Trinity Evangelical Church As Evangelical Christians, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and so we believe the great truths that the Bible teaches. We are happy to affirm and confess the essential doctrines of Christianity in the following statement of faith. SCRIPTURE Holy Scripture is the written Word of God, consisting of sixty-six books. It was given by the Holy Spirit, being fully and verbally inspired. The Bible is Divine Revelation, propositional, perspicuous, final, complete, inerrant and infallible. It is absolutely necessary and sufficient for man's salvation and for his faith and conduct, since it comprises the whole counsel of God for him. The Lord God binds human conscience and subjects his church to the absolute, unique and final authority of Scripture. Its authority depends on the testimony of the Spirit, its author and interpreter. GOD Whilst God is transcendent and incomprehensible, yet he can be truly known through special revelation only, by the illumination of the Spirit. Though this knowledge is limited, it is sufficient for the fullness of the divine purposes in human life. The living and true God is a personal Being, a simple spirit, perfect in all his attributes: infinite, independent, immutable, eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, good, loving, holy, righteous and omnipotent. God is Trinity: He is one, and subsists in three Persons - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - distinct from each other, with one indivisible substance, and equal in all perfections. To him alone is due all worship and glory. God created everything good without the use of any pre-existent material, and unto the manifestation of his own glory. Angels are created spirits. The devil and his demons rebelled against God and oppose him; yet they are subject to his government. God is the sovereign Lord of all creation, and in his wise providence maintains, directs and rules his creatures and all events in order that his eternal purpose may be accomplished. From all eternity God decreed in himself all things that ever happened or will happen, yet neither is he the author of sin nor does he approve it; nor does he take away the contingency of secondary causes. God elected a certain number of mankind to eternal life through Jesus Christ, by the sanctification of the Spirit, and through faith in the Lord Jesus, according to his eternal purpose and his sovereign grace, and without any virtue in the creature as a condition or cause of this choice; to the praise of the glory of his grace and the comfort of his children. The reprobate are left in their sins, for their own deserved condemnation and the manifestation of God's justice. MAN Adam, the first man, was directly and immediately created by God after his own image, personal, free from sin, rational, intelligent and endued with moral responsibility. Human nature consists of soul and body. By his Fall into sin, Adam incurred guilt, became corrupt and subject to divine displeasure; brought a curse and vanity upon himself and creation; and upon the human race that issued from him, sin, corruption of human nature, alienation from God, and his wrath. Every man is therefore subject to diverse miseries in this life, death and the punishment of hell. Man is totally depraved since all his faculties, including the will, is polluted with sin; and while he remains a moral agent in that he acts according to his will, he has lost all ability to obey God's law or to seek God since his heart is desperately wicked and he has no power to change it. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST The Lord Jesus is the Only-begotten Son of God, of one substance with the Father. He came down from heaven for us men and for our salvation, was incarnated in the womb of the virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, and became fully human. In the incarnation Christ did not lay aside anything of his divine essence. He is one person: he possesses a divine nature from eternity, and assumed a perfect human nature when he was made flesh. He now possesses two natures for ever, without mixture, change, division or separation. The Son is God's Messiah, sent to be the Prophet, the Priest and the King of the church. He came willingly to earth and became obedient unto the death of a cross for the salvation of those whom God had given him. His bloody sacrifice was representative, substitutionary, vicarious, propitiatory, reconciliatory and redemptive; he offered himself historically once for all on Golgotha. His sacrifice can in no way be renewed. By his passion and death, Christ actually and really atoned for the sins of God's elect and accomplished their redemption; he did not simply make possible the salvation of all mankind indiscriminately. On the third day the Lord Jesus was raised
physically from the grave, and after giving many infallible proofs
that he was alive, ascended back to heaven and was exalted
upon the Father's right hand, whence he is presently reigning and
fulfilling his unique mediation as the Paraclete and great High
