Statement of Faith
I am an:
Evangelical
- The Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God, without error in everything it teaches, and the only authoritative source to learn everything about God and His will necessary to live the Christian life
- God exists as a Trinity, one God who is somehow at the same time three persons who are all fully God yet have distinct eternal roles with regard to one another
- Jesus existed from eternity past as one member of the Trinity, fully God, then became a man at the incarnation while still remaining fully God. He lived a perfect life, died as a sacrifice for sin, was raised from the dead bodily after three days, ascended to heaven, and will one day return from there as judge.
- Adam and Eve, the first humans, were created by God initially sinless, yet chose to sin, bringing down the wrath of God on them in judgment, which consists of physical death as well as eternal conscious punishment. All of Adam and Eve’s descendants inherited a sinful nature from them by birth, so that from the moment of conception they are sinners by nature and guilty, even before that sinful nature is manifested in observable acts of sin.
- Salvation is grounded in Christ’s sacrifice as a substitute for sinners, atoning for sin by taking the wrath of God in sinners’ place. Salvation is received by faith alone, which is believing that Christ’s identity and work is true and trusting in it alone for salvation, not in anything in oneself or any works one could perform. When a person is saved, they are united to Christ spiritually, and in Christ all their past, present, and future sins are forgiven, they are adopted as a member of God’s family, along with innumerable other spiritual blessings.
- The Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, indwells all believers from the moment of their conversion, illuminating the will of God to them in scripture, transforming their hearts to progressively overcome remaining sin, and guiding them.
- The universal church is the collection of all true believers who have lived since Christ instituted the church on the day of Pentecost. The local church consists of believers who meet together regularly under a single leadership. The purpose of the church is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, by proclaiming the gospel to nonbelievers and equipping believers to grow and live out their faith.
- Jesus will return at the end of this age to judge the living and the dead. All of the dead will be raised, those who have not believed in Christ will be sent into eternal conscious torment for their sin, and those who have believed in Christ will be welcomed into an eternal state of dwelling with God, in which there will be no sin or sorrow or pain, but only ever-increasing joy.
Eternal Security
- Justification is by faith alone, without any need for works at the time of conversion.
- Although scripture teaches that all true believers will produce fruit in the sense of growth in holiness, criteria are not given as to exactly how much or what kind of fruit, when it will be produced, or how visible it will be to the person or to others.
- From the moment of trusting in Christ, the believer can have absolute certainty that they will be saved, on the basis of their genuine trust in Christ. Other people can take them at their word that they have genuinely trusted Christ, but cannot know for sure whether that trust was genuine. The basis for certainty is not present or future works, because if sin is possible then assurance would never be certain, but it would be possible to fall away or prove you were never saved in the first place.
- Throughout scripture, and especially Paul’s epistles, a certainty in one’s salvation is the basis upon which believers are to attempt to grow in holiness.
- God’s highest commitment is to glorify Himself, showing forth all of His perfections.
- God has chosen to bring this glorification about by exercising His power of determination over all things, so that the least event that occurs is determined by Him, all working together to accomplish His purposes. Even sinful actions of men are ordained by him, but not in a way that removes the responsibility from them or makes God the author of sin. Men intend the evil, but God uses their evil as a tool for good.
- From eternity past, God determined to show His glory by demonstrating both His justice and His grace, by creating one group of people as vessels of wrath and another as vessels of mercy.
- To bring about these groups, God determined to create man sinless, then determined that they should fall into sin, then that Christ would redeem some of them, chosen not on the basis of anything in themselves but only on the basis of God’s free choice, so that the end result would be one group determined for wrath and another determined for mercy.
- In his fallen state, man is spiritually dead, totally unable to perform any action without it being tainted by sin, or to have any desire to seek God, turn to Him for forgiveness, or worship Him.
- On the matter of the extent of the atonement, I withhold judgment from either the unlimited position (Christ died for all individuals) or the limited position (Christ died only for the elect). Scripture has verses that suggest either option, but the case for either side does not seem to me to be decisive. Notably, when preaching the gospel, the Biblical writers neither say “Christ died for your sins specifically” nor “Christ has died for the sins of the elect”–they simply say, “Christ has died for sins.”
- Because man is unable to turn to God, he can only turn to God if God initiates the work in his life, effectually calling him to Himself. This call results in regeneration, the new birth in which man is again given spiritual faculties to see and respond to God. Anyone whom God effectually calls in this way will necessarily trust in Christ.
