But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.

Matthew 13:16

I believe in God’s Word and in its simplicity. Scripture alone is my authority. It cannot be broken, and it explains itself. Its heart is simple enough to reach a dying man in his last breath: there is one God, the Father; He sent His Son, the man Christ Jesus, who died for our sins and whom God raised from the dead; and whoever believes this has eternal life, now and forever. Everything below follows from that. If Scripture breaks any of it, Scripture wins.

The foundation itself, my confession and the three sentences of Christ it rests on, is set down in What I Believe. Where a proof cluster carries the full argument for a point, it is linked.

God and His Word

I believe that the Bible is God’s Word, whole and without contradiction. Jesus said that “the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). No tradition, council, church office or later prophet stands beside it or above it (Isaiah 8:20). I read it plainly, and I let one passage explain another.

I believe in one God, the Father. He is “the only true God” (John 17:3), the one God of Israel’s confession, which Jesus quoted unaltered (Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29). Paul says it plainly: “to us there is but one God, the Father” (1 Corinthians 8:6). He is not three persons in one essence. Proof cluster: The One God Is the Father.

I believe that the Word of God is His own speech. By His Word God made all things (Psalm 33:6; John 1:1-3). The Word is God’s self-expression, what He spoke, not a second person beside Him. In Jesus that Word became flesh (John 1:14).

I believe that God made the earthly to reveal the heavenly. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12). The world He made, and we ourselves, reflect heavenly realities. Without the earthly there is no knowledge of the heavenly; we need both.

I believe that the Spirit of God is God’s own. Scripture always says whose the Spirit is: “thy holy spirit” (Psalm 51:11). He is God Himself present and at work, His breath and His power, not a third person. Proof cluster: The Spirit Is God’s Own.

Creation and the fall

I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. He made all things alone, by His Word, and rested on the seventh day (Genesis 1; Exodus 20:11). I do not read Genesis through evolution or through millions of years. The assumption that “all things continue as they were” is the very one Scripture warns about (2 Peter 3:4-6).

I believe that man was made from the dust and the breath of God. Scripture says that “man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). He does not have an immortal soul inside a body; he is one whole person, made to live by the life God gives.

I believe that the first man turned from God to himself. Adam made himself his own center, and by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin (Romans 5:12). From him we inherit a mortal body and a flesh in which sin dwells. We do not inherit his guilt; each one answers for his own sin (Ezekiel 18:20).

I believe that the devil is real. He is a real, external adversary, and his demons are fallen angels (Jude 6). He is defeated, not God’s equal. We have two enemies: the flesh, for which I answer myself (James 1:14), and the devil, whom I resist (James 4:7).

I believe in the worldwide flood. In the days of Noah God judged the whole world by water, and only those in the ark were saved (Genesis 6 to 8; 2 Peter 3:6). It is history, and Jesus said His own coming would be “as the days of Noe were” (Matthew 24:37).

Israel, the law and the promise

I believe that the Israel of God’s promise is defined by faith, not by flesh. Paul writes that “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Romans 9:6). Whoever belongs to Christ is Abraham’s seed and an heir of the promise (Galatians 3:29). Proof cluster: Israel Is Spiritual.

I believe that the law is holy, and that it cannot justify anyone. No one is made righteous by keeping it (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:16). It is a mirror that shows us our need, and a schoolmaster that brings us to Christ (Galatians 3:24). Love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10). Proof cluster: The Law Cannot Justify.

Jesus Christ

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He is a real human being, begotten of God through His Spirit in the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35). He was foreknown before the foundation of the world and brought forth in time (1 Peter 1:20; Galatians 4:4). He is not a pre-existent divine person who turned into a man. Proof cluster: Brought Forth.

I believe that Jesus is the perfect man, the second Adam. He came from Adam’s line but was not under Adam’s headship, and no sin dwelt in Him. He was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). At the Jordan God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power (Acts 10:38). Where the first Adam reached for what was not his, the second said, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). Proof cluster: The Two Gardens.

I believe that Christ died for our sins and that God raised Him from the dead. His sinless life made Him the offering without spot, and His death accomplished the offering, for the sins of the whole world (Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 2:2). He was buried and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3-4), and God made Him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).

I believe that there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). No one else stands between God and us: not Mary, not the saints, not a priesthood, not a pope. Jesus said, “call no man your father upon the earth” (Matthew 23:9). Proof cluster: Call No Man Father.

Salvation

I believe that salvation is a gift, received by faith alone. “For by grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). We do not add works to earn it. The one work God asks is to believe on the One He sent (John 6:29). Proof cluster: The One Work Is to Believe.

I believe that the offer is for everyone. God “will have all men to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4), and “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). God foreknows, but His foreknowledge does not force anyone. The will is real.

I believe that whoever believes is saved forever. “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47), and “they shall never perish” (John 10:28). What God gives, He keeps. A believer can lose rewards, but never the gift (1 Corinthians 3:13-15). This is what is called “once saved, always saved”. Proof clusters: Perfected Forever and The Reward Is Not the Gift.

I believe in one baptism, by the Spirit, at faith. “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). Baptism in water is the believer’s public confession, not the means by which grace is given. It is not for infants who cannot yet believe.

I believe that no holy day is commanded. The Sabbath was a shadow, and the body is Christ (Colossians 2:16-17). He is the rest that we enter by faith (Hebrews 4:10). Neither Saturday nor Sunday is a law for the believer (Romans 14:5).

Death and the last things

I believe that only God has immortality (1 Timothy 6:16). Eternal life is His gift in His Son: “he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12). When a man dies, he truly dies, and rests in the grave until the resurrection.

I believe that the lost perish. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Those who finally refuse God are destroyed. They are not kept alive to suffer forever.

I believe in reading prophecy as the Reformers did. The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation unfold through history, from the prophet’s day to the return of Christ. The power that puts itself in Christ’s place is Rome, and the papacy’s own title, “Vicar of Christ”, claims exactly the place that Scripture’s word antichrist names (2 Thessalonians 2:4). This is a judgment on a system, never on the people inside it. More in The Times We Live In.

I believe that Christ will return. He will come again as He went (Acts 1:11), the dead in Christ will rise, and those who believe will be changed and be with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The Kingdom will be handed back to the Father, and God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).