THE GODHEAD
I believe that the Godhead eternally exists in three
persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and that these three are
one God, having precisely the same nature, attributes, and perfections, and
worthy of precisely the same homage, confidence, and obedience (Matt.
28:18–19; Mark 12:29; John 1:14; Acts 5:3–4; 2 Cor. 13:14; Heb. 1:1–3; Rev.
1:4–6).
ANGELS, FALLEN AND UNFALLEN
I believe that God created an innumerable company of sinless,
spiritual beings, known as angels; that one, “Lucifer, son of the
morning”—the highest in rank—sinned through pride, thereby becoming Satan;
that a great company of the angels followed him in his moral fall, some of
whom became demons and are active as his agents and associates in the
prosecution of his unholy purposes, while others who fell are “reserved in
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Isa.
14:12–17; Ezek. 28:11–19; 1 Tim. 3:6; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6).
I believe that Satan is the originator of sin, and that, under the
permission of God, he, through subtlety, led our first parents into
transgression, thereby accomplishing their moral fall and subjecting them
and their posterity to his own power; that he is the enemy of God and the
people of God, opposing and exalting himself above all that is called God or
that is worshiped; and that he who in the beginning said, “I will be like
the most High,” in his warfare appears as an angel of light, even
counterfeiting the works of God by fostering religious movements and systems
of doctrine, which systems in every case are characterized by a denial of
the efficacy of the blood of Christ and of salvation by grace alone (Gen.
3:1–19; Rom. 5:12–14; 2 Cor. 4:3–4; 11:13–15; Eph. 6:10–12; 2 Thess. 2:4; 1
Tim. 4:1–3).
I believe that Satan was judged at the Cross, though not then
executed, and that he, a usurper, now rules as the “god of this world”;
that, at the second coming of Christ, Satan will be bound and cast into the
abyss for a thousand years, and after the thousand years he will be loosed
for a little season and then “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone,”
where he “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Col. 2:15;
Rev. 20:1–3, 10).
I believe that a great company of angels kept their holy
estate and are before the throne of God, from whence they are sent forth as
ministering spirits to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation
(Luke 15:10; Eph. 1:21; Heb. 1:14; Rev. 7:12).
I believe that man was made lower than the angels; and that,
in His incarnation, Christ took for a little time this lower place that He
might lift the believer to His own sphere above the angels (Heb. 2:6–10).
MAN, CREATED AND FALLEN
I believe that man was originally created in the image and
after the likeness of God, and that he fell through sin, and, as a
consequence of his sin, lost his spiritual life, becoming dead in trespasses
and sins, and that he became subject to the power of the devil. I also
believe that this spiritual death, or total depravity of human nature, has
been transmitted to the entire human race of man, the Man Christ Jesus alone
being excepted; and hence that every child of Adam is born into the world
with a nature which not only possesses no spark of divine life, but is
essentially and unchangeably bad apart from divine grace (Gen. 1:26; 2:17;
6:5; Pss. 14:1–3; 51:5; Jer. 17:9; John 3:6; 5:40; 6:35; Rom. 3:10–19;
8:6–7; Eph. 2:1–3; 1 Tim. 5:6; 1 John 3:8).
THE DISPENSATIONS
I believe that the dispensations are stewardships by which
God administers His purpose on the earth through man under varying
responsibilities. I believe that the changes in the dispensational dealings
of God with man depend on changed conditions or situations in which man is
successively found with relation to God, and that these changes are the
result of the failures of man and the judgments of God. I believe that
different administrative responsibilities of this character are manifest in
the biblical record, that they span the entire history of mankind, and that
each ends in the failure of man under the respective test and in an ensuing
judgment from God. I believe that three of these dispensations or rules of
life are the subject of extended revelation in the Scriptures, viz., the
dispensation of the Mosaic Law, the present dispensation of grace, and the
future dispensation of the millennial kingdom. I believe that these are
distinct and are not to be intermingled or confused, as they are
chronologically successive.
I believe that the dispensations are not ways of salvation
nor different methods of administering the so-called Covenant of Grace. They
are not in themselves dependent on covenant relationships but are ways of
life and responsibility to God which test the submission of man to His
revealed will during a particular time. I believe that if man does trust in
his own efforts to gain the favor of God or salvation under any
dispensational test, because of inherent sin his failure to satisfy fully
the just requirements of God is inevitable and his condemnation sure.
I believe that according to the “eternal purpose” of God
(Eph. 3:11) salvation in the divine reckoning is always “by grace through
faith,” and rests upon the basis of the shed blood of Christ. I believe that
God has always been gracious, regardless of the ruling dispensation, but
that man has not at all times been under an administration or stewardship of
grace as is true in the present dispensation (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; 3:9,
asv; Col. 1:25; 1 Tim. 1:4, asv).
