“All Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). This means that holy men of God were “moved by the Holy Spirit” to write the Bible (2 Peter 1:21). This divine inspiration extends equally and fully to every part of Scripture—historical, poetical, doctrinal, and prophetical—as written in the original manuscripts. Therefore we believe that the entire Bible—sixty-six books in its original form—is without error (John 10:35; Matthew 5:18).

God’s revelation is fully and finally contained in these sixty-six original books of the Bible; consequently, no new revelations are being given (Ephesians 2:20; Hebrews 1:1-2).

The Bible is the supreme standard by which every human conduct and religious opinion must be measured.

There is only one Living and True God. He is an intelligent, spiritual Person—the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. His holiness, knowledge, power, love, wisdom, and mercy are without limit. We are to offer Him our highest love, reverence, and obedience.

God eternally exists in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the three are one, possessing exactly the same nature, equal in eternal essence, attributes, and perfection, and worthy of the same worship and obedience.

God the Father rules His universe, His creations, and the stream of human history in accordance with His ultimate purpose.

He is omnipotent, omniscient, supremely loving, and supremely wise.

God is the Creator of all humanity, and He loves all people, but He is Father only to those who become His children through faith in Jesus Christ (John 1:12). He is the righteous Judge of His universe.

Jesus Christ the Son is the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Sharing the one divine essence, He is equal to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and is Himself eternal. He entered the world to reveal God to humanity, to fulfill prophecy, and to become the Savior of His people. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

Christ assumed true human flesh and veiled His glory, yet He never altered the fullness of His deity. He willingly laid aside the independent use of His divine rights, though He never lost His divine attributes or authority. He was fully God and fully man—yet without sin.

By dying on the cross, Jesus made it possible for every person to receive both forgiveness and release from the penalty of sin.

He rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples, thereby proving His resurrection.

He ascended bodily into heaven while His disciples watched, and He is now exalted, seated at the right hand of God, restored to the glory He possessed before Bethlehem.

According to His promise, Jesus Christ will one day return personally and visibly to earth in power and judgment. The dead will be raised, and Christ will judge all people— not by human standards or codes of conduct, but by His own standard of righteousness.

The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the blessed Trinity. Although He has been omnipresent for all eternity, He began to dwell in the world in a special way on the Day of Pentecost in accordance with the divine promise.

He lives in every believer, and through His Baptism unites everyone in Christ into one body. Abiding in each believer, the Holy Spirit is the source of all power, worship, and service.

He never departs from the Church, nor from even the least of believers. He is always present to bear witness of Christ, desiring to occupy believers with Himself rather than with themselves or their own experience.

His presence in the world in this special manner will cease when Christ comes to take His people to Himself.

In our era the Holy Spirit has been given specific ministries, and it is every Christian’s duty to understand them and align life and experience with them. These ministries restrain evil in the world so that God’s will may be accomplished; they convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment; they regenerate all believers; their goal is to indwell all who are saved and to anoint them, sealing them for the day of redemption. These ministries baptize all who are saved into the body of Christ and continually fill with power, teaching, and service those redeemed who are fully yielded to Him and are instruments of His will. Some gifts—such as speaking “in other tongues” and the gift of healing resident in certain individuals—were temporary gifts.

The gift of miraculous speaking in another language has never been a common or necessary sign of the baptism or the filling of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the mighty source who gives every believer and the Church the power to exalt Jesus in worship and praise, in evangelism, in particular areas of ministry, within the Church—to its members—and through the Church—to the world.

Man was created by the wondrous act of God, in His image and likeness; but Adam, as the head and root of all humanity, sinned in the Garden of Eden and lost his original righteousness and fellowship with God, which led to spiritual death, trespasses, and sins.

That original guilt and corrupted human nature were transmitted to all mankind — with the sole exception of Jesus Christ.

Every person born into this world possesses qualities of God’s essence, each of which has been corrupted and spoiled by the first sin; this includes body, mind, heart, and will.

All humanity is dead, blind, and deaf to spiritual understanding of God. The human heart is corrupt and depraved, its conscience darkened, its will bound by the sinful nature.

The unregenerate person is unwilling to repent, even though it is his responsibility to do so; he is incapable of repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation or of doing anything good in the spiritual realm.

Salvation is given as a gift of God, and a person is unable to earn it by his own efforts (Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-5) or lose it (John 3:16; 10:27-29).

Because eternal death results from sin, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is “born again”; no improvement of conduct (however great), no moral achievement (however lofty), no culture (however attractive), no baptism or other sacrament (however performed) can help a person take even one step toward heaven. Salvation requires an absolutely new nature from above and a new life given by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. Only the saved are God’s children.

Our redemption was accomplished solely by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who became sin and a curse for us, dying in our place. Neither repentance, nor feeling, nor faith, nor good works, nor sincere efforts, nor keeping the rules and laws of any church, nor all the churches that have existed since the apostles, can add the slightest bit to Christ’s blood or to the work He finished for us. In Him dwell the true Godhead and a perfect sinless humanity.

