RCC Faith & Doctrine
- We believe that there is but one living and true God. An infinite
and intelligent Spirit, perfect in all His attributes, one of essence
but eternally existing in three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
each equally deserving worship and obedience.
- We believe that God the Father orders and disposes things
according
to His own purpose and grace. As the absolute highest ruler in the
universe, He is sovereign in creation, providence, and redemption. He
is creator of all things.
- We believe that God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was virgin
born
and God incarnate. The purpose of the incarnation was to reveal God,
redeem man, and rule over God’s kingdom.
- We believe that Jesus secured salvation for God’s elect through
His
death on the cross, which paid the penalty for the sins of man and
satisfied God’s wrath toward believing sinners. His free gift of
salvation is appropriated by faith.
- We believe in the literal and physical resurrection of Jesus
Christ
from the dead, which makes the believer’s salvation sure and secure.
- We believe, when the time appointed by the Lord is come and the
salvation of the elect complete, that the Lord Jesus Christ will return
from heaven just as He ascended, with great glory and majesty, to judge
all mankind.
- We believe that the Holy Spirit is the supernatural and sovereign
agent in regeneration. Jesus baptizes all believers with the Holy
Spirit into the body of Christ at the moment of salvation. As the Holy
Spirit permanently indwells all believers, He instructs them, empowers
them for service, seals them until the day of redemption, and
continually conforms them into the likeness of Jesus as they yield to
His control in their lives.
- We believe that the baptism with the Holy Spirit occurs only once
and for all at the moment of regeneration.
- We believe that it is the believer’s responsibility to be filled
with the Spirit, which is accomplished continually throughout the
believer’s life as he submits in obedience to God.
- We believe that the Holy Spirit administers spiritual gifts to
the
church, not to glorify Himself or the gifts by ostentatious displays,
but to glorify Christ and edify believers.
- We believe that man was directly and immediately created by God
in His image and likeness.
- We believe that the purpose of man’s creation was that he should
glorify God, enjoy His fellowship and live his life in the will of God.
- We believe that through Adam’s disobedience, man lost his
purpose,
incurred the penalty of death, and became subject to the wrath of God,
with no power to recover himself. man is hopelessly lost apart from the
salvation that is available in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
- We believe that salvation is totally of God by grace through the
death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, and not on the basis
of human merit or works whatsoever.
- We believe that justification is an act of God by which he
declares
righteous those who believe in Christ by receiving His life. This
righteousness is apart form any virtue or work of man, and involves the
exchange of a believer’s sins for the righteousness of Christ.
- We believe that all true believers in Jesus Christ will openly
confess His Lordship over their lives.
- We believe that all true believers, once saved, are kept by God’s
power and are thus secure in Christ forever. Good works are never a
cause of salvation, but are always the result of it.
- We believe that all who receive Jesus as Lord are immediately
baptized with the Holy Spirit into one united spiritual body - the
church, of which Christ is the head.
- We believe that the Bible is the written revelation of God,
absolutely inerrant in the original documents, and God-breathed, It
constitutes the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
- We believe that two ordinances have been committed to the local
church: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
- We believe that baptism is an act of obedience that follows
salvation, and that it has no saving merit.
- We believe that the Lord’s Supper is commemoration and
proclamation
of the death of Jesus until He comes, and should be preceded always by
solemn self-examination. While Christ’s flesh and blood are not
actually present, the Lord’s Supper is an actual communion with the
risen Christ who is present in a unique way, fellowshipping with His
people.
- We believe that angels are created beings, and therefore are not
to be worshiped. They are created to serve God and worship Him.
- We believe that Satan is a created angel and author of sin. He
incurred judgment of God by rebelling against his Creator, involving
numerous angels who became demons, in his fall. He introduced sin into
the human race by the temptation of Eve.
- We believe in the bodily resurrection
of all people - the saved
to
eternal life, dwelling with God forever, and the unsaved to judgment
and everlasting punishment, separated from God forever in a literal
place called hell. Physical death involves no loss of consciousness.