Our Creed

Our creed is Christ alone, received by faith alone, through grace alone because of the blood of Christ alone as taught in the only infallible guide of religious truth - the Bible alone.

The Cross

As regards doctrine, the cross is it's centre and circumference. To take the cross from the Christian would be like blotting the sun from the sky. Kneeling at the foot of the cross the sinner has reached the highest place he or she can ever attain. The atonement is not just one belief within a body of Christian doctrine. It is the lifeblood running through all biblical theology. Every important truth is presupposed by the atonement, included in it, or arises from it. Every imperative to practice holiness flows out of Calvary.

The Gospel Deals with Sin

The gospel contemplates our complete recovery from the disease that threatens to destroy all of us - the disease of sin. The guilt of sin is removed the moment we believe the good news - God gives the faith if we do not resist the message of his love. The power of sin is broken at that same moment, but the outworking of that victory takes a lifetime. Finally, the presence of sin will be removed from within us and about us at the second coming of Christ.

Justification, Sanctification, Glorification

Deliverance from sin's guilt is known as justification - a declaring or accounting righteous, (not making righteous); the removal of the power of sin over all our habits and ways is sanctification (which is a making righteous, but which, unlike justification is never 100 percent in this life); the removal of the presence of sin is glorification.

So justification is 100 percent righteousness - but it is not inside us, it is in Christ; sanctification is righteousness within us but is never 100 percent; glorification will be when by the miraculous transformation of our natures at Christ's return our sanctification will match our justification 100 percent.

Spirit-led Life

The power of sanctification comes from the indwelling Christ through the Holy Spirit who is as surely with every believer today as Christ was with the disciples in His sojourn on earth. It is the Spirit who makes Christ real to us and who brings forth the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

To be filled with the Spirit one must be filled with the Word believed and obeyed. The Spirit brings our habits into harmony with the law of God. The Ten Commandments as interpreted by the New Testament, constitute the will of God for the believer. Those commandments can only be rightly seen when viewed through the life and teachings of Christ and the apostles including the Sermon on the Mount and 1 Corinthians 13.

Death Not Eternal Torment for the Lost

"He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son hath not life." See 1 John 5:11-12. Those who reject the love of God will according to John 3:16 "perish". The everlasting fires of hell are the same as the everlasting fires that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah - everlasting in their effects not in their process - Jude 1:7.

Not Billy Graham, or the Pope, or the Bible scholars who spend their days studying Scripture believe in eternal physical torment for the lost. That idea is pagan and came to the church via the Middle Ages when the Bible was largely unknown.

Christ's Second Coming

Christ is to come visibly, audibly, personally and soon. The Bible does not teach a secret rapture or that Israel as a nation is still God's favoured people - Matthew 21:43, Matthew 21:19; 1 Thes 2:16. Unless prophecy is so interpreted as to reveal Christ and the gospel it is misinterpreted.

Christian Stewardship

The test of the mature and true believer is the practice of stewardship - the awareness that every talent, every moment of time, every cent of money, every opportunity of life is God's gift and to be used for his glory. The tithe is but the beginning of the Christian's financial response to the good news, but true stewardship includes treating the body as well as the bank as God's property. The Christian takes seriously the verse: "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31.

The Body of Christ

The true church is the company of the twice-born which rejoices in Christ Jesus and puts no confidence in the flesh. It practices the priesthood of all believers, is congregational and has no hierarchy.

Its leaders are those recognised as possessing the gifts and fruits of the Spirit in special measure. These show by their behaviour that they are committed to Christ's decree "whoever would be first, let him be servant of all." In this company Paul's counsels about the dissolution of all barriers in Christ is axiomatic: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

Creation

The doctrine of creation by the miraculous power of God is fundamental to all Christian thinking, but it must be kept in mind that the Bible is meant to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. The pages of Scripture say nothing about the shape of the earth, its movement or its age.

There can be no doubt of the inspiration of the first chapters of Genesis but genuine Christians interpret these chapters differently. Therefore let all practice the dictum of the early church: in essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.