Statement of Faith - PG. 1
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
The Holy Scripture is the ALL-SUFFICIENT, certain and INFALLIBLE rule or standard of the knowledge, faith and obedience that constitute salvation. Although the light of nature, and God’s works of creation and providence, give such CLEAR testimony to His goodness, wisdom and power that men who spurn them are left inexcusable, yet they are NOT SUFFICIENT OF THEMSELVES to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary for salvation. In consequence the merciful Lord from time to time and in a variety of ways has revealed Himself, and made known His will TO HIS CHURCH. And furthermore, in order to ensure the preservation and propagation of the truth, and the establishment and comfort of the church against the corrupt nature of man and the malice of Satan and the world, He caused this revelation of Himself and His will to be written down in all its fullness. And as the manner in which God formerly revealed His will has long ceased, the Holy Scripture becomes absolutely essential to men.
Pss 19:1-3; Prov 22:19-21; Isa 8:20; Luke 16:29,31; Rom 1:19-21, 2:14-15, 15:4; Eph 2:20; 2Tim 3:15-17; Heb 1:1; 2Pet 1:19-20; 1Cor. 2:7 14.
The Scripture is self-authenticating. Its authority does not depend upon the testimony of any man or church, but entirely upon God, its Author, Who is Truth Himself. It is to be received because it is the Word of God.
1Thess 2:13; 2Tim 3:16; 2Pet 1:19-21; 1John 5:9.
The Scripture is the sum total of God’s revelation concerning all things essential to His own glory, and to the salvation and faith and life of men, is either explicitly set down or implicitly contained in the Holy Scripture. Nothing, whether a supposed revelation of the Spirit or man’s traditions, is ever to be added to Scripture. At the same time, however, we acknowledge that inward enlightenment from the Spirit of God is necessary for the right understanding of what Scripture reveals. We also accept that certain aspects of the worship of God and of church government, which are matters of common usage, are to be determined by the light of nature and Christian common sense, in line with the general rules of God’s Word from which there must be no departure.
John 6:45; 1Cor 2:9-12, 11:13-14, 14:26,40; Gal 1:8-9; 2Tim 3:15-17.
All religious controversies are to be settled by Scripture, and by Scripture alone. All decrees of Councils, opinions of ancient writers, and doctrines of men collectively or individually, are similarly to be accepted or rejected according to the verdict of the Scripture given to us by the Holy Spirit. In that verdict faith finds its final rest.
Mat 22:29,31-32; Acts 28:23; Eph 2:20.
God and the Holy Trinity
THERE is but ONE, and ONLY ONE, living and true God. He is self-existent and infinite in His being and His perfections. None but He can comprehend or understand His essence. He is Pure Spirit, Invisible, and without body, parts, or the changeable feelings of men. He alone possesses immortality, and dwells amid the light insufferably bright to mortal men. He NEVER changes. He is Great beyond all our conceptions, Eternal, Incomprehensible, Almighty and Infinite. He is Most Holy, Wise, Free and Absolute. All that He does is the out-working of His changeless, righteous will, and for His Own Glory. He is Most Loving, Gracious, Merciful and Compassionate. He abounds in Goodness and Truth. He forgives iniquity, transgression and sin. He rewards those who seek Him diligently. But He HATES sin. He will NOT overlook guilt or spare the guilty, and He is perfectly JUST in executing judgment.
Gen. 17:1; Exod. 3:14; 34:6,7; Deut. 4:15,16; 6:4; 1 Kings 8:27; Neh.9:32,33; Ps. 5:5,6; 90:2; 115:3; Prov. 16:4; Isa. 6:3; 46:10; 48:12; Jer. 10:10; 23:23,24; Nah. 1:2,3; Mal. 3:6; John 4:24; Rom.11:36; 1 Cor. 8:4,6; 1 Tim.1:17; Heb. 11:6.
Three Divine Persons constitute the Godhead-the Father, the Son (or the Word), and the Holy Spirit. They are ONE in Substance, in Power, and in Eternity. Each is FULLY God, and yet the Godhead is ONE and Indivisible. The Father owes His being to none. He is Father to the Son who is Eternally begotten of Him. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. These Persons, One Infinite and Eternal God not to be divided in being, are distinguished in Scripture by Their personal nature or in relations within the Godhead, and by the variety of works which they undertake. Their TRI-UNITY (that is, the doctrine of the Trinity) is the essential basis of all our fellowship with God, and of the comfort we derive from our dependence upon Him.
Exod. 3:14; Matt. 28:19; John 1:14,18; 14:11; 15:26; 1 Cor. 8:6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Gal. 4:6; 1 John 5:7.
GOD’S DECREE
FROM all eternity God decreed all that should happen in time, and this He did freely and unalterably, consulting only His Own Wise and Holy Will. Yet in so doing He DOES NOT become in any sense the author of sin, NOR does He share responsibility for sin with sinners. Neither, by reason of His decree, is the will of any creature whom He has made violated; nor is the free working of second causes put aside; rather is it established. In all these matters the divine wisdom appears, as also does God’s power and faithfulness in effecting that which He has purposed.
