What We Believe
Based on our understanding of the Bible we believe:
That God is a perfect, eternal, unchangeable Spirit. God is three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – in the one God.
God created the universe in six days, out of nothing. The world around us displays the invisible attributes of our Creator, namely, his eternal power and divine nature.
That man and woman were made by God in His image which means they initially had a perfect soul to know and love their Creator within a living relationship.
That Adam and Eve the first humans rebelled and sinned against God and thereby brought God’s curse and judgement on all mankind. Sin means we are in our hearts enemies of God and unable to do anything in ourselves to gain salvation. Sin means every human deserves God’s eternal wrath in Hell.
That Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary, and lived a perfect life. He was both fully God and fully man, two natures in one person. Jesus is the One Mediator between God and man.
Jesus in dying on the cross endured God’s wrath for the sin of His people. The cross is the only way that God’s wrath can be propelled away from people who are all sinful.
The salvation which Jesus died to accomplish, is received by people as they are born again by the Spirit of God. When people are born again the Spirit changes them inside and produces in them faith and repentance.
Faith
Faith is to receive and rest on Jesus Christ alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel. It is trusting in Jesus death alone to pay the price for our sin and to satisfy God’s justice.
Repentance
This is coming to see the seriousness and awfulness of sin as something terrible and against God. Repentance is to consciously turn away from sin, to turn to Christ and follow Him in a life of new obedience.
The church of Jesus Christ is made up those who profess faith in Christ alone, and their children. The church will experiences different degrees of purity and impurity and will never reach perfection while here on Earth.
Baptism is for those who give a credible profession of faith in Christ and for their children. Baptism is a sign of God’s grace and the inward cleansing every person needs.
Water baptism does not cleanse but points to the inward work of the Holy Spirit at rebirth which alone brings salvation.
When Christian parents have their children baptised they do so in light of God’s covenant promise to be their God and the God of their children.
A person should be baptised only once.
Communion or the Lord’s Supper remembers Jesus’ broken body and shed blood to save sinners. The bread and the wine remain bread and wine and we reject the blasphemous teaching of the Mass that it is a repeated sacrifice for sin.
Those taking the Lord’s Supper should be true believers in Jesus and they should examine themselves beforehand so as to take communion in a worthy manner. At the Lord’s Supper believers in faith spiritually feed on Christ who is spiritually present at the table.
At the end of this world, Jesus Christ will come again and that His return will be physical and visible to all.
When a Christian dies their soul goes to be with Christ in heaven. When Jesus comes again the Christian’s soul is reunited to their glorified resurrected body and they will enter the new heaven and new earth forever.
When an unsaved person dies their soul goes to hell, until Jesus comes again and it is reunited to their resurrected body and cast into the lake of fire forever.
A more detailed summary of our beliefs can be found in the Westminster Confession of Faith.