CHRIST Reformed Baptist Church - New Castle, IN
Summary of Our Beliefs
1. We believe the Bible alone is the Word of God written and that it was given by inspiration from the Holy Spirit without error and is sufficient to reveal who God is and what He requires of us for our eternal happiness.
2. We believe that God exists eternally in three Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3. We believe God created the world in the space of six days and all for His glory.
4. We believe God created Adam and Eve in His image, with the law written on their hearts, with the ability to sin or not to sin, requiring obedience of them to His revealed will, promising eternal life and glory for obedience and threatening death for sin. This is what we call the covenant of works, life, or creation.
5. We believe that the sin of our first parents brought the rest of mankind into a state of sin, misery, bondage, and condemnation. They did not attain unto eternal life and fell short of the glory of God.
6. We believe that God’s law shows us who God is, what He requires of us, and, due to our sin, condemns us all.
7. We believe that our perfect obedience to the law of God is both impossible and would be insufficient to earn us a right standing with God because obedience alone does not absolve our guilt.
8. We believe that God has revealed a covenant of grace, the only way of salvation from our sin, in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. We believe that the gospel was first revealed to Adam and Eve in the promise of the skull-crushing Seed of the woman and then progressively revealed in the Old Testament until it was fully revealed in Jesus Christ in the New Testament.
10. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, the unique Mediator between God and man.
11. We believe that Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed the law of God for us and died under the wrath of God for the forgiveness of our sins.
12. We believe Jesus Christ was raised from the dead (entered into His glory) on the third day for our justification and ascended into heaven where He sits at the Father’s right hand.
13. We believe that the salvation purchased by Jesus Christ is brought to the souls of men through the preaching of the gospel by the power of the Holy Spirit.
14. We believe that justification (being pronounced right with God) comes to us through the instrument of faith (and faith alone) and is based on the righteousness of Christ, not on anything in us.
15. We believe that faith is the gift of God brought to us by the Holy Spirit.
16. We believe that everyone who believes in Christ is justified, adopted, sanctified, and glorified by grace alone.
17. We believe that the church is the community of believers, the temple of God, His household.
18. We believe that baptism is reserved for confessing believers alone.
19. We believe that the church is responsible to teach baptized believers all that Christ commanded them.
20. We believe that the church is responsible to provide public worship where prayer, singing, Scripture reading, preaching, discipline, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper are to be conducted.
21. We believe that Sunday is the Lord’s Day, the day of public worship for Christians and rest from our normal labors and activities.
22. We believe that each local church is to be self-governed by its elected pastors/elders under the Word of God and bound to uphold the agreed upon doctrines and covenant of the church, yet we also see it accountable to other churches, if and when it should stray from these confessed truths, while at the same not surrendering its sovereign autonomy and Christ as its only Head.
23. We believe that each local church is called by Christ to spread the gospel to others throughout the world.
24. We believe that the souls of believers who die before Christ returns to this earth enjoy temporary joy and satisfaction with Christ in heaven.
25. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to this earth a second time in glory to judge the living and the dead.
26. We believe in the bodily resurrection of believers and unbelievers when Christ returns to this earth.
27. We believe that all those who do not believe the gospel will suffer eternal, conscious punishment in hell in both body and soul.
28. We believe that all those who believe the gospel will not suffer condemnation but enter into the new heavens and the new earth in body and soul to enjoy eternal, immutable, joyous communion with God and other believers.
Full Statement of Our Beliefs
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"The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience..." 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith 1:1 In this sense Christ Reformed Baptist Church understands that any and all confessions of faith are always subordinate to the Holy Scriptures. Properly understood, confessions of faith are never considered equal with nor above the Word of God. The doctrinal framework, which is founded upon the Holy Scriptures, that shall govern the preaching and teaching of this church will be those as expressed in the 1689 Baptist Confession and the 1693 Baptist Catechism. C. H. Spurgeon once said concerning the 1689 Baptist Confession: "This ancient document is the most excellent epitome of the things most surely believed among us. It is not issued as an authoritative rule or code of faith, whereby you may be fettered, but as a means of edification in righteousness. It is an excellent, though not inspired, expression of the teaching of those Holy Scriptures by which all confessions are to be measured. We hold to the humbling truths of God's sovereign grace in the salvation of lost sinners. Salvation is through Christ alone and by faith alone." |
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