WHAT WE TEACH: ARTICLES OF FAITH
All Teaching at Trinity Must be Consistent with the Following Articles of Faith
The Scriptures
We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally and plenary inspired of God and inerrant in the original writing, and that they are of supreme and final authority in faith and life.
The True God
We believe that there is one and only one living and true God, an infinite Spirit, the Maker and supreme Ruler of Heaven and earth. We believe that within the Godhead there are three eternally existent persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in every divine perfection and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.
The Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, equal with God the Father and God the Son and of the same nature. We believe that He was active in the creation; that he restrains Satan until God’s purpose is fulfilled; that He convicts of sin, or righteousness and of judgment; that He bears witness to the truth of the gospel in preaching and in testimony; that He is the agent of the new birth; that He seals, endues, guides, teaches, witnesses, sanctifies, and helps the believer. We believe that the Holy Spirit today bestows service gifts upon believers and that the sign gifts were restricted to the Apostolic period.
Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Godhead, equal with God the Father and the Holy Spirit and of the same nature. We believe that He was active in the creation and that by Him all things consist. We believe that, as to His earthly ministry, He was begotten of the Holy Spirit in a miraculous manner, born of Mary, a virgin, as no other man has been born or can be born of woman, and that He is both true God and true man.
Satan
We believe in the reality and personality of Satan, the Devil; that he was created by God as an angel, but through pride and rebellion became the enemy of God. He is the ruler of all the powers of darkness, tempts believers to sin, blinds unbelievers to the truth of the gospel, and is destined to be judged eternally in the lake of fire.
Creation
We believe the biblical account of the creation of the physical universe, angels and man; that this account is neither allegory nor myth, but a literal, historical account of the direct, immediate creative acts of God without any macro-evolutionary process; that man was created by a direct work of God and not from previously existing forms of life; and that all men are descended from the historical Adam and Eve, the progenitors of the entire human race.
The Fall of Man
We believe that man was created in innocence, in the image of His Maker, but by voluntary transgression Adam fell from his sinless and happy state, and all men sinned in him. Because all men are Adam’s descendants, all men partake of his fallen nature and are totally depraved, and are sinners by nature and conduct; therefore all are under just condemnation without defense or excuse.
Salvation
We believe that the salvation of sinners is divinely initiated and wholly of grace through the mediatorial offices of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who, by appointment of the Father, voluntarily took upon Himself our nature, yet without sin, and honored the divine law by His obedience, thus qualifying Himself to be our Savior; that by the shedding of His blood in His death He fully satisfied the just demands of a holy and righteous God regarding sin; that His sacrifice consisted not in setting us an example by his death as a martyr, but was a voluntary substitution of Himself in the sinner’s place, the Just dying for the unjust, Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree; that having risen from the dead He is now enthroned in Heaven; He is in every way qualified to be a suitable, compassionate and all-sufficient Savior. We believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the only condition of salvation. Repentance is a change of mind and purpose toward God prompted by the Holy Spirit and is an integral part of saving faith.
Grace and the New Birth
We believe that in order to be saved, sinners must be born again; that the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus; that it is instantaneous and not a process; that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and sins is made a partaker of the divine nature and receives eternal life, the free gift of God; that the new creation is brought about by our sovereign God in a manner above our comprehension, solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth, so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the gospel; that its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance, faith and newness of life.
Justification
We believe that justification is that judicial act of God whereby He declares the believer righteous upon the basis of the imputed righteousness of Christ; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any work of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s shed blood.
Sanctification
We believe that sanctification is the divine setting apart of the believer unto God accomplished in a threefold manner; first, an eternal act of God, based upon the redemption in Christ, establishing the believer in a position of holiness the moment he trusts the Savior; second, a continuing process in the saint as the Holy Spirit applies the word of God to the believer’s life; third, the final accomplishment of this process in heaven.
The Security of the Saints
We believe that all who are truly born again are kept by God the Father for Jesus Christ; that it is impossible for one who has been born into the family of God to be lost.
Christ’s Return
We believe in “that blessed hope,” the future, visible, bodily, premillenial return of Jesus Christ to earth, at which time He will raise the dead, judge the unbelieving living and dead, reward God’s children, and fully establish His Kingdom.
The Resurrection
We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting blessedness of the saved, and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
The Church
We believe that a New Testament Baptist Church is an organized body of believers immersed upon a credible confession of faith in Jesus Christ, having two offices (pastors, also known as overseers, bishops, or elders; and deacons), congregational in polity, autonomous in nature, and banded together for work, worship, the observance of the ordinances and the worldwide proclamation of the gospel. We further believe in the church which is Christ’s body, the spiritual organism consisting of all born-again believers of the New Testament dispensation.
The Ordinances of the Church
We believe that the Scriptural ordinances of the church are Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and that these are to be administered by the local church; that Baptism, by immersion, should be administered to believers only as a symbol of their belief in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and as a testimony to the world of that belief and of their death, burial and resurrection with Him; and that the Lord’s Supper should be partaken by disciples to show forth His death “till He comes.”
Human Sexuality & Marriage
We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to only occur between a man and a woman who are married to each other; that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity be engaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. Moreover, we believe that term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning and that is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in Scripture. We believe that our Creator established human gender biologically in fixed, binary categories: male and female (Gen 1:27; 5:1; Mark 10:6; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Eph 5:2-5; 1 Thess 4:3-8). Seeking to confuse or change the God-given distinctions of the two genders violates God’s creative design and revealed will.
Human Life
We believe that human life begins at conception and that all men and women are uniquely created in the image of God; therefore, every person of every age, ethnicity, mental capacity, and physical ability possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect, protection, and Christian love. Moreover, we believe that abortion and euthanasia, while forgivable through the blood of Christ, are sinful acts and offensive to God.