God
We believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. This God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites through Moses. We believe this God created all things in creation, things that are visible to the eyes and invisible. He created mankind in His image and likeness, and the first man and woman He created, He called Adam and Eve. This God is veiled under the title Elohim and yet revealed His name, YHWH, in the Old Testament. This God is unveiled in the New Testament Scriptures as God the Father, the Son (Jesus of Nazareth: the Christ), and the Holy Spirit. We believe all three persons of the One God are equally all-powerful, present everywhere, and knowing all things.
The Father
We believe God the Father cannot be known or understood apart through Jesus Christ and apart from the revelation work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him/her. And I will raise him/her up on the last day” (John 6:44). It is the Father who reveals Jesus to us by working the circumstances of our life to bring us to the knowledge of Jesus. God the Father’s desire is to be the Father to us and give us the privilege to be loved by Him as He loves Jesus.
Jesus Christ
God the Holy Spirit, to fulfill the will of the Father spoken by the Lord Jesus as prophesied in the Old Testament, endowed a virgin named Mary who was betrothed to a man named Joseph. In this instance, a baby was conceived in the womb of Mary, who was fully man, susceptible to the dangers, flaws, and sins of this world. But in the Holy Spirit, He was fully God. His mandate in His life was to experience the love of the Father and live into the realization that He is the begotten Son of God and thus fulfill the will of the Father to be the Lamb of God, who was sent to carry away the sin of the world. We believe He is the only source of salvation for humanity. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
The Holy Spirit
God the Holy Spirit is the only person of the three persons of the Godhead that was revealed in Genesis 1:2. The Father is veiled, and so is the Son. The Holy Spirit is the visible head of God who was actively working in bringing the will of the Father and the Voice Command (the Word) of God to become real. The Holy Spirit is the one who revived the dormant spirit of men and women in the Old Testament, causing them to be born again. The body for the Lord Jesus was brought to existence by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who causes all who receive Jesus in their hearts to be born again in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who purifies us with His consuming fire and works at purging the sin in us.
The Holy Spirit bears the multi-flavored fruit that is to be experienced by those in whom He dwells. The flavors of His fruit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. When a person is in tune with experiencing the fruit of the Spirit in them, the purification work of the Spirit begins in us. When such a purification is happening, the love of God is being manifested in us, and we become available for the Lord to love others through us. This is when we will see ourselves desiring the gifts of the Spirit to bring the gospel with His power to the people.
Our belief in who God is and what He has done is what makes us who we are individually and as a church body.
Humanity, Life, Sin, Death, and Salvation
God created humanity to love and cherish them. The nature of humanity was the very nature of God, holy. His primary purpose for humanity was to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28a). We were given the privilege to be creators like Him and to love like Him and experience what it means for us to be in His image and likeness. He gave us a task to experience the sustainer attribute of God as He gave us a garden to tend with all sorts of trees and animals in it to care for. To be a sustainer, we must have affinity to life, which in the garden all we had was life.
As God kept Himself from being corrupted by the sin of Satan, God wanted that which He created to learn to do the same. Hence, the need to subdue. In order to train us how to subdue, He gave us the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to abstain from. Adam was given command to tend the tree and was given the instructions not to eat the fruit of the tree. To become a subduer, Adam needed to use the freedom of choice to exercise free will. God gave us the freedom to choose so that we would believe God and live in the way of life, which is what free will is. Adam did not believe God; therefore, he exercised his choice as autonomy to do what God told him not to do. This is not free will but rebellion. Sin did not enter through Eve, but deception did. Sin entered humanity through Adam. All who believe what God says and does according to his will live in free will, and all who disbelieve God and act according to their unbelief live in rebellion.
God perceives humanity as two nations, priestly and ungodly. Those who believe in the Lord Jesus as the Son of the Living God believe that His death on the cross has paid for their sins. His burial has separated their sins as far as east is from the west, and His resurrection has justified them before God. They are those who belong to the priestly nation.
By the grace of God, we are a priestly nation, called by Him to Himself as sons and daughters in the name of His beloved, begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, if we hold fast to our confession in our original confidence.