Much of this affirmation of faith is rooted in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith*, linking us to the historical Christian doctrines documented during the Protestant Reformation. Through this document it is our desire to positively affirm our beliefs with the goal of greater clarity and unity.

1.1 We believe that the cause of unity in the church is best served, not by finding the lowest common denominator of doctrine, around which all can gather, but by elevating the value of truth. We believe in seeking the unity that comes from the truth, and then demonstrating to the world how Christians can love each other across boundaries rather than by removing boundaries. In this way, the importance of truth is served by the existence of doctrinal borders, and unity is served by the way we love others across those borders.

1.2 We do not claim infallibility for this affirmation and are open to refinement and correction from Scripture. Yet we do hold firmly to these truths as we see them and call on others to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. As conversation and debate take place, it may be that we will learn from each other, and the boundaries will be adjusted, even possibly folding formerly disagreeing groups into closer fellowship.We do not believe that all things in this affirmation of faith are of equal weight, some being more essential, some less. We do not believe that every part of this affirmation must be believed in order for one to be saved.

1.3 Our aim is not to discover how little can be believed, but rather to embrace and teach “the whole counsel of God.” Our aim is to encourage a hearty adherence to the Bible, the fulness of its truth, and the glory of its Author. We believe Biblical doctrine stabilizes saints in the winds of confusion and strengthens the church in her mission to meet the great systems of false religion and secularism. We believe that the supreme virtue of love is nourished by the strong meat of God-centered doctrine. And we believe that a passion for the God glory in everything, the evangelization of the lost, and the growth of the body of Christ is best sustained in an atmosphere of deep and joyful knowledge of God and His wonderful works.

NOTE: The many Biblical descriptions of God’s work in salvation are diverse. Therefore, similar or identical terms may be used differently in different contexts. Our aim in this affirmation of faith is not to limit how Biblical writers can use the terms we use here, or to say that the terms of this affirmation may not be used differently by the Biblical writers in various contexts, but rather our aim is to claim that the reality described here is in fact Biblical reality.

1. God's Word, The Bible

1.1 We believe that God has graciously disclosed his existence and power in the created order, and has supremely revealed himself to fallen humanity in the person of his Son, the incarnate Word. Moreover, God is a speaking God, who by his Spirit has graciously disclosed himself in human words.

1.2 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 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. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction and is the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. In matters not addressed by the Bible, what is true and right is assessed by criteria consistent with the teachings of Scripture.

1.3 We confess that both our limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often obscure Biblical texts and preclude the possibility of knowing God’s truth exhaustively. Therefore, the process of discovering the intention of God in the Bible (which is its fullest meaning) is a humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture what God through the human authors intended to communicate.

1.4 We believe therefore that the work of the Holy Spirit is essential for right understanding of the Bible, and prayer for His assistance belongs to a proper effort to understand and apply God’s Word. We affirm that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can know God’s revealed truth truly. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

1.5 We believe the meaning of Biblical texts is a fixed historical reality, rooted in the historical, unchangeable intentions of its divine and human authors. God’s intentions are revealed through the intentions of inspired human authors, even when the authors’ intention was to express divine meaning of which they were not fully aware, as, for example, in the case of some Old Testament prophecies. Additionally, while meaning does not change, the application of that meaning may change in various situations. Nevertheless it is not legitimate to infer a meaning from a Biblical text that is not demonstrably carried by the words which God inspired.

1.6 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.

2. The Triune God

2.1 We believe in one living, sovereign, and all-glorious God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: God the Father, fountain of all being; God the Son, eternally begotten, not made, without beginning, being of one essence with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit, proceeding in the full, divine essence, as a Person, eternally from the Father and the Son, who know, love, and glorify one another. Thus each Person in the Godhead is fully and completely God.

2.2 We believe this one true and living God is infinitely perfect in his love, in his holiness, and in any other attribute we could name of him. God is supremely joyful in the fellowship of the Trinity, each Person beholding and expressing His eternal and unsurpassed delight in the all-satisfying perfections of the triune God.

2.3 We believe this triune God 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.

3. Creation of the Universe and Humanity

3.1 We believe that God created the universe, and everything in it, out of nothing, by the Word of His power, in six days. Having no deficiency in Himself, nor moved by any incompleteness in His joyful self-sufficiency, God was pleased in creation to display His glory for the everlasting joy of the redeemed, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

3.2 We believe that God directly created Adam from the dust of the ground and Eve from his side. We believe that Adam and Eve were the historical parents of the entire human race; that they were created male and female equally in the image of God, without sin; that they were created to glorify their Maker, Ruler, Provider, and Friend by trusting His all-sufficient goodness, admiring His infinite beauty, enjoying His personal fellowship, and obeying His all-wise counsel.

