IMMANUEL BAPTIST CHURCH

 

Church History

Statement of Faith

The Scriptures

We believe the Bible is God's written revelation to man. All Scripture is "God-breathed." It "never had its origin in the words of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

Therefore, we believe the Bible to be the infallible and inerrant Word of God in the original writings. We further recognize that God has preserved the 66 'books' of the Old and New Testaments in a reliable transmission of those autographs, so that accurate translations are available today as the Word of God.

Since the Bible is God's Word, God said what He meant and meant what He said. The Bible is to be interpreted literally, which means normally, grammatically, historically, and contextually.

We believe the Bible to be the center of Christian truth, having authority over our individual behavior and church practice. It is authoritative and without error in any category of knowledge, including science and history, and is the supreme standard by which all other philosophies, beliefs, and activities must be measured.

Therefore, we commit ourselves to becoming self-feeding Christians by regular reading, studying, and memorizing God's Word. Our goal is conformity to godliness, and that we may be "thoroughly equipped for every good work."

The Godhead

God is a Person. God is not a 'thing', 'power' or 'influence'. He thinks, feels, desires and acts in ways that show Him to be a living personal Being. But He is not to be referred to as 'the man upstairs' or some kind of 'superman', for "the Lord is the true God."

God is a Spirit. We believe "God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." He has no physical dimensions.

God is Independent. We believe that God is self-existent, that He can survive on His own. He is not dependent on anything or any person to exist.

God is Eternal. We believe God is "from everlasting to everlasting", the one who is, and who was, and who is to come." God has no beginning or end to His existence, and He remains eternally the same ('immutable').

God is Infinite. We believe that God is unlimited in all His attributes. He is not confined to one place at a time, but is present everywhere ('omnipresent'), being fully aware of everything that happens at all times.

We believe God knows everything ('omniscient') in the past, present and future, including all our thoughts, words, and deeds. "Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account."

We believe God is all-powerful ('omnipotent'). This does not mean God can do anything, since He cannot sin, or change, or make mistakes, or deny Himself; but that He can do anything He wishes consistent with His character.

God is Sovereign. We believe the Almighty God to be the Creator and Sustainer of everything that exists. He is the sole and supreme Ruler of the universe, and nothing whatever is outside of His control.

With God there are no accidents or surprises. He has a plan that He has ordained in advance and that includes all that will come to pass. This plan includes evil, but does not involve God in it.

God writes all the world's history and "works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will." God needs no advice or consent for anything He chooses to do, nor can anyone prevent Him doing what He pleases.

God is Triune. We believe that there is only one true God. Yet God has revealed Himself as a 'trinity' of three Persons in the Godhead - the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit, each of whom is truly, fully, and equally God in every divine perfection.

God may be seen executing three distinct offices by the three persons. God the Father is the Executive Head, residing at the throne of God.

We believe God the Son, Jesus Christ, left heaven to come to earth in the form of a man. Being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, He lived an absolutely sinless life, setting the example for all mankind. He exists as undiminished deity and perfect humanity united in one person forever.

In a blood-shed death upon the cross, Christ, our Savior, paid for the sins of the world. Following His burial, He bodily rose from the grave and ascended back to an exalted position in heaven as Lord over all creation and Head of the church. Christ is presently in heaven interceding for believers.

We believe the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead. Though actively involved in ministry with Old Testament believers, the Spirit took His abode in the world in a special sense on the first day of the present church age.

The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and is the agent who brings the new life of salvation to Christians. Indwelling every believer at the point of faith in Christ, He baptizes them permanently into the body of Christ and seals their salvation forever. The Holy Spirit strengthens, gives guidance and assurance, gives understanding of the Scriptures, intercedes for us, produces spiritual character, and distributes gifts to every believer.

Besides those already described, God possesses many other attributes, including the following:

Therefore, we humbly submit to our God, giving all the glory of life to Him. He is worthy of our highest adoration, respect, and regular worship. Complete obedience should only be normal.

Angels

We believe God created an innumerable host of sinless, spirit beings known as angels, who work to advance His plan. They respond to God in praise and worship, service, as instruments of judgment, and as ministering messengers to His people.

We believe in the reality and personality of the devil, who was once a high-ranking angel himself. Becoming Satan, he sinned through pride and rebellion, leading a great number of the angelic host to be expelled from heaven with him.

