What We Believe

Mission Statement

The purpose of Faith Bible Church of Tri-City is to worship God in excellence through Jesus Christ, to be committed in fulfilling the Great Commission and to develop Godly and quality Servant-Leaders.

Statement of Beliefs

Word of God

We believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God; that as originally written, it is God-breathed and is profitable for fully equipping the man of God; that the God-breathing extends equally to all its parts and to the very words.

We believe that the men who verbalized and later inscripturated the truth of God were borne along by the Spirit of God; that they used their personal style and vocabulary but were superintended by the Holy Spirit in such a way that they were preserved from any error of omission or commission.

Hence, the Scripture of the Old and New Testament is infallibly accurate and completely trustworthy. It is truth without admixture of error. (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1: 20-21; Jn. 17:17)

Supreme Authority of the Word of God

We believe that as the Word of God, Scripture is the sole and sufficient authority for faith and practice, and that it is the supreme standard by which all human conduct, experiences, creeds and opinions should be tried. (Ps. 10:7-11; Jn. 10:35-36; Mat. 22:29; Mat. 4:4, 7, 10; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 4:12)

Trinity

We believe that there is one Triune God who eternally exists in three persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–who are coequal, coeternal, and of one essence, yet having distinct personal functions. (Gen. 1:26; Deut. 6:4; Ex. 20:3; Ps 139:8; Is 43:10; 44:6; Mat. 28:18-19; Eph. 4:6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jn. 1:1, Acts 5:3-4)

Person of the Lord Jesus Christ

We believe Jesus Christ, the second Person of the trinity, is the eternal Son of God and the virgin-born Son of Man who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. In the incarnation He retained His absolute deity, being at the same time fully God and fully man, united without mixture, change, division, or separation in one person, forever. He was without sin as to nature, unable to sin in principle, and did not sin in fact. (Is. 7:14; Lk. 1: 35; s;40; Jn. 1:1-2, 14; 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 2:5-8)

The Sacrificial Death of the Lord Jesus Christ

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice in the most absolute sense, the just for the unjust, and all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood. (Is. 53:4-11; Rom. 3:24-25; 5:1, 8-9; 6:23; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; 1 Pet. 1:18-19)

The Resurrection

We believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the grave and in His ascension to the Father’s right hand where He is now performing the intercessory aspect of His high priestly work and is an advocate for all believers. (Mat. 28:1-17; Lk. 24:38-39; Acts 1:8-11; 1 Cor. 15:4-9; Heb. 1:3; 4:14-16; 1 Jn. 2:1)

The Person of the Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity, possessing all the distinctively divine attributes. He convicts men of sin and regenerates the believing sinner. He places believers into the body of Christ by His baptism at the point of salvation. He seals each believer unto the day of redemption. He indwells every believer, guides, instructs and empowers them for godly living and service. (Jn. 16:7-11; Tit. 4:5; 1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:13-15; Rom. 8:16-17; Gal. 5:16)

The Work of the Holy Spirit

We believe that Holy Spirit bestows spiritual gifts upon believers at the time of salvation, some of which are temporary and some of which are permanent for the entire church age.

The temporary gifts (apostles, prophets, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healings, and miracles) were given for the primary purpose of giving or authenticating revelation until the New Testament was completely inscripturated. (Rom. 12:3-8; 1 Cor. 12-14; Eph. 4:7-14; Heb. 2:3-4)

The Creation and Fall of Man

We believe man was a product of direct creation according to the Genesis account and not evolution. He was originally created in the image of God with a rational nature, great intelligence and moral responsibility to God for the purpose of glorifying God, enjoying God’s fellowship, and fulfilling God’s will and purpose on earth.

Man subsequently fell into sin by voluntary act of personal disobedience to the revealed will of God. As a consequence man became subject to the wrath of God, inherently corrupt, and incapable of choosing or doing that which is acceptable to God apart from divine grace. All human beings, with the exception of the Man Christ Jesus, are born with a sinful nature and are sinners in thought, word and deed. Thus he is hopelessly lost apart from the salvation which is in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Gen. 1:26-30; 2:15-25; Is 43:7; Col. 1:16; 1 Tim. 2:13-15; Rev. 4:11; Gen. 3:1-19; Jn. 3:36; Rom. 3:23; 6:23; I Cor. 2:15; Eph. 2:1-3; Titus 1:15-16; 1 Jn. 1:8)

The Nature of Angels

We believe that angels were created simultaneously by God as a great host of sinless spirit-beings, most of whom kept their first estate of holiness and presently worship God and serve His purposes.

