Beliefs

The Bible, including the 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament, is the Word of God, fully inspired by God and without error. The Bible was written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it has supreme authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine. It is fully authoritative and our only absolutely trustworthy guide for life and faith. Each book is to be interpreted according to its original context and purpose. Every believer is encouraged to study the Scriptures and apply them to their own lives.

There is one true and living God: infinite, eternal, almighty, and perfect in holiness, truth, and love. This God eternally exists in 3 different persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. They are co-existent, co-equal, and co-eternal. God exists as 3 persons in perfect unity and relationship. They execute distinct but harmonious functions in the work of creation, history, providence, and redemption. God, in Trinity, possesses all life, glory, goodness, and blessedness in and of Himself.

Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is the eternal Word made flesh and the image of the invisible God. He was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, fully God, and fully man. Through Him, all things were created. Jesus lived a sinless life, is perfect in nature, teaching, and obedience, and is the only Savior for the sins of the world. He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to die in our place. He was physically crucified, suffered, bled, died, and was buried. His death in our place upheld divine justice and revealed divine love. On the third day, Jesus rose from death, victorious over the grave. He appeared to His disciples and hundreds of others in His resurrected body. He ascended into heaven and is now seated at God’s right hand, forever interceding for His saints. He is the Head of His body, the Church. He awaits the time when the Father will send Him back to earth to defeat Satan, judge His creation, resurrect His people, and deliver His Saints once and for all to His Father. At His appearing, every knee, in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.

The Holy Spirit, eternally one with the Father and Son, convicts the world of sin. Through His power and the proclamation of the Gospel, He persuades men to repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord. He enables people to understand the truth. He unites believers to Jesus and brings about a new birth through regeneration. He indwells every true believer. As our helper, the Spirit effectually calls, keeps for eternity, sanctifies, empowers, baptizes, indwells, guides, teaches, and equips all believers for service and witness. He enables believers to live in union with Christ and God the Father. The Holy Spirit has come to glorify the Son who, in turn, came to glorify the Father.

God made man, male and female, in His own image, as the crown of creation, so that man might glorify Him through enjoying fellowship with Him. Adam and Eve received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Being influenced by and believing the lie of Satan, the serpent, they chose to sin by eating the fruit. This act of disobedience brought physical and spiritual death to them and all mankind. Being estranged from his Maker yet responsible to Him, man became subject to divine wrath, inwardly depraved and, apart from a special work of grace, utterly incapable of returning to God. This depravity extends to his mind, will, and affections. Unregenerate man lives under the dominion of sin and Satan. He is at enmity with God, hostile toward God, and hateful of God. Fallen, sinful people, whatever their character or attainments, are lost and without hope apart from salvation in Christ alone.

The gospel is the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It is the grand narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation ordained by God and orchestrated through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ to redeem all things to Himself. Christ’s crucifixion is the heart of the gospel. His resurrection is the power of the gospel. His ascension is the glory of the gospel. Christ’s death is a substitutionary and propitiatory sacrifice to God for our sins. It satisfies the demands of God’s holy justice and appeases His holy wrath. It also demonstrates His mysterious love and reveals His amazing grace. Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man. There is no other name by which men can be saved. At the heart of all sound doctrine is the cross of Jesus Christ and the infinite privilege that redeemed sinners have in glorifying God because of what He has accomplished. Therefore, we want all that takes place in our hearts, churches, and ministries to proceed from and point to the gospel.

The proper response to the gospel is faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This authentic faith is naturally accompanied by repentance from sin. Biblical repentance is characterized by a changed life, and saving faith is evidenced by good works. This response to the gospel is rooted and grounded in the free and unconditional election of God for His own pleasure and glory. While acknowledging our finite and incomplete understanding of God’s ways, in faith we believe that God, by His providence and eternal counsel, chose some persons to life and salvation before the foundation of the world. His choice was of Himself, for His own pleasure and glory, and not with regard to, or with reference to, any foreseen works of faith or deeds in the creature as His motive. Whoever He calls, He will justify and keep by His power through faith to salvation. It precludes boasting and encourages humility. This gospel of grace is to be sincerely preached to all men in all nations. Believers may fall into sin through neglect, spiritual weakness, and temptation, whereby they grieve the Holy Spirit, degrade their graces and joys, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves. Even so, they will be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, sanctified by His Spirit, and will never fall away from the state of grace but will endure to the end. They will never fall fully and completely because God, by His grace, preserves them. The intercession of Christ for those God has called is efficacious unto eternity.