3.3 We believe that Adam and Eve belonged to the created order that God himself declared to be “very good," serving as God’s agents to care for, subdue, manage, and govern creation, living in holy and devoted fellowship with their Maker.

3.4 We believe that in God’s love and wisdom 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.

3.5 We believe the home is the first vehicle through which God desires ministry to be expressed. With complete equality between husband and wife, we believe the husband, as the designated spiritual head of the home, is the defacto leader of the family. As such, the husband is the first to sacrifice for the needs of the family for the purpose of bringing spiritual maturity to those under his responsibility.

3.6 We believe the Church is to aide and equip the home to proclaim Christ to both the family in particular and society in general. In an effort to maintain consistency of expression from the home to the church, we desire the leadership of the church to mirror that of the home by exhibiting equality with a strong male tone.

3.7 We believe that Men and women, equally made in the image of God yet imbibing different roles, 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; proclaiming the Gospel of Christ.

4. The Fall

4.1 We believe that, although God created man morally upright and in His own image, he was led astray from God’s Word and wisdom by the subtlety of Satan’s deceit, and chose to take what was forbidden, and thus declare his independence from, distrust for, and disobedience toward his all-good and gracious Creator. Thus, our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original innocence and communion with God.

4.2 We believe that, as the head of the human race, Adam’s fall became the fall of all his posterity, in such a way that corruption, guilt, death, and condemnation belong properly to every person. As a result, all persons are thus alienated from God, subjected to the rule of Satan, corrupt in every aspect of their being (e.g., physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually), enslaved to sin, and no longer morally capable to carry out God’s original purposes for mankind and delighting in God. Being overcome by their own proud preference for the fleeting pleasures of self-rule mankind is condemned finally and irrevocably to death—apart from God’s own gracious intervention.

4.3 We believe God has subjected the creation to futility, and the entire human family is made justly liable to untold miseries of sickness, decay, calamity, and loss. Thus all the adversity and suffering in the world is an echo and a witness of the exceedingly great evil of moral depravity in the heart of mankind; and every new day of life is a God-given, merciful reprieve from imminent judgment, pointing to repentance.

4.4 We believe therefore that the supreme need of all mankind is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of all humanity is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and restore us to Himself.

5. The Plan of God

5.1 We believe that God, from all eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever-increasing enjoyment of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknowwhatever comes to pass.

5.2 We believe that God upholds and governs all things – from galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary persons – all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself, yet in such a way that He never sins, nor ever condemns a person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image.

5.3 We believe that God’s election is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, unchangeable and unconditional. It excludes boasting and promotes humility, since it is an act of free grace which was given through God’s Son, Christ Jesus, before the world began, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. By this act God, before the foundation of the world, set His love on those who would be delivered from bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in His Son Christ Jesus.

5.4 We believe that the plan of God is to justify and sanctify those who by grace have faith alone in Jesus, and that he will one day glorify them--all to the praise of his glorious grace. Furthermore, all of God's activity is for the purpose of glorifying himself.

5.5 We believe all true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

6. The Gospel of Jesus Christ

6.1 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 entirely centered on Christ. 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.

6.2 We believe 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).

7. The Redemption of Christ

7.1 We believe that, moved by love and in obedience to his Father, the eternal Son became human. In the fullness of time God sent forth His eternal Son as Jesus the Messiah, conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary.

7.2 We believe that, when the eternal Son became flesh, He took on a fully human nature, so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one Person, without confusion or mixture. Thus the Person, Jesus Christ, was and is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ and the only Mediator between God and man.

7.3 We believe that Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father, lived a sinless life, though He endured the common infirmities and temptations of human life. He preached and taught with truth and authority unparalleled in human history. He performed miraculous signs, demonstrating His divine right and power over all creation: dispatching demons, healing the sick, raising the dead, stilling the storm, walking on water,multiplying loaves, and foreknowing what would befall Him and His disciples, including the betrayal of Judas and the denial, restoration, and eventual martyrdom of Peter.

7.3 We believe that His life was governed by His Father’s providence with a view to fulfilling all Old Testament prophecies concerning the One who was to come, such as the Seed of the woman, the Prophet like Moses, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek, the Son of David, and the Suffering Servant.

