We affirm Scriptural Christianity. Our faith and beliefs are those of the historic, classical, evangelical Christian faith as set forth in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. One of the early statements in the history of the Christian faith and the church that expressed the foundational bedrocks of what we believe and affirm as followers of Jesus Christ was the Apostle’s Creed. The affirmations of faith in this historic creed will serve as our pattern in expressing the Articles of Faith of The Mission Society.
WE BELIEVE:
What is the standard for our beliefs and practice of the Christian faith?
IN GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH:
The one true and living God is the eternal, personal Spirit. He is infinite and unchangeable in power, wisdom, holiness and love. He is the Creator, Sovereign Ruler and Preserver of all things whether visible or invisible. In the divine unity of His Godhead there eternally exist three persons of one essence, perfection and power:
THE FATHER is the first person of the Holy Trinity. He has provided a covenant through which His creatures can be redeemed and through which His creation will be liberated from all evil and brought to final righteousness at the end of the age.
AND IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY SON. OUR LORD; WHO WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY, SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED; HE DESCENDED INTO HADES; THE THIRD DAY HE AROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD; HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY; FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK (LIVING) AND THE DEAD.
JESUS CHRIST is the eternally begotten Son, the second person of the Triune Godhead. He was eternally one with the Father and by the conception of the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin Mary. Thus, two whole and perfect natures were forever united in one perfect personality in Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of the Father and the Son of Man. He is the God-man, truly and fully God and truly and fully man. He was sinless in life. He and He alone by his life, suffering, death, bodily resurrection and ascension, provided the only way of salvation. Jesus Christ made a full atonement for the sins of the whole world by shedding His own blood upon the cross as a perfect and sufficient sacrifice. His sacrifice need never be repeated nor anything added to it, for He accomplished salvation once for all thus providing the only way of access to the Father. Now He intercedes as High Priest before the Father, awaiting the day when He will return to judge every person, living and dead, and to consummate His redemptive mission and Kingdom. This blessed hope of the Christian inspires us to holy living, to missionary witness and to sacrificial service.
WE BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT,
THE HOLY SPIRIT, the third person of the Trinity, is of one substance with the Father and the Son, and is co-equal with Them in eternity, grace and power. He was active from the beginning in creation, revelation and redemption. His ministry is to glorify Jesus Christ. The Spirit convicts and woos the lost, gives new birth to the penitent and abides in the believer, perfecting holiness and empowering the Church to carry out Christ’s mission in the world. He came to indwell His Church at Pentecost, enabling believers to yield Christ-like fruit and endowing them with spiritual gifts according to His will. Individual members of the church receive a gift or gifts of the Spirit for the purpose of ministry and the building up of the Church, the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit bears witness to Christ and guides God’s people into His truth. He inspired the Holy Scriptures, God‘s written Word, and continues to illuminate His people concerning His will and truth. His guidance is always in harmony with Christ and the truth as given in the Holy Scriptures.
The will of God is that all believers should be filled (and keep on being filled) with the Holy Spirit, thereby receiving power for holy living and effective service and be sanctified wholly being separated from sin and the world, and fully dedicated to the will of God. This is both a crisis and a progressive experience wrought in the life of the believer normally after conversion.
The Holy Spirit is His own witness in the soul. He evidences His holy presence primarily by imparting His holiness to the life of the believer and producing within the believer the abundant fruit of the Spirit. The evidence of the Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered life is not the presence of any one gift or manifestation.
THE WORD OF GOD - THE BIBLE
The Bible is the fully and uniquely inspired Word of God written. In its entirety it is the Word of God, given by men inspired by God. It constitutes for us today the revealed will of God in written form; and the words of Scripture are for us the Word of God. These Holy Scriptures contain all that is necessary for our knowledge of God’s holy and sovereign will, of Jesus Christ the only Redeemer, of our salvation and of our growth in grace.
The Bible is our sufficient and final authority for faith and practice. Through it the Holy Spirit, who inspired its writing, continues to illumine, instruct, convict, regenerate and sanctify. These Scriptures are supremely authoritative for the Church’s teaching, preaching, witness, identifying error, correcting the error and training believers for ministry in and through the Church. Whatever is not revealed in or established by the Scriptures cannot be made an article of faith essential to salvation.
