Church Beliefs

 THE TRIUNE GOD

We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. This one true and living God is worthy to receive all glory and adoration.

God the Father

We believe in God the Father, an infinite, personal spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power and love. We believe that He infallibly foreknows all that shall come to pass, that He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of each person, that He hears and answers prayer, and that He saves from sin and death all who come to Him through Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ

We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit. We believe in His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles and teachings. We believe in His substitutionary atoning death, bodily resurrection, ascension into heaven, perpetual intercession for His people, and personal visible return to earth.

We believe in the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross: dying in our place, paying the price of sin and defeating evil so all who repent and trust in Jesus Christ are reconciled with God. We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which vindicated Him, defeated death, and secured eternal life for His people. The justification of sinners is solely by the grace of God through faith in Christ.

The Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit who came forth from the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement and to regenerate, sanctify and empower all who believe in Jesus Christ. We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Christ, and that he is an abiding helper, teacher and guide.

REVELATION

We believe that God reveals himself in the works of his hands and the words of his mouth. We believe that creation itself declares the glory of God and reveals his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature. We believe that God has spoken at many times and in many ways by the prophets, which writings have been gathered together into sixty-six books called The Bible. We believe that God has inspired the words of the Old and New Testaments, which writings alone constitute the Word of God, utterly authoritative, 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 ultimately reveals to us the person and work of Jesus, God’s Son. We believe that God has spoke in these last days by his Son, who most fully revealed the character and will of God to all humanity and has given the world this promise, that all who believe in him and call on his name will be saved.

CREATION OF HUMANITY

We believe that God created human beings in his own image with inherent and equal dignity and worth. We believe God created us male and female, which is identified by our biological sex, distinct as two genders. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. We believe that God created us as relational beings, both to know and love God, and to love and serve one another. We believe that our greatest purpose and satisfaction is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. As we are made in God’s image as relational beings, our union with one another also reflects God himself as relational by nature, and also our union with God. We believe that God thus gave marriage as the exclusive union of one man and one woman and as a picture of the relationship between Christ and his bride the church. We believe that sexual intimacy is a gift from God as affection to be enjoyed only within the context of marriage, but as to love, we believe the greatest expression of love is sacrifice, as demonstrated by Jesus on the cross, and such sacrificial selfless love is to be the mark of his disciples. We believe that men and women, equally made in the image of God, are all and equally called to come to God by faith in Christ Jesus because of his sacrifice for us.

THE FALL

We believe that Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, distorted that image and forfeited their original blessedness – for themselves and all their progeny – by falling into sin through Satan's temptation. As a result, all human beings are alienated from God, corrupted in every aspect of their being and condemned to death-apart from God's own gracious intervention. It became the default of the human heart to judge for itself what is good and evil, yet the human heart itself is not able to judge rightly or desire purely. We believe that the heart of humanity has become hardened and corrupt, not seeking after God nor doing what is righteous.

THE PLAN OF GOD

We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end he foreknew them and chose them, all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love God commands and implores all people to repent and believe, having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer, who forgives their sins, gives them a new heart, makes them a new creation by his Spirit which he pours out on those who trust in Christ and call on his name.

THE GOSPEL

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 centres on the cross and resurrection of Christ. This gospel he has entrusted to his church, to guard and proclaim and entrust to other faithful believers.

THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST

We believe that, moved by love, the Word became flesh, fully God and fully human being, one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, was conceived through the Holy Spirit and was born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified, rose on the third day and ascended into heaven as our representative and substitute. On the cross he cancelled the debt of sin and reconciled to God all those who believe. By his resurrection Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power of death, defeated Satan, 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.

THE JUSTIFICATION OF SINNERS

We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the punishment due us for our sins. By his perfect obedience, he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God.

THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

We believe that this salvation is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and, as "another Helper," is present with and in believers. 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, baptizing them into union with the Lord Jesus.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

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. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace. Living as salt in a decaying world and light in a dark world, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world nor become indistinguishable from it. Rather, we are to do good to the city, for all the glory and honour of the nations is to be offered up to the living God.

GOD'S NEW PEOPLE

We believe that God's new covenant people is manifest in local churches of which Christ is the only Head. The church is distinguished by her gospel message, her sacred ordinances, her discipline, her great mission, and, above all, by her love for God through Jesus his Son, and by her members' love for one another and for the world.

BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER

We believe that Baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Baptism shows our unity with Christ in his death and resurrection, and the Lord’s Supper shows our unity in his body and blood, that we all eat from one loaf, as we are all part of one body, and we drink from one drink, as we are all only saved by one blood. These are God's pledge to us and our public submission to Christ.

THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS

We believe in the glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ, both as Saviour to all who call on his name, and appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead, which he proved by raising him from the dead. We believe that he first came as light to those in darkness, not to judge but to seek and save the lost, which he made known to all mankind by his incarnation, his life, his words and deeds, his death and resurrection, his Spirit which he sent and his gospel to all the earth. We believe that he ascended to his rightful place at the right hand of God, that all his enemies may be put under his feet and that he may be exalted above all things. We believe that his glorious appearing will result in every knee bowing and every tongue confessing that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We believe in the resurrection of both the just and the unjust - the unjust to eternal conscious punishment in hell and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by Christ, and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.