Bethel Statement of Faith

We seek to glorify God daily in our public and private lives by living, as Christ would have us live, and reaching out to our community with the Gospel.​

Doctrine

The Holy Bible

We believe that the Holy Bible is a supernatural Book; that it is the very Word of God; that it is the full, the final, and the complete revelation of God’s will to man; that the Word of God is our sole rule for faith and practice; that it has God the Holy Spirit for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any admixture of error for its matter; that it was written by holy men of old under the immediate and direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit; that it is verbally inspired and a perfect treasure of holy instruction; that it has been supernaturally preserved inerrant in the Authorized Version (1611-KJV) for all generations; and that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us, and is, therefore, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions shall be tried.

Creation

We believe that the Genesis record of creation is literal, and not allegorical or figurative, that any theory of evolution is a contradiction of the Genesis account and therefore false; that God personally created the heaven and the earth in six 24-hour days; He finally formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became immediately a living soul; that He created man in the image and likeness of God.

Salvation By Grace

Eph 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Regeneration

We believe that in order to be saved lost sinners must be regenerated, or born again; that regeneration is a recreative act, far beyond comprehension, wrought in the believer’s heart by the direct personal ministry of the Holy Spirit; that it is instantaneous, miraculous, and non-evolutionary or cultural; that it embraces the divine acts of cleansing the heart from all inward sins and of pardoning the soul of all outward guilt, in connection with the work of begetting a new creature in Christ Jesus; that the dead sinner is made to live through the new birth, becoming thereby a regenerated spirit, possessing eternal life, the gift of God; that the new birth comes after the Holy Spirit secures voluntary repentance and belief in the gospel; that it is the actual importation of the divine life, not a mere transformation of the human life.

Sanctification

We believe that sanctification is a divine work of grace that by it we enter into divinely appointed privileges and thus become larger partakers of His holiness; that it is a progressive work, begun in regeneration, and carried on in the life of every believer by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God; and that it is nurtured only by Heaven’s appointed means, especially by the Holy Spirit and Word of God.

The Local Church

We believe that a New Testament church, according to divine purpose and plan, is a visible, local, organized body; that it is composed of baptized believers associated together by a covenant of faith and fellowship in the gospel; that New Testament validity flows from strict obedience to essential principles of New Testament Law; that it is a sovereign, independent, democratic, and evangelistic body; that its ministry is gloriously blessed with the presence and leadership of the Holy Spirit and the light and revelation of the written Word; that it is the only ecclesiastical tribunal the Lord has on earth; that it was personally founded by Christ Jesus during His ministry on earth; that it is subject to His laws and is the custodian of His ordinances, that the perpetuity of our faith, our doctrines and practices, ordinances and ordinations, has been effected through the Holy Spirit personally planting and preserving local Baptist churches of like faith and order down through the centuries from the first church in Jerusalem even until now.

The Divine Trinity

God the Father: We believe that God the Father is the first person set forth in the divine Trinity; that He is Almighty, merciful, and just

God the Son (Virgin Born): We believe that God the Son is the second person set forth in the divine Trinity; that He is Very God of Very God; that He is almighty, merciful, and just; that He is holy, righteous, and true; that He is eternally existent, glorious in nature, possessing the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence; that without giving up His deity, became man by the miracle of the virgin birth in that He was begotten of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary, a virgin. As the perfect Lamb of God, He gave Himself in death upon the cross where He shed His blood to make an atonement for the sin of all mankind, arose bodily and ascended into Heaven where He is our High Priest and advocate with the Father. In harmony with His divine office of our sole mediator at the right hand of God, He also seeks and saves the lost, thus exercising the mediatorial office of redemption.

God the Holy Spirit: We believe that God the Holy Spirit is the third person set forth in the divine Trinity; that He is almighty, merciful, and just; that He is holy, righteous, and true; that He is eternally existent, glorious in nature, possessing the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence; that He restrains the world, the flesh and the devil; that He witnesses to the Truth, convicts the lost of sin, extols the Christ, and testifies to the righteous judgments of God; that He, in harmony with His divine office, comforts, teaches, testifies, preaches, guides, regenerates, empowers, sanctifies, and anoints, thus exercising the quickening role in the works of saving the lost and the supervising role in the life of the saved. The Holy Spirit indwells the born-again believer at salvation and fills him as he yields himself to the will and Word of God. The Holy Spirit also seals and keeps eternally secure all who are saved by grace through faith.

