DOCTRINAL STATEMENT

The Reformed Faith

An adaptation of a brief and simple statement
by Dr. Benjamin B. Warfield

The Bible

We believe that our one aim in life and death should be to glorify God and enjoy Him forever; and that God teaches us how to glorify and enjoy Him in His inerrant, holy Word, that is, the Bible, which He has given by the infallible inspiration of His Holy Spirit in order that we may certainly know what we are to believe concerning Him and what duty He requires of us.

God

We believe that God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth; incomparable in all that He is; one God but three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; in whose power, wisdom, righteousness, goodness, and truth we may safely put our trust.

Creation

We believe that the heavens and the earth, and all that in them is, is the work of God’s hands, made out of nothing in the space of six days and all very good; and that all that He has made He directs and governs in all their actions, so that they fulfill the end for which they were created. We who trust in Him shall not be put to shame but may rest securely in the protection of His almighty love.

Man

We believe that God created man after His own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and that all men owe their Creator thanksgiving and worship. God entered into a covenant of life with him upon the sole condition of the obedience that was His due: so that it was by willfully sinning against God that man fell into the sin and misery in which we have been born.

The Fall

We believe that, being fallen in Adam, our first father and covenant head, we are by nature children of wrath, under the condemnation of God and corrupted in body and soul, prone to evil and liable to eternal death; from which dreadful state I cannot be delivered except through the unmerited grace of God my Savior.

Grace

We believe that God has not left the world to perish in its sin, but out of the great love wherewith He has loved it, has from all eternity graciously chosen unto Himself a multitude which no man can number, to deliver them out of their sin and misery, and of them to build up again in the world His kingdom of righteousness; in which kingdom we may be assured we have our part, if we hold fast to Christ the Lord.

Christ

We believe that God has redeemed His people unto Himself through Jesus Christ our Lord; who, though He was and ever continues to be the eternal Son of God, yet was born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that are under the law; we believe that He bore the penalty due to our sins in His own body on the tree, and fulfilled in His own person the obedience we owe to the righteousness of God, and now presents us to His Father as His purchased possession, to the praise of the glory of His grace forever: wherefore renouncing all merit of our own, we put all our trust only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ my redeemer.

The Lord

We believe that Jesus Christ our redeemer, who died for our offenses was raised again for our justification, and ascended into the heavens, where He sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty, continually making intercession for his people, and governing the whole world as head over all things for His Church; so that we need fear no evil and may surely know that nothing can snatch us out of His hands and nothing can separate us from His love.

The Holy Spirit

We believe that the redemption wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ is effectually applied to all His people by the Holy Spirit, who works faith in us and thereby unites us to Christ, renews us in the whole man after the image of God, and enables us more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness; until His gracious work having been completed in us, we shall be received into glory; in which great hope abiding, We must ever strive to perfect holiness in the fear of God.

The Gospel

We believe that God requires of us, under the gospel, first of all, that, out of a true sense of our sin and misery and apprehension of His mercy in Christ, that we should turn with grief and hatred away from sin and rest upon Jesus Christ alone for salvation; that, so being united to Him, We may receive pardon for our sins and be accepted as righteous in God’s sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to me and received by faith alone; thus, and thus only, do we believe we may be received into the number and have a right to all the privileges of the sons of God.

Good Works

We believe that, having been pardoned and accepted for Christ’s sake, it is further required of us that we walk in the Spirit whom He has purchased for us, and by whom love is shed abroad in our hearts; fulfilling the obedience we owe to Christ our King; faithfully performing all the duties laid upon us by the holy law of God our heavenly Father; and ever reflecting in our life and conduct the perfect example that has been set us by Christ Jesus our leader, who has died for us and granted to us His Holy Spirit that we may do the good works which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them.

The Church

We believe that God has established His Church in the world and has endowed it with the ministry of the Word and Prayer; the holy ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; in order that through these means, the riches of His grace in the gospel may be known to the world, and by the blessing of Christ and the working of His Spirit in them that by faith receive them, the benefits of redemption may be communicated to His people; wherefore also it is required of us that we attend on these means of grace with diligence, preparation, and prayer, so that through them we may be instructed and strengthened in faith, and in holiness of life and in love; and that we use our best endeavors to carry this gospel and convey these means of grace to the whole world.

We believe that the visible Church consists of all those who are united to Christ, the Head of the Church, by profession of their faith, together with their children; and that the visible unity of the body of Christ, though obscured, is not destroyed by its division into different denominations of professing Christians. Therefore, we believe that all of these which maintain the Word, the Sacraments, and Discipline in their fundamental integrity are to be recognized as true branches of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Future

We believe that as Jesus Christ has once come in grace, so also He is to come in glory, to judge the world in righteousness and assign to each his eternal reward: the wicked shall have the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them, wherein their consciences shall fully concur, and they shall be cast into hell, body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever. The righteous in Christ shall be caught up with Christ and there openly acknowledged and acquitted; shall be received into heaven, where they shall fully and forever be freed from all sin and misery; filled with inconceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy in both body and soul, in the great company of all God’s saints and holy angels, but especially in the immediate vision of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, to all eternity.

For the full and official statement of faith of our congregation, please read the Westminster Standards: The Confession of Faith and the Larger and shorter Catechisms.