Statement of Faith
Faith Baptist statement of faith
A statement of faith is a statement of shared beliefs in the form of a fixed formula summarizing core tenets. These have also been historically called creeds, or confessions.
It is important for every church and Christian organization to have a clear, accessible statement of faith in what they believe about the Bible and about God.
What FBC believes about God
The Godhead
FBC believes that God, who is eternal in being, created everything and is sovereign over all creation. We believe He is the only true and living God. We believe God to be perfect and absolute in all His divine and moral attributes: He is holy, He is love, immutable, all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful.
We believe that God exists as the Holy Trinity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; three co-equal, co-eternal Persons that exist in indivisible oneness; The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit; being all the same essence and having all the same power and attributes. these three Persons of the Triune Godhead fulfill distinct and harmonious roles in the great work of redemption. The doctrine of the Trinity, although not appearing in Scripture by name, is seen and taught, and demonstrated on several occasions in Scripture.
(Matthew 28:19, Jeremiah 10:10, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Isaiah 55:8, Deuteronomy 29:29. Malachi 3:6, Genesis 21:33, Ephesians 1:11, Isaiah 6:1-3, 1 John 3:20,)
God the Father
We believe that God the Father, as the first person in the Trinity, orders and disposes of all things according to His purpose and upholds and directs everything that comes to pass. To believers, He is a Father adopting those who are in Jesus Christ. God the Father is the creator and sustainer of life.
(1 Corinthians 8:6, Ephesians 4:6, Romans 8:14-15, Ephesians 1:11, Galatians 4:5)
The Lord Jesus Christ
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ exists eternally as the second Person of the Trinity. He is the creator and sustainer of everything and has been given the right to judge all creation. In His incarnation, we believe He emptied Himself of certain prerogatives while remaining fully God in essence and attributes. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and was virgin-born. He lived a sinless life being completely God and completely human at the same time.
We believe in His vicarious death on the cross, and that He voluntarily endured His crucifixion as a substitutionary, ransom payment providing for reconciliation of the world unto God. He was resurrected and ascended to heaven in a physical body.
(John 1:1-3, Micah 5:2, Matthew 1:18, Hebrews 4:15, Philippians 2:6-8, Matthew 4:1-2, John 5:22, 1 Timothy 3:16, Romans 3:25, Isaiah 53:5, Romans 4:25-26, Luke 24:39-40)
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The Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity and is God, co-existing with God the Father and God the Son and being of the same nature and attributes. We believe the ministries of the Holy Spirit to man include the conviction to the lost and the regeneration of those who have repented and placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit indwells, seals, sanctifies, and distributes spiritual gifts to the believer according to His will. The seal secures the believer to eternal redemption. The Spirit indwells the believer, living within the believer in a real sense. He sanctifies the believer daily leading to evidential fruit.
We believe the Holy Spirit no longer distributes sign gifts because their purpose was to confirm the Word of God for the establishment of the Church., Now that the Church is established and the Word of God is freely available, we believe the sign gifts are no longer necessary.
(1 Corinthians 3:16, , Romans 8:9, Ephesians 4:30, 1 Corinthians 12:11, Romans 8:22-26, Acts:16:6-7, Galatians 5:22-23)
What FBC believes about Scripture
Inspiration
We believe that the Bible is completely infallible and inerrant in its original documents. It is the revelation from God of Himself and His will to mankind. We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of all 66 books of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation; that it is the very Word of God.
We believe in God’s reliable, providential preservation of the scriptures Bible, and that it is the final authority of all matters of faith and practice, and therefore is equally binding on all generations and will remain to the end of the age. We believe in the dual authorship of the Scriptures in that through the personalities and writing styles of the human authors the Holy Spirit superintended that they composed and recorded accurately the Word of God to man.
(2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, Matthew 24:35, 1 Peter 1:24-25, 2 Samuel 23:2-3, 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, Isaiah 40:8, Romans 3:1-2)
Interpretation
We believe that God revealed himself through written human language and therefore can be understood through diligent application of a literal grammatical-historical method of interpretation of the Scriptures. We believe that the Holy Spirit illuminates a believer’s understanding of the truths of God’s Word over mere intellectual assent so that a believer may grow from it.
We do not believe that Scripture can be allegorized at the discretion of the reader nor that Scripture can be rightly applied if the significance to its original audiences is ignored or taken out of context.
