Doctrine

Doctrinal Positions —

  • THE HOLY SCRIPTURES – that they are the inspired Word of God.  Infallible, authoritative and inerrant. It is the only infallible guide for faith and practice (2 Tim. 3:16, 17; 2 Pet. 1:20, 21; Matt. 5:18; Jn. 16: 12, 13).
  • THE GODHEAD – One God, who eternally exists in three distinct persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit  co-equal in nature,  power and glory and having the same attributes and perfections and performing different functions (Dt. 6:4; Matt. 28: 20; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Pet. 1: 2).
  • SOVEREIGNTY – God, who exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is sovereign and exercises supreme and absolute rule over all creation consistent with His essence and attributes of Deity (1 Chro. 29:11, 12; Dan. 4:35; Psa. 24:1; Eph. 1:11; 1 Tim. 6:15).
  • THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST – The Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became God incarnate having been conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, that He might reveal God and redeem sinful man; He accomplished our redemption through His death on the Cross as a substitutionary sacrifice; He died, was buried and rose bodily from the dead on the third day. He ascended up to heaven where He is seated at the Father’s right hand , the High Priest and believer’s Advocate, and  shall return to take His Bride to His Father’s House  (Jn. 1:1, 2, 14; Lk. 1:35; Matt. 20:28; 1 Cor. 15: 3-4; Acts 1: 9-11;  Rm. 8:34; Heb. 8:1; 1 Jn. 2:1, 2; John 14: 2, 3). At His Second Coming, He will return to earth to establish His kingdom on earth for a thousand years (Rev. 19: 11- 20:4).
  • THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – The Holy Spirit is a person who convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. He seals and indwells all believers in the present age, baptizes them into the Body of Christ, gifts them spiritual gifts for service. He intercedes for the believer, empowers  him to witness effectively for Christ and guides and teaches the believer into all truth of Scripture (John 16:8-11;  Rm. 8:9, 26, 27; 1 Cor. 12: 4-14; Acts 1:8;  Eph. 1:13, 14; 5:18; John 14: 26; 1 John 2: 27 ).
  • TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN – Man was created in the image and likeness of God but in Adam’s sin the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, became alienated from God, and is totally unable to retrieve his lost condition and save himself from death (Gen. 1:26; Rm. 3:9-18, 22, 23; 5: 12; Eph. 2:12).
  • SALVATION BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH – Salvation in every dispensation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and received by personal faith in God, founded on the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus on the cross that provided man’s reconciliation to God and forgiveness of sins (2 Cor. 5: 18- 21;  Eph. 1:7; 2:8-9; Jn. 1:12).
  • ETERNAL SECURITY OF BELIEVERS – All genuine believers are kept secure forever (Jn. 10:27-30;  Rm. 8:1, 38, 39; 1 Cor. 1:4-8).
  • THE CHURCH – The Church is the Body and Bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of all born-again persons of this age, built on the solid foundation which is the Lord Jesus Christ, the PETRA (Matt. 16:18; 1 Cor. 12: 12-14, Eph. 1:22, 23; 2: 20; 5:25-27; 1 Pet. 2: 6-8). It is distinct and different from Israel, does not replace Israel, but rather is composed of Jews and Gentiles who has received the Lord Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. Each believer is a new creature in Christ Jesus (Rom. 11: 7-29; 1 Cor. 10:32;  Eph. 2:10).

Church Ordinances –

  • BELIEVER’S BAPTISM – the Lord Jesus Christ commanded the ordinance of baptism by immersion to be performed on all believers as a rite of identification and union with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection (Matt. 28:18-20; Rm. 6:1-6).
  • THE LORD’S SUPPER – The Lord Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper to be observed as a memorial in remembrance of Him with the proper elements He used of unleavened bread and “oinos” red wine mixed with water of a ratio of one part wine and three parts water, until His return (Matt. 28:18-20; 1 Cor. 11: 23-26).

