What We Believe

We believe that the Bible as God’s Word is inspired and infallible. It is fully inerrant in its original manuscripts and superior to all human authority. We do not shape God’s Word. God’s Word shapes us. God’s Word has never failed man. It is a perfect road map that leads to eternal life with God, through Jesus, the Word made flesh.

There is one God eternally existent in three distinct persons in one divine essence: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

–  God the Father has revealed Himself as the Creator and preserver of the universe, to Whom the entire creation and all creatures are subject.  

• –  Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son, is the image of the invisible God. To accomplish our redemption He became fully human, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus Christ, who is true God and true man, by His perfect obedience and substitutionary death on the cross, has purchased our redemption. He arose from the dead for our justification in the body in which He was crucified. He ascended into heaven, where He is now seated at the right hand of God, the Father, as our interceding High Priest. He will come a second time personally, boldly, and visibly to gather the believers unto Himself and to establish His eternal kingdom. He will judge the living and the dead and make an eternal separation between believers and unbelievers.

• –  The Holy Spirit is a divine person eternally one with the Father and with the Son. Through the Word of God He convicts people of sin, persuades them to confess their sinfulness to God and calls them to faith through the Gospel. He regenerates, sanctifies, and preserves believers in the one true Gospel. He regenerates, sanctifies, and preserves believers in the one true faith. He comforts, guides, equips, directs, and empowers the church to fulfill the great commission, which is making disciples of all nations.

Eternal salvation is available to every living human being on earth only by God’s grace and through faith in Christ alone.

We believe that there is life after death and all are on their way to either heaven or hell.

The sacraments, as means of grace, are sacred acts instituted by God in which God Himself has joined His Word of promise to a visible element, and by which He offers, gives, and seals the forgiveness of sins earned by Christ.

• –  Baptism is not merely water; it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s Word. It brings about forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe, as the Word and promise of God declare. It is not the water that does these things, but the Word of God connected with the water and our faith which relies on that Word. It signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil desires should be drowned by daily sorrow for sin and repentance and be put to death, and that the new person should come forth every day and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

• –  Holy Communion is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, given to us Christians to eat and drink, as it was instituted by Christ himself. Through the words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” the forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation are given to us in the sacrament; for where there is forgiveness of sin there is also life and salvation. These words together with the eating and drinking are the chief thing in the sacrament and those who believe them have what they say and declare, namely, the forgiveness of sins.