(1 Corinthians 2:14, Luke 24:27, Exodus 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
What FBC believes about mankind
Creation and fall
We believe in the literal Genesis account of creation which states that man was created by God in His image and after His likeness. Adam and Eve, the first man and first woman were created innocent and sinless to maintain God’s creation and live in a relationship with Him all for His glory.
We believe that through the conscious sin of Adam death both spiritually and physically entered the world and that all mankind has inherited a sin-nature. For this reason, we believe also in the total depravity of man, in that all are utterly lost in their unredeemed state.
(Genesis 1:26-27, Romans 3:10, Colossians 3:10, Genesis2:7, Genesis 3:4-7, Galatians 3:28)
Sin
We believe that all of humanity has sinned and that no one can become perfectly sinless apart from God’s grace in Jesus Christ, therefore humanity is under the just condemnation of death, both physical and spiritual, without defense or excuse.
We believe that sin entered the universe first through Satan and then permeated the earth through the disobedience of Adam. As descendants of Adam, we are all born with a sin-nature.
(Isaiah 14:12-15, Romans 5:12, Psalm 51:5, Genesis 2:17, Ephesians 2:1)
The nature of mankind
We believe that mankind has been created with a binary gender, distinct and fixed, yet complementary. Men and women regardless of age, race, or social standing were created as equal inheritors of God’s grace and are equally representative of His image. We believe the hierarchy of roles within the house and the church, as taught in Scripture, is representative of the Church and Christ as our head, and therefore transcends culture.
We believe a human being is constituted of two parts, the visible physical body, and the invisible immaterial spirit. These two aspects of mankind are connected. We believe that human life begins before birth and through human reproduction a living soul is formed at conception, both the material and immaterial parts. We do not believe that a soul is somehow placed in a body at a certain point during pregnancy, or at birth.
(Genesis 2:7, James2:26, Psalms 16:10, Psalm 139:13, Job 30:25, Matthew10:28)
What FBC believes about the church
The purpose and existence
We believe that the universal Church means all believers from the day of Pentecost to the Rapture and that the Church is the Body of Christ. It was initiated at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit indwelt the believers. We believe that the local church functions as a body of baptized believers who organize themselves to fulfill the mandates given to the church according to Scripture. We believe these mandates are the fellowship of the saints, the edification of itself, public worship, and evangelism through the proclamation of the Gospel.
(Ephesians 1:22-23, 1 Timothy 3:1, , Acts 2:42-46, Ephesians 5:23-25)
Spiritual Gifts to the church
We believe that the Holy Spirit administers spiritual gifts to the church for the edification of the church. We believe that speaking in tongues and sign gifts were intended to authenticate the apostles’ message and to promote the establishment of the church in the first century, and therefore are not part of the spiritual gifts bestowed to the Church today. We believe in the cessation of these sign gifts, such as the gift of tongues and prophecy, and the individual gift of miraculous healing.
(1 Corinthians 12:4-11, 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, Ephesians 4:7-12)
Offices and ordinances
We believe that a local church should be autonomous being associated with a doctrinal statement. We believe there to be only two ordinances, namely, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which are memorials of what they picture (the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus). We do not believe in the transubstantiation of Christ’s literal body, nor that the sacraments impart grace.
We believe there to be only two ordained offices which are Pastors and Deacons, and that the biblical terms bishops and elders emphasize different aspects of the office of Pastor and not separate offices.
We believe that the Apostles were the 12 men that Jesus commissioned in Mathew 10. Mathias replaced Judas in Acts 1, as well as Paul whom Jesus commissioned in Acts 9. We do not believe in any succession of apostleship nor do we believe that anyone can hold the office of an apostle today.
(1 Timothy 3:8-13, 1 Peter 5:1-4, Titus 1:5-9, Acts 6:5-8, John 6:56, 1 Corinthians 10:16)
What FBC believes about things unseen
Angels and demons
We believe angels are ministering spirits that were created by God for His glory and purposes. As their name implies, they are messengers of God. We believe that they are personal beings with emotion and intellect, that there is a hierarchy among them, and that there is one chief archangel. We believe their ministry focuses on Christians and on Christ but also extends to carrying out certain judgments from God.
We believe those angels who followed Satan from his fall and still follow him in his works today, are evil spirits called demons.
(Colossians 1:16, Luke 2:13, Ephesians 3:10, Hebrew 1:14, Matthew 4:11, Jude 1:6)
The spirits of the dead
We believe that at death the spirit of the believer passes immediately to be with the Lord. The soul of an unbeliever is also kept until the second resurrection. We believe that the dead have no influence or interaction with the visible world at all.
