 |
 |
 |
||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
 |
Statement of Faith
There is only one living and true God, independent, self-dependent, and unchanging in His character and nature; He is not static nor impassible, but dynamic, expressively engaged with His creation. He is without external restriction or limitation, and thus infinite as to time (everlastingness), space (omnipresence), ability (able to do all things consistent with His character and will), and knowledge (He knows everything through and through). He is singular (unique, one of a kind) and simple (fully integrated, wholly involved in whatever He says and does). He is a personal Spirit, not physically defined, but with all facets of personhood found in Him. He is utterly perfect in His goodness, justice, mercy, holiness, faithfulness, and truthfulness. He is awesome and glorious, praiseworthy for all He is and all He does.
To His covenant people this God is known personally as He reveals Himself through His various names, particularly as YHWH, as Father-Son-Holy Sprit, or as God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is one, although His unity is complex, existing in three persons (or personal centers) – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – each of whom is of the same Divine substance or essence, each sharing with the other an eternal, perfect, joyful, and fulfilling communion. Though of equal majesty, dignity, and honor, these three exist also in a hierarchical pattern, the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both.
This triune God by a free creative act in the beginning, in order that He might manifest and share His Divine glory, brought into being the entire universe without use of pre-existing material, and gave to it an existence dependent continually on His will, yet distinct from His own existence. By His Divine energy, He maintains all creatures in their being, directs all things to the end to which He appoints them, and is concurrently active in all events.
God created man male and female in His own image, this image-bearing in man consisting of his rationality, creativity, capacity for relationships, control of his environment, and righteousness. Man was created in order that he would worship, love, and serve God, love and serve his fellow-man, and exercise loving dominion over the earth, In so doing he would grow in happiness, maturity, and fulfillment as man as he was meant to be.
God made a promise with the first man, Adam, and in Adam to Adam’s seed, that conditional upon perfect obedience, he would experience continued life and its benefits, and upon failure to live obediently, he would experience death, both in the sense of temporal physical death, relational alienation from God, and brokenness in human relationships and callings.
Adam, created with an original righteousness, with the power and freedom to choose that which is good and lawful, disobeyed God, and fell from his original condition, into a state of sin and misery, characterized by alienation from God, from other creatures, from himself, and from creation. The former power and freedom to choose good was consequently replaced by a powerful bent towards disobedience. This anti-God bent is called sin and is characterized by radical self-centeredness, law-breaking, and a falling short and missing of the mark. Sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin. With him and in him, Adam’s posterity, the entire human race, also fell into a state of sin and misery. In his fallen state man is helpless either to change his sinful nature or to undo the penal guilt derived both from his own sin and his being united with Adam. Sin has corrupted him in all aspects of his life, and to the core of his being. This corruption has rendered him incapable of responding properly to God, not having the power or inclination to do so. His destiny is physical death and eternal separation from his Creator, who has placed him under the accusing power of the prince of sin, Satan himself.
God has not left man alone, lost in his fallen state, without a witness to Himself, without a prospect of being re-united to God. In His love and mercy, God has made Himself known. All men, by virtue of being alive in God’s world, have inklings of God as Creator, Law-giver, Judge, and Object of worship. Yet, this knowledge is willfully suppressed and perverted by all men in this fallen condition, and is thus incomplete and ineffective, and issues only in rendering him without excuse. Yet man, even in his fallenness, because of his divine image-bearing, remains capable of communicating rationally, considering arguments, evaluating testimony, and receiving intelligently a more direct revelation from God, if He were to reveal Himself. This divine-image bearing as well renders man capable of a modicum of order and direction in this world, capable by God’s providence of setting up a state of affairs conductive to the reception and spread of His revelation.
God has indeed revealed himself in a special way in order that the purpose of man’s creation can be realized through knowledge of and communion with Him. God has revealed Himself in saving acts. That the world might know the truth about His saving work, God has caused accounts and interpretations of it to be given and recorded through His prophets and apostles. These accounts make up the Bible, or Scripture, which is God-breathed, that is, God’s words in men’s mouths, His words in the form of their words. These accounts are objective and are available for men in order that they may learn of Him. But God must still reveal the Bible-truth subjectively to the heart to those who interact with it. This revelation is a direct work, whereby a sinful man is made capable of grasping the truth and meaning of what is said, the Source of it, and is thereby able to receive by faith the promise and witness of Scripture.
This Biblical Revelation is chiefly an account of the person, teaching, and saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternally-begotten Son, co-equal with God, sharing in the Divine essence with the Father and Holy Spirit. It pleased God, in order to bring many sons to glory, (His Son willingly cooperating with His loving purpose), to set apart His only Son, that He might enter into the world of fallen man, take on human flesh, live a life of perfect righteousness in fulfillment of God’s law, be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, receiving upon Himself as a penal substitute the full wrath of God toward sin, die, be buried, rise again with a new body, and ascend into heaven in bodily form, as glorified King and Priest and Judge, to intercede continually on behalf of those for whom He died. This Jesus was and remains fully human, fully divine, an integrated single personality, without confusion and separation, who manifests both the nature and character of God and the nature and character of man.
