What we believe


The Tri-une God

We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine, unified 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 and is worthy to receive all glory and adoration.3

 


Revelation

We believe that God has graciously disclosed his existence and power in creation and has supremely revealed himself in the person of his Son, the incarnate Word. God has also revealed himself in his written Word, the wholly authoritative, inerrant sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. The Bible is inspired in its very words, 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. The Bible is to be believed, as God’s perfect 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.4

 


Creation

We believe God created all things, with a word, out of nothing. As Creator, God remains active within his creation causing all things to find their ultimate end in the glory of his name. We believe that among all the created order God uniquely created men and women in his image and for his glory. Equal yet different, Adam and Eve were brought together in a one-flesh marriage union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women. In God’s wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. 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 significant private and public engagement in family, Church, and civic life.5

 


The Fall

We believe that Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, distorted that image and forfeited their original purity by falling into sin through Satan’s temptation. As a result of sin, all creation is cursed and all human beings are alienated from God, corrupted, and condemned finally and irrevocably to death. The supreme need of all human beings is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand.6

 


The Gospel

We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—God’s plan from eternity past to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation through the person and work of Jesus Christ. We believe that the eternal Son became flesh: fully God and fully human, one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah, 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, was crucified to satisfy God’s just wrath, arose bodily from the dead, and ascended into heaven. We believe that the cross of Christ is the only means by which we can be made right with God, whereby God provides imputed righteousness on the basis of Christ’s righteousness and atoning death. In love, God commands and implores all people to repent and believe in Jesus, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. God justifies and sanctifies those who by grace alone place faith in Jesus and will one day glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace.7

 


The Church

We believe that those who have been saved by God and regenerated by the Holy Spirit comprise the Church and are one Body, having Christ as their Lord, God’s glory as their aim, and the proclamation of his gracious forgiveness as their mission. 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 family of God, the bride of Christ, the assembly of the living God, the body of Christ, 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 the world. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has committed two ordinances to the local Church, Believer’s Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We believe that these two ordinances should be observed and administered until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.8

 


The Restoration of All Things

We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 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, with all sin and its wretched effects forever banished.9

1 Jude 1:3 
This document represents our understanding of the dominant teachings of Scripture. It is a compilation of numerous doctrinal statements. It is largely adapted from the Gospel Coalition’s Confessional Statement, which is part of their Founding Documents. These Founding Documents were adopted by the Council of The Gospel Coalition on May 22, 2007, and revised on April 12, 2011. Used by permission of The Gospel Coalition (thegospelcoaltion.org), Deerfield, IL 60015. Other doctrinal statements influencing this statement include, but are not limited to, Whitton Avenue Bible Church’s 2008 Statement of Faith, The Apostles’ Creed, The Nicene Creed, the London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689, and the Westminster Larger/Shorter Catechisms
Deut. 6:4; Jn. 20:28; Acts 5:3-4; Ro. 11:36; Col. 2:9
Ps. 19:7-9; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21; 3:16
Gen. 1:26-27; 2:18, 24; Mat. 19:4-6; 1 Cor. 7:39; Heb. 13:4
Gen. 1:27; 3:1-13; Eccl. 7:29; Rom. 3:5; 11; 12-21; 8:7-8; Eph. 2:1-8
Lk. 14:25-26; 22:69; Jn. 1:1-3, 14; Acts 3:20-23; 11:18; Ro. 5:6, 18-19; 8:31-34; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:21; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 2:6-8; 3:9; Heb. 4:15; 5:5-6
Mt. 18:15-20; 28:19-20; Acts 2:42; 1 Cor. 10:31; 11:23-26; 12:4-7; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:11-12; Col. 1:18; 2 Tim. 4:1-3
Mt. 24:31; 25:46; Mk. 9:43-48; 1 Thes. 4:15-17; 2 Thes. 1:9; 2 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 21