We believe that practices to communicate in any way with ancestors or relatives who have died are strictly condemned in Scripture as a sin. We believe that demons can influence the visible world and aim to lie and deceive.
(Deuteronomy 18:10-11, 1 Chronicles 10:13-14, 1 Samuel 28:3, Luke 16:29-31, Luke 23:43)
Satan
We believe that Satan was created as a perfect being as one of the angels. He rebelled against God, brought sin into creation, and was cast down to earth where he presently does his evil works. His fall caused a host of angels to follow him. The Scriptures refer to fallen angels as demons.
We believe that Satan is a literal, personal being that aims to blind the world from the light of the Gospel, as well as to hinder, accuse and tempt believers. We believe he and all his demons will be eternally defeated and cast into the lake of fire.
We believe that he is not all-powerful, all-present, or all-knowing and does not know the future further than what God Himself has revealed, and therefore he should not be compared to God in any way.
(Ezekiel 28:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Revelation 20:10, 2 Peter 2:4, Job 1:6, Acts 5:3, 1 Corinthians 7:5, Isaiah 14:12-17)
What FBC believes about Salvation
The Act of the Cross
We believe salvation is given completely by God by grace through repentance and faith in the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that He died a substitutionary death on the Cross and shed His blood for the vicarious atonement of the sins of all mankind. We believe the gift of salvation to be apart from any good works by man, and that those who are saved are born again by the Holy Spirit, adopted by God the Father, and thus are secure in their salvation as children of God.
(Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:18, Galatians 2:16, Ephesians 1:7, Acts 20:21)
The aspects of salvation
Justification is where a believer is saved from the penalty of sin and given a new nature. This occurs only once. We believe the baptism of the Spirit happens at the moment of salvation as He regenerates and indwells the believer. We do not believe that this is a separate event marked with any kind of outward sign.
Sanctification is the inward transformation of a believer leading to purity of thought and deed, as the believer is freed from the power of sin. It is the continual growth of a believer as the Holy Spirit enables him to live a life of goodness and godliness. This requires the believer’s active obedience and submission as well as the Spirit’s active transforming power in our lives. This begins at the moment of salvation and is a gradual process over the course of the believer’s life.
Glorification is when the believer will one day meet God in heaven, be removed from the presence of sin to dwell in holiness with God, be immersed in the glory of God, and reflect the glory of God.
(Romans 3:26, Isiah 53:6, Titus, 3:7, Galatians, 3:26, Philippians 2:12-13, Ephesians, 4:23, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 2 Corinthians 5:8, Acts 3:21)
Man’s Response to the Gospel Call
We believe that regarding salvation the Bible teaches both God’s sovereignty over all things and man’s free will. We believe that neither Calvinism nor Arminianism in their extreme senses follows the letter and spirit of the full Word of God on this matter.
We believe that everyone that hears the Gospel is confronted with a choice: Either, within God’s complete sovereignty to choose as free agents to accept, repent, and place faith in Christ, or to choose to reject the truth in unbelief.
(Romans 6:13, Romans 8:11, Romans 3:24, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Romans 8:22-24)
What FBC believes about the End Times
Rapture and tribulation
We believe in Christ’s imminent bodily and personal return in the air, and the pre-millennial, pre-tribulation rapture of His church. At this event, the dead in Christ and living believers will be translated to meet Him in the air. At the judgment seat of Christ, all believers will give account for all our actions on earth.
We believe in a seven-year tribulation period where God will pour out righteous judgment both through natural and supernatural means, followed by the literal second coming of Christ upon the earth with the saints.
(Daniel 9:24-27, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, Matthew 24:27-31, Revelation 3:10, 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12, Revelation 16)
Millennial Reign and final judgment
We believe Christ will return as Judge and King to establish a literal thousand-year reign. This kingdom will be the last fulfillment of the promises made to Israel through the prophets. Satan will be bound during this time.
We believe that the events described thereafter in the book of Revelation namely, Satan deceiving the nations and his ultimate defeat as well as the Great White Throne Judgment. We believe this to be where all the unbelievers who have died will be resurrected physically and judged a final time to be cast in the lake of fire.
We believe those who have salvation in Jesus Christ will dwell eternally with the Lord.
(1 Peter 5:4, Revelation 20:3-7, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Revelation 20:12-15, Revelation 22, Matthew 25:41, John 5:22, Isaiah 11, Jeremiah 32:40-42)