I believe that it has always been true that “without faith it
is impossible to please” God (Heb. 11:6), and that the principle of faith
was prevalent in the lives of all the Old Testament saints. However, I
believe that it was historically impossible that they should have had as the
conscious object of their faith the incarnate, crucified Son, the Lamb of
God (John 1:29), and that it is evident that they did not comprehend as we
do that the sacrifices depicted the person and work of Christ. I believe
also that they did not understand the redemptive significance of the
prophecies or types concerning the sufferings of Christ (1 Pet. 1:10–12);
therefore, I believe that their faith toward God was manifested in other
ways as is shown by the long record in Hebrews 11:1–40. I believe further
that their faith thus manifested was counted unto them for righteousness
(cf. Rom. 4:3 with Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:5–8; Heb. 11:7).
THE FIRST ADVENT
I believe that, as provided and purposed by God and as
preannounced in the prophecies of the Scriptures, the eternal Son of God
came into this world that He might manifest God to men, fulfill prophecy,
and become the Redeemer of a lost world. To this end He was born of the
virgin, and received a human body and a sinless human nature (Luke 1:30–35;
John 1:18; 3:16; Heb. 4:15).
I believe that, on the human side, He became and remained a
perfect man, but sinless throughout His life; yet He retained His absolute
deity, being at the same time 100% God and 100% man, and that His earth-life
sometimes functioned within the sphere of that which was human and sometimes
within the sphere of that which was divine (Luke 2:40; John 1:1–2; Phil.
2:5–8).
I believe that in fulfillment of prophecy He came first to
Israel as her Messiah-King, and that, being rejected of that nation, He,
according to the eternal counsels of God, gave His life as a ransom for all
(John 1:11; Acts 2:22–24; 1 Tim. 2:6).
I believe that, in infinite love for the lost, He voluntarily
accepted His Father’s will and became the divinely provided sacrificial Lamb
and took away the sin of the world, bearing the holy judgments against sin
which the righteousness of God must impose. His death was therefore
substitutionary in the most absolute sense—the just for the unjust—and by
His death He became the Savior of the lost (John 1:29; Rom. 3:25–26; 2 Cor.
5:14; Heb. 10:5–14; 1 Pet. 3:18).
I believe that, according to the Scriptures, He arose from
the dead in the same body, though glorified, in which He had lived and died,
and that His resurrection body is the pattern of that body which ultimately
will be given to all believers (John 20:20; Phil. 3:20–21).
I believe that, on departing from the earth, He was accepted
of His Father and that His acceptance is a final assurance to us that His
redeeming work was perfectly accomplished (Heb. 1:3).
I believe that He became Head over all things to the church
which is His body, and in this ministry He ceases not to intercede and
advocate for the saved (Eph. 1:22–23; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1).
SALVATION ONLY THROUGH CHRIST
I believe that, owing to universal death through sin, no one
can enter the kingdom of God unless born again; and that no degree of
reformation however great, no attainments in morality however high, no
culture however attractive, no baptism or other ordinance however
administered, can help the sinner to take even one step toward heaven; but a
new nature imparted from above, a new life implanted by the Holy Spirit
through the Word, is absolutely essential to salvation, and only those thus
saved are sons of God. I believe, also, that our redemption has been
accomplished solely by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to
be sin and was made a curse for us, dying in our room and stead; and that no
repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts,
no submission to the rules and regulations of any church, nor all the
churches that have existed since the days of the Apostles can add in the
very least degree to the value of the blood, or to the merit of the finished
work wrought for us by Him who united in His person true and proper deity
with perfect and sinless humanity (Lev. 17:11; Isa. 64:6; Matt. 26:28; John
3:7–18; Rom. 5:6–9; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13; 6:15; Eph. 1:7; Phil. 3:4–9;
Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:18–19, 23).
I believe that the new birth of the believer comes only
through faith in Christ and that repentance is a vital part of believing,
and is in no way, in itself, a separate and independent condition of
salvation; nor are any other acts, such as confession, baptism, prayer, or
faithful service, to be added to believing as a condition of salvation (John
1:12; 3:16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:29; Acts 13:39; 16:31; Rom. 1:16–17; 3:22, 26;
4:5; 10:4; Gal. 3:22).
THE EXTENT OF SALVATION
I believe that when an unregenerate person exercises that
faith in Christ which is illustrated and described as such in the New
Testament, he passes immediately out of spiritual death into spiritual life,
and from the old creation into the new; being justified from all things,
accepted before the Father according as Christ His Son is accepted, loved as
Christ is loved, having his place and portion as linked to Him and one with
Him forever. Though the saved one may have occasion to grow in the
realization of his blessings and to know a fuller measure of divine power
through the yielding of his life more fully to God, he is, as soon as he is
saved, in possession of every spiritual blessing and absolutely complete in
Christ, and is therefore in no way required by God to seek a so-called
“second blessing,” or a “second work of grace” (John 5:24; 17:23; Acts
13:39; Rom. 5:1; 1 Cor. 3:21–23; Eph. 1:3; Col. 2:10; 1 John 4:17; 5:11–12).
