purpose in life is to serve Christ, cultivate a
love relationship with Him and His people, and bear fruit for His
Kingdom.
18. The Christ Centered Life - A close, abiding relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ
is the most vital concern of every believer's life.
19. The authority of Paul’s ministry for
doctrine and practice within the Church -
Being the designated Apostle to the Gentiles and the specially chosen minister
of the Gospel of Grace, the letters of Paul are the most important source for
the theological foundations of the Gospel message as well as the doctrines and
practices to be followed by the Church. The doctrines and practices that are
emphasized in the Letters of Paul should be emphasized in the Church and those
that are not, should not be. Copycat doctrines and practices taken from the
Gospels, Acts, or the Old Testament and taken out of their dispensational
context to be observed by the Church today has led to error. In short, we
believe and learn from the whole of the Scriptures but we live in the letters of
Paul.
20. The End Times - The end of history will begin with sudden birth pains of
a seven year tribulation, an unprecedented period of tyranny, warfare, famine,
and persecution of the Church. It will spawn the rise of the Antichrist, a world
dictator; and will include a series of unprecedented cosmic plagues. Immediately
following the Tribulation, Jesus Christ will appear in the clouds at the Seventh
Trumpet to resurrect and rapture the Church. After the wedding of the Church in
heaven and the pouring out of the Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath, He will return to
earth to rescue Israel, destroy the Beast and his armies and imprison Satan in
the bottomless pit. The Lord Jesus will then establish a thousand year reign in
Israel, followed by: a final conflict, the Great White Throne Judgment, the
dissolution of the universe, the creation of a new heaven and new earth, and the
appearance of the New Jerusalem where all believers will live with Him
forever.
21. The Seventh Trumpet
Rapture - The Scriptures teach that the
church, living and dead, will be caught up to meet Christ at the end of the
Tribulation, as the Apostle Paul writes, at the last trumpet, which is the
Seventh Trumpet of Revelation. There is absolutely no Scripture which states the
rapture will occur before the Tribulation begins. The Seventh Trumpet Rapture is
inviolable and the keystone of the chronology of Last Days prophecy.
22. The New Testament Canon - It is clear that the epistle of James is an apocryphal
book, being mistakenly included by translators as being equal to the Apostle's
writings. James not only fails the test of apostleship, but also fails the test
of the Gospel concerning faith as the sole requirement for salvation and imputed
righteousness, directly contradicting the Apostle Paul's teachings in Romans and
Galatians. Precedence has been established on this by James' exclusion from many
of the earliest lists of New Testament books, as well as Martin Luther's
conclusion that it is an "epistle of straw," has nothing of the Gospel about it,
and is unequal to the other New Testament writings. Any writing included in the
New Testament as Scripture must meet three criteria: 1. Preaches Christ and His
Gospel 2. Must be the teaching and witness of one of the Apostles. 3. Proven to
be historically genuine and doctrinally sound, in agreement with the most
reliable, undisputed New Testament Scriptures.
23. The Jews and Israel - Israel and the Jews are the genetic offspring of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Kingdom of Israel will be restored to the Jews
exactly as written in the Prophets when Christ returns. The land of Canaan was
given by God to Abraham's descendants as an eternal, irrevocable covenant and is
the sole right of the Jewish people to possess. Gentile believers have an
obligation before God to bless the Jews, help protect them, and be a witness to
Christ among them.