The Holy Spirit is the active agent in our sanctification, seeking to produce His fruit in us. He renews our minds and conforms us to the image of Christ. Though indwelling sin remains a reality, the Spirit leads us to grow in the knowledge of the Lord, to keep His commandments and to live in the world so that all people may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. All believers are exhorted to persevere in the faith, knowing they will have to give an account to God for their every thought, word and deed. The primary methods of grace used by the Spirit for sanctification are hearing the preaching of the Word, partaking in the ordinances, and prayer in the gathered church. Likewise, the spiritual disciplines, especially Bible study, prayer, worship and confession, are a vital means of grace in this regard. Nevertheless, the believer’s ultimate confidence to persevere is based in the sure promise of God to preserve His people until the end.

The Church is not a religious institution or a denomination. Rather, it is the bride and body of Christ that consists of all who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for their eternal salvation. This includes all the redeemed of the ages, believers from among all peoples from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The primary purpose of the Church is to worship God and glorify Him by making disciples and fulfilling his command to reach every people on the planet with the Gospel. We believe that Christ is the Holy Prophet, the High Priest, and the Perfect King of the church. Upon conversion, newly redeemed men and women are added to a local church in which they devote themselves to teaching, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper and prayer. The ascended Christ has given ministries to the Church, including prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, for the equipping of Christ’s body so that it might mature and grow. In the context of the local church, God’s people receive pastoral care and oversight through biblically qualified elders.

Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When a believer is baptized, they are showing an outward act of obedience signifying their faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior and visually and publicly displaying unity and association with him. This baptism shows that they themselves are dead to sin and raised to a new life in Christ. It signifies that a former way of life has been put to death and vividly depicts a person’s release from the mastery of sin and their freedom to walk in a newness of life. As with water baptism, the Lord’s Supper is to be observed only by those who have become genuine followers of Christ. It is an act of worship and obedience where believers partake of the bread and fruit of the vine, remembering the death of Jesus and anticipating his return. This ordinance symbolizes the breaking of Christ’s body and the shedding of His blood on our behalf and is to be observed repeatedly throughout the Christian life as a sign of continued participation in the atoning benefits of Christ’s death. As we come to the table with an attitude of faith and self-examination, we remember and proclaim the death of Christ, receive spiritual nourishment for our souls and signify our unity with other members of Christ’s body.

The call, command, and holy privilege of every child of God and of all churches of Jesus Christ is to go and make disciples of the nations, until every nation, tribe, tongue and language is represented worshipping around the throne of Christ. The highest purpose for evangelism and missions is that the name and glory of Jesus Christ be taken to the ends of the earth until He returns.

We expect and long for the future, physical, visible, personal, and glorious return of Jesus Christ. His second coming will include the resurrection of the dead, the translation of those alive in Christ, the judgment of the just and the unjust, and the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth. In this consummation, Satan, with his hosts and all those outside Christ, is finally separated from the benevolent presence of God, enduring eternal punishment; however, the righteous, in glorious bodies, will live and reign with Him forever, serving Him and giving Him unending praise and glory. Then the eager expectation of creation will be fulfilled, and the whole earth shall proclaim the glory of God, who makes all things new.

Marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church.  When rightly practiced, it leads to the recognizable flourishing of both sexes. Husbands should lead and love their wives like Christ does His Church. Wives should submit to their own husbands like all Christians do to Christ (Exceptions include situations where a husband’s leadership of his wife or family is abusive, or otherwise not Christ honoring.) Women owe no obligation to submit to men who are not their husbands, except in cases where all Christians must submit (i.e. government, elders, etc). The whole counsel of Scripture guides how husbands and wives interact and relate to one another.

Marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the Church.  When rightly practiced, it leads to the recognizable flourishing of both sexes. Husbands should lead and love their wives like Christ does His Church. Wives should submit to their own husbands like all Christians do to Christ (Exceptions include situations where a husband’s leadership of his wife or family is abusive, or otherwise not Christ honoring.) Women owe no obligation to submit to men who are not their husbands, except in cases where all Christians must submit (i.e. government, elders, etc). The whole counsel of Scripture guides how husbands and wives interact and relate to one another (Romans 13:1-7, Ephesians 5:31-32, Colossians 3:18-20, 1 Peter 2:13, 3:1-8, 5:5-6).

The elders of Redeemer also affirm that singleness is a gift to the church, to the individual and to the community around. God has gifted His church with various gifts for the sake of reflecting His glory and making the Gospel more clear and when rightly practiced, singleness leads to a vibrant and recognizable flourishing of the individual. (Matthew 19:10-12, 1 Corinthians 7:6-8, 25-35).

* Although we maintain this biblical view of marriage, we acknowledge that same-sex attraction, gender dysphoria, and other desires contrary to the affirmations above are real and present feelings for many people who love Jesus. For those who struggle to honor God and not act on those desires, we affirm that the grace of Jesus is sufficient, and the community offered here at Redeemer is a powerful ally in the fight against loneliness and unmet desires.