Doctrinal Statement

The Bible, the Word of God
The Bible, in its 66 canonical books in their original languages, is a divine revelation. It is the inspired, infallible Word of God (PSA 119:89, PRO 30:5-6, JOH 10:35, 2TI 3:16, 2PE 1:20-21).

The Triune God
There is one Triune God existing in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is equal in essence and authority and each possesses all the same attributes and perfection (DEU 6:4, 2CO 13:14).

The Depravity of Man
Man is created in the image of God. Through Adam's original sin, the entire human race is born spiritually dead. At birth, every person is born with a sin nature. The sin nature alienates mankind from God. Man is not qualified to redeem himself or restore his fallen condition (GEN 11:26-27; ROM 3:22-23; ROM 3:5-12; EPH 2:12).

The Person & Work of Christ
The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man while maintaining His essential Deity. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary to reveal God, redeem man, and resolve the invisible struggle among the angels by the total defeat of Satan. We believe that Jesus Christ fully accomplished our redemption through His substitutionary sacrificial spiritual death on the Cross. The Father accepted totally the pouring out of His soul unto spiritual death (ISA 53:9-12) as the propitiation of sins. The Father's acceptance of His death is dramatized and realized by His literal physical resurrection from the dead (LUK 1:35; JOH 1:1; ROM 3:24-26; ROM 4:24-25; 1CO 15:1-4; 2CO 5:21; HEB 9:22; HEB 13:20-21; 1PE 1:3-5; 1PE 1:18-20; 1PE 2:24; 1PE 3:18). We further believe that even now, the Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven having been supremely exalted by God the Father. He sits at the right hand of God where He fulfills the ministry of Great High Priest, intercessor, and advocate for believers. Jesus Christ is the irrefutably acknowledged Head of the Church, which is His body. He will return to crush all the enemies of God (ROM 8:34, EPH 1:19-23, HEB 7:25-27, 1JO 1:1-2).

The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is a person, and not merely a force. He convicts the world of the sin of unbelief, restrains evil from its ultimate manifestation, glorifies Christ and guides believers into all truth (JOH 16:7-14). We believe that at the point of personal faith in Christ the Spirit baptizes each individual into interminable union with Christ. He permanently indwells, seals, and regenerates each believer. It is the duty of each believer to walk by means of the Spirit and neither quench nor grieve Him (ROM 8:9; 1CO 12:12-13; GAL 3:26-29; GAL 5:16; EPH 1:12-14; EPH 4:30; EPH 5:18; TIT 3:5-6).

Salvation
Eternal salvation is the gift of God received upon the sinner's non-meritorious faith in Jesus Christ. Christ's accomplished redemption on the cross provided man's reconciliation to God. (JOH 3:15-16; JOH 5:24; JOH 6:40; JOH 6:47; JOH 20:31; ACT 16:31; ROM 3:24-25; ROM 5:11; ROM 5:16; 2CO 5:18-21; EPH 2:8-9).

The Eternal Security of the Believer
All believers are secure forever. All believers have the right to personal assurance of their eternal security and there is no such thing as a believer in Christ losing his salvation. (JOH 10:27-30; ROM 8:1; ROM 8:38-39; 1CO 1:4-8; 1TH 5:23-24; HEB 10:14).

The Church
The church, which is Christ's body, is made up of all born-again persons of this present age. The Church is a spiritual organism, and all believers are in union with Christ as the body of Christ, irrespective of secondary affiliation with Christian denominations or organizations (1CO 12:12-14, EPH 1:22).

Satan
The Bible acknowledges the personal identity of Satan who is the openly declared adversary of God and man (JOB 1:6-7, ISA 14:12-17, 1PE 5:8). Satan is also the ruler of this present world (EPH 2:2; 2CO 4:4; JOH 12:31; JOH 14:30; JOH 16:11).

