Statement of Faith
Introduction
The following has been adapted largely from Desiring God Ministry’s affirmation of faith, and in part from the 1689 London Confession and Kingdom through Covenant. For those wanting to see all the Scripture references behind this statement, we invite you to click here.
We believe that Christian belief can and should be divided into essential beliefs and peripheral beliefs. And we do not believe that all things in this statement of faith are of equal weight. Some are more essential and some less. We do not believe that every part of this affirmation must be believed in order for one to be saved.
Our aim is not to discover how little can be believed, but rather to embrace “the whole counsel of God.” Our aim is to encourage a hearty adherence to the Bible, the fullness of its truth, and the glory of its Author. While some ministries seek a theological minimalism in order to attract more donors, we prefer to be transparent about more (not less) of what we hold dear in the Word of God. We believe biblical doctrine stabilizes saints in the winds of confusion and strengthens the church in her mission to meet the great systems of false religion and secularism. We believe that the supreme virtue of love is nourished by the strong meat of God-centered doctrine. And we believe that a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ is sustained in an atmosphere of deep and joyful knowledge of God and His wonderful works.
We believe that the cause of unity is best served, not by finding the lowest common denominator of doctrine, around which all can gather, but by elevating the value of truth, stating the doctrinal parameters of church or school or mission or ministry, seeking the unity that comes from the truth, and then demonstrating to the world how Christians can love each other across boundaries rather than by removing boundaries. In this way, the importance of truth is served by the existence of doctrinal borders, and unity is served by the way we love others across those borders. Thus we hope that those who seek to partner with us in our overarching mission to equip the global Church with the biblical languages and see the Bible translated more and better, will look beyond any differences we may have and join hands with us in the fellowship of Christian love.
We do not claim infallibility for this statement and are open to refinement and correction from Scripture. Yet we do hold firmly to these truths as we see them and call on others to search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. It’s important to understand that many biblical descriptions of God and his work are diverse. Therefore, similar or identical terms may be used differently in different contexts. Our aim in this statement of faith is not to limit how biblical writers can use the terms we use here, or to say that the terms of this affirmation may not be used differently by the biblical writers in various contexts, but rather our aim is to claim that the reality described here is in fact biblical reality.
1. Scripture
1.1 We believe that the Bible is a unified, God-breathed, God-centered, hope-giving book, sweeter than honey, and pointing to Jesus, and consists of the sixty-six books of the Old Testament and New Testament.
1.2 We believe that God’s intentions, revealed in the Bible, are the supreme and final authority in testing all claims about what is true and what is right. In matters not addressed by the Bible, what is true and right is assessed by criteria consistent with the teachings of Scripture.
1.3 We believe God’s intentions are revealed through the intentions of inspired human authors.
1.4 The process of discovering the intention of God in the Bible (which is its fullest meaning) is a humble and careful effort to find in the language of Scripture what the human authors intended to communicate. Limited abilities, traditional biases, personal sin, and cultural assumptions often skew correct interpretation of biblical texts. Therefore the work of the Holy Spirit is essential for right understanding of the Bible, and prayer for His assistance belongs to a proper effort to understand and apply God’s Word. We seek to read Scripture on its own terms. Scripture is more than a storehouse of facts or propositions; it reveals a plot, a story line, a divine interpretation of the drama of redemption, which focuses on Christ. Therefore, our interpretation of Scripture and our drawing of theological conclusions must reflect this. All Christians want to be biblical in handling the Scriptures, but what counts as “biblical” has not enjoyed a consensus. Our method of interpretation may be summarized as grammatical/linguistic-historical-canonical. In other words, we believe the best way to read Scripture and to draw theological conclusions is to interpret a given text of Scripture in its linguistic-historical, literary, redemptive-historical, and canonical context. We interpret biblical texts according to three horizons: textual (syntax, literary context, historical setting, genre), epochal (recognizing its location in redemptive history), and canonical (reading the text in light of the whole canon). The Bible presents itself as one story that moves across four parts and through six covenants, unfolding the promises of God in the Old Testament to their fulfillment in the New Testament. The four major parts or epochs we see are: creation, fall, redemption, and inauguration-consummation. These parts form the epochal horizon that gives every particular reading a specific redemptive-historical context. The six covenants we see are those with: Adam/creation, Noah/creation, Abraham, Israel, and King David; and finally the New Covenant in Christ.
1.5 We believe that the Old Testament in Hebrew/Aramaic, and the New Testament in Greek, were inspired by God, and by his care and providence were preserved throughout the ages, so that the final forms of Scripture that God intended us to use can be ascertained with accuracy, and are authoritative. In all controversies of faith the church is finally to appeal to them, and no essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the fact that we do not possess the original manuscripts of Scripture’s final form. Because the original languages of Scripture are not known to all the people of God, they should be taught to all who have a right to and interest in the Scriptures, especially those who teach because of their great responsibility. All of God’s people are to read and search the Scriptures. And they are to be translated into the common language of every people, that the word of Christ may dwell richly in all, that they may worship him in acceptable ways, and that through the encouragement of the Scriptures they may have hope.
