What We Believe
1. We believe the Old and New Testaments of the Bible to be the complete Word of God, given by the Spirit as the Spirit led men to write His words. We believe this Word of God to be authoritative to the believer for all doctrine and walk, and its sole authority in the church for teaching, for worship, and the government. II Timothy 3:16; II Peter 1:19-21; Ephesians 2:20; Exodus 20:4,5; Acts 20:28; Titus 1:7-9.
2. We believe the teaching of those holy Scriptures that there is only one God, who alone is to be worshiped, served, trusted, and obeyed through His Word (Deuteronomy 6:1-5) We believe that this one God, one in being, is also to be distinguished as Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (I John 5:7; II Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 28:19; Genesis 1:26) We believe that these Persons are distinguished by their personal properties, and that they are all three co-equal and co-eternal. These three Persons are also revealed according to their personal properties in God’s glorious works of creation and redemption.
3. We believe that God is good, perfect, righteous, holy, merciful, and gracious, and that God is all that He is, and has all that He has wholly of Himself, without having received anything from another. (Exodus 3:14; 6:2-7; Deuteronomy 32:3, 4) He is absolutely independent, eternal, unchangeable, and that these virtues are beautifully reflected in His unchangeable, unconditional counsel, and revealed in His abiding Word and His faithfulness to His covenant (Malachi 3:6).
4. We believe that this God according to His sovereign counsel, and by His Son, Jesus Christ, created the heavens and the earth through the Spirit’s power in six days, according to His own testimony in Genesis 1, Exodus 20:11. We reject the false, dangerous doctrines of evolution as hostile to Scripture and salvation, which teach that the universe came about through trillions of years by natural processes, and that man began as a brute beast and imperfect (Ecclesiastes 7:9; Romans 5:12-14; II Peter 3:3-7).
5. We believe that God did not forsake the creation that He made, but even through the fall into sin, upholds and governs it altogether, along the pathway he had determined in His eternal, unchangeable counsel. This work of God, called providence, extends to every creature, and every part of the creature. Nothing happens, not even the evil in this world, without this work of God over and on His creatures. Matthew 10:20; Acts 2:22,23; Amos 3:6, Proverbs 16:4.
6. Though God created man perfect and upright, equipping him to live forever in obedience to His Maker, he turned from his life under God’s service in willful revolt, by eating the fruit of the tree which God prohibited (Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3). According to the judgment of God threatened before, man cast himself into spiritual death and destruction, and became no longer God’s friend, but bitter enemy. This spiritual death, total depravity, makes man wholly incapable of doing any good and willfully blind, opposed to all true knowledge of God (Romans 1:19-21; 3:9-20).
7. God graciously sought out fallen man, and promised him a Savior (Genesis 3:15), which He Himself gave in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4). Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross alone is the ground of all man’s salvation and man’s full justification (John 3:14-21). For that reason His name is the only name in which there is salvation (Acts 4:12; 16:31).
8. Since Christ has made this sacrifice only for those given Him eternally and therefore unconditionally by His Father, they alone receive the gift of faith to receive the gospel and believe on Jesus Christ. This does not contradict the command by Christ to preach the gospel to all nations and peoples, since “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). The gospel is not a general, unfulfilled desire on God’s part to save all men. Rather, the gospel itself is a savor of life unto life, and of death unto death, 2 Corinthians 2:16, I Corinthians 1:18.
9. Christ has determined that His people should know and enjoy His care over them by means of grace that He has given through His Word, to be administered by faithful church institutions. Those means of grace are the preaching of the gospel (I Corinthians 1:21-25) and the administration of two sacraments, baptism (Matthew 28:19) and the Lord’s Supper (I Corinthians 11:23-29). Christ is also pleased to govern the members of His church by means of the office of elder (Hebrews 13:17). In obedience to Christ, His people must seek to join themselves to such faithful churches, for the sake of their own souls, their children’s, and those of fellow saints in the body of Christ (I Corinthians 11).
10. In saving His elect people, God gives to His people all that they need in their salvation by His Holy Spirit. He regenerates, calls, gives faith, justifies, sanctifies, keeps and preserves all of them. Although by virtue of this work of God believers themselves do indeed believe, sanctify themselves and persevere in faith and good works through great struggles, they are careful to follow God’s Word in ascribing all the power and glory of them to God through Christ (I Corinthians 3:5, Ephesians 2:8-10, and John 10:28-30). This truth does not excuse unbelief, ungodliness, or apostasy, nor does it free men of their responsibility to believe the gospel, or to put off all sin and be righteous before God.
11. According to the covenant promise God gave to Abraham (Genesis 17:7), the promise He remembers and keeps in all generations, God not only wills to save, or promises to save, the children of believers, but does actually and truly save them. On the basis of that promise, the church administers the sacrament of baptism to the children of believers. Accordingly, these children are regarded and nurtured, admonished and disciplined as the children of God, parents praying for and anticipating the salvation of their children by God’s grace alone.
12. At the end of time, when all the church shall have been called by the gospel into the saving fellowship of Christ, then the Lord Jesus Christ shall come again from heaven, publicly and visibly, with power and glory. At this time He will raise the dead, judge all men, condemn the wicked to everlasting punishment, and bring His elect to live with Him and their God forever in a new heavens and earth. The time of Jesus’ coming again shall be completely hidden from the ungodly (I Thessalonians 5:1-3), but shall be known to the elect, not by some knowledge concealed in the Scriptures, but by the signs openly declared in them (Matthew 24, Revelation 6).
