He seals, enlightens, instructs, guides, teaches, witnesses, sanctifies, and helps every born-again believer. Thereby, being deeply convicted of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication for mercy, at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ and openly confessing Him as our only and all-sufficient Savior. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. True repentance is inseparably related to true faith causing one to purposely turn away from sin and move instead toward God as an act of faith. Be sure to look for the continuation of this article to find further discussion regarding the Baptist Distinctives! 5:3; Col. 3:56). And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20 ESV). The Church. 9. Adapted from the 1853 New Hampshire Confession of Faith . It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Christian unity in the New Testament sense is spiritual harmony and voluntary cooperation for common ends by various groups of Christs people. ; 2; 1 Timothy 6:14; 2 Timothy 4:1, 8; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 9:2728; James 5:8; 2 Peter 3:7ff. It is the responsibility of each Christian to learn, believe, and live every doctrine taught in Gods Word. Inclusion of a statement that Baptists honor the principles of soul competency and the priesthood of believer. The new birth opens all human faculties and creates a thirst for knowledge. All believers from Pentecost to the Rapture are added to the Church by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We believe that justification is the judicial act of God declaring us to be righteous through faith in Christ Jesus. Mission Statement, Faith Baptist Church. When you ask them for their statement, they tell you, "The Bible is our statement of faith." That's it; you won't get any more out of them unless you sit them down and drill them. In this Statement of Faith, our Constitution, and all other documents, policies, and ministries of Baptist Christian Church, wherever the word man/men appears, it shall always mean a person who is born, according to Gods sovereign plan and design, male; and wherever the word woman/women appears, it shall always mean a person who is born, according to Gods sovereign plan and design, female. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. We believe that God rejects any attempt to alter ones gender by surgery or appearance. The full historicity and perspicuity of the biblical record of primeval history, including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people, the literal fall and resultant divine curse on the creation, the worldwide cataclysmic deluge and the origin of nations and languages at the tower of Babel. We believe that the great Gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in Him is justification; that justification includes the pardon of sin and the gift of eternal life on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done; but solely through faith in the Redeemer's blood. (John 17:17; Romans 6:1-14; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 2 Corinthians 6:14-17; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 5:16-23; Ephesians 2:6; Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; 1 John 3:2; Jude 24-25; Revelation 22:11), We believe adoption means to be placed as a son. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. The first day of the week is the Lords Day. A spokesman for Prestonwood Baptist Church, where Mr. Graham is pastor, said the church "categorically denies" the way the report characterizes an incident under his leadership in which it . God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of marriage. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. The state has no right to impose penalties for religious opinions of any kind. Repentance is a genuine turning from sin toward God. There are several Baptist Associations that have been formulated for their volunteer member churches. We believe God brought all creation into being in six literal 24-hour days and that He rested on the 7th day. Wed. 6:30pm 7:30pm, Crusaders Club (Seasonal) The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. To respect the appropriate ethical and Spiritual guidelines for personal interaction including the respect for the property of both the institution as well as the personal property of others. Matthew 3:1317; 26:2630; 28:1920; Mark 1:911; 14:2226; Luke 3:2122; 22:1920; John 3:23; Acts 2:4142; 8:3539; 16:3033; 20:7; Romans 6:35; 1 Corinthians 10:16, 21; 11:2329; Colossians 2:12. 1. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption. "[3], The BF&M was revised in 1963 (under the chairmanship of pastor-theologian Herschel H. Hobbs), amended in 1998 (with the addition of Section XVIII on The Family), and again revised in 2000 under the chairmanship of pastor-author and former three-time SBC President Adrian Rogers; the 2000 revisions incorporated sociological as well as theological changes and were considered the most controversial. Our sovereign God brought about our new creation in a manner above our comprehension, solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth. All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. We believe that Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. (John 14:3; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; Titus 2:13; Revelation 19:11-21; Revelation 20:1-6). Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. We believe that the term marriage has only one meaning: A life-long covenant, sanctioned by God, that joins one man and one woman, who were each born as a man and a woman, in a single, exclusive union, as spoken and described by God in Scripture. Statement of Faith This doctrinal statement reflects the broad, mainstream, conservative evangelical tradition which is consistent with the teachings of the Bible and which has stood the test of history and experience. He permanently indwells the Church and the body of each believer. Realizing the importance, privilege and responsibility of the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, First Baptist Church believes the following: 1. To display respect for Gods creation and His provisions and to specifically practice respect for and courtesy to all persons equally. The Lords Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming. All sound learning is, therefore, a part of our Christian heritage. Faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and commitment of the entire personality to Him as Lord and Saviour. Special creation of the existing space-time universe and all its basic systems and kinds of organisms in the six literal days of the creation week. The trustee board of Anderson University has adopted a religious doctrinal statement of faith expressing the institution's South Carolina Baptist identity, convictions, and its Christian belief system. First Baptist Classical Academy: Statement of Faith & Conviction . They are voluntary and advisory bodies designed to elicit, combine, and direct the energies of our people in the most effective manner. Christians ought to pray and to labor that the Kingdom may come and Gods will be done on earth. ; and Fern Creek . In providing for such freedom no ecclesiastical group or denomination should be favored by the state more than others. After one is saved, water baptism shows our faith and union in Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection to a new life that exalts and glorifies Christ. Second, the 2000 revision of the BF&M removed the assertion that the person of Jesus Christ was to be the exegetical standard by which the Bible was to be interpreted,[citation needed][c] and replaced it with the last sentence in the quotation below. Missionary effort on the part of all rests thus upon a spiritual necessity of the regenerate life, and is expressly and repeatedly commanded in the teachings of Christ. All who join CHBC are required to affirm the CHBC Statement of Faith, the revised New Hampshire Confession of Faith from 1853. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment. Salvation is received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work. We do consider the knowledge, belief, and acceptance of the truth as set forth in this doctrinal statement to be essential to sound faith and practice. We believe God the Father is an infinite, eternal, sovereignSpirit Who is absolutely holy and self-existent. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. Expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural. C. Sanctification is the experience, beginning in regeneration, by which the believer is set apart to Gods purposes, and is enabled to progress toward moral and spiritual maturity through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, are truly righteous in His esteem; while all such as continue in impenitence and unbelief are in His sight wicked, and under the curse, and this distinction holds among men both in and after death, in the everlasting felicity of the saved and the everlasting conscious suffering of the lost. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lords Supper. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, and where there are no Christian works of obedience then faith is dead. Children are to honor and obey their parents. A Statement of Faith is just a summary. We believe that God's method of financing His earthly work of spreading the Gospel to all nations the tithes and offerings of His people; that it is to be given to the Lord through the care of the churches; and the support of the ministry is by His local church or storehouse to be distributed as directed by the leadership of the Spirit as the need arises; that the time to tithe is the first day of the week; that everyone is accountable to the Lord for one-tenth of the income; and that timing was instituted long before the law was ever given and was practiced by the early church. Given that human life is God's creation, including the life of the unborn, we affirm the "sanctity of life" as an integral representation of our college faith and values.