Statement of Faith

Note: Yesterday I was introduced to my new Presbytery of membership, Florida. My Statement of Faith was included in the meeting packet. I am following the example of others and publishing my Statement of Faith online.

I believe in God; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one eternal God in three Persons.

God created humankind good in his image. However, the freely chosen disobedience of our forebears brought sin into creation. We have inherited this sinful nature, and we are not fit company for a perfect God.
But in his grace, God always would preserve a remnant of humankind, for example appointing Abraham and Sarah to found a new nation, Israel, dedicated to God and the Law.

At the appointed time, God sent to the whole world a Savior, his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, to accept the consequences of our sin and give us the opportunity, through faith, of enjoying eternal life with God.

Jesus Christ is the King of all creation, through whom all things have been made, and who holds everything together. Jesus is also my personal Lord and Savior. Salvation depends upon God-given grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus suffered and died in order to take upon himself God’s wrath for our sin. His death fulfilled the Scriptural prophecy that an innocent would die to cover the sins of others. If we believe in Christ, his shed blood covers our sins in God’s sight, making us righteous in his eyes.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ leads to our sanctification, in which we are able to more strongly resist sin and become better conformed to the image of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit. While we can never earn our salvation through works, nonetheless good works are pleasing to God and a transformed life is evidence of our salvation.

Jesus will also come again for the final judgment of humankind. We await his second coming with hope that he will make all things new. But we are also urgently called to reach the unsaved with the Gospel before that time.
Scripture is the Word of God written under the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit. It is infallible in every way intended by the Holy Spirit, working through the human writers of Scripture. Further, the written Word is as essential for our faith as is the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. God has condescended to us limited human beings by providing us with the Word written and the Word incarnate. Further, we understand each Word in light of the other (meaning we understand the Bible in the light of Christ, and we understand Christ in light of the Bible.)

Among the marks of the church are to proclaim the Gospel for the salvation of humankind and to faithfully administer the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In Baptism, whoever is baptized enters the covenant community, which has a sacred responsibility to nurture the newly baptized in the Christian faith. In the Lord’s Supper, believers share in the real presence of Jesus Christ if they partake in true faith.

The church is also called upon to reflect the light of Christ to the world, by demonstrating the love of Christ in its internal affairs, and sharing the love of Christ with the world just as Christ did; by feeding the hungry, uplifting the poor, and aiding the sick. Believers display their gratitude to God for the gifts of grace by serving and loving others as Jesus Christ showed us to do.