Essential Doctrines

The following doctrines constitute the essence of the Christian faith and they are doctrinal requirements for membership.  These doctrines detail the dividing line between orthodoxy and serious error.

• We believe the Bible as contained in the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience.
• There is one and only one God.  This God has revealed Himself to us in the Scriptures as a personal being existing eternally in three persons (the divine Trinity): God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit.
• We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father, willingly humbled Himself in love for mankind, was born of a virgin, fully human. He led a sinless life, died a substitutionary, atoning death on the cross.  Three days later he rose bodily from the dead.  He ascended into heaven and now intercedes for His brethren on the right hand of His Father. He will one day return bodily to the earth to rule His Kingdom.
• We believe a person is saved, or justified, by an act of God’s free grace and not on any merit of his own.  God pardons sinners and accepts them as righteous in His sight, only because of Christ’s righteousness which is imputed to us through Christ’s substitutionary atoning death and bodily resurrection and received sola fide, by faith alone.
• Those who are justified will live eternally in the presence of God and all the redeemed, and those who are not justified will suffer eternal damnation in hell.

Doctrinal Statement

We hold to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689.  All officers must uphold and teach these standards. Members are free to take exception to anything not contrary to the five points of orthodoxy listed above, provided they do not promote dissension regarding the items listed in the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 or in the principles communicated in the Constitution of Geneva Lakes Christian Church