SANCTIFICATION
I believe that sanctification, which is a setting-apart unto
God, is threefold: It is already complete for every saved person because his
position toward God is the same as Christ’s position. Since the believer is
in Christ, he is set apart unto God in the measure in which Christ is set
apart unto God. I believe, however, that he retains his sin nature, which
cannot be eradicated in this life. Therefore, while the standing of the
Christian in Christ is perfect, his present state is no more perfect than
his experience in daily life. There is, therefore, a progressive
sanctification wherein the Christian is to “grow in grace,” and to “be
changed” by the unhindered power of the Spirit. I believe also that the
child of God will yet be fully sanctified in his state as he is now
sanctified in his standing in Christ when he shall see his Lord and shall be
“like Him” (John 17:17; 2 Cor. 3:18; 7:1; Eph. 4:24; 5:25–27; 1 Thess. 5:23;
Heb. 10:10, 14; 12:10).
ETERNAL SECURITY
I believe that, because of the eternal purpose of God toward
the objects of His love, because of His freedom to exercise grace toward the
meritless on the ground of the propitiatory blood of Christ, because of the
very nature of the divine gift of eternal life, because of the present and
unending intercession and advocacy of Christ in heaven, because of the
immutability of the unchangeable covenants of God, because of the
regenerating, abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all who
are saved, we and all true believers everywhere, once saved shall be kept
saved forever. I believe, however, that God is a holy and righteous Father
and that, since He cannot overlook the sin of His children, He will, when
they persistently sin, chasten them and correct them in infinite love; but
having undertaken to save them and keep them forever, apart from all human
merit, He, who cannot fail, will in the end present every one of them
faultless before the presence of His glory and conformed to the image of His
Son (John 5:24; 10:28; 13:1; 14:16–17; 17:11; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 6:19; Heb.
7:25; 1 John 2:1–2; 5:13; Jude 24).
ASSURANCE
I believe it is the privilege, not only of some, but of all
who are born again by the Spirit through faith in Christ as revealed in the
Scriptures, to be assured of their salvation from the very day they take Him
to be their Savior and that this assurance is not founded upon any fancied
discovery of their own worthiness or fitness, but wholly upon the testimony
of God in His written Word, exciting within His children filial love,
gratitude, and obedience (Luke 10:20; 22:32; 2 Cor. 5:1, 6–8; 2 Tim. 1:12;
Heb. 10:22; 1 John 5:13).
THE HOLY SPIRIT
I believe that the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the
blessed Trinity, though omnipresent from all eternity, took up His abode in
the world in a special sense on the day of Pentecost according to the divine
promise, dwells in every believer, and by His baptism unites all to Christ
in one body, and that He, as the Indwelling One, is the source of all power
and all acceptable worship and service. I believe that He never takes His
departure from the church, nor from the feeblest of the saints, but is ever
present to testify of Christ; seeking to occupy believers with Him and not
with themselves nor with their experiences. I believe that His abode in the
world in this special sense will cease when Christ comes to receive His own
at the completion of the church (John 14:16–17; 16:7–15; 1 Cor. 6:19; Eph.
2:22; 2 Thess. 2:7).
I believe that, in this age, certain well-defined ministries
are committed to the Holy Spirit, and that it is the duty of every Christian
to understand them and to be adjusted to them in his own life and
experience. These ministries are the restraining of evil in the world to the
measure of the divine will; the convicting of the world respecting sin,
righteousness, and judgment; the regenerating of all believers; the
indwelling and anointing of all who are saved, thereby sealing them unto the
day of redemption; the baptizing into the one body of Christ of all who are
saved; and the continued filling for power, teaching, and service of those
among the saved who are yielded to Him and who are subject to His will (John
3:6; 16:7–11; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:30; 5:18; 2 Thess. 2:7; 1 John
2:20–27).
I believe that some gifts of the Holy Spirit such as speaking
in tongues and miraculous healings were temporary. I believe that speaking
in tongues was never the common or necessary sign of the baptism nor of the
filling of the Spirit, and that the deliverance of the body from sickness or
death awaits the consummation of our salvation in the resurrection (Acts
4:8, 31; Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 13:8).
THE CHURCH, A UNITY OF BELIEVERS
I believe that all who are united to the risen and ascended
Son of God are members of the church which is the body and bride of Christ,
which began at Pentecost and is completely distinct from Israel. Its members
are constituted as such regardless of membership or nonmembership in the
organized churches of earth. I believe that by the same Spirit all believers
in this age are baptized into, and thus become, one body that is Christ’s,
whether Jews or Gentiles, and having become members one of another, are
under solemn duty to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,
rising above all sectarian differences, and loving one another with a pure
heart fervently (Matt. 16:16–18; Acts 2:42–47; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 12:12–27;
Eph. 1:20–23; 4:3–10; Col. 3:14–15).