Dispensations
A dispensation is a period of human history explained in terms of divine revelation. History is defined as a series of administrations or eras. Each dispensation reflects the unfolding of God's plan for mankind and constitutes divine viewpoint of history. Understanding dispensations is a means by which believers during a specific time can orient to God's will, plan, and purpose for their lives (EPH 1:7-11; EPH 3:16; ROM 16:25-26; COL 1:26; JOH 1:16-17).

The Blessed Hope
We believe that the next great event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the air. He will receive to Himself believers who have died and believers who are alive at His coming. Also known as the "Rapture" or "Translation of the Church" (1CO 15:51-57; 1TH 4:13-18; TIT 2:11-14).

The Tribulation
The rapture of the Church will be followed by the fulfillment of Israel's seventieth week. The latter half of this seven-year period is the time of Jacob's trouble, the Great Tribulation (JER 30:7, DAN 9:27, MAT 24:15-21, REV 6:17).

The Second Coming of Christ
The Great Tribulation will be climaxed by the (pre-millennial) return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth to set up His kingdom (ZEC 14:4-11, MAT 24:15-25, 2TH 1:7-10, REV 20:6).

The Eternal State
Those who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation immediately pass into His presence at the moment of physical death and so will be with in heaven in a resurrection body forever.  Those who have rejected Christ will be cast into the eternal Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to be salted with everlasting destruction and banished from the presence of the Lord forever (LUK 16:19-26; LUK 23:43; 2CO 5:8; PHI 1:23; 2TH 1:7-9; JUD 6:7; REV 20:11-15).

The Responsibility of the Believer
Once born again, the believer is to desire the sincere milk of the Word. Continually nourished by it, he may grow spiritually in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is God's desire that first every man be saved, and secondly that every believer in Christ come to intimately know Him through the inculcation of the Word of God (1TI 2:4). The effectual work of God's Word brings the believer into adjustment with God's purpose, plan, and will. The internal execution of God's Word brings glory to the Lord (ROM 12:1-2, 2CO 13:9, 1TI 4:6, 1PE 2:2, 2PE 3:18).

Church Ordinance
The Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Supper to be observed until His return (1CO 11:23-36).

Sovereignty
God, existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is sovereign. He exercises supreme and absolute rule over all creation as a part of, and consistent with, the essence and attributes of deity (1CH 29:11-12, DAN 4:35, PSA 24:1, EPH 1:11, 1TI 6:15). God has foreknown, elected, and predestined every one of His saved children before the foundation of the world (EPH 1:4-5; 1PE 1:1-2; 2TI 1:9; 2TH 2:13; ROM 8:29-30). It is also true that each saved child has in time, through his own free-will and self-determination, believed in Christ as his personal Savior (EPH 2:8-9; ROM 3:22, 28; 4:5, and over a hundred other passages). In the Bible, no writer even attempts to explain this enigma, though many writers outside of the Bible have attempted it. We stand with the scripture and do not attempt to fill in the blank. If God leaves it blank, then so do we. 

Spirituality

Though salvation is the result of one decision to believe, spirituality is the result of continuous decisions to depend upon the Holy Spirit in learning and living the word of God through study and obedience, i.e. becoming Christlike. The believer is mandated not to quench nor to grieve the Spirit by personal sin and by rejection of His grace and power. In addition, the believer is to walk by means of the Spirit for the purpose of producing the Spirit's fruit in his life (GAL 5:22-23), and when he does, the Spirit will "fill him" in the endeavor of being like His Lord. This power of the Spirit is not a feeling or an emotion. The believer trusts the Spirit by faith to instruct, lead, and empower him in the way of Christ. The power to overcome personal sin is found in laying sin aside, knowing that all sin has been forgiven (EPH 1:7; COL 2:13-14; 1JO 1:9), and by faith running the race that God laid before us (HEB 12:1-3). 

Spiritual Gifts
God the Holy Spirit, in grace and apart from human merits, administers one or more spiritual gifts to believers in this dispensation. We believe that some of the gifts listed in the New Testament were temporary, being only in existence in the early church (1CO 12:13, EPH 4:7-12, ROM 12:4-8).