Justification

We believe that justification is one of the great gospel blessings secured through Christ for all who trust Him; that it is a legal and divine decree, declaring the believing sinner just;that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely upon the evidence of faith in God and the Redeemer’s blood;

The Eternal Security of the Believer

We believe that salvation wrought by grace is everlasting; that the Holy Spirit-begotten and born are kept by the power of God; that they are securely held in both the hand of the Father and the Son

The Rapture and Subsequent Events

We believe in the imminent, pre-millennial return of Christ for His saints, and that at that moment the dead in Christ shall be raised in glorified bodies, and the living in Christ shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air before the seventieth week of Daniel. We believe that the Great Tribulation, which follows the Rapture of the saints, will be culminated by the personal, audible, visible, and bodily return of Christ to the earth in power and great glory to sit upon the throne of David and to establish a literal millennial reign. He shall then put down all of His enemies, rule with a rod of iron, triumph over sin, and give the world an example of righteous government.

The Devil

We believe that Satan is an actual person, and not an imaginary influence; that he is an arch deceiver and the father of all lies; and that he shall eventually be cast into the lake of fire, the eternal place of punishment, prepared for the devil and his angels.

The Fall of Man

We believe that man, originally created in holiness and actually associated with God in innocence under His law, did, by voluntary transgression of the Lord’s command, fall from the high and happy state in which he was created, and, as a consequence, became a sinner alienated from God and brought upon himself and all mankind just condemnation; and that he is now, by virtue of his fallen nature, utterly void of holiness, positively inclined to evil, and actually condemned to eternal ruin, without defence or excuse.

The Blood Atonement

We believe that the lost sinner is guilty and already under just condemnation; that he is by nature alien to God and because of sin condemned to die; that atonement for sin was effected through the mediatorial office of the Son who by divine appointment, freely took upon Himself our nature, yet without sin; that He, through obedience during His earthly walk, personally honoured the divine Law by keeping it, and, through His death on the cross, actually satisfied the penalty of the offended Law by suffering in the sinner’s stead; that He, through His obedience and sacrificial death, made full and vicarious atonement for all sin; that the O.T. sacrificial lamb is a type of Christ; that He died, the just for the unjust, bearing our sins in His body on the tree; and that He, through the shedding of His blood on the cross of Calvary, evidenced eternal provision for cleansing, for pardon, for peace and for rest.

Repentance and Faith

We believe that repentance and faith are solemn and inseparable prerequisites of salvation; that they are inseparable graces wrought in the heart by the quickening Holy Spirit; that the alien sinner, being deeply convicted of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come by the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit, and by Him having his understanding enlightened so that he can see the way of salvation through Christ, does actually repent, turning to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication, and does actually believe, surrendering himself wholeheartedly to the Lord Jesus, immediately receiving Him as personal and all sufficient Saviour and openly confessing Him before all men.

The Resurrection

We believe that Christ Jesus, after having been three days and three nights in the tomb, arose bodily on the first day of the week, which day we now observe as the Lord’s Day, a day of worship; that His miraculous emergence from the tomb forecasted a like bodily resurrection for every member of the Adamic race; that the dead in Christ shall rise first and in glorified bodies like His; that they shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air; that the dead in trespasses and sins, or the dead out of Christ, shall rise at the close of the millennium; and that they shall be brought before the Great White Throne Judgment and there face the Judge of the quick and the dead.

Ordinances

We believe that Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ordinances personally set in the church of the living God by the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that Baptism is the burial of a believer in water by the authority and instruction of a local Baptist church; that it symbolizes the death and the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; that it also typifies the believer’s death to sin, the burial of his old nature, and his resurrection unto a new life; and that it is administered in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We believe the Lord’s Supper is a memorial spread and administered by the authority and instruction of a local Baptist church; that it symbolizes the broken body and the shed blood of the Son of God; that its observance points backward to the crucified Lord on Calvary and forward to the returning Lord in glory. We believe that these ordinances are not sacraments, but are sacred symbols, pointing to the world’s only Saviour, and bidding the sons of men look unto an everlasting fellowship with the King of kings and Lord of lords when He shall return to take over the reins of all government. We believe the two elements are unleavened bread and “the fruit of the vine (unfermented grape juice).