The Tri-une God
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine
Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and
glorify one another. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect
both in his love and in his holiness. He is the Creator of all things,
visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and
adoration. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows
the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all
things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to
redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the
praise of his glorious grace.
Revelation God has graciously disclosed
his existence and power in the created order, and has supremely
revealed himself to fallen human beings in the person of his Son, the
incarnate Word. Moreover, this God is a speaking God who by his Spirit
has graciously disclosed himself in human words: we believe that God
has inspired the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books
of the Old and New Testaments, which are both record and means of his
saving work in the world. These writings alone constitute the verbally
inspired Word of God, which is utterly authoritative and without error
in the original writings, complete in its revelation of his will for
salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do,
and final in its authority over every domain of knowledge to which it
speaks. We confess that both our finitude and our sinfulness preclude
the possibility of knowing God's truth exhaustively, but we affirm
that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can know God's revealed
truth truly. The Bible is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all
that it teaches; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; and
trusted, as God's pledge, in all that it promises. As God's people
hear, believe, and do the Word, they are equipped as disciples of
Christ and witnesses to the gospel.
Creation of Humanity We believe that
God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Adam and
Eve belonged to the created order that God himself declared to be very
good, serving as God's agents to care for, manage, and govern creation,
living in holy and devoted fellowship with their Maker. Men and women,
equally made in the image of God, enjoy equal access to God by faith in
Christ Jesus and are both called to move beyond passive self-indulgence
to significant private and public engagement in family, church, and
civic life. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a
one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual
relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a
type of the union between Christ and his church. In God's wise
purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they
complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they
assume distinctive roles which reflect the loving relationship between
Christ and the church, the husband exercising headship in a way that
displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife
submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church
for her Lord. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are
encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential
in the manifold ministries of the people of God. The distinctive
leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in
creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to
cultural developments.
The Fall We believe that Adam, made in
the image of God, distorted that image and forfeited his original
blessedness-for himself and all his progeny-by falling into sin through
Satan's temptation. As a result, all human beings are alienated from
God, corrupted in every aspect of their being (e.g., physically,
mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually) and condemned finally
and irrevocably to death-apart from God's own gracious intervention.
The supreme need of all human beings is to be reconciled to the God
under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of all human
beings is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us
and restore us to himself.
The Plan of God We believe that from
all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of
guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and
to this end foreknew them and chose them. We believe that God justifies
and sanctifies those who by grace have faith in Jesus, and that he will
one day glorify them-all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love
God commands and implores all people to repent and believe, having set
his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be
their Redeemer.
The Gospel We believe that the gospel
is the good news of Jesus Christ-God's very wisdom. Utter folly to the
world, even though it is the power of God to those who are being saved,
this good news is christological, centering on the cross and
resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed,
and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and
resurrection are not central (the message is "Christ died for our
sins . . . [and] was raised"). This good news is biblical (his death
and resurrection are according to the Scriptures), theological and
salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God), historical
(if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are
still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others),
apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the
apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events), and intensely
personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual
persons are saved).
The Redemption of Christ We believe
that, moved by love and in obedience to his Father, the eternal Son
became human: the Word became flesh, fully God and fully human being,
one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of
Israel, was conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit,
and was born of the virgin Mary. He perfectly obeyed his heavenly
Father, lived a sinless life, performed miraculous signs, was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead on the third day, and
ascended into heaven. As the mediatorial King, he is seated at the
right hand of God the Father, exercising in heaven and on earth all of
God's sovereignty, and is our High Priest and righteous Advocate. We
believe that by his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and
ascension, Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute. He
did this so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: on
the cross he canceled sin, propitiated God, and, by bearing the full
penalty of our sins, reconciled to God all those who believe. By his
resurrection Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power
of death and defeated Satan who once had power over it, and brought
everlasting life to all his people; by his ascension he has been
forever exalted as Lord and has prepared a place for us to be with him.
We believe that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no
other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. Because God
chose the lowly things of this world, the despised things, the things
that are not, to nullify the things that are, no human being can ever
boast before him-Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God-that
is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
The Justification of Sinners We believe
that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of
all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the
punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full
satisfaction to God's justice on our behalf. By his perfect obedience
he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith
alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ
alone for their acceptance with God. Inasmuch as Christ was given by
the Father for us, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in
place of our own, freely and not for anything in us, this justification
is solely of free grace, in order that both the exact justice and the
rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.