THE HOLY, WORLDWIDE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS,
THE CHURCH is the universal body of Christ composed of all true believers in Christ, with Christ as it head. All who are born again are baptized into this one Church by the Holy Spirit. This Church is one because it shares one Lord, one faith, one baptism. It is holy because it belongs to God and is set apart for His purposes in the world. It is universal because it includes all believers, both living and dead, in every nation, regardless of denominational affiliation. This Church does not become fractured by the fact that there is more than one denomination, nor does it become one through church union; for there never can be more than one true body of Christ, and its membership record is in heaven, not on earth. All true Christians are members of one another. It is the responsibility of this Church and of each of its members to obey Christ’s Great Commission to it and reach the whole world with the Gospel of Christ and be His witnesses in their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS,
HUMANITY was created in the image of God and was innocent and pure. God-likeness included his ability to choose between right and wrong, and he was thus morally responsible. By his sinful free choice Adam rebelled against God, fell from his original innocence and purity and received a fallen and sinful nature. Each human being today is born with this sinful nature and by his own sinful deeds has become guilty before God. Apart from the regenerating work of God, humankind today is lost in sin, is dead in his trespasses and sins, and is without God and without hope.
The prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ is freely bestowed upon all people, enabling all who will turn from sin to righteousness, and through believing in Christ receive forgiveness and cleansing from sin. By His death on the cross the sinless Son propitiated the holy wrath of the Father, a righteous anger occasioned by sin. By His resurrection from the dead, the glorified Son raises us to newness of life. When we appropriate by faith God’s atoning work in Jesus Christ we are forgiven, justified, regenerated by His Holy Spirit and adopted into the family of God.
REPENTANCE is that godly sorrow for sin which results from the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. It involves a sensing of personal guilt before God, a voluntary turning away from sin and the confessing of sin and making restitution where possible. It is the essential preparation for saving faith - the simple trust in Christ for salvation. From that moment the believer has the Holy Spirit as his/her helper and witness.
JUSTIFICATION is the gracious judicial act of God fully acquitting the repenting and believing sinner. God grants a full pardon of all guilt, release from the penalty of sins committed and acceptance as righteous, not on the basis of the merits or efforts of the sinner, but upon the basis of the atonement of Jesus Christ and the faith of the sinner.
REGENERATION or the new birth is the gracious work of God changing the moral nature of the repentant believer from darkness to light, from nature to grace, from death to life, from bondage of sin to liberty in Christ. The believer becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus, is born of the Spirit and enters into a life of peace with God, obedience to the will of God and love for all.
ADOPTION is the gracious act of God by which the justified and regenerated believer is constituted a child of God with the privilege of access to the Father, membership in the family of God and inheritance with Christ. Justification, regeneration and adoption are simultaneous in the heart of the repentant believer.
The believer is securely kept by the power of God as he abides in vital fellowship with Christ. However, since he/she continues to be morally responsible to God after his conversion and continues to have free will, it is possible for a Christian to stop trusting in Christ, to fall away and rebel against God. If he/she does not return or seek restoration through repentance, but persists in his/her sin and dies in this rebellious state, he/she will be eternally lost.
The Holy Spirit is the witness to salvation by the inner assurance He imparts to the child of God and by the fruit of His life within the soul: peace with God, love for the children of God, joy in Christ, the guidance of the Holy Spirit and righteous conduct. Good works are the visible fruit of a life lived in Christ; they are not the condition of salvation, but the result of salvation.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, AND THE LIFE EVERLASTING. AMEN.
RESURRECTION of the body for both the saved and unsaved dead is an affirmation of Scriptural Christianity. There will be ETERNAL LIFE and blessedness in heaven of the saved where they will be in the immediate presence of God and will share his eternal reign. There will be ETERNAL DEATH and punishment for the unsaved in hell, the lake of fire where they shall consciously share the company of the damned in eternal separation from God, under the punishing wrath of God which will be as eternal for the unsaved as life will be for the saved.
