Article I – Of the Scriptures.

We believe that the Holy Bible in the original manuscripts are verbally inspired and the product of Spirit controlled men, and therefore is without error and wholly true in all that it’s authors affirm and thus is the supreme infallible authority of life, faith, conscience, and practice. 

(II Timothy 3:16-17; II Peter 1:19-21)

 

Article II – Of the True God.

                Section 1:

We believe that there is only one living and true God existing in three distinct persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and yet equal in every divine attribute.

(Duet 6:4; I Cor. 8:4,6; James 2:19)

                Section 2:

We believe in the absolute deity of the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He was and is divine as no other man can be, being very God of very god, existing from all eternity co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, that He never ceased to be God for one instant and that His humiliation did not consist in laying aside His deity, that as a man He was miraculously begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

(Jn 1:1,2; IJn 5:20, Matt 1:20, Lk 1:26-38)

                Section 3:

We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, equal with the father and the Son and of the same substance and nature, that He convicts us of sin, righteousness and judgment, bears witness to the truth, and upon an individual’s repentance before and personal faith in Jesus Christ He is sent to regenerate, indwell, seal, and baptize them into the Body of Christ with the continuing ministry of guiding, teaching, convicting, gifting, and empowering (filling) the new believer.

(Acts 5:1-4; Eph 4:30; 5:18; Jn 8:9; 16:1,13; 3:3-8  Eph 1:13; 5:18; 1 Cor 12:13)

Article III – Of the Devil, or Satan.

We believe in the distinct personality of Satan, that he is the god of this age, author of all the powers of darkness and sin, and is destined to the judgment of an eternal justice in the lake of fire.

(Matt 4:1-3; I Cor 4:4; Rev 20:10)

Article IV – Of the Creation.

We believe that God created the heavens and the earth, including all life “each after its own kind”, by direct act in six literal 24 hour days and not by the process of evolution.

(Gen 1:11-12; 20-25; Exodus 20:8-11; Col 1:16, 17; John 1:3)

Article V – Of the Fall of Man.

We believe that man, in the person of the first Adam, was created in innocence but by voluntary transgression fell into sin thus plunging the whole race into condemnation and death, so that now all mankind is born in sin and shaped in iniquity and become practical sinners with the first expression of personal choice, not by constraint, but by choice and so are without excuse before God.

(Gen 3; Ps 51:5; Isa 64:6; Jer 17:9; Rom 3:10-12; 23; 5:10-19)

Article VI – Of the Atonement for Sin.

We believe that the only escape from the condemnation of sin is through the atonement accomplished by Jesus Christ, when He voluntarily took upon Him a human body and nature, yet without sin, and by His suffering, death and resurrection made full satisfaction to the justice of God for the sin of man; that the blessings of this salvation are given on the grounds of God’s grace to all who believe in and receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.

(John 1:1-3, 12,14; 3:1-7, 16-17; Heb 2:17; 10;4-14; Acts 16:30-33; 1Jn2:1-2)

Article VII – Of Salvation by Grace.

We believe that faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only condition of salvation from sin and that this salvation is wholly by grace; that no works, however good, can make that salvation more secure.

(Acts 16:31; Eph 2:8,9; Titus 3:5-7; Rom 10:9-13)

Article VIII – Of the permanence of salvation

We believe that all who take Christ as their Savior and Lord are born from above and are eternally secure in that salvation. 

(Jn 10:28,29;  Rom 8:35-39;  Phil 1:6)

 

Article IX – Of the Church.

Section 1:

We believe that the church universal is a New testament institution; a mystery to the Old testament prophets; established by Jesus Christ, who is it’s sole Head; revealed through the holy Apostles; empowered and perpetuated by the Holy Spirit;  composed of believers in Jesus Christ as savior, both Jew and Gentile, called out from the world and indwelt by the Holy Spirit; His “body” for service and his “bride” for glory.  It began with the New Testament saints and will be consummated at the coming of Christ in the Rapture. (Matt 16:18; Acts 1:8; 2:1-13, 41-47; 15:14; Rom 16:26; I Cor 12:12-28; Eph 1:22,23; 3:21; 5:23-33; I Thess 4:13-18)

Section 2:

We believe that the Church universal is manifest through the local Church which is a congregation of immersed believers, associated by covenant of faith and fellowship of the Gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by His laws; exercising the gifts, rights and privileges invested in it by His word; that its officers are elders (or pastors) and deacons; that it has the absolute right of self-government directed by the holy Spirit and it is answerable only to Christ, and that in all matters of membership, policy, government, discipline and benevolence the will of the local church is final.

(Matt 18:15-17; I Cor 1:2; 6:4,5; 7:17; 11:16; ITim 3:1-15)

Article X – Of the Ordinances.

We believe that there are two church ordinances: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

                Section 1:

Baptism is the immersion of the believer in water and is properly called “Believer’s Baptism”. It symbolizes in a beautiful and solemn way our faith in a crucified, buried and risen Savior, through whom  we have died to sin and have been raised to newness of life.  (matt 28:18-20; Acts 2:38; 8:36-39)

                Section 2:

The Lord’s Supper is the commemoration of our Lord’s death until He comes and our continual fellowship with Him, and should always be preceded by careful self-examination (Luke 22:19-20; I Cor 11:23-32)

Article XI – of the Righteous and Wicked

We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, are truly righteous in God’s sight while all such who continue unrepentant and in unbelief are in His sight wicked, and under the curse, and that this distinction holds among men both in and after death, in the everlasting happiness of the saved and the everlasting conscious suffering of the lost.

(Mal 3:18; Rom 6:17-23; Matt 25:34-41; Lk 6:25; Jn 8:21)

Article XII – Of the Return of Christ.

We believe in the bodily, personal, premillennial return of Jesus Christ; that He will come in the air before and near the end of the age (when the wrath of God is poured out on this world) to catch away His Church, to judge the living nations and to set up His Millennial Kingdom.

(I Thess 4:13-18; Matt 25:31-46; Rev 19;11-21)

Article XIII – Of the resurrection

We believe in the resurrection of the bodies of the dead that believers who sleep in Jesus will be raised at the coming of Christ for his Church and caught up with the transformed living saints to meet the Lord in the air, and that the wicked dead will be raised at the close of the Millennial Kingdom and stand in their bodies at the Great white Throne Judgment to receive their final doom.  (Jn 5:21-30; IThess 4:16; Rev 7:9-17; 20:11-15)