We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from
this free justification.
The Power of the Holy Spirit We believe
that this salvation, attested in all Scripture and secured by Jesus
Christ, is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father
and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as
the other" Paraclete, is present with and in believers. He convicts
the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and by his powerful and
mysterious work regenerates spiritually dead sinners, awakening them to
repentance and faith, baptizing them into union with the Lord Jesus,
such that they are justified before God by grace alone through faith
alone in Jesus Christ alone. By the Spirit's agency, believers are
renewed, sanctified, and adopted into God's family; they participate in
the divine nature and receive his sovereignly distributed gifts. The
Holy Spirit is himself the down payment of the promised inheritance,
and in this age indwells, guides, instructs, equips, revives, and
empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.
The Kingdom of God We believe that
those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ
by faith and through regeneration by the Holy Spirit enter the kingdom
of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant: the
forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation that awakens a desire to
glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to be
revealed. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace.
Living as salt in a world that is decaying and light in a world that is
dark, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world,
nor become indistinguishable from it: rather, we are to do good to the
city, for all the glory and honor of the nations is to be offered up to
the living God. Recognizing whose created order this is, and because we
are citizens of God's kingdom, we are to love our neighbors as
ourselves, doing good to all, especially to those who belong to the
household of God. The kingdom of God, already present but not fully
realized, is the exercise of God's sovereignty in the world toward the
eventual redemption of all creation. The kingdom of God is an invasive
power that plunders Satan's dark kingdom and regenerates and renovates
through repentance and faith the lives of individuals rescued from that
kingdom. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human
life together under God.
God's New People We believe that God's
new covenant people have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem; they
are already seated with Christ in the heavenlies. This universal church
is manifest in local churches of which Christ is the only Head; thus
each "local church" is, in fact, the church, the household of God,
the assembly of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the
truth. The church is the body of Christ, the apple of his eye, graven
on his hands, and he has pledged himself to her forever. The church is
distinguished by her gospel message, her sacred ordinances, her
discipline, her great mission, and, above all, by her love for God, and
by her members' love for one another and for the world. Crucially, this
gospel we cherish has both personal and corporate dimensions, neither
of which may properly be overlooked. Christ Jesus is our peace: he has
not only brought about peace with God, but also peace between alienated
peoples. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity, thus
making peace, and in one body to reconcile both Jew and Gentile to God
through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. The church
serves as a sign of God's future new world when its members live for
the service of one another and their neighbors, rather than for
self-focus. The church is the corporate dwelling place of God's Spirit,
and the continuing witness to God in the world.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper We
believe that baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordained by the Lord
Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new
covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Together
they are simultaneously God's pledge to us, divinely ordained means of
grace, our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now
resurrected Christ, and anticipations of his return and of the
consummation of all things.
The Restoration of All Things We
believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus
Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his role as final
Judge, and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the bodily
resurrection of both the just and the unjust-the unjust to judgment and
eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord himself taught, and
the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the
throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home
of righteousness. On that day the church will be presented faultless
before God by the obedience, suffering and triumph of Christ, all sin
purged and its wretched effects forever banished. God will be all in
all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable
holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.
About The Author/s
He must become more, we must become less John 3:30. Any glory belongs
to God & Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit leading or anointing it amounts
to nothing of consqeuence. Except the Lord build the house the builders
labour in vain. Except we remain in the Vine we can do nothing - which
otherwise amounts to entropy, an old wineskin that can't hold Jesus new
wine, the new covenant and a fountain of living water, the Words of life
John 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life." John 15:4 "Remain in me, and I will remain
in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."
Any human assistance is nothing without anointing; and there but
for the grace of God go us too, in our common humanity we all get it
wrong and wander off God's paths. Many ! contributors make up a mosaic
or tapestry of insights into Christian reality. If we make any claims
to the contrary we deceive ourselves and deny the grace of God. Just
because God chooses to work anonymously more often than not doesn't
accrue credit to others and certainly not us either. Anything else
that exalts humans is in jeopardy of becoming a golden calf that we
should all reject or at least have minimal connection with.
Luk 5:37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else
the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the
wineskins will be ruined.
Luk 5:38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
John 4:14 "but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him
will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become
in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."