7.4 We believe that Jesus Christ suffered voluntarily in fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan, that He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that He died, was buried and arose bodily from the dead on the third day to vindicate the saving work of His life and death and to take His place as the invincible, everlasting Lord of glory. During forty days after His resurrection, He gave many compelling evidences of His bodily resurrection and then ascended bodily into heaven, where He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His people as the mediatorial King, on the basis of His all-sufficient sacrifice for sin, and reigning until He puts all His enemies under His feet.From this exalted place, Christ is exercising in heaven and on earth all of God’s sovereignty, and is our High Priest and righteous Advocate.

7.5 We believe that by his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ is 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.

8. The Justification of Sinners

8.1 We believe that by His perfect obedience to God and by His suffering and death as the immaculate Lamb of God, Jesus Christ obtained forgiveness of sins and the gift of perfect righteousness for all who trusted in God prior to the cross and all who would trust in Christ thereafter. Through living a perfect life and dying in our place, the just for the unjust, Christ absorbed our punishment, appeased the wrath of God against us, vindicated the righteousness of God in our justification, and removed the condemnation of the law against us. Thus He, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified in Him.

8.2 We believe that the atonement of Christ for sin warrants and impels a universal offering of the gospel to all persons, so that to every person it may be truly said, “God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Whosoever will may come for cleansing at this fountain, and whoever does come, Jesus will not cast out.

8.3 We believe, moreover, that the death of Christ did obtain more than the bona fide offer of the gospel for all; it also obtained the omnipotent New Covenant mercy of repentance and faith for God’s elect. Christ died for all, but not for all in the same way. In His death, Christ expressed a special covenant love to His friends, His sheep, His bride. For them He obtained the infallible and effectual working of the Spirit to triumph over their resistance and bring them to saving faith.

8.4 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. He took our sins; we received his righteousness. By faith alone the perfect obedience of Christ is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God. Inasmuch as Christ was given by the Father for us in love, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in place of our own, freely and not for anything in us, this justification is solely by grace, in order that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. The result of being justified by Christ is engagement in the sanctification process including: a zeal for personal and public holiness, obedience to the commands of Christ, and participation in evangelism.

9. The Power of the Holy Spirit

9.1 We believe that the Holy Spirit has always been at work in the world, sharing in the work of creation, awakening faith in the remnant of God’s people, performing signs and wonders, giving triumphs in battle, empowering the preaching of prophets and inspiring the writing of Scripture. Yet, when Christ had made atonement for sin, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He inaugurated a new era of the Spirit by pouring out the promise of the Father on His Church. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and is present with and in believers.

9.2 We believe that the newness of this era is marked by the unprecedented mission of the Spirit to glorify the crucified and risen Christ. This He does by giving the disciples of Jesus greater power to preach the gospel of the glory of Christ, by opening the hearts of hearers that they might see Christ and believe, by revealing the beauty of Christ in His Word and transforming His people from glory to glory, by manifesting Himself in spiritual gifts (being sovereignly free to dispense, as he wills, the gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10) for the upbuilding of the body of Christ and the confirmation of His Word, by calling all the nations into the sway of the gospel of Christ, and, in all this, thus fulfilling the New Covenant promise to create and preserve a purified people for the everlasting habitation of God.

9.3 We believe that, apart from the effectual work of the Spirit, no one would come to faith, because all are dead in trespasses and sins; that they are hostile to God, and morally unable to submit to God or please Him, because the pleasures of sin appear greater than the pleasures of God. Thus, for God’s elect, the Spirit triumphs over all resistance, wakens the dead, removes blindness,and manifests Christ in such a compellingly beautiful way through the Gospel that He becomes irresistibly attractive to the regenerate heart. 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, and in him they are baptized into union with the Lord Jesus, such that they are justified before God by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

9.4 We believe the Holy Spirit does this saving work in connection with the presentation of the Gospel of the glory of Christ. Thus neither the work of the Father in election, nor the work of the Son in atonement, nor the work of the Spirit in regeneration is a hindrance or discouragement to the proclamation of the gospel to all peoples and persons everywhere. On the contrary, this divine saving work of the Trinity is the warrant and the ground of our hope that our evangelization is not in vain in the Lord. The Spirit binds His saving work to the gospel of Christ, because His aim is to glorify the Christ of the Gospel. Therefore we do not believe that there is salvation through any other means than through receiving the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, except for the possibility that infants and severely mentally challenged persons with minds physically incapable of comprehending the gospel may be saved.

9.5. 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. 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 , exercised under the careful guidance of Scripture and the oversight of pastoral leadership.

