VIEW FULL SBC STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
WE BELIEVE ...
SCRIPTURE
...the Holy Bible is the divinely inspired and inerrant Word of God and is God’s revelation of Himself to man, to be accepted in its entirety as the final authority in matters of faith and practice. The Bible is the basis for this statement of faith.
GOD THE FATHER
...the eternal triune God exists coequally as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is the Father to those who are born again into His family through faith in Jesus Christ, and He sovereignly reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and human history, according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise.
GOD THE SON
...Jesus Christ is the divine Son of God, fully God and fully man, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. He lived in this world without sin, was crucified, and in His death bore the sins of all mankind. He was buried and on the third day rose from the dead, thereby obtaining redemption for all who receive Him as Savior and Lord. He ascended to God the Father and will come again to receive to Himself the redeemed, and pass judgment on all who reject Him as Savior and Lord.
HOLY SPIRIT
...the Holy Spirit is fully divine, convicting unbelievers of sin, calling them to the Savior, effecting regeneration, indwelling and sealing every believer, and baptizing each into the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit works in the believer’s life by glorifying Christ; by cultivating Christian character; by comforting, empowering, filling, and guiding the believer into all truth; and by bestowing spiritual gifts with which the believer serves God through His church.
SALVATION
...every person is a sinner by nature and also sins of his or her own free will, and he or she lives under the condemnation of sin and needs to be saved. Salvation for all is by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone; whereby, through regeneration, the sinner is bestowed the gifts of faith and repentance. Those whom God has accepted in Christ have been sealed by His Holy Spirit and will never lose their salvation.
CHURCH
...a New Testament church is an autonomous local body of baptized believers associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The New Testament also speaks of the universal church consisting of believers from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
BAPTISM
...the ordinance of baptism is the immersion in water of a professed believer in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, and symbolizing his or her own death to sin, the burial of his or her old life, and his or her resurrection to a new life in Jesus Christ.
COMMUNION
...the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper is an act of obedience to Christ’s command, whereby members of His body partake of the bread and the fruit of the vine commemorating and proclaiming the sacrificial death of our Lord Jesus Christ until His return. We believe the elements of the Lord’s Supper symbolize Christ’s body and blood, broken and shed for us.
MARRIAGE & FAMILY
...the biblical definition of family and marriage based on the uniting of one man and one women in covenant relationship. This belief affirms that God created marriage to be exclusively the union of one man and one woman, and that intimate sexual activity is to occur exclusively within that union.
GENDER IDENTITY
...God created human beings as male and female as determined by a person's chromosomal structure at birth. The complimentary relational nature of the human race as "male and female" reflects the created order given by God when He created human beings "in His image."