Core Confession

I. The Tri-une God

We affirm that there is only one true and living God.  He is an intelligent, eternally existing, all-knowing Being, perfect in all His attributes, one in essence, eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration.      

_{Matthew 28:18-20, John 1:14, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-20, John 15:26-27, Ephesians 1:13-14, Psalm 24:1}

II. Revelation

We affirm that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man.  The 66 books of the Holy Scripture are absolutely inerrant, infallible, and God-breathed.  It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and will therefore remain to the end of the world.  All scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation. 

_{Hebrews 1:1-2, 2 Timothy 3:16, Psalm 8, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 40:6-8, Romans 10:14-17} 

III. Creation of Humanity

We affirm that man and woman were directly created by God in His image and likeness.  They were created free of sin with a rational nature, intelligence and volition. We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Men and women, equally made in the image of God, enjoy equal access to God by faith in Christ Jesus.  Adam and Eve were made to complement each other such that their marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. 

_{Genesis 1:27-30, 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1}

IV. The Fall

We teach that in Adam’s sin of disobedience to the revealed will and Word of God, man lost his innocence, incurred the penalty of spiritual and physical death, became subject to the wrath of God, and became inherently corrupt and utterly incapable of choosing or doing that which is acceptable to God apart from divine grace. With no recuperative powers to enable him to recover himself, man is hopelessly lost. Man’s salvation is thereby wholly of God’s grace through the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

_{Genesis 3, Romans 3:9-20, Ephesians 2:1-3}

V. The Plan of God

We affirm that from all eternity God determined in His glorious grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners whom he foreknew and had chosen. 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. We believe that the believer is saved by faith alone in God’s justifying grace alone through the work of Christ. 

_{Romans 8:29-30, Romans 3, Ephesians 2:1-3}

VI. The Gospel

We affirm that God, in spite of man’s rebellion, has good and gracious purposes for this world. This gospel is centered on what Jesus accomplished through his death on the cross and his literal resurrection.  The gospel declares that what Christ did for us is enough to declare us righteous before God, if we simply believe. It is the primary call of all believers to proclaim this good news, and make disciples of all nations.  In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.  

_{Matthew 28:18-20, John 3:16, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, Romans 10:14-15}

VII. The Redemption of Christ

We affirm that Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, possesses all the divine excellencies, and is coequal with the Father.  When he was incarnated, he was completely God (begotten, not made) and completely man. We believe that he is the only hope for sinners, because he was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life, was crucified, buried and arose bodily from the dead as our substitute paying for our sins. He has gone bodily into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our Advocate.  We teach that on the basis of the efficacy of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the believing sinner is freed from the punishment and the power of sin.  We teach that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead and that He is now ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He now mediates as our Advocate and High Priest.  

_{Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38, John 1:1; 20:28, Romans 8:32; 9:5, 2 Corinthians 5:21, I Peter 2:21-23, John 20:30-31,  Matthew 20:28,  Ephesians 1:4, Acts 1:11, Romans 5:6-10}

VIII. The Justification of Sinner

We affirm 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.  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.

_{2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 6:23, John 3:3, Ephesians 2:8-9, John 1:9, Titus 2:11-12}

IX. The Power of The Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is God, having existed eternally. He is a person and not simply a force. He was involved in Creation and in the inspiration of Scripture. We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. The salvation, which was secured by Jesus Christ, is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and secures their adoption as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service. 

_{Luke 12:12, John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:9-14, Romans 8:9-11, I Corinthians 3:16, Galatians 5:22-26, Ephesians 1:13-14, Acts 1:8, 1 Corinthians 2:11-12}

X. 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. 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. 

_{Matthew 7:21-23, 1 John 5:11-13, Psalm 97:10, Psalm 40:8, John 14:23}

XI. God’s New People

We affirm that the 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 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. 

_{1 Corinthians 12:21-31, Matthew 28:18-20, Hebrews 10:23-25}

XII. The Holy Sacraments 

We believe that Baptism and Communion are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself.  Baptism is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, while Communion is connected to the ongoing covenant renewal. Together they are simultaneously God’s pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, and our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ.

_{Romans 6:1-14, 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, 1 Peter 3:21, 1 Corinthians 11:26, Acts 2:38}

XIII. 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, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness. 

_{Revelation 20:7-15, Revelation 21:1-5}