| This We Believe, Teach, and Confess - pg. 2 |
I. GOD AND HIS WORD
We confess that the only true God is the Triune God, revealed in Scripture as the Father, Son , and the Holy Spirit. There is only one Divine Essence, yet there are three eternal Persons in the one Essence. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a profound mystery which we cannot fully understand, but we accept it in humble faith because it is clearly taught in Scripture. For this reason, “we worship one God in three persons and three persons in one God,” as we confess in the Athanasian Creed. Although there are many in the world who claim to follow and worship a “supreme being”, only those who believe in the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – can be saved. See Deut. 6:4, John 10:30, Matt. 28:19, Acts 20:28, Rom. 8:9, 2 Cor. 13:14, I Pet. 1:2, Col. 2:8-9, John 5:23.
We confess that God reveals Himself to mankind, not only through creation and the human conscience, but also and especially through the Holy Scriptures, His written Word. The true way of salvation is revealed only through God’s Word, and any claims for revelation of the way of salvation through other means must be rejected. The main purpose of Holy Scripture is to reveal to us that Jesus Christ is our only Savior. See Rom. 15:4 and 16:25-26, 2 Tim. 3:15, Luke 24:25-27, John 20:31, Rom. 10:14-17, Jer. 23:25-29, John 14:6, Acts 4:12.
We confess that the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, in their original form as written by the prophets, apostles, and evangelists, were given by inspiration of God. The Holy Scriptures are without error in everything they teach, including matters of geography, science, and history, and they are the only infallible rule and norm of Christian doctrine and practice.
The Scriptures not only contain the Word of God (as if to say, some of their teachings are the authoritative Word of God and others are not), but they are the very Word of God in their entirety. We reject the so-called “historical-critical” or “higher-critical” method of Biblical interpretation as an unwarranted and arbitrary manner of dealing with Holy Scripture. The Scriptures are true and reliable in all that they report, including their accounts of Old Testament and New Testament miracles. We therefore regard the denial of these miracles as blasphemous and as setting up man’s reason as a judge over God’s Word. Since the term “inspired” is often used in a loose sense, we frequently use the expressions “verbally inspired” and “inerrant” in describing the authority and reliability of these sacred documents which God caused His servants to write. See John 10:35, 1Cor. 2:13, 2 Tim. 3:16, 2 Pet. 1:20-21, 2 Pet. 3:15-17, 1 Thes. 1:5, 2:13.
II. KNOWING AND
PROFESSING THE TRUTH
We confess that it is possible both to know the truth of God’s Word and to profess it, and that God requires us to do both. Taking one’s stand on the Word in matters of doctrine, after diligent study of Scriptures, is an act not of human pride but of humble submission to God’s authority. See John 8:31-32, John 17:17, 2 Tim. 1:13, James 1:21b.
III. THE CREATION
AND THE FALL
We confess that God created all things in six days by the power of His Word, exactly as is set forth in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and elsewhere in Scripture. We therefore reject the theories of “evolution,” including “theistic evolution,” not only because they lack a sound basis in scientific evidence but especially because they contradict the divinely-inspired account of creation as given by Moses in the Old Testament and confirmed by Christ in the New. To attempt to describe each day of creation as a very long period of time (a “day-age”, etc.) is to tamper with the clear Word of God, for the first chapter of Genesis records at the end of the account of each day’s creation activity that “evening and morning were the (first, second, etc.) day.” See Gen. 1, Ex. 20:11, Heb. 11:3, Matt. 19:4.
When Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day they were made in God’s image – that is, they were morally righteous and were in every respect in perfect harmony with God. Through their fall into sin Adam and Eve, with all their natural descendants, lost this righteousness and became by nature sinful and corrupt. Because of the Fall all people conceived in the natural way are, by nature, enemies of God, subject to God’s wrath and to physical and spiritual death. Because of this inherited corruption, called “original sin,” no person is able, even partially, to earn favor with God or avoid eternal condemnation by means of his or her own efforts. See Gen. 1:27, 3:6 and 6:5, Ps. 51:5, Rom. 8:7, 1:18, 5:12 and 6:23, Eph. 2:3, Gal. 2:16b.
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