Priest of his people. SALVATION It pleased God to express his plan of salvation by means of a covenant, revealed in the Gospel, first to Adam and afterwards progressively until he exhibited it completely in the coming of his Son among us. This covenant is founded on an eternal covenant between the Father and the Son, in which the Son assumed the role of guarantee and representative head of the elect. The sinner's salvation is exclusively God's work, given as a free gift, on the basis of the accomplished redemption wrought by his Son, and for the praise of the glory of his grace alone. Man can neither merit nor work for his salvation, but is saved unto good works, to magnify his deliverer. Those who are predestinated unto life, in due time God calls them effectually by his Word and Spirit from death unto life. The Holy Spirit is the divine and sovereign agent in regeneration. Every Christian is baptised with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. The Spirit sanctifies and indwells all believers, and seals them in their redemption. He administers gifts to all the brethren unto the edification of the church. The marks of the apostles - signs, wonders and miracles - together with those gifts of the Spirit to the brethren, such as tongues, given as testimonials to the apostles, ceased when their purpose was accomplished. Repentance and faith are inseparable graces, given by God and yet are human duties necessary for salvation, wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Convicted of his guilt and made aware of his danger and inability, the repentant sinner, seeing God's mercy in Christ, turns to him from sin, asks for mercy, and receives Christ Jesus his Lord and trusts in him as his unique and all-sufficient Saviour, Justification is God's gracious act by which he declares and reckons as righteous all those who exercise living faith in the Lord Jesus, not because of any personal righteousness that comes from the law, but because of the righteousness that comes from God, the righteousness of Christ accounted to them. God does not impute their sins against them but rather considers them as righteous in his sight because Christ, their representative, satisfied completely all the demands of the divine law by his obedience and sacrifice of himself. The Law of God is eternal, holy and righteous. Whilst nobody can be justified by the deeds of the law (since all have sinned), the law exposes our sin and leads us to Christ, the deliverer. The Christian is not under law but under grace, because his standing before God is not grounded upon his personal obedience; his is freed from the condemnation of the law, and accepted in Christ according to his free love. Yet God's children are submissive and obedient to his commandments because this is the duty of every man; besides, they are given a new heart, and are led by the Spirit. Their obedience is an expression of their love and a witness of their gratitude towards their Lord. Every believer is positionally and definitively sanctified unto God. Throughout his life the Holy Spirit continues to work in him to cleanse him from sin's defilement, to renew his whole nature according to the image of Christ, and to perform good works. Such a walk in holiness is a vital aspect of redemption, and every true believer confesses the sin that still indwells him, struggles against it, and by the Spirit mortifies the members that are upon the earth, produces virtuous and just deeds, and gladly obeys the law of God summarised in the Ten Commandments. The perseverance of the saints is that operation of the Spirit by which he continues and confirms unto the end the work of redemption begun in them. It depends upon election, and upon the divine love and power. The Christian may be certainly assured during his lifetime that he is in a state of grace and may rejoice in the sure hope of glory. This infallible assurance is grounded upon the veracity of God's promises concerning salvation, upon the internal evidence of grace related to these promises, and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. THE CHURCH The church of our Lord Jesus Christ is one and catholic; it consists of the whole number of God's elect, that is, all those who were, are being and ever will be gathered together under Christ their Head. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd and the Head of his body, the church; he governs it by his Word and Spirit. The Lord ordains presbyters, known also as pastors and bishops, to supervise and take care of the local church according to his divine will revealed in Scripture. Christ instituted two ordinances for his people. Baptism is administered by immersion in water, to all those who profess repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; it is a sign of the believer's union with Christ in his death and resurrection, of forgiveness of sins and of his identification with the visible body of Christ. The Lord's Supper is done in remembrance of him; as a proclamation of his sacrifice offered once for all on Calvary for our redemption; and as a communion with the risen Christ and with the brethren. THINGS TO COME After death, which is the end of this physical life with the separation of the soul from the body, every human being has a conscious and eternal existence. In death, the Christian passes immediately into the presence of the Lord in Paradise. The eternal destiny of all men is irrevocably fixed in death. At a specific date known to God alone, Christ will return to this earth, personally, physically, visibly and in glory. At his call all the dead will be raised and summoned before him for judgment, according to their deeds. The wicked will be condemned and consigned to the lake of fire to undergo eternal punishment. The faithful will be raised unto honour with a glorious body like unto Christ's, will be saved from wrath through him, will inherit the kingdom prepared for them and will ever be with the Lord. This world order as we know it will be destroyed and there will be a new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwells. |