10.The Church

10.1 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. The kingdom of God, already present but not yet fully realized, is the exercise of God’s sovereignty in the world toward the eventual redemption of all creation. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human life together under God.

10.2 We believe that this community may be seen in the one universal Church, composed of all those, in every time and place, who are united to Christ through faith by the Spirit in one Body, with Christ Himself as the all-supplying, all-sustaining, all-supreme, and all-authoritative Head. We believe that the ultimate purpose of the Church is to glorify God in the everlasting and ever-increasing gladness of worship.

10.3 We believe that the church is the body of Christ, and he has pledged himself to her forever as his bride. Eternally, He will bear marks of his sacrificial love for her on his hands. 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.

10.4 We believe it is God’s will that the universal Church find expression in local churches of which Christ is the only Head. In the gathering of local churches believers agree together to hear the Word of God proclaimed, to engage in corporate worship, to practice the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to build each other’s faith through the manifold ministries of love, to hold each other accountable in the obedience of faith through Biblical discipline, and to engage in local and world evangelization. The Church is a body in which each member should find a suitable ministry for His gifts; it is the household of God in which the Spirit dwells; it is the pillar and bulwark of God’s truth in a truth-denying world; and it is a city set on a hill so that men may see the light of its good deeds – especially to the poor– and give glory to the Father in heaven.

10.5 We believe that each local church should recognize and affirm the divine calling of a plurality of godly spiritually qualified men to give leadership to the church through the role of pastor-elder in the ministry of the Word and prayer. Women are not to fill the role of pastor-elder in the local church, but are encouraged to use their gifts in appropriate roles that edify the body of Christ and spread the gospel.

11. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

11.1 We believe that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself.

11.2 We believe that baptism, which should occur soon after initial conversion, is an ordinance of the Lord by which those who have repented and come to faith express their union with Christ in His death and resurrection, by being immersed in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a sign of belonging to the new covenant community in Christ, and an emblem of burial and cleansing, signifying death to the old life of unbelief, and purification from the pollution of sin. In Baptism the believer is buried in the water symbolizing their death and raised from the water symbolizing their new life in Christ.

11.3 We believe that the Lord’s Supper is an ordinance of the Lord in which gathered believers eat bread, and drink the cup of the Lord. The bread is taken signifying Christ’s body given for His people. He is the bread of life. The cup of wine or juice is taken representing Christ’s cleansing blood that was poured out for us on the cross, signifying the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. We do this in remembrance of the Lord, and thus proclaim His death frequently until He comes in anticipation of his return and of the consummation of all things.

11.4 We believe that both elements are to be taken after examining oneself against the Body of Christ. Those who eat and drink in a worthy manner partake of Christ’s body and blood, not physically, but spiritually, in that, by faith, they are nourished with the benefits He obtained through His death, and thus grow in grace.

12. Christ’s Commission to Make Disciples of All Nations

12.1 We believe that the commission given by the Lord Jesus to make disciples of all nations is binding on His Church to the end of the age. This task is to proclaim the Gospel to every tribe and tongue and people and nation, baptizing them, teaching them the words and ways of the Lord, and gathering them into churches.

12.2 We believe that the ultimate aim of world missions is that God would create, by His Word, worshippers who glorify His name through glad-hearted faith and obedience.When the time of ingathering is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and the goal of missions.

13. Death, Resurrection, and the Coming of the Lord

13.1 We believe that when Christians die they are made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise, and are taken consciously into the presence of Christ, which is more glorious and more satisfying than any experience on earth.

13.2 We believe in the blessed hope that at the end of the age Jesus Christ will return to this earth personally, visibly, physically, and suddenly in power and great glory, with his holy angels; and that He will gather His elect, raise the dead, exercise his role as final Judge over the nations, and consummate his kingdom.

13.3 We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The righteous will enter into everlasting joy and 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. Those who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness will be consigned to everlasting conscious misery, as our Lord himself taught.

13.3 We believe that the end of all things in this age will be the beginning of a never-ending, ever-increasing happiness in the hearts of the redeemed, as God displays more and more of His infinite and inexhaustible greatness and glory for the enjoyment of His people. Humanity will return to the perfect blessedness and communion with God that it had in the garden; yet a blessed state that will far surpass our original state because of the work of Christ. It will be very good.

Download this

page as a PDF

Anchor 1

Anchor 2

Anchor 3

Anchor 4

Anchor 5

Anchor 6

Anchor 7

Anchor 8

Anchor 9

Anchor 10

Anchor 11

Anchor 12

Anchor 13

Purpose

what we

teach

Redeeming Grace Bible Church

What We Teach

PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT