What We Believe
Our Membership Confession

The Scriptures

The Bible is the inspired Word of God and is without error in the original manuscripts. As a result, the Bible is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The whole counsel of God concerning everything essential for his own glory and man’s salvation, faith, and life is either explicitly stated or by necessary inference contained in the Holy Scriptures.

God the Holy Trinity

There is only one true and living God who exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three have the same substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence without this essence being divided. All three are infinite and without beginning and are therefore only one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being. This truth of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our fellowship with God and of our comforting dependence on him.

Humanity and Sin

God created humanity upright and perfect. He gave them a righteous law that would have led to life if they had kept it but threatened death if they broke it. Yet they did not remain for long in this position of honor. Satan craftily seduced Eve, who then shared in sin with Adam. By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. We fell in them, and through this, death came upon all. All became dead in sin and completely defiled in all the capabilities and parts of soul and body. While all people still possess great worth and dignity as creatures made in the image of God, all are yet sinners in need of a Savior.

The Person of Christ

The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is truly and eternally God. He is the brightness of the Father’s glory, the same in substance and equal with him. He made the world, and sustains and governs everything he has made. When the fullness of time came, he took upon himself human nature, with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it but without sin. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Thus, he was born of a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David in fulfillment of the Scriptures. This person is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and humanity.

The Death of Christ

The Lord Jesus most willingly undertook this office of our mediator. To execute it, he was born under the law and perfectly fulfilled it. He also experienced the punishment that we deserved and that we should have endured and suffered because of our sins. By his death, the Lord Jesus has fully satisfied the justice of God, obtained reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all who trust in him.

The Resurrection of Christ

Though he was crucified and died and remained in a state of death, on the third day Christ arose from the dead with the same body in which he suffered. In this body he also ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of his Father, interceding. He will return to judge men and angels at the end of the age.

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is truly and eternally God. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ and is present with and in all true believers. By the Spirit’s agency, believers in Christ are regenerated, awakened to faith and repentance, baptized into union with the Lord Jesus, sanctified, adopted into God’s family, empowered to live holy lives, and receive gifts to use in ministry to others.

Justification by Faith Alone

Salvation is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone; it cannot be earned through works. Faith that receives and rests on Christ and his righteousness is the only instrument of justification. Yet this faith does not occur by itself in the person justified, but is always accompanied by other fruits of God’s saving grace. It is not a dead faith but works through love.

Progressive Sanctification

Those who are united to Christ by faith have a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. They are also further sanctified, really and personally, through the same power, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them. This sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part. From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war, with the desires of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ and the Word of God, the regenerate part overcomes. So the saints grow in grace and pursue a godly life, in gospel obedience to all the commands that Christ as Head and King has given them in his Word.

The Final Judgment

God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is given by the Father. At that time believers will go into everlasting life and receive fullness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards in the presence of the Lord. But the wicked, who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be thrown into everlasting torments and punished with everlasting wrath, away from the loving presence of the Lord and from the satisfying glory of his power.