All which this Jesus has procured for sinful men as a result of His offering of Himself is grounded in His penal substitutionary atonement, whereby He took upon Himself the curse of the law, the full retribution against sin in the place of those sinful men for whom He came.
To sinful man, lost in his sin and misery, God reveals Himself personally through the person of the Holy Spirit, calling individual sinners out of that state of sin and death, to peace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds to understand the gospel, quickening them spiritually, renewing their wills, rendering them capable of repenting of their sins, and giving them the ability and desire to believe in Him and trust singularly in His saving work done on their behalf.
Through repentant trust in the promises of God in Christ, man is justified, acquitted of original and actual guilt, Christ’s righteousness being imputed to him, his guilt having been imputed to Christ on the cross. Through this justification he is reconciled to his Father in heaven. The mutual enmity is removed and fellowship re-established. He is adopted, made to be a son and joint-heir with and through Christ. He is redeemed, set free from bondage to sin and guilt through the blood of Jesus, and released from the accusing power and dominion of Satan. Through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, sin no longer has dominion over him, and he grows in righteousness, more and more able and willing to live in conformity to the law of God, yet continually harassed and tempted by the values of the fallen world, the devil and his demons, and the residue of sin which remains in the not-yet resurrected body.
The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the triune Godhead is integrally involved in all of the works of God. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and Son to execute the will of both. As an agent in God’s work of salvation, the Spirit acted in the conception of the Lord Jesus, in empowering His ministry, and in raising Him from the dead. He is the agent who calls God’s chosen ones, creates faith and new life, indwells, empowers, and gifts the believer, and creates the possibility of prayerful communion between the believer and God. He is dynamically active in the believer’s life comforting, encouraging, strengthening, convicting, and healing, yet always causing the believer to magnify not Himself, the Spirit, but the Father and the Son.
Those people in whom this Holy Spirit has wrought effectual calling, and to whom the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection are applied, make up the church of Christ universal. This church is known variously as God’s covenant people through Christ, God’s new creation in Christ, the community of the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ. This church is called to worship, bear witness, work and wait for the coming of Christ. It is to be salt and light to the world. Sacramentally, the Church bears witness to Christ and the benefits available through the work of Christ through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Each local congregation stands as a particular outcropping of the one universal church of Christ. The essential elements which constitute a local church are the ministry of the Word and Sacraments. Church discipline properly exercised, public worship, every-member-ministry, and outreach are also key elements of a local church body.
Death for an individual marks the end of physical life in this body, and the end of that period of time in which choices are made which have eternal consequence. At death the soul and the body separate, the body retuning to dust. For the believer, a closer communion with Christ exists after death as the soul or spirit enters into the presence of the risen Christ. For the unregenerate, there exists a deeper degree of torment after death, as the soul is separated from the presence of God.
At the end of time, and at the time of the Father’s choosing, the risen Christ will return to earth, initiating a series of events associated with the end of the age – His final coming, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the restoration of all things in the New Heaven and New Earth.
At that time, the risen and exalted Jesus Christ, will return to earth personally, physically, visibly, suddenly, and triumphantly, accompanied by the souls of those saints who have died in him. At His coming he will gather from the earth those who are His and bring judgment upon those who are not. This coming will inaugurate the final eschaton, the end of time, the final setting up of the kingdom of God in the New Heaven and New Earth. His coming will be in glory and splendor, and will expose everything in its light. The dead who are in Christ will rise, redeemed soul and resurrected body united, to live with Him forever in the New Heaven and New Earth. The dead apart from Christ will also rise unto judgment, only to be cast away unto eternal existence separated from the goodness and loving presence of God. The bodies of those saints who are alive when Jesus returns will be transformed in a moment into new resurrection bodies equipped for life in the New Heaven and New Earth.
On resurrection day, the dead in Christ will receive a new physical body, perfectly suited for life and communication in the New Heaven and New Earth, this body related to the former body as a flower to the seed from which it came. This final state will consist of human beings fully realized, free from all pain and sin and evil, in ever maturing worship, love and service of God, love for one another, and work in a glorious and renewed heaven and earth.
On resurrection day, the dead without Christ will rise to judgment, whereby final ratification of their anti-God choice will take place, and they will be sentenced to a life of torment, separated from life in the Son, whom even they acknowledge as Lord, to the glory of God. Death and Satan will be cast forever into the lake of fire, never again to torment the redeemed of God. |
 |
|
 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
