Grace and
Truth
We believe that the Bible, in its
sixty-six (66) canonical books, is a divine revelation. It is inspired,
infallible Word of God. (Psalms 119:89; Proverbs 30:5-6; John 10:35; 2 Timothy
3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
We believe in One Triune God
existing in three Persons—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each Person
of the Trinity being equal in essence and authority and each One possessing all
the same attributes (Deuteronomy 6:4; 2 Corinthians 13:14).
We hold that man was created in
the image of God but through Adam's sin, the entire human race fell and received
a sin nature. As a result, man became alienated from God and is therefore
incapable of retrieving his lost condition (Genesis
1:26-27; Romans 3:22-23, 5:12; Ephesians 2:12).
We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal Son of God, became Man while retaining His essential deity.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin, Mary in order to
reveal God, redeem man and resolve the invisible struggle among the angels by
the total defeat of the devil, Satan. We believe that He fully accomplished our
redemption through His substitutionary, sacrificial
death on the Cross, and that the Father accepted totally the pouring out of His
soul unto death (Isaiah 53:9-12) as the propitiation
for sins, and that the Father's acceptance of His death was dramatized and
realized by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead (Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14; Romans 3:24-26; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; 2 Corinthians
5:21; Hebrews 9:22; 13:20-21; 1 Peter 1:3-5, 18-20; 2:24; 3:18). Furthermore, we believe that even now the Lord Jesus
Christ is in Heaven, having been supereminently
exalted by God the Father to sit at His right hand where He fulfills the
ministry of Great High Priest, Intercessor and Advocate for His people, where He
is the indisputably acknowledged Head of the Church which is His Body and from
which place He will return for the crushing of all the enemies of God (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:19-23;
Hebrews 7:25-27; 10:12-13;
1 John 1:1-2).
We hold that the Holy Spirit, the
third Person of the Blessed Trinity, is a Person, not a force, and that He
convicts the world of the sin of unbelief, restrains evil from its ultimate
manifestation, glorifies Christ and guides believers into all truth (John 16:7-14). We believe that at the point of personal
faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit baptizes each individual into indissoluble
union with Christ and permanently indwells, seals and
regenerates each believer. Therefore, it is the duty of each believer to walk by
means of the Spirit and be filled by Him (Romans 8:9;
1 Corinthians 12:12, 13; Galatians 3:26-29; 5:16; Ephesians 1:12-14; 4:30; 5:18; Titus 3:5, 6).
We believe that eternal salvation
is the gift of God received upon the sinner's meritless faith in Jesus Christ whose accomplished
redemption on the Cross provided man's reconciliation to God (John 3:15-16; 5:24; 6:40, 47; 20:31; Acts 16:31; Romans 3:24-25; 5:11, 16; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21;
Ephesians 2:8-9).
We hold that all believers are
kept secure forever and each has the right to personal assurance of this eternal
security (John 10:27-30; Romans 8:1,
38, 39; 1 Corinthians 1:4-8; 1
Thessalonians 5:23, 24; Hebrews 10:14; 1 John 5:1, 13).
We hold that the Church, which is
Christ's body, is made up of all born-again persons of this present age, and
that it is a spiritual organism and all believers are in union with Christ
irrespective of secondary affiliation with Christian denominations or
organizations (1 Corinthians 12:12-14; Ephesians 1:22,
23).
We believe in the personality of
Satan who is the openly declared adversary of God and man (Job
1:6, 7; Isaiah 14:12-17; 1
Peter 5:8).
We believe that the next great
event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the Exit-Resurrection when the Lord
Jesus Christ returns in the air to receive to Himself the dead in Christ and
believers who are alive at His coming. This event is also known as the Rapture
(1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Philippians
3:11, 20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Titus 2:11-14).
We believe that the
Exit-Resurrection of the Church will be followed by the fulfillment of Israel's
seventieth week, the latter half of which is the time of Jacob's trouble, the
GreatTribulation (Jeremiah
30:7; Daniel 9:27; Matthew
24:15-21; Revelation 6-19).
We believe that the Great
Tribulation will be climaxed by the (premillennial)
return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth to set up His kingdom (Zechariah 14:4-11; Matthew
24:15-25; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10; Revelation 20:6).
We believe that at death, a
believer's soul and human spirit pass immediately into God's presence and there
he remains in conscious bliss until Christ's appearing at the Exit-Resurrection.
At that time, his soul, human spirit and body will be reunited in association
with the Lord forever in glory. But at the death of an unbeliever, his soul will
remain in conscious misery until the final judgment of the Great White Throne at
the close of the Millennium. At that time, his soul and body will be reunited
and cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to be punished with
everlasting destruction, banished from the presence of the Lord and the glory of
His power for all eternity (Luke 16:19-26; 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; 2 Thessalonians
1:7-9; Jude 6, 7; Revelation
20:11-15).
Once born-again, the believer is
to desire the sincere milk of the Word so that continually nourished by it, he may grow spiritually in the grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This believer's life comes into adjustment with God's
purpose, plan and will, thus bringing both blessing to himself and honor to the
Lord (Romans 12:1,2; 2 Corinthians
13:9; 1 Timothy 4:6; 1 Peter
2:2; 2 Peter 3: 18).
We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ instituted the Lord's Supper to be observed until His return (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).
We believe that God, existing as
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is sovereign, and exercises supreme and absolute
rule over all creation as a part of and consistent with the essence and
attributes of Deity (1 Chronicles 29:11,12; Daniel 4:35; Psalms 24:1; Ephesians 1:11; 1 Timothy 6:15).
Though salvation is a result of
one decision to believe, spirituality is the result of continuous decisions to
perceive, assimilate and apply Bible doctrine in the filling of the Spirit. The
believer is mandated not to 'squelch' or to 'grieve' the Spirit by personal sin
and by rejection of His Word and His grace. The spiritual life of a believer can
only be fulfilled by the power of the Holy Spirit (Galatians
5:16; Ephesians 4:30; 5:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:19).
We believe that God the Holy
Spirit, in grace and apart from human merit, sovereignly bestows spiritual gifts to believers in this
dispensation. Some of the permanent spiritual gifts which exist today are
pastor-teacher, evangelist, helps, and administration. We further believe that
the temporary spiritual gifts of apostleship, prophecy, speaking in tongues,
interpreting tongues, and working of miracles and healings ceased with the
completion of the Canon of Scripture (1 Corinthians 12-13;
Ephesians 4:7-12; Romans 12:4-8). Though
spiritual gifts of miracles and healing have ceased, God may, and does, heal and
miraculously intervene by His own direct action.
© Copyright 2008, Michael
Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights
Reserved.