2. The Trinity, One God as Three Persons
2.1 We believe in one living, sovereign, and all-glorious God, eternally existing in three infinitely excellent and admirable Persons: God the Father, fountain of all being; God the Son, eternally begotten, not made, without beginning, being of one essence with the Father; and God the Holy Spirit, proceeding in the full, divine essence, as a Person, eternally from the Father and the Son. Thus each Person in the Godhead is fully and completely God.
3. God’s Eternal Purpose & Sovereignty
3.1 We believe that God, from all eternity, in order to display the full extent of His glory for the eternal and ever-increasing enjoyment of all who love Him, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably ordain and foreknow whatever comes to pass.
3.2 We believe that God upholds and governs all things – from galaxies to subatomic particles, from the forces of nature to the movements of nations, and from the public plans of politicians to the secret acts of solitary persons – all in accord with His eternal, all-wise purposes to glorify Himself, yet in such a way that He never sins, nor ever condemns a person unjustly; but that His ordaining and governing all things is compatible with the moral accountability of all persons created in His image.
3.3 We believe that God’s election is an unconditional act of free grace which was given through His Son Christ Jesus before the world began. By this act God chose, before the foundation of the world, those who would be delivered from bondage to sin and brought to repentance and saving faith in His Son Christ Jesus.
4. God’s Creation of the Universe and Man
4.1 We believe that God created the universe, and everything in it, out of nothing, by the Word of His power. Having no deficiency in Himself, nor moved by any incompleteness in His joyful self-sufficiency, God was pleased in creation to display His glory for the everlasting joy of the redeemed, from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
4.2 We believe that God directly created Adam from the dust of the ground and Eve from his side. We believe that Adam and Eve were the historical parents of the entire human race; that they were created male and female equally in the image of God, without sin.
5. Man’s Sin and Fall from Fellowship with God
5.1 We believe that, although God created man morally upright, he was led astray from God’s Word and wisdom by the subtlety of Satan’s deceit, and chose to take what was forbidden, and thus declare his independence from, distrust for, and disobedience toward his all-good and gracious Creator. Thus, our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original innocence and communion with God.
5.2 We believe that, as the head of the human race, Adam’s fall became the fall of all his posterity, in such a way that corruption, guilt, death, and condemnation belong properly to every person. All persons are thus corrupt by nature, enslaved to sin, and morally unable to delight in God and overcome their own proud preference for the fleeting pleasures of self-rule.
5.3 We believe God has subjected the creation to futility, and the entire human family is made justly liable to untold miseries of sickness, decay, calamity, and loss. Thus all the adversity and suffering in the world is an echo and a witness of the exceedingly great evil of moral depravity in the heart of mankind; and every new day of life is a God-given, merciful reprieve from imminent judgment, pointing to repentance.
6. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God
6.1 We believe that in the fullness of time God sent forth His eternal Son as Jesus the Messiah, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. We believe that, when the eternal Son became flesh, He took on a fully human nature, so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one Person, without confusion or mixture. Thus the Person, Jesus Christ, was and is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ and the only Mediator between God and man.
6.2 We believe that Jesus Christ lived without sin, though He endured the common infirmities and temptations of human life. He preached and taught with truth and authority unparalleled in human history. He worked miracles, demonstrating that He is Yahweh of the First Covenant with complete power over all creation: dispatching demons, healing the sick, raising the dead, stilling the storm, walking on water, multiplying loaves, and foreknowing what would befall Him and His disciples, including the betrayal of Judas and the denial, restoration, and eventual martyrdom of Peter.
6.3 We believe that His life was governed by His Father’s providence with a view to fulfilling all First Testament prophecies concerning the One who was to come, such as the Seed of the woman, the Prophet like Moses, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek, the Son of David, and the Suffering Servant.
6.4 We believe that Jesus Christ suffered voluntarily in fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan, that He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that He died, was buried and on the third day rose from the dead to vindicate the saving work of His life and death and to take His place as the invincible, everlasting Lord of glory. During forty days after His resurrection, He gave many compelling evidences of His bodily resurrection and then ascended bodily into heaven, where He is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His people on the basis of His all-sufficient sacrifice for sin, and reigning until He puts all His enemies under His feet.
7. The Saving Work of Christ
7.1 We believe that by His perfect obedience to God and by His suffering and death as the immaculate Lamb of God, Jesus Christ obtained forgiveness of sins and the gift of perfect righteousness for all who trusted in God prior to the cross and all who would trust in Christ thereafter. Through living a perfect life and dying in our place, the just for the unjust, Christ absorbed our punishment, appeased the wrath of God against us vindicated the righteousness of God in our justification, and removed the condemnation of the law against us.
