Bible Basics
Bible Basics
About Bible Basics
WE BELIEVE …
THE BIBLE is verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original autographs. It is the only rule of faith and practice.
- Authority of the Scriptures – We believe in the verbal-plenary inspiration of the Bible by God. In other words, inspiration extends down to the choice of its words. Its authority is absolute in all matters whereof it speaks. We believe that God’s Word is complete and sufficient so that the man of God may be adequately prepared for all good works (2 Tim. 3:17). The Bible needs no further special revelation to complete it.
GOD is eternal and triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
JESUS CHRIST is the unique Son of the Father, virgin-born, sinless, died an atoning death, physically resurrected, ascended, exalted, presently High Priest, coming again literally and personally to establish the millennial kingdom.
- Jesus Christ is God incarnate – God come in the flesh. He ascended to the right hand of the Father from whence He shall come again to judge the living and the dead. He is truly God and truly man.
THE HOLY SPIRIT indwells every believer, and instructs, corrects, and guides them in the Christian life. He fills and empowers those yielded to Jesus Christ as Lord of their life.
- The work of the Holy Spirit toward the unsaved is to convict of sin, of righteousness and of judgment to come. He bears witness to Jesus Christ as the only sufficient propitiation for sin: His person, His death, His burial, and His resurrection.
- The work of the Holy Spirit toward believers is to baptize them into Christ at the moment of salvation, and to indwell, instruct, correct, and guide them in the Christian life.
- Baptism in the Holy Spirit takes place at salvation and is not a second experience of grace.
- Speaking in tongues is not the evidence of being “baptized in the Holy Spirit.”
- Faith healing — We do not believe in faith healing in the sense that it is taught by the so-called faith healers. Properly understood, 1 Corinthians 12:9 does not leave room for “the gift of healing” because the Greek puts both “gifts” and “healing” in the plural: “gifts of healings.” In other words, God does have the power and prerogative to heal whenever and whomever He chooses and often does so in response to prayer. However, He also chooses not to heal in specific cases for reasons that may be known only to Himself.
MAN is sinful and eternally lost apart from personal faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ for salvation.
- Eternal Security — We believe that one who has genuine faith in Jesus Christ as Savior is eternally secure in Him and cannot lose his salvation. At the same time, a believer cannot continue in sin without the chastisement of God (Hebrews 12:8).
- Sanctification is (1) a standing: God sanctifies His people by setting them apart as His own possession “without spot or wrinkle” to stand before Him in holiness, and (2) a state: a progressive maturing in holiness of those who trust in Christ as they are being conformed to the image of Christ.
THE CHURCH is the body of Christ that manifests itself locally through believers united for mutual edification and propagation of the gospel while awaiting God’s Son from heaven.
- Church membership — Every born-again person should be a baptized member of a local church where he can grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, fellowship with those of like faith, and serve the cause of Christ on a consistent basis.
THE RESURRECTION of the body will be physical: the saved unto everlasting fellowship with God and the unsaved unto everlasting punishment and separation from God.
- Resurrection of the Just — Jesus is coming again literally, physically, and personally to receive His own unto Himself at which time there will be a resurrection of the just and a change of those who are living into glorified bodies.
- Resurrection of the Unjust — Following the millennial kingdom there will be a resurrection and judgment of the unjust and subsequent eternal punishment in the lake of fire.