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Article One: The Scriptures
We
believe that the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God; that
inspiration of the original autographs was plenary and verbal and,
hence, the sixty-six books of the Bible are inerrant; that it is the
sole authority for faith and practice in all matters to which it speaks.
Article Two: The God-Head
We
believe there is one God eternally existing in three persons: Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit; that all three possess equally all the same
attributes, nature, perfections, and characteristics of personality.
Article Three: Jesus Christ
Section One - The Deity of Christ
We
believe in the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ who always was and
will be God and did not cease to be God at the incarnation.
Section Two - The First Advent
We
believe that the Man Christ Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit;
that He was born of the virgin Mary; that He possesses both a divine
and human nature both distinct and unmixed; that He was without sin;
that He died a penal substitution for the sin of all men; that He was
buried; that He arose on the third day in the same but glorified body
in which He lived and died; that He ascended to the right hand of God
the Father; that by His death He provided atonement for all men, but it
is applied only to those who believe.
Section Three - The Present Session
We
believe that the God-Man Jesus Christ now sits at the right hand of God
the Father; that He functions as the High Priest for all believers ever
making intercession for them.
Section Four - The Second Advent
We believe in the personal and physical and bodily return of Christ for the Church and for Israel.
Article Four: The Holy Spirit
We
believe in the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit; that He is the
infallible author and interpreter of the infallible Word; that He
convicts, regenerates, indwells, empowers, instructs, and guides the
believer in living, service, and worship through His gifts; that in
this age He baptizes and permanently indwells and seals all believers
into one body; that His chief purpose is to witness and glorify Christ;
that His fullness and power and control are appropriated in the
believer's life by faith.
Article Five: The Dispensations
We
believe that the dispensations are stewardships by which God
administers His purpose on earth through man by varying
responsibilities; that they are chronologically successive; that they
are not ways of salvation nor different methods of the administration
of the Covenant of Grace but are a test of man's submission to God
based on progressive revelation; that they are a necessary view of
Scripture based on literal interpretation, a consistent distinction of
Israel and the Church, and that the ultimate purpose of God is His own
glorification; that they are not different ways of salvation but in
every dispensation the basis of salvation was always the blood of
Christ, the means of salvation was always by grace through faith, the
object of faith was always God, but the content of faith changed in
different dispensations dependent upon progressive revelation.
Article Six: Angels - Fallen & Unfallen
Section One - Creation
We believe that God created an innumerable number of sinless beings known as angels, seraphs, and cherubs.
Section Two - Satan
We
believe that one of these created beings, "Day-Star, Son of the
Morning," the highest in rank, sinned through pride, thus becoming
Satan the adversary; that he is an actual person with all the
characteristics of personality; that he is the originator of sin; that
he operates today as the prince and god of this world; that he is the
arch-enemy of God and the people of God and deceiver of humanity; that
he led the first parents into transgression causing their fall; that he
was judged at the cross, a judgment yet to be executed in the Lake of
Fire.
Section Three - Demons
We
believe that a great company of angels followed Satan in his fall, some
of whom became demons who are active as Satan's agents in the carrying
out of unholy purposes, while others who fell are "reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
Section Four - Unfallen Angels
We
believe that a great company of angels kept their holy estate and are
ministering spirits of God for the carrying out of His purpose,
especially to those who inherit salvation.
Article Seven: Man - Created & Fallen
We
believe that man was created in the image of God; that he fell through
sin and lost his spiritual life; that he is dead in his trespasses and
sins and, hence, is totally depraved; that this fallen nature is
transmitted to every descendent of Adam, the man Christ Jesus excepted;
that man has no spark of divine life and is unchangeable apart from
divine grace.
Article Eight: Salvation
Section One - The Means of Salvation
We
believe that salvation is wholly a work of God's free grace and not the
work of man in whole or in part, nor due to man's goodness or religious
ceremony; that it is a gift to man received by personal faith at which
time the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the sinner, thereby
justifying him in God's sight; that those who are saved have been
unconditionally elected to salvation in eternity past and have been
effectively and irresistibly called by the Holy Spirit.
Section Two - The Extent of Salvation
We
believe that at the point of salvation, the sinner becomes totally
accepted by God, united totally with Christ and, hence, loved and
accepted by the Father as Christ is loved and accepted; that he is now
the recipient of all the riches of divine grace and in possession of
every spiritual blessing and, hence, is not to seek a "second blessing"
or a "second work of grace."
Section Three - Eternal Security
We
believe that all true believers once saved are eternally secure forever
because of the nature and work of Christ and the very nature of the
divine gift of eternal life; that it is the privilege of all who are
saved to be assured of their salvation from the very moment that they
accept Him as Saviour; that this assurance is not based on their own
merit, but by the testimony of the Scriptures and the witness of the
Holy Spirit.
