What We At New Hope Baptist Church Believe
The Scriptures
We believe the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. The Bible is our sole authority for faith and practice. The Bible is the only complete and final revelation of the will of God to man.
Of the True God --- The Godhead
We believe that there is one and only one living and true God. The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
God the Father
We believe that God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
God the Son
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His finished work on the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice: and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God, where, as our High Priest, He fulfills the ministry of Representative, Intercessor, and Advocate.
God the Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit exalts the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Person who reproves the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: and that He is the Supernatural Agent in regeneration, indwelling all believers and sealing them unto the day of redemption. We believe that the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and the gift of healing, were temporary. We believe that speaking in tongues was never the common or necessary sign of the baptism or filling of the Holy Spirit and that ultimate deliverance of the body from sickness or death awaits the consummation of our salvation in the resurrection, though God frequently chooses to answer the prayer of believers for physical healing.
Of Creation
We believe in the Genesis account of creation, and that it is to be accepted literally, and not allegorically or figuratively: that man was created directly in God's own image and after His own likeness: that man's creation was not a matter of evolution or evolutionary change of species, or development through interminable periods of time from lower to higher forms: that all animal and vegetable life was made directly and God's established law as that they should bring forth only "after their kind."
Man
We believe that man was created by the special act of God, in His own image, and is the crowning work of His creation. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Man is totally depraved, and, of himself, utterly unable to remedy his lost condition. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man: therefore every man possesses dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.
Of the Virgin Birth
We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten of the Holy Ghost, in a miraculous manner; born of Mary, a virgin, as no other man was ever born or can ever be born of woman, and that He is both the Son of God, and God, the Son.
Salvation
We believe salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. We believe that salvation is "by grace" plus nothing minus nothing. We believe that men are justified by faith alone and are accounted righteous before God only through the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We believe that all the redeemed, once saved are kept by God's power and are thus secure in Christ forever.
The Church
We believe a New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a local body of baptized believers who are associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel..and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. This church is an autonomous body. The Lord is doing His work in this world through local churches..Jesus Christ is the only head of the church.
Baptism & the Lord's Supper
We believe Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water; in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's death to sin, the burial of the life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.
The Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members; memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
The Lord's Day
We believe the first day of the week (Sunday) is the Lord's Day..it commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion.
The Return of Christ
We believe God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. We believe the "Blessed Hope" of our Lord's return is literal, personal, visible, imminent, premillennial, and pretribulational. Believers will be caught up to be with Lord prior to the seven years of tribulation on earth, and at the end of the tribulation Christ will return with His saints to establish His thousand-year reign on the earth.
Our Eternal State
We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men, the saved to eternal life, and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment. We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord, where in conscious bliss they await the first resurrection, when spirit, soul and body are reunited to be gloried forever with the Lord. We believe that the souls of unbelievers remain, after death, in conscious misery until the second resurrection, when with soul and body reunited, they shall appear at the Great White Throne Judgment, and shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting, conscious punishment.
Evangelism & Missions
We believe it is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make disciples of all nations..to seek constantly to win the lost to Christ by personal effort.
Stewardship
We believe God is the source of all blessing, temporal and spiritual: all that we have and are we owe to Him, Christians have a spiritual debtorship to the whole trusteeship in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their possessions. They are therefore under obligation to serve Him with their time, talents, and material possessions. We believe that scriptural giving is one of the fundamentals of the faith. We are commanded to bring our gifts into the storehouse (common treasury of the church) upon the first day of the week.
Family
We believe God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. Marriage is the unity of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord.
