It is no small thing to be clear on what you believe. The creeds listed below are my public confession of faith, that which I seek to live by, that which gives my life meaning… 

What do I believe about God?
God is the Creator and Sovereign Lord of all. He is eternally self-existing. He has no cause, no beginning and no ending. He exists outside of space and time, for these are elements of His creation. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. He is Life, and the creator of life.

God exists eternally as three Persons that are one in essence. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are eternally one essence, but three Persons. This is the mystery of the Trinity.

God is perfectly holy, just, righteous, faithful, merciful, kind, loving, and good. His will and His ways are always right. All possible worlds and outcomes have always been known to Him – and He chose to create as He willed based on this full knowledge. He is the Author of history; and all of history has its final culmination in His purposes.

God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in it. There is nothing that is that does not have its origin in His creative power. He created man and woman in His image that we might reflect His glory.

What do I believe about salvation?

In His eternal counsel, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit foreordained the redemption of mankind and all of creation from the effects of the fall. God the Son became a man, born of a woman, and lived a perfect sinless life. He fulfilled all righteousness by being perfectly obedient to God’s law. Because he was a sinless, spotless sacrifice, He was able to bear the sin of mankind in His body and die the death that is the due punishment for our rebellion. He was condemned to death on a cross, was buried, and then rose again on the third day. His death satisfied the wrath of God against our sin; his resurrection confirmed that He is indeed God, and that we who put our faith in Him are free from sin and death and have been raised to life eternal.

It was God’s sovereign will to redeem a people for Himself, and in the redemption of that people to bring full redemption to the world under the authority of Christ.

What do I believe about the bible?
I believe that the bible is the inspired, authoritative Word of God. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, human authors were carried along and inspired to write the very words of God. In doing so, the character, style and personality of the individual authors were not lost but rather were used of God to send forth His message through their written record. The unity of the biblical message gives evidence to the divine inspiration and Authorship; the unique qualities of each author’s writing give evidence to his human authorship.

 The reliability of the bible as we have it today is evidenced in the vast number of transcript evidence that is available to us for translation. There is no other ancient document in the world that even comes close to the volume of manuscript evidence. When compared to other ancient documents whose reliability goes relatively unquestioned, the bible is beyond superior in the amount of documentation used to reproduce the original document. This allows us to have great confidence that the bible we have today is accurate and true to the original writings.

The historical accuracy of the bible has also been proven, which further confirms the reliability of the scriptural record. Most importantly, the biblical account of the resurrection has never been disproved; the evidence for the resurrection far outweighs any attempts to discredit the testimony that Christ did indeed rise from the dead.

Because of the reliability of the record that contains these accounts, we can draw serious conclusions. First, that the bible is indeed a divine document. There are 66 books written over a span of 1500 years by numerous authors, most of whom did not know each other or live at the same time. And yet the biblical message is intact and unified throughout. Secondly, since the bible is reliable, we must take seriously what it has to say. We must take seriously what God says about Himself; who Jesus says He is; what we are called to do in response to who God is; and how we are to respond to the truth of salvation in Christ.

The Lord is the foundation of my life; and because the Word is His written self-disclosure, it is the most important book I will ever own, read or understand. I must have a secure confidence in this Word – it is so very important.

What are the conclusions drawn from what I have discussed above?
If God is who He says He is, and I am who I am before Him, then my only viable response is to bow down in worship. He is sovereign – He is Creator. I am the creature; I am His creation. Therefore, He has the right to rule and reign in my life.