Some fell by rebelling with Satan against God’s authority. One of the angels, Lucifer, Son of the Morning, sinned through pride, and thereby became known as the Devil, or Satan. Satan is temporarily the prince of this world. He was judged at the cross, though the sentence was not then executed, and he will finally be consigned to the lake of fire at the end of the Millennium.

During this age, Satan and his subordinates, other fallen angels and demons, are active as his agents and associates in prosecution of his unholy purposes and wage spiritual war against all believers. (Ezek. 28:11-19; Is. 14:12-17; Gen. 3:1-19; Mat. 4:1-11; Eph. 6:10-12; 1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 20:14; 21:8)

Salvation by Faith

We believe that all who put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone as Savior, apart from the works, are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God. (Jn. 1:12-13; 3:3-16; Acts 16:31; Rom. 4:5; Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Jn. 5:11-12)

Assurance of Salvation

The Universal Church

We believe that the church, the Body of Christ is a new creation into which all believers are baptized individually by the Spirit of God from the day of Pentecost to the Rapture. We also believe that the local expression of the Body of Christ is the local church which is a group of immersed believers organized to meet. (Acts 1:4-5; 2;41; 1 Cor. 12:13; 2 Cor. 5:17; I Cor. 11:18)

Baptism by Immersion

We believe that Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem one’s faith in the crucified, buried and risen Savior, and one’s death to sin and resurrection to a new life; and that it is a prerequisite to the privileges of local church membership. We believe that the Lord’s supper is symbolic and is a commemoration of His death until He comes and should be preceded by solemn self-examination. (Acts 2:41:42; 8:36-39; Mat. 28:29; 1 Cor. 1:14-17; 11:23-31)

The Local Church

We believe that a local church has the absolute right of self-government, free from the interference of any hierarchy or individuals or organization; that the one and only Head is Christ; but maintains fellowship with churches of like faith and order. We believe that every church is the sole judge in all matters of membership, of policy, of government, of benevolence and that in all these matters the will of the local church is final. (Acts 14:23; 2 Cor. 8:19; 1 Tim. 5:19-21; 1 Cor. 16:3; Acts 13:1-4; 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 1 Cor. 6:1-5)

The Purity of the Local Church

We believe that the local church as a whole under the leadership of the elders has the responsibility to maintain moral purity. This may involve at times removal of individual from its fellowship according to New Testament standards and guidelines. (Mat. 18:15-20; 2 Cor. 2:6-8, 11; 1 Tim. 5:19-21; 1 Cor. 5)

The Mission of the Local Church

We believe that the mission of the church to the world is to provide a witness throughout the life of the church, and to carry out the great commission in the world wide proclamation of the gospel and the establishment of the local, indigenous, New Testament churches. (Acts 1:8; Mat. 28:19-20; Mk. 16:15-16; Lk. 24:46-48)

The Doctrine of Separation

We believe that separation from apostasy, false teachers, and false teaching is binding upon every child of God. We believe that it is the solemn responsibility of a true minister of Christ to warn the flock of God of wolves in sheep clothing, to mark and identify them, to have no fellowship with them but to turn away from them and reprove them. (2 Cor. 6:14-18; Rom. 16:17; Eph. 5:11; Jude 3)

Doctrine of Death and Resurrection

We believe that to a believer to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord in conscious enjoyment of heavenly pleasure until the reuniting of soul and spirit to a glorious resurrected body. We likewise believe in the resurrection of the lost unto eternal damnation. (2 Cor. 5:6; Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Cor. 15:50-54; 2 Thess. 1:7-9; Rev. 20:11-15)

Second Coming of Christ

We believe that the blessed hope of the church is the imminent coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the air to rapture the Church; that after this event God shall pour His wrath upon an unbelieving world for seven years of tribulation, then Christ shall come down to earth with His saints to deliver Israel, judge the nations, and set up the millennial kingdom.

We believe that the millennial reign of Christ is for a period of 1,000 years; and that at the end of the millennium Satan shall be loosed out of the abyss and by his deception gather a great army to war against the saints and Jerusalem; that this army shall be destroyed by a fire from heaven and Satan himself shall be cast into the lake of fire, his ultimate judgment and destiny. Then the great white throne shall be set up where all wicked shall be judged according to their works and after this heaven and earth shall be destroyed by fire and the new heavens and new earth shall be created wherein dwell righteousness (Rev. 20:3, 7-10, 11-15; Rev. 21:1-5; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Isa. 65:17; 66:22)