Num. 23:19; Isa. 46:10; John 19:11; Acts 4:27,28; Rom. 9:15,18; Eph. 1:3-5,11; Heb. 6:17; Jas. 1:13; 1 John 1:5.
God’s decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that, under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.
Acts 15:18; Rom. 9:11,13,16,18.
By His decree, and for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestinated (or foreordained) certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing His Grace. Others, whom He has left to perish in their sins, show the terrors of His justice.
Mat.25:34; Rom.9:22,23; Eph.1:5,6; 1Tim.5:21; Jude4.
The angels and men who are the subjects of God’s predestination are clearly and irreversibly designated, and their number is unalterably fixed.
John 13:18; 2 Tim. 2:19.
BEFORE the world was made, God’s eternal, immutable purpose, which originated in the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, moved Him to choose (or to elect), in Christ, certain of mankind to everlasting glory. Out of His mere free grace and love He predestinated these chosen ones to life, although there was nothing in them to cause Him to choose them.
Rom. 8:30; 9:13,16; Eph. 1:4,9,11; 2:5,12; 1 Thess. 5:9; 2 Tim. 1:9.
Not only has God appointed the elect to glory in accordance with the eternal and free purpose of His will, but He has also foreordained the means by which His purpose will be effected. Since His elect are children of Adam and therefore among those ruined by Adam’s fall into sin, He willed that they should be redeemed by Christ, and effectually called to faith in Christ. Furthermore, by the working of His Spirit in due season they are justified, adopted, sanctified, and ‘kept by His power through faith unto salvation’. None but the elect partake of any of these great benefits.
John 6:64; 10:26; 17:9; Rom. 8:30; 1 Thess. 5:9,10; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1Pet. 1:2,5.
The high mystery of predestination needs to be handled with special prudence and caution, so that men, being directed to the will of God revealed in His Word and obeying the same, may become assured of their eternal election through the certainty of their effectual calling. By this means predestination will promote the praise of God, and reverential awe and wonder. It will encourage humility and diligence, and bring much comfort to all who sincerely obey the gospel.
Luke 10:20; Rom.11:5,6,20,33; Eph. 1:6; 1 Thess.1:4,5; 2 Pet. 1:10.
CREATION
IN the beginning it pleased the Triune God--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--to create the world and all things in it in six LITERAL days. All was very good. In this way God glorified His eternal power, wisdom and goodness.
Gen. 1:31; Job 26:13; John 1:2,3; Rom. 1:20; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2.
All creatures were made by God, the last to be fashioned being man and woman who received dominion over all other creatures on the earth. God gave man and woman rational and immortal souls, and in all respects fitted them for a life in harmony with Himself. They were created in His image, possessing knowledge, righteousness and true holiness. The divine law was written in their hearts and they had power to obey it fully. *Note* This is an assumption based on the first man and woman possessing all knowledge. The first man and woman did not possess all knowledge because they were forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Therefore it was impossible for the first man and woman to have had the fullness of the divine law written upon their understanding. They were, however, made in the image of God possessing the Holy Spirit and so had access to divine knowledge through the tree of life. Yet, being left to the liberty of their own mutable wills, transgression [of the only law given at the time] was a possibility.
Gen. 1:26,27; 2:7; 3:6; Eccles. 7:29;
[Rom. 2:14,15]
*Note* This was taken out of context to introduce an assumption of the first man and woman possessing all the knowledge of God. Verse 15 speaks of the "work of the law" (1Cor.15:56) indicating the knowledge of sin: (a defiled or dead conscience) which the law produced after the fall of man into sin. This doesn't mean the full understanding of the law of God, for Paul had said they are without law (vs12) in relationship to God but not to themselves (vs15). Therefore, they are without the knowledge of God which the first man and woman were created in, and so the Gentiles who are without God are not made in the original pattern of knowledge, in relationship to God (His image if you will)(Eph.2:12;Acts 17:23); and neither are the offspring of Adam's sin (Ps.51:5;Gen.5:31Cor.15:49). They are, however, to be raised into a pattern of the knowledge of God that is conforming to the Scriptures (Rom.8:29;Col.3:10). Even the Jews did not have the fullness of the law of God written upon their hearts; for Jeremiah prophesied that the law still needed to be written upon even the hearts of the Jews (Jer.31:33). Therefore the law in its entirety cannot be what's meant by "having the divine law" written upon the hearts of the first man and wife, nor is that what is intended by Paul in Rom.2:14 regarding the Gentiles (Rom.4:15).
The law of God [in general] was written in the hearts of the first human pair, but at the same time they were placed under a special prohibition not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Their happiness and fellowship with God depended upon their yielding obedience to His will, as also did the continuance of their dominion over the creatures. *Note* Some earlier adaptations record "Besides the law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." But with all due respect to the founders of this confession, the law written in the hearts of the first man and woman were only the creation ordinances and the forbidden tree. All other laws were written in progression with their fall into sin. Therefore the fullness of the law was not written in their hearts in the beginning when God made them in His image. The possession of the Holy Spirit was enough for fellowship with God, not obedience to the progressive law of God because of sin. *(Rom.4:15; Gal.3:19)*
Gen. 1:26,28; Gen. 2:17.