THE SACRAMENTS OR ORDINANCES
I believe that water baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the
only sacraments and ordinances of the church and that they are a scriptural
means of testimony for the church in this age (Matt. 28:19; Luke 22:19–20;
Acts 10:47–48; 16:32–33; 18:7–8; 1 Cor. 11:26).
THE CHRISTIAN WALK
I believe that we are called with a holy calling, to walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and so to live in the power of the
indwelling Spirit that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But the
flesh with its fallen, Adamic nature, which in this life is never
eradicated, being with us to the end of our earthly pilgrimage, needs to be
kept by the Spirit constantly in subjection to Christ, or it will surely
manifest its presence in our lives to the dishonor of our Lord (Rom.
6:11–13; 8:2, 4, 12–13; Gal. 5:16–23; Eph. 4:22–24; Col. 2:1–10; 1 Pet.
1:14–16; 1 John 1:4–7; 3:5–9).
THE CHRISTIAN’S SERVICE
I believe that divine, enabling gifts for service are
bestowed by the Spirit upon all who are saved. While there is a diversity of
gifts, each believer is energized by the same Spirit, and each is called to
his own divinely appointed service as the Spirit may will. In the apostolic
church there were certain gifted men—apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, and teachers—who were appointed by God for the perfecting of the
saints unto their work of the ministry. I believe also that today some men
are especially called of God to be evangelists, pastors and teachers, and
that it is to the fulfilling of His will and to His eternal glory that these
shall be sustained and encouraged in their service for God (Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor.
12:4–11; Eph. 4:11).
I believe that, wholly apart from salvation benefits which
are bestowed equally upon all who believe, rewards are promised according to
the faithfulness of each believer in his service for his Lord, and that
these rewards will be bestowed at the judgment seat of Christ after He comes
to receive His own to Himself (1 Cor. 3:9–15; 9:18–27; 2 Cor. 5:10).
THE GREAT COMMISSION
I believe that it is the explicit message of our Lord Jesus
Christ to those whom He has saved that they are sent forth by Him into the
world even as He was sent forth of His Father into the world. I believe
that, after they are saved, they are divinely reckoned to be related to this
world as strangers and pilgrims, ambassadors and witnesses, and that their
primary purpose in life should be to make Christ known to the whole world
(Matt. 28:18–19; Mark 16:15; John 17:18; Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:18–20; 1 Pet.
1:17; 2:11).
THE BLESSED HOPE
I believe that, according to the Word of God, the next great
event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the Lord in the
air to receive to Himself into heaven both His own who are alive and remain
unto His coming, and also all who have fallen asleep in Jesus, and that this
event is the blessed hope set before us in the Scripture, and for this we
should be constantly looking (John 14:1–3; 1 Cor. 15:51–52; Phil. 3:20; 1
Thess. 4:13–18; Titus 2:11–14).
THE TRIBULATION
I believe that the translation of the church will be followed
by the fulfillment of Israel’s seventieth week (Dan. 9:27; Rev. 6:1–19:21)
during which the church, the body of Christ, will be in heaven. The whole
period of Israel’s seventieth week will be a time of judgment on the whole
earth, at the end of which the times of the Gentiles will be brought to a
close. The latter half of this period will be the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer.
30:7), which our Lord called the great tribulation (Matt. 24:15–21). I
believe that universal righteousness will not be realized previous to the
second coming of Christ, but that the world is day by day ripening for
judgment and that the age will end with a fearful apostasy.
THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST
I believe that the period of great tribulation in the earth
will be climaxed by the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth as He
went, in person on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great glory to
introduce the millennial age, to bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to
lift the curse which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore Israel to
her own land and to give her the realization of God’s covenant promises, and
to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God (Deut. 30:1–10; Isa. 11:9;
Ezek. 37:21–28; Matt. 24:15–25:46; Acts 15:16–17; Rom. 8:19–23; 11:25–27; 1
Tim. 4:1–3; 2 Tim. 3:1–5; Rev. 20:1–3).
THE ETERNAL STATE
I believe that at death the spirits and souls of those who have trusted in
the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation pass immediately into His presence and
there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the glorified body
when Christ comes for His own, whereupon soul and body reunited shall be
associated with Him forever in glory; but the spirits and souls of the
unbelieving remain after death conscious of condemnation and in misery until
the final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium,
when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the lake of fire, not to be
annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power (Luke 16:19–26; 23:42;
2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 2 Thess. 1:7–9; Jude 6–7; Rev. 20:11–15).