The “new birth” of a believer comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. Repentance is an essential part of believing, but by itself is not an independent condition of salvation; events such as confession, baptism, prayer, or faithful service must not be added as separate conditions.

When an unregenerate person exhibits faith in Jesus Christ, as shown and described in the New Testament, he immediately passes from spiritual death to spiritual life, from the old creation to the new. He is justified in all things, accepted by the Father as Christ is, loved as Christ is, joined to Him, and one with Him forever.

Although the saved person can grow in understanding his blessings and in deeper knowledge of divine power granted through fuller surrender to Christ, he possesses every spiritual blessing immediately after salvation. He is complete in Christ, and therefore God in no way requires him to seek a so-called “second blessing” or “second work of grace.”

Sanctification—being set apart to God—has three aspects: it is already complete for every saved person, because his position is the same as Christ’s. Since the believer is in Christ, he is set apart to God just as Christ is.

Yet the saved person retains a sinful nature from which he cannot be freed during this life; therefore the Christian must “grow in grace” and “be transformed” by the power of the Holy Spirit without hindrance.

The child of God will be fully sanctified when he sees his Lord and shall be “like Him.”

All true believers on earth who have been saved once will keep that salvation forever in Christ, according to God’s eternal purpose toward those He loves—because God is free to show grace on the basis of Christ’s propitiating blood, because such is the very nature of the divine gift of eternal life, because God’s covenants are unchangeable and unshakable, and because the Holy Spirit dwells in and quickens those who are saved.

Since God is a holy and righteous Father and cannot overlook the sins of His children, He disciplines them when they persist in sin and corrects them in boundless love. He has taken their salvation upon Himself and desires to keep them forever, without any human merit. He never errs and will bring every one of His children into His glorious presence blameless and conformed to the likeness of His Son.

All who are joined to the risen and ascended Son of God form the Church, which is the body and bride of Christ—an entity that began on the Day of Pentecost and is entirely distinct from Israel. Every believer is part of the Church, regardless of affiliation with any particular local congregation on earth.

All believers are Spirit-baptized into one body in Christ—Jews and Greeks alike—and have become members of one another. They are obligated to maintain the unity of the Spirit in peace and to rise above every denominational distinction, loving one another fervently from a pure heart.

Scripture speaks of the appointment of leaders in the local church—pastors (elders, overseers) and deacons.
Pastors or elders are to guide and coordinate all church ministry in light of biblical instruction. Deacons are to serve under pastoral leadership, caring for the pressing material needs of the congregation. Both pastors and deacons must be deeply dedicated to participating in the spread of the Gospel.

Baptism is the complete immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is an act of obedience, symbolizing the Christian’s faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior. It is a symbol of the believer’s death to sin, burial of the old way of life, and resurrection with power and authority to live a new life through Christ.

The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience in which church members eat bread and drink of the “fruit of the vine,” remembering the death of their Savior and awaiting His second coming.

“Teach all nations” in all that Christ commanded—that is both the charge and the high honor given to every follower and every church of Jesus Christ. The ongoing task of every believer is to win the lost of this world for the Lord.

A Christian’s love for those who are perishing, together with persistent efforts to tell them about Christ, is the evidence that Christ truly lives within— for His own mission is “to seek and to save the lost.”

According to Scripture, Christians must recognize that everything we possess has been entrusted to us for the praise of God and the help of others. Believers are called to give of themselves—and of their finances—willingly, lovingly, regularly, and generously for the cause of Christ.

The New Testament shows that the primary way early‐church believers supported the spread of the Gospel was through tithes and offerings given via local congregations. These gifts aided ministers such as Paul and provided relief in special needs like famine.

“Not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice” blesses our Lord and unites the members of His church."

When a believer falls into sin and remains there, the pain reaches the entire body of Christ—and, worst of all, it grieves the Savior and harms the reputation of His church. To keep our fellowship pure, diligent action is required (1 Corinthians 5).

Matthew 18:15-17 gives the pattern we must follow when a church member is trapped in sin and refuses to repent. In such cases, the goal of every step is reconciliation with God and full restoration to fellowship with His people.

There is hardly anything more wonderful for a believer than belonging to a congregation whose hearts and minds are united, doing the Father’s will together in joy and gladness. Such unity is the key to spiritual power—a treasure worth defending with all our strength.

Paul instructed Titus: “ Warn a divisive person once, and then a second time; after that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.” (Titus 3:10-11). Guided by the Holy Spirit, Paul wrote these words because sowing discord among believers is a grave sin.

Restoration is always the goal: separation should occur only after the first and second warnings. If those warnings are ignored, the church must break fellowship with that believer. The break is final if repentance never comes, but only temporary if genuine repentance is born in the believer’s heart.