¶2.1 The
Holy Trinity. The Trinity is easily
distinguished in scripture and impossible to separate. To separate the Trinity is to violate the
unity of God. To say or suggest that one
may have one person of the Trinity apart from the other two is serious
error. The moment one believes in
separation of the Trinity, he becomes a victim of the heresy of polytheism.
¶2.2 The
Incarnation and Deity of Christ.
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: …and his name
shall be called… the mighty God, the everlasting Father…” “…the Word was God…the Word was made
flesh…” “For in him dwelleth all the
fullness of the Godhead bodily.” “Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus Christ is the eternal God manifested in
true humanity. In his human mission of
qualifying to be the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world," he never functioned in his deity but solely in his real humanity. His qualifying sinlessness was accomplished
solely in his humanity.
¶2.3 The
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the
third person of the Godhead, is ever present and active in and through the
Church. He convinces the world of sin, regenerates those who repent and believe
and guides the Christian into all Truth.
He takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us.
¶2.4 The
Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures
are the thirty-nine Old Testament and twenty-seven New Testament books of the
Christian Bible. They are inspired by
God in the sense that by his will and power they were given and are
preserved. From all that is stated in
these inspired writings, may be produced the full, inerrant and infallible word
of God. This produced “word” exceeds in
volume and weight the words stated in scripture. Our preferred illustration of this important
principle is the acorn and the oak tree. The vital healthy acorn represents the
Bible. The flourishing mature oak tree
represents the word of God.
¶2.5 The
Eternal Purpose of God. The purpose
of God in eternity is to love and be loved not merely out of programmed
necessity but by free moral choice.
¶2.6 The
Moral Nature and Responsibility of God.
The divine nature consists of twelve essential qualities called
attributes. In his sovereignty, God may
do whatever he will and is not answerable to anything extrinsic to
himself. But, he is forever answerable
to his own intrinsic nature. He only and
always acts in full harmony with each of the essentials of his nature.
¶2.7 The
Nature of Created Spirits (The Image of God). God is a spirit. The image of God in which man is created is
spirit. Created spirits possess two
inherent and inalienable characteristics: permanent, conscious, active
existence and the permanent power to love God by free moral choice. Conversely, this power to love God by free
choice is the ability to commit sin.
¶2.8 God’s
Work in Time. God is actively
working his perfect plan to remove all sinning from his entire creation once
and forever.
¶2.9 The
Inherited Sin Nature. The death Adam
suffered in the garden by disobedience to God was spiritual, not physical. This death was the separation of God’s Spirit
from the spirit of Adam. This same death
is transmitted to every member of the human race. That which is commonly referred to as the sin
nature of man is simply the absence of God from the human spirit.
¶2.10 Four
Spiritual Standings. Every member of
the human race living on the earth is presently in one of only four spiritual
standings before God. The first is “LOST
IN ADAM,” which is the absence of God from one’s spirit. The second is “CHRISTIAN,” which is Christ
dwelling in one and that one abiding in Christ.
The third is “A BACKSLIDER,” a convert who has Christ dwelling in him
but he is not abiding in Christ. The
fourth is “APOSTATE.” One can only come
to this standing as a backsliding convert who persists until he exceeds the
limits of the elasticity of God’s saving grace.
He has refused to respond to the patient reproof of the Holy
Spirit. He has become guilty of the
unpardonable sin or “the sin unto death,” which is not a single act but a
prolonged series of attitudes and activities contrary to the known will of
God. This is the most tragic standing
for the reason that it is without remedy.
¶2.11 Eternal
Salvation. The full salvation of man
involves four aspects in a required order.
First, we must be saved from sins personally committed. Second, we must be saved from the sin nature
inherited from Adam. Thirdly, and most
importantly, we must be saved from the committing of sins. In realizing the third part of salvation, the
fourth aspect is effected by the purpose and necessity of hell being
eliminated.
¶2.12 Essential
Elements of Salvation. Our Lord
speaks of a strait gate and a narrow way which ends in life. By this, and other scriptures, we recognize
two essential elements for eternal salvation; these are the conversion
experience and the Christian relationship.
Because of the natural state of man in sin, the saving relationship
remains forever impossible without the conversion experience. The experience allows the relationship, and
only in the Christian relationship is full salvation realized.
¶2.13 The
Sacraments. The two sacraments of the Church are rituals ordained by God as
outward and visible symbols of inward and spiritual realities.
1. God’s purpose for the sacraments is to
speak symbolically of the two essentials for human salvation.
2. These essentials are “the conversion
experience” and “the saving relationship.”
3. A sacrament in no way, or to any degree,
adds to or consummates the inward reality.
If we fail to clearly distinguish between
the reality and the ritual, confusing the one for the other, we actually negate
the saving grace of God from our lives.
¶2.14 Baptism. The sacrament of water baptism speaks
symbolically of the conversion experience.
Conversion to Christ is a cleansing or washing experience. The historical and universal symbol of
washing is water. It is our belief from
scripture, and therefore our preference, that water baptism be by affusion
(sprinkling and pouring).
¶2.15 The
Lord’s Supper. The element of bread
is an emblem representing the incarnation and human life of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The juice of the grape is the
emblem of blood which represents the suffering and sacrifice of our Lord. Together these two elements of Holy Communion
represent the entire purpose and process of the human life and death of Jesus
Christ. By partaking of these emblems we
are saying that we are the blessed recipients of the saving grace provided by
that life and death. The clearest and
most concise statement of the reality of communion was spoken by our Lord
himself; “he that is eating my flesh and drinking my blood is dwelling in me
and I in him,” John