Satan is the unholy ruler of this present world. We believe him to be man's great tempter and adversary, the accuser of believers, and the author of all false religions. The fallen angels, now known as demons and evil spirits, join with Satan to oppose the program of God.

However, Christ accomplished ultimate victory over Satan by His death and resurrection, and Satan is destined to be defeated and banished forever from the presence of God into the lake of fire (hell).

Therefore, recognizing that the conflict of the ages is primarily spiritual, we will focus our efforts on spiritual warfare, using all the resources we have as believers in Christ.

The Creation and Fall of Man

We believe the Genesis account of creation - that God spoke into being the heavens and earth and all that is in them in six literal, 24-hour days. As His crowning work of creation, "God created man in His own image... male and female He created them." God now causes the development of every human person from the moment of conception.

We believe man is unique from all other creatures and has been given special dignity. Since God created all of life by direct act, "each according to its kind," man did not develop from lower life forms by the process of evolution.

Being created 'in the image of God' has nothing to do with size or shape, nor that man was a miniature of God, possessing all the same qualities in small quantities. It means that man was created as a spiritual, rational, moral, and immortal being, with a nature that was sinless. In the beginning he was a true reflection of God's holy character, with the capacity to have a relationship with God. Man became God's personal representative on earth, having authority over all other living creatures.

We believe that by the voluntary disobedience of one man, Adam, "sin entered the world... and death through sin, and in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned."

Death means separation, and in one terrible moment man became separated from God. He died spiritually and began to die physically. From then on, all the children and descendants of Adam and Eve (the entire human race) inherited their corrupt nature and sinful character. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Today we are sinners by birth, by natural tendency, by practice and by choice. The root of our trouble is not what we do, but who we are. We sin because we are sinners. We have alienated ourselves from the life and family of God, with no humanly possible means of recovery or salvation (total depravity).

Therefore, we view life as a sacred gift from God. We ought to commit our total beings to live for the Lord who made us. We stand opposed to the taking of innocent human life in its various methods, including abortion, euthanasia, and 'assisted suicide.'

We also realize that our relationship with God as He intended from the beginning can never be restored by anything we may try to do in ourselves. We are totally incapable of it, and must rely on God Himself to save us from sin and its consequences.

Salvation

We believe that God has purposed from eternity to elect some individuals to receive the benefits of salvation in Christ. He simply chose to do this according to His love, grace, and mercy.

We believe that salvation is a free gift provided by God to all who would receive it. No amount of resolution, effort, church activity, or submission to regulation can help the sinner take even one step toward heaven, "for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith."

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for the sins of all mankind on the cross (atonement) as a voluntary substitution of Himself in the sinner's place. All who trust Christ as their personal Savior gain righteousness (justification) on the basis of His shed blood on Calvary and on the basis of His resurrection from the dead.

Upon receiving Christ into one's life, the believer immediately passes from spiritual death to spiritual life (regeneration), possessing every spiritual blessing in Christ. We believe that believers are then kept eternally secure by the plan and power of God. A Christian can never be lost again or have his salvation taken away.

Therefore, we should focus on the finished work of the Lord Jesus as the center of our Christianity. Our response should be to serve and obey God out of gratitude for His undeserved mercies. We further resolve to spread this good news of salvation in Christ to all peoples of the world.

The Christian Life

We believe that all Christians still possess a sinful nature in this life, and therefore, will still commit sin. But God has made full provision for believers to overcome their natural tendency to sin. The believer has been given a new nature with the capability to serve and follow Christ by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

We believe in righteous living and good works as evidence of one's salvation and is the normal experience for Christians. These works result in future rewards given to us by Christ.

We believe that God has distributed spiritual gifts to every believer to use during their Christian life for strengthening each other in the faith. He has given some gifted men to be ministry leaders so that they might equip others to perform their own ministry of service.

We believe that certain spiritual gifts (apostleship, prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, and miracles) were given temporarily by God during the first generation of the church in order to authenticate the apostles' message. We believe that these 'sign gifts' are not normative for the church of Jesus Christ today.