2. We believe the teaching of those holy Scriptures that there is only one God, who alone is to be worshiped, served, trusted, and obeyed through His Word (Deuteronomy 6:1-5) We believe that this one God, one in being, is also to be distinguished as Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (I John 5:7; II Corinthians 13:14; Matthew 28:19; Genesis 1:26) We believe that these Persons are distinguished by their personal properties, and that they are all three co-equal and co-eternal. These three Persons are also revealed according to their personal properties in God’s glorious works of creation and redemption.
3. We believe that God is good, perfect, righteous, holy, merciful, and gracious, and that God is all that He is, and has all that He has wholly of Himself, without having received anything from another. (Exodus 3:14; 6:2-7; Deuteronomy 32:3, 4) He is absolutely independent, eternal, unchangeable, and that these virtues are beautifully reflected in His unchangeable, unconditional counsel, and revealed in His abiding Word and His faithfulness to His covenant (Malachi 3:6).
4. We believe that this God according to His sovereign counsel, and by His Son, Jesus Christ, created the heavens and the earth through the Spirit’s power in six days, according to His own testimony in Genesis 1, Exodus 20:11. We reject the false, dangerous doctrines of evolution as hostile to Scripture and salvation, which teach that the universe came about through trillions of years by natural processes, and that man began as a brute beast and imperfect (Ecclesiastes 7:9; Romans 5:12-14; II Peter 3:3-7).
5. We believe that God did not forsake the creation that He made, but even through the fall into sin, upholds and governs it altogether, along the pathway he had determined in His eternal, unchangeable counsel. This work of God, called providence, extends to every creature, and every part of the creature. Nothing happens, not even the evil in this world, without this work of God over and on His creatures. Matthew 10:20; Acts 2:22,23; Amos 3:6, Proverbs 16:4.
6. Though God created man perfect and upright, equipping him to live forever in obedience to His Maker, he turned from his life under God’s service in willful revolt, by eating the fruit of the tree which God prohibited (Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3). According to the judgment of God threatened before, man cast himself into spiritual death and destruction, and became no longer God’s friend, but bitter enemy. This spiritual death, total depravity, makes man wholly incapable of doing any good and willfully blind, opposed to all true knowledge of God (Romans 1:19-21; 3:9-20).
7. God graciously sought out fallen man, and promised him a Savior (Genesis 3:15), which He Himself gave in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4). Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross alone is the ground of all man’s salvation and man’s full justification (John 3:14-21). For that reason His name is the only name in which there is salvation (Acts 4:12; 16:31).
8. Since Christ has made this sacrifice only for those given Him eternally and therefore unconditionally by His Father, they alone receive the gift of faith to receive the gospel and believe on Jesus Christ. This does not contradict the command by Christ to preach the gospel to all nations and peoples, since “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). The gospel is not a general, unfulfilled desire on God’s part to save all men. Rather, the gospel itself is a savor of life unto life, and of death unto death, 2 Corinthians 2:16, I Corinthians 1:18.
9. Christ has determined that His people should know and enjoy His care over them by means of grace that He has given through His Word, to be administered by faithful church institutions. Those means of grace are the preaching of the gospel (I Corinthians 1:21-25) and the administration of two sacraments, baptism (Matthew 28:19) and the Lord’s Supper (I Corinthians 11:23-29). Christ is also pleased to govern the members of His church by means of the office of elder (Hebrews 13:17). In obedience to Christ, His people must seek to join themselves to such faithful churches, for the sake of their own souls, their children’s, and those of fellow saints in the body of Christ (I Corinthians 11).
10. In saving His elect people, God gives to His people all that they need in their salvation by His Holy Spirit. He regenerates, calls, gives faith, justifies, sanctifies, keeps and preserves all of them. Although by virtue of this work of God believers themselves do indeed believe, sanctify themselves and persevere in faith and good works through great struggles, they are careful to follow God’s Word in ascribing all the power and glory of them to God through Christ (I Corinthians 3:5, Ephesians 2:8-10, and John 10:28-30). This truth does not excuse unbelief, ungodliness, or apostasy, nor does it free men of their responsibility to believe the gospel, or to put off all sin and be righteous before God.
11. According to the covenant promise God gave to Abraham (Genesis 17:7), the promise He remembers and keeps in all generations, God not only wills to save, or promises to save, the children of believers, but does actually and truly save them. On the basis of that promise, the church administers the sacrament of baptism to the children of believers. Accordingly, these children are regarded and nurtured, admonished and disciplined as the children of God, parents praying for and anticipating the salvation of their children by God’s grace alone.
12. At the end of time, when all the church shall have been called by the gospel into the saving fellowship of Christ, then the Lord Jesus Christ shall come again from heaven, publicly and visibly, with power and glory. At this time He will raise the dead, judge all men, condemn the wicked to everlasting punishment, and bring His elect to live with Him and their God forever in a new heavens and earth. The time of Jesus’ coming again shall be completely hidden from the ungodly (I Thessalonians 5:1-3), but shall be known to the elect, not by some knowledge concealed in the Scriptures, but by the signs openly declared in them (Matthew 24, Revelation 6).