7.2 We believe that the atonement of Christ for sin warrants and impels a universal offering of the gospel to all persons, so that to every person it may be truly said, “God gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.” Whosoever will may come for cleansing at this fountain, and whoever does come, Jesus will not cast out.
7.3 We believe, moreover, that the death of Christ did obtain more than the bona fide offer of the gospel for all; it also obtained the omnipotent New Covenant mercy of repentance and faith for God’s elect. Christ died for all, but not for all in the same way. In His death, Christ expressed a special covenant love to His friends, His sheep, His bride. For them He obtained the infallible and effectual working of the Spirit to triumph over their resistance and bring them to saving faith.
8. The Saving Work of the Holy Spirit
8.1 We believe that the Holy Spirit has always been at work in the world, sharing in the work of creation, awakening faith in the remnant of God’s people, performing signs and wonders, giving triumphs in battle, empowering the preaching of prophets and inspiring the writing of Scripture. Yet, when Christ had made atonement for sin, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, He inaugurated a new era of the Spirit by pouring out the promise of the Father on His Church.
8.2 We believe that the newness of this era is marked by the unprecedented mission of the Spirit to glorify the crucified and risen Christ. This He does by giving the disciples of Jesus greater power to preach the gospel of the glory of Christ, by opening the hearts of hearers that they might see Christ and believe, by revealing the beauty of Christ in His Word and transforming His people from glory to glory, by manifesting Himself in spiritual gifts (being sovereignly free to dispense, as he wills, all the gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10) for the upbuilding of the body of Christ and the confirmation of His Word, by calling all the nations into the sway of the gospel of Christ, and, in all this, thus fulfilling the New Covenant promise to create and preserve a purified people for the everlasting habitation of God.
8.3 We believe that, apart from the effectual work of the Spirit, no one would come to faith, because all are dead in trespasses and sins; that they are hostile to God, and morally unable to submit to God or please Him, because the pleasures of sin appear greater than the pleasures of God. Thus, for God’s elect, the Spirit triumphs over all resistance, wakens the dead, removes blindness, and manifests Christ in such a compellingly beautiful way through the Gospel that He becomes irresistibly attractive to the regenerate heart.
8.4 We believe the Holy Spirit does this saving work in connection with the presentation of the Gospel of the glory of Christ. Thus neither the work of the Father in election, nor the work of the Son in atonement, nor the work of the Spirit in regeneration is a hindrance or discouragement to the proclamation of the gospel to all peoples and persons everywhere. On the contrary, this divine saving work of the Trinity is the warrant and the ground of our hope that our evangelization is not in vain in the Lord. The Spirit binds His saving work to the gospel of Christ, because His aim is to glorify the Christ of the Gospel. Therefore we do not believe that there is salvation through any other means than through receiving the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit, except that infants and people with severe intellectual disabilities with minds physically incapable of comprehending the gospel may be saved.
9. The Justifying Act of God
9.1 We believe that in a free act of righteous grace God justifies the ungodly by faith alone apart from works, pardoning their sins, and reckoning them as righteous and acceptable in His presence. Faith is thus the sole instrument by which we, as sinners, are united to Christ, whose perfect righteousness and satisfaction for sins is alone the ground of our acceptance with God. This acceptance happens fully and permanently at the first instant of justification. Thus the righteousness by which we come into right standing with God is not anything worked in us by God, neither imparted to us at baptism nor over time, but rather is accomplished for us, outside ourselves, and is imputed to us.
9.2 We believe, nevertheless, that the faith, which alone receives the gift of justification, does not remain alone in the person so justified, but produces, by the Holy Spirit, the fruit of love and leads necessarily to sanctification. This necessary relation between justifying faith and the fruit of good works gives rise to some Biblical expressions which seem to make works the ground or means of justification, but in fact simply express the crucial truth that faith that does not yield the fruit of good works is dead, being no true faith.
10. Death, Resurrection, and the Coming of the Lord
10.1 We believe that when Christians die they are made perfect in holiness, are received into paradise, and are taken consciously into the presence of Christ, which is more glorious and more satisfying than any experience on earth.
10.2 We believe in the blessed hope that at the end of the age Jesus Christ will return to this earth personally, visibly, physically, and suddenly in power and great glory; and that He will gather His elect, raise the dead, judge the nations, and establish His kingdom. We believe that the righteous will enter into the everlasting joy of their Master, and those who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness will be consigned to everlasting conscious misery.
10.3 We believe that the end of all things in this age will be the beginning of a never-ending, ever-increasing happiness in the hearts of the redeemed, as God displays more and more of His infinite and inexhaustible greatness and glory for the enjoyment of His people.