What We Believe

Members of Grace Church affirm this Doctrinal Summary. See the full Grace Church Statement of Faith for the doctrine affirmed by the elders, deacons, and deaconesses and informing the teaching of the church.

There is only one true God. His life is everlasting, and his power, wisdom, and goodness are infinite. He is a free, just, loving, pure, holy, and unchangeable spirit. He is the Creator, Preserver, and Sovereign Lord of all things. He is present everywhere and contained nowhere. His knowledge is infinite and infallible. There are three Persons in the unity of this one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are one in glory, substance, power, and eternity. The eternal Son of God took human nature in the womb of the virgin Mary. Therefore Jesus Christ is one person with two natures—truly and fully God and truly and fully human—never to be divided. He was sinless, yet he suffered, was crucified, died, and was buried, as a substitutionary sacrifice for human sin, bearing the punishment for sin to reconcile his people to God. He rose bodily from the dead and then ascended into heaven to be seated and make intercession for the church until he returns to judge all people. The Holy Spirit is truly, fully, and eternally God. He miraculously formed Christ’s sinless human nature, and he was bestowed on Christ without measure. The Holy Spirit unites to Christ those who believe, having awakened them to the evil of sin and given them new birth and a new spiritual life. All who are thus saved are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the one body of Christ. The Holy Spirit leads, equips, teaches, defends, and comforts God’s people, distributing gifts to all, some gifts for a specific time and purpose and others more regularly. The Holy Spirit inspired the Holy Scriptures and continues to enlighten God’s people from them.

_{(Deut. 29:29; Matt. 5:17; Rom. 1:19-21, 6:1-2; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; 2 Pet. 1:19-21)}

Holy Scripture, meaning the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is the necessary, sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of Christian faith and life. Therefore, nothing should be added to it. All things in Scripture are not equally plain, yet the things necessary for salvation are sufficiently clear that they may be understood by using ordinary means. The meaning of a less clear Scripture should be sought by other Scriptures that speak more clearly. In both the Old and New Covenants everlasting life is offered only in Christ and by faith, Christ’s righteousness and sacrificial death being accounted to believers in all ages. Since the ceremonies and civil precepts of the law given by God to Moses were intentionally temporary, leading to Christ, they are no longer binding. Nonetheless, no one is free from obedience to the moral commandments of God’s law. No one will be justified by the law, and in Christ believers will not be condemned by the law. Yet the law informs them of God’s will, reveals their sinfulness, and shows them their need for Christ. Those who use Christian liberty as an excuse to practice sin misapply God’s grace to their own destruction. God gives grace and liberty so that Christians might serve him in holiness without fear.

In the beginning and for his own sake, God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. In his wise and holy providence, God continues to uphold and direct all things. God created personal spiritual beings, angels, as ministers and messengers. Of these, the devil and others rebelled against God’s good will and became evil. These evil beings, or demons, remain under God’s sovereign power and control, and in the end he will confirm their defeat and judge them. God created humanity, male and female, in his own image. Marriage, which should be between one man and one woman, was ordained from creation to increase humanity—filling the earth with the image of God—and for the mutual benefit of husband and wife. Also, marriage pictures the covenant between Christ and the church, so a Christian who marries is to marry in the Lord. The first humans, Adam and Eve, had freedom and power to will and to do what was good and pleasing to God. Yet they willfully violated God’s command, and by this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. All humanity fell in Adam, becoming dead in sin, corrupted in soul and body, and guilty before the holiness of God. All people are inclined to evil and in time commit actual sins, justly deserving eternal death under God’s wrath and condemnation. Being dead in sin, all are unable by their own strength and good works to turn to God. From eternity, God purposed for Christ to be the mediator and redeemer of humanity. God graciously chose a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to believe in Christ, be made holy, and receive everlasting life. Believers are joined to Christ in a living and eternal union, and from this union comes every spiritual blessing.

_{(Isa. 53:5-6; Jer. 31:31-34; Rom. 3:21-26; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 5:17; Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 3:4-7; James 2:14-26; 1 John 1:8-9)}