- God will preserve all believers to the end, so that none will permanently fall away or remain unfruitful, but rather they will all return to him and have some degree of fruit in their life, whether it is easily identifiable by man or not. This should not lead to a suspicion of those who do trust Christ but do not have visible fruit, but rather a confidence that God will eventually produce that fruit in their life.
- Every purpose of God comes about without the least opposition, and so God is an infinitely happy God.
- God commands men to not only understand and obey Him but also delight in Him, because He is more glorified when His perfections are rejoiced in than when they are only understood in a cold way.
- Because it is commanded, this joy in God cannot only be a by-product of the Christian life, but must be actively sought. Therefore hedonism, or seeking pleasure, is not inherently wrong–what is wrong is to seek ultimate pleasure in anything other than God.
- Christian hedonism does not elevate the self above God but rather exalts God, because it involves coming to God needy rather than coming to Him as a self-sufficient, disinterested party. And it does not elevate the self above others, because it leads to finding one’s own happiness in the happiness of others.
- Because we cannot fully experience God in this life, our delight in Him will always be mixed with longing. But He should still be sought to delight in.
- The meaning of scripture is to be found in the historical, grammatical meaning of the text, which means determining what the words mean in their normal usage, as the original author intended the original hearers to understand. This is opposed to looking for hidden, “spiritual” meanings, or reading back later revelation into earlier.
- When the historical-grammatical hermeneutic is applied, it becomes clear that there was a progress of revelation over time. Although God’s plan of salvation has always been by grace through faith, the details of that plan were revealed gradually. At any point in time, people were not required to believe in things about Christ that had not yet been revealed; for example, Abraham simply had faith that God would fulfill His promise to bless him, and that was sufficient to justify him, God applying Christ’s future sacrifice to him. Now that Christ has been revealed, one must trust in Christ specifically in order to have His sacrifice benefit them.
- Another consequence of the historical-grammatical hermeneutic is seeing distinctions in the way God interacts with man over time in different arrangements, sometimes called dispensations. Some of these include God’s arrangement with Adam and Eve before the fall, God’s promises to Abraham, God’s law given to Moses, and the church as established by Christ. In each dispensation, the specific requirements set upon people change, but the plan of salvation is still justification by faith on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice.
- One specific dispensational distinction is that between Israel and the Church, two separate institutions. The nation of Israel was an ethnic group of people and a political nation, a theocracy which governed legal, social, and religious life, in which God specifically promised physical blessing for obedience. By contrast, the Church is a cross-ethnic group of people with religious purposes who are “strangers” underneath other political nations, which does not govern legally, and to whom God has promised varying degrees of suffering as they proclaim the gospel. Although the political nation of Israel ceased to exist shortly after the Church came into being, the Church has neither evolved out of Israel nor replaced Israel in God’s plan. God has made specific unconditional promises to the nation of Israel that have never been fulfilled (enduring forever, extending to certain physical boundaries that have never yet been reached). Because God does not deceive, these promises will one day be fulfilled literally. This is confirmed by Romans 9-11 and both Old and New Testament prophecies about the end times, when read taking language that seems literal literally.
- The eternal state will consist of both a new heavens and a new earth, with God’s people (of both Israel and the Church) occupying the new earth. Believers will experience a bodily resurrection in the same way Jesus did.
- The only two church offices instituted in the New Testament are elders (also known as pastors, presbyters, or bishops), who preach and govern, and deacons, who assist with practical and logistical matters. There is no office of bishop distinguished from elder as a higher level of leadership over pastors, nor is there any regional office with authority over the local church leadership. The normal situation for a church described in scripture is to have multiple elders of equal authority.
- The relations between local churches in the New Testament are always described as voluntary and secondary, not binding and establishing. Churches have the authority to govern themselves.
- Christ established and commanded two ordinances: communion and baptism. Baptism is a public profession by which a believing individual proclaims their faith and identification with Christ. Any so-called baptism performed before the individual is of the age to have the mental capacity for conscious faith and actually exercises that faith is not Biblical baptism, and so a person who has been “baptized” in that way and later comes to faith should then have a true Biblical baptism. A person can and should only receive true baptism once.
- Communion is a proclamation and reminder of Christ’s sacrifice for sins and the fact that He will return. It involves receiving bread and wine symbolizing Christ’s body and blood given for the Church. Although it is a sacred occasion that should be treated with respect, the elements do not literally or “spiritually” become the body and blood of Christ. The Biblical reference to taking it in an unworthy manner does not refer to the necessity of making oneself feel bad over one’s sin–although that can have its place, communion it is an occasion of joyfully celebrating Christ’s sacrifice. Instead, an unworthy manner refers to taking it individualistically without concern for the other members of the body of Christ who share in its benefits.