We believe that spiritual growth in our Christian lives can be enhanced as we practice the following:

• Daily study of God's word in personal, private devotions
• Regular prayer
• Immediate confession of sin
• Faithfulness and involvement in church
• Avoidance of divisive or destructive speech, but rather, conversation that edifies
• Proper respect for other Christians, striving for unity of the Spirit
• Separation from sin and the evil ways of the world
• Separation from false teachers and sinning believers
• Holding no close, intimate ties with unbelievers, not isolation from the world, but a witness in it
• Refraining from all substance abuse or habits which harm the body, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit
• A responsible family life, including abstention from fornication, adultery, and homosexuality
• Submission to civil authorities, except where government is contrary to biblical principle
• The work of evangelism and discipleship
• The exercise of spiritual gifts

Therefore, since we have been given every resource needed for a life of godliness, we are committed to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

The Church

We believe that all those who are united by faith to the Savior, Jesus Christ, are members of the universal church, with Christ being the Head. This includes believers in every part of the world from the first day of the church age (Pentecost) until the present.

We believe that the primary, God-ordained channel for the universal church to carry out its work is in localized assemblies of believers. In a given geographic setting, the local church is made up of believers united together for the exaltation of God, the edification of believers, and the evangelization of the world.

We believe that the local church is self-governing, taking God's Word as the only sufficient rule for corporate practice and individual behavior.

The Scriptures teach that Christians should be wary of those who do not teach the Gospel of Christ; thus, Bible-believing churches today should have no part in fellowship or cooperation with churches or organizations that are not in agreement with the fundamental doctrines of our faith. Local churches also have the responsibility of disciplining sinful members.

We believe that the local church has two offices, that of pastor (bishop, elder, overseer, shepherd) and deacon (servant, minister).

We believe that the church has two scriptural ordinances, that of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Both are symbolic in nature, and both are to be experienced only by Christians.

Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Water baptism is an outward picture of what has happened within the heart of a Christian - that one's sinful self has been crucified with Christ and has been risen with Him to walk in newness of life. Its purpose is to allow the believer to give public expression of His identification with the Savior and his intention to follow Him.

The Lord's Supper is the privilege believers have to partake of the emblems of the bread and the cup. By doing this, believers commemorate together the sacrificial love of Christ. It should always be done with honest self-examination.

Therefore, we commit ourselves to our local church as an essential and central part of our Christian life.

God's Future Program

We believe in the bodily resurrection of all the dead - saved believers to eternal life and blessedness in heaven, and the unsaved to eternal, conscious suffering and torment in hell. When a believer in Christ experiences physical death, his spirit is immediately ushered into the presence of Christ to await the resurrection of his body.

We believe the first event to mark the end of this age is the 'rapture' of the church. It is the first phase of Christ's return. It is the imminent, instantaneous event in which all believers of the church age are caught up in the air to meet Christ as He appears from heaven to gather them to Himself.

Those in Christ who are already dead will be resurrected, while those Christians alive at the time will be 'changed.' Both will take on new, glorified bodies.

After the rapture, the judgment of the believer's works will take place at Christ's judgment seat in heaven. It entails the judgment of works of service of believers of the church age by Christ to determine their appropriate rewards.

During the judgment of believer's works in heaven, God will begin a period of judgment on earth, which is often referred to as the 'Day of the Lord' in the Bible. This 'Day' will include a special time of tribulation known as 'The Great Tribulation'. It will occur after the rapture at the end of the age, and will last for a period of seven years leading up to and including the second coming of Christ. In contrast to general persecutions and trials that men commonly face, The Great Tribulation will affect the whole world and be worse than anything seen before.

At the close of the tribulation period, we believe Christ will appear visibly and gloriously from heaven to the earth in order to judge the inhabitants, to deliver and restore the nation of Israel, and to set up His rule over the nations. This is the second phase of His return.

We believe that upon His return, Christ will establish the literal, earthly kingdom of God. It will last for one thousand years, with Christ as the supreme political ruler, spiritual leader, and object of worship. This kingdom will be a time of unusual peace, prosperity, and righteousness. During this time, believers in Christ will share in His reign.

We believe that at the end of this 'millennium,' Satan will be allowed to lead one last revolt against God. He will be defeated and cast into the lake of fire (hell). Then the unbelieving wicked dead will be judged according to their works at the 'Great White Throne Judgment' and be cast into the lake of fire. We believe that the present heavens and earth will be destroyed. God will then create the new heavens and new earth, which will usher in the eternal state.

Therefore, with this view of God's future for mankind, it is our responsibility to prepare ourselves with purity and to seek to win the unsaved from the powers of evil.