Those who are united with Christ by faith are justified, accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of Jesus Christ. Their sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ’s sacrifice and Christ’s righteousness. Saving faith is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, usually brought about through the Scriptures. Saving faith is accompanied by repentance, a gracious gift from the Holy Spirit, bringing sorrow for sin and a desire to please God. Those justified are regenerated, born again by the Holy Spirit with a new heart and a new spirit. Believers, then, are further sanctified by Christ’s Word and Spirit dwelling in them. They are freed from their slavery to sin, and sin’s various desires are increasingly weakened and put to death. Meanwhile, believers are strengthened to live holy lives, for without holiness no one will see the Lord. Saving faith is never found without good works, which are its natural and necessary fruits. Yet sanctification remains imperfect in this life, corruption remaining even in believers, and as a result they do not perfectly or only desire what is good. A continual war between the flesh and the Spirit arises from this corruption. God continues to forgive the sins of the justified, yet they may fall under God’s fatherly displeasure. In that case they should humble themselves, confess their sins, repent, and ask forgiveness. In the war between the flesh and the Spirit, the believer is aided by the intercession of Christ and the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, faith will overcome and Christians will grow in grace. Their faith may be sometimes weaker or stronger, and many times attacked, yet it gets the victory. In glory, the human will is made perfectly and unchangeably free to love only what is good.

_{(Lam. 3:31; John 1:12-13; Rom 8; Gal. 4:4-6; Eph. 1:3-14; 1 Pet. 1:4-5; 1 John 2:19, 5:13)}

Those united with the Son of God by faith are adopted as the children of God. They are sealed by the Holy Spirit to the day of redemption, when they will inherit the promises as heirs of salvation. Therefore, those truly saved can neither totally nor finally fall from grace, but will by God’s grace persevere to the end and be eternally saved. Others may temporarily appear to be believers but prove in time not to possess saving faith. These and other unregenerate people may deceive themselves, but the possibility of self-deception does not destroy the possibility of assurance. Those who truly believe in, love, and obey Jesus may in this life be assured that they are God’s children. This certainty is founded upon the promise of the gospel, the evidences of the Holy Spirit’s gracious work, and the testimony of the Spirit of adoption, witnessing with believers’ spirits that they are the children of God. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken, diminished, and intermitted in various ways, but by the work of the Spirit it may be revived. The faithful consideration of assurance keeps the believer both humble and holy.

All people are subject to death, but believers are delivered by Christ from being injured by death, so that death is actually gain to them. The bodies of people after death return to dust, but their souls, which do not die or sleep, immediately return to God. The souls of believers are then made perfectly holy and received into paradise with Christ, waiting for the resurrection of their bodies. The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, reserved for judgment. The end of the age will come at a time unrevealed and unknown. Believers still alive will be changed, and the dead in Christ will be raised to meet him in the air. Christ will return to this earth personally, visibly, and physically, in power and great glory to judge the nations, lift the curse on creation, and bring his kingdom to fulfillment. The dead will be raised with the same bodies, although with different qualities, which will be united to their souls forever. The bodies of the wicked will be raised to condemnation; the bodies of believers will be raised to glory like Christ’s glorious body. God will judge the world in righteousness by the God-Man Jesus Christ. All will appear before Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds. Then those made righteous in Christ by faith will go into everlasting life and receive fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord. But the wicked, who do not know God or obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be cast into everlasting punishment, apart from the joy of the Lord.

_{(Ex. 20:1-2; Matt. 18:15-20, 28:19-20; Acts 2:42-47, 6:1-7; Rom. 6:3-4; 1 Cor. 11:23-26, 12:12-27; Eph. 4:4-16; Col. 3:16; 1 Tim. 3:1-15; Heb. 12:28-29)}

The universal church consists of all believers and is the bride and body of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the church, and in him its members are united to one another in love, sharing in each other’s gifts and graces and working for the good of all, both spiritually and physically. Jesus commands all believers to gather in particular local churches to grow in grace and, through worship, witness to the world. Local churches are congregations of faithful people in which the Word of God is preached, the ordinances are administered, and the discipline of Christ is maintained. The church possesses its authority under the Word of God. Worship is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to him alone. The acceptable way of worshiping God is instituted by God himself, and he may not be worshiped according to human imagination or under any visible image. The church’s worship, including Scripture, song, and the ordinances, should be conducted with understanding, faith, joy, and godly fear. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the two ordinances appointed by Christ to be continued in his church to the end of the age. Baptism signifies profession of faith, remission of sins, new birth and new life, and fellowship with Christ in his death and resurrection. Baptism should only be administered once to those who actually profess faith in and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. These should be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s Supper was instituted by the Lord Jesus for a recurrent memorial of Christ’s offering up of himself upon the cross, once for all. The body and blood of Christ are spiritually, not physically, present to the faith of believers. The Lord’s Supper is given to proclaim the death of Christ, to confirm the faith of believers in all the benefits of that death, to nourish them spiritually, and to pledge their communion with him and with each other as they await the glory of his return. If any in the church are found guilty of unrepentant sin, they must be removed through discipline from the church and the Lord’s Supper. Everything in the church should be done with love, to edification, in order, and for the glory of God.