Section Four - Sanctification
We
believe that sanctification is a setting apart unto God and that it is
threefold: positional sanctification, in which the believer is viewed
by God as already completed "in Christ," being united with Him;
progressive sanctification, in which the believer retains his sin
nature throughout this life, needs to grow in grace, continually
becoming more and more conformed to the image of the Son of God; and
ultimate sanctification, in which the believer is fully sanctified in
his state as he already is in his position, which will only occur when
the believer sees the Lord and will be like Him.
Article Nine: Israel
We
believe that God called a people to Himself who are the physical
descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that Israel is the Wife of
Jehovah, unfaithful in the past, divorced in the present, and to be
reunited in the future; that God has made four unconditional covenants
with this elect nation that have remained unfulfilled; that God intends
to fulfill all His promises to Israel in a literal way just as His
warnings and judgments were fulfilled in a literal way; that in
Israel's history of unbelief there has always been a believing remnant
according to the election of grace; that there will be a national
regeneration of Israel at which time all of the provisions of the
unconditional covenants will be fulfilled, including the seed, land,
and blessing aspects.
Article Ten: The Church
Section One - The Organism
We
believe that the Church is the body and Bride of Christ; that it is
composed of all Jewish and Gentile believers from Pentecost to the
Rapture; that entrance into this body is by Spirit-Baptism; that it is
distinct from Israel; that while sharing spiritual blessings with
Israel of the Jewish covenants, it neither fulfills them nor has taken
possession of them from Israel.
Section Two - The Ordinances
We
believe that an ordinance is a practice that is commanded by Christ,
practiced in the Book of Acts, and expounded in the epistles; that only
two ordinances exist: baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper, both
of which are limited to believers only.
Section Three - The Believer's Responsibility
We
believe that all believers are obligated to assemble together for the
purpose of participation in the ordinances, to be taught the Scriptures
by gifted men, to edify each other, and to worship God; that this
assembling is to be organized as a local church under authoritative
leadership; that the believer is called to holy living in the power of
the indwelling Spirit; to fight the spiritual warfare against the
world, the flesh, and the devil; to use his spiritual gifts for the
purpose of building up of the local body of Christ.
Section Four - The Great Commission
We
believe that it is the responsibility of both the church and the
individual believer to evangelize and disciple all nations both
actively (doing the work of evangelism) and passively (supporting those
doing the work of evangelism): that the specific procedure for
discipling the nations is "to the Jew first" and this is also true in
both active and passive evangelism.
Article Eleven: The Rapture
We
believe that Christ will return into the air for the purpose of
gathering the Church to Himself both dead and alive; that this event is
both imminent and pre-Tribulational; that this is the blessed hope of
the Church.
Article Twelve: The Tribulation
We
believe that some time after the Rapture, the Tribulation of Israel's
Seventieth Week will occur for a period of seven years; that it is a
time of judgment of all humanity; that it will bring to an end the
times of the Gentiles and result in the national regeneration of Israel.
Article Thirteen: The Second Coming
We
believe in the personal, visible, and bodily return of Christ to the
earth with his saints after the Tribulation and before the Millennium
in the clouds of heaven with glory and great power at the request of
and to save Israel from her enemies; to judge all living Gentiles for
the purpose of determining who will be excluded from the Kingdom and
who will be included in the Kingdom.
Article Fourteen: The Messianic Kingdom
We
believe in a literal one-thousand year reign of Christ on earth over
Israel and the Gentiles during which time the Church will co-reign with
Christ, the unconditional covenants with Israel will be fulfilled,
Israel will be restored along with the resurrection of the Old
Testament saints, Satan will be bound in the abyss, the curse will be
lifted, and the knowledge of God will permeate the world, and peace
will be maintained by the iron-rod rule of Christ.
Article Fifteen: The Final State
Section One - The Present Time
We
believe that at physical death, the believer immediately goes into the
presence of God in full conscious fellowship with the Lord, awaiting
the resurrection of the body; that the unbeliever enters immediately
into eternal conscious separation from God in Hell, awaiting the
resurrection of the body.
Section Two - The Eternal Order
We
believe in the eventual resurrection of all saints before the Kingdom
to fellowship with Christ in the Kingdom on this earth and then in the
New Jerusalem on the New Earth in eternity after the Kingdom; in the
resurrection of all unbelievers after the Kingdom to appear before the
Great White Throne Judgment and then to abide for eternity in the Lake
of Fire.
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