Additional Beliefs —

  • RESPONSIBILITY OF BELIEVERS – To grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the end that his life is consistent with the Lord’s plan, thus bringing both blessing to the believer and honor to the Lord (2 Pt. 3:18). To love one another as He commanded (John 13:34, 35; 15: 12) and to obey the Great Commission of His in Matthew 28: 18-20.
  • SPIRITUALITY – Spirituality is an absolute condition in the life of a believer in this dispensation wherein he is filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit, walking in love and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Spirituality is distinct from maturity, a believer becomes carnal through any act of mental, verbal, or overt sin, and spirituality (fellowship with Christ) is restored solely by personal confession of that sin to God the Father (Jn. 15:7,8; 2 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:16; Eph. 5:18; Rm. 6:11-13; 1 Jn. 1:5,. 9; 2:2, 1; 1 Cor. 11:30, 31).
  • PROPHECY AND SPEAKING IN TONGUES – We believe that prior to the completion of the New Testament Canon of Scriptures the gifts of prophecy and speaking in tongues was dispensed by the Holy Spirit. That these were temporal gifts for the edification of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. But since then, these have ceased that the believer’s standard for faith and practice should rest solely on God’s inspired word, the Bible. (1 Cor. 13:8-10; John 20: 31; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Rev. 22: 18, 19).
  • MUSIC IN THE CHURCH – We believe in the moral implications of music; that music is of God and therefore is for His glory. The primary role of music in the Church is to service God’s Word, to effuse the vitality of the Word, and for the edification and inculcation of God’s Word in the heart of the believer; a vehicle to help him grow to spiritual maturity and effective service for Him. The appropriation of music in the Church is for the regenerated, wherein Biblical truth is imparted in the believer through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all of which are contained in Scripture; wherein gratitude and praise is evoked, the ineffable is expressed in praise to God in response to His  grace upon him (Eph. 5: 19, 20; Col. 3:16, 17). Music is to be serviced in the context of God’s Holiness (a function of ‘latreia’ worship) wherein musical discernment is juxtaposed against culture and worldly practices. Man-composed music is an expression of the soul, therefore, these “musical fruits” must be discerned in light of Scripture, through structural, virtue, representative, and associative analysis with deference given to respective biblical criticism (Mat. 7:16 – 20).
  • THE (HARPAZOO) RAPTURE – That the Lord Jesus’ imminent return to take His Bride, the Church, away to the Father’s home of many mansions as He promised in John 14:1-3; we shall meet Him in the air (1 Thess. 4: 13-18); hence we wait for His return eagerly (Phil. 3: 20, 21); looking for the Blessed Hope (Titus 2:11-14).
  • JUDGMENT OF THE BELIEVER IN THE CHURCH – For rewards  for things done by the believer in the body at the Judgment Seat of Christ in heaven (Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 3: 11-15;).
  • DISPENSATIONS – We believe that the dispensations are stewardships by which God administers His purpose on the earth through man under varying responsibilities. We believe that the changes in the dispensational dealings of God with man depend on changed conditions or situations in which man is successively found with relation to God, and that these changes are the result of the failures of man and the judgments of God. We believe that different administrative responsibilities of this character are manifest in the biblical record, that they span the entire history of mankind, and that each ends in the failure of man under the respective test and in an ensuing judgment from God. We believe that three of these dispensations or rules of life are the subject of extended revelation in the Scriptures, viz., the dispensation of the Mosaic Law, the present dispensation of grace, and the future dispensation of the millennial kingdom. We believe that these are distinct and are not to be intermingled or confused, as they are chronologically successive. Dispensations are not ways of salvation. They are ways of life and responsibility to God which test the submission of man to His revealed will during a particular time. Salvation has been and always will be “by grace through faith,” and rests upon the basis of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ in all the dispensations.
    (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; 3:9, Col. 1:25; 1 Tim. 1:4).
  • THE PERSONALITY OF SATAN AND FALLEN ANGELS – The person of Satan is the open and declared enemy of God and man, whose eternal punishment is decreed in the lake of fire. He has a host of fallen angels at his command (Job. 1:6-7; Isa. 14:12-17; Matt. 4:2-11; 25:41; Eph. 6: 11, 12; Rev. 12: 9-11; 20:10).
  • THE TRIBULATION – The Rapture of the Church will be followed by the fulfillment of Israel’s 70th Week. The latter half of which is the time of Jacob’s Trouble, the Great Tribulation (Dan. 9:27; Jer. 30:7; Rev. 20:6).
  • THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST – The Great Tribulation will be climaxed by the premillennial return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth to set up His kingdom (Zech. 14:4-11; Matt. 24:15-25; 2 Thes. 1:7-19; Rev. 20:6).
  • THE ETERNAL STATE – Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ at death immediately pass into His presence, and there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the body at His Coming, when soul, spirit and body are reunited shall live with Him forever in glory; but the soul of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery in hades until the final judgment of the Great White Throne when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting separation from the presence of the Lord forever (Lk. 15:19-26; 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 2 Thes. 1:7-9; Jd. 6, 7; Rev. 20:11-15).
  • THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH – Time will be no more. God and saved creation by the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ will dwell together in eternity (Rev. 21, 22).