THE FALL OF MAN: SIN AND ITS PUNISHMENT
MAN, as he came from the hand of God, his Creator, was upright and perfect. The righteous law which God gave him spoke of life as conditional upon his obedience, and threatened death upon his disobedience. Adam’s obedience was short-lived. Satan used the subtle serpent to draw Eve into sin. Thereupon she seduced Adam who, without any compulsion from without, willfully broke the law under which they had been created, and also God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. To fulfill His Own Wise and Holy purposes God permitted this to happen, for He was directing all to His own glory.
Gen. 2:16,17; Gen. 3:12,13; 2 Cor.11:3.
By this sin our first parents LOST their former righteousness, and their happy communion with God was severed. Their sin involved us all, and by it death appertained to all. All men became DEAD in sin, and totally polluted in all parts and faculties of both soul and body.
Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:10-19,23; 5:12-21; Titus 1:15.
The family of man is rooted in the first human pair. As Adam and Eve stood in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was reckoned by God’s appointment to the account of all their posterity, who also from birth derived from them a polluted nature. Conceived in sin and by nature children subject to God’s anger, the servants of sin and the subjects of death, all men are now given up to unspeakable miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal, UNLESS the Lord Jesus Christ sets them free.
Job 14:4; Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12-19; Rom. 6:20; 1Cor. 15:21-22, 15:45, 15:49; Eph. 2:3; 1Thess. 1:10; Heb. 2:14-15.
The actual sins that men commit are the fruit of the corrupt nature transmitted to them by our first parents. By reason of this corruption, all men become wholly inclined to all evil; sin disables them. They are utterly indisposed to, and, indeed, rendered opposite to, all that is good.
Matt. 15:19; Rom. 8:7; Col. 1:21; Jas. 1:14.
During this earthly life corrupt nature remains in those who are born of God, that is to say, regenerated. Through Christ it is pardoned and mortified, yet both the corruption itself, and all that issues from it, are truly and properly sin.
Eccles. 7:20; Rom. 7:18,23-25; Gal. 5:17; 1 John 1:8.
GOD’S COVENANT
THE distance between God and His creature man is so great that, although men, endowed as they are with reason, owe obedience to Him as their Creator, yet they could never have attained to life as their reward had not God, in an act of voluntary condescension, made this possible by the making of a covenant.
Job 35:7,8; Luke 17:10.
Furthermore, since man, by reason of his fall into sin, had brought himself under the curse of God’s law, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, in which He freely offers life and salvation by Jesus Christ to sinners. On their part He requires faith in Him that they may be saved, and promises to give His Holy Spirit to all those who are elected unto eternal life, in order that they may be made willing and able to believe.
Gen. 2:17; Ps. 110:3; Ezek. 36:26,27; Mark 16:15,16; John 3:16; 6:44,45; Rom. 3:20,21; 8:3; Gal. 3:10
God’s covenant is revealed in the gospel; in the first place to Adam in the promise of salvation by ‘the seed of the woman’, and afterwards, step by step, until the full revelation of salvation was completed in the New Testament. The salvation of the elect is based upon a covenant of redemption that was transacted in eternity between the Father and the Son; and it is solely through the grace conveyed by this covenant that all the descendants of fallen Adam who have been saved have obtained life and a blessed immortality; for the terms of blessing which applied to Adam in his state of innocency have no application to his posterity to render them acceptable to God.
Gen. 3:15; John 8:56; Acts 4:12; Rom. 4:1-5; 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2; Heb.1:1,2; 11:6,13.
FREE WILL
IN the natural order God has endued man’s will with liberty and the power to act upon choice, so that it is neither forced from without, nor by any necessity arising from within itself, compelled to do good or evil.
Deut. 30:19; Mat. 17:12; Jas. 1:14.
In his state of innocency man had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and acceptable to God. Yet, being unstable, it was possible for him to fall from his uprightness.
Gen. 3:6; Eccles. 7:29.
As the consequence of his fall into a state of sin, man has LOST ALL ABILITY TO WILL the performance of any of those works, spiritually good, that accompany salvation. As a natural (unspiritual) man he is DEAD in sin and altogether opposed to that which is good. Hence he is NOT able, by any strength OF HIS OWN, to turn himself to God, or even to prepare himself to turn to God.
John 6:44; Rom. 5:6; 8:7; Eph. 2:1,5; Titus 3:3-5.
When God converts a sinner, and brings him out of sin into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage to sin and, BY HIS GRACE ALONE, He enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. Nevertheless certain corruptions remain in the sinner, so that his will is never completely and perfectly held in captivity to that which is good, but it also entertains evil.
John 8:36; Rom. 7:15,18,19,21,23; Phil. 2:13; Col.1:13.
It is not until man enters the state of glory that he is made perfectly and immutably free to will that which is good, and that alone.
Eph. 4:13.
