PURPOSE

Words Of Grace's two-fold purpose:
To lead men and women to a personal faith in Christ as Savior.
To teach believers the Word of God so that they may serve Christ effectively at home and abroad.

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
We believe the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testament to be the verbally inspired Word of God, inerrant in the original writings, and the final authority for faith and life. (II Tim. 3:16-17, II Peter 1:20-21, John 16:12-13).

THE GOD HEAD
We believe in one Triune God, eternally existing in three persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit - co-eternal in being, co-identical in nature, co-equal in power and glory and having the same attributes and perfections (Deaut. 6:4, II Cor. 13:14).

THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man, without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful men (John 1:1-2, 14; Luke 1:35).

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice; and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection from the dead (Rom. 3:24-25, I Peter 2:24, Eph. 1:7, I Peter 1:3-5).

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven and is now at the right hand of God, where, as our High Priest, He fulfills the ministry of Representative, Intercessor and Advocate (Acts 1:9-10, Heb. 7:25, 9:24, Rom. 9:34, I John 2:1-2).

THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person who convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, and that He is the supernatural agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ, indwelling and sealing them unto the day of redemption (John 16:8-11, II Cor. 3:6, I Cor. 12:12-14, Rom. 8:9, Eph. 1:13-14).

We believe that He is the divine teacher who guides believers into all truth and that it is the privilege and duty of all the saved to be filled with the Spirit (John 16:13, I John 2:20, 27).

THE PERSONALITY OF SATAN
We believe that Satan is a person, the author of sin and the cause of the Fall, and that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man, and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire (Job 1:6-7, Isa. 14:12 -17, Matt. 4:2-11; 25:41, Rev. 20:10).

THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN
We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that as a result of Adam's sin the race fell, inherited a sinful nature and became alienated from God; and that man is totally depraved and, of himself, utterly unable to remedy his lost condition (Gen. 1:26-27, Rom. 3:22-23; 5:12, Eph. 2:1-3, 12).

SALVATION
We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose precious blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of our sins (Eph. 2:8-10, John 1:12, Eph. 1:7, I Peter 1:18-19).

THE ETERNAL SECURITY AND ASSURANCE OF BELIEVERS
We believe that all the redeemed, once saved, are kept by God's power and are thus secure in Christ forever (John 6:37 -40; 10:27 -30, Rom. 8:1; 38-39, I Cor. 1:4-8, I Peter 1:5).

We believe that it is the privilege of believers to rejoice in the assurance of their salvation through the testimony of God's Word which, however, clearly forbids the use of Christian liberty as an occasion to the flesh (Rom. 13:13 -14, Gal. 5:13, Titus 2:11-15).

THE TWO NATURES OF THE BELIEVER
We believe that every saved person possesses two natures, with provision made for victory of the new nature over the old nature through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and that all claims to the eradication of the old nature in this life are unscriptural (Rom. 6:13; 8:12-13; Gal. 5:16-25, Eph. 4:22-24, Col. 3:10, II Peter 1:4, I john 3:5-9, Rom. 7:18-24).

SPIRITUAL LIFE
We believe that all the saved should live in a manner that exalts Christ as Savior and Lord of their lives. We believe that separation from all religious apostasy, all worldly and sinful pleasures, practices and association is commanded of God (II Tim. 3:1-5, Rom. 14:13, I John 2:15-17, II John 9-11, II Cor. 6:14-7:1).

THE MINISTRY AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS
We believe that God is sovereign in the bestowing of all His gifts and that the gifts of evangelists, pastors and teachers are sufficient for the perfecting of the saints today (Eph. 4:7-12).

We believe that the gift of speaking in tongues was never the necessary or common sign of the baptism or the filling of the Holy Spirit; that in the assembly the gift of preaching rather than of tongues is the divinely appointed means for "edification and exhortation and comfort"; and that in view of the fact that we now have the completed revelation of doctrine in the Holy Scriptures, there is no longer any need whatsoever for the sign gifts to corroborate the truths of God's Word (Gal. 5:16-26, Eph. 5:18, Col. 1:9-14, I Cor. 14:1-3, Jude 3).

We believe that God hears and answers the prayer of faith, in accord with His own will, for the sick and afflicted (John 15:7, I John 5:14-15, James 5:14-16).

MISSIONS
We believe that it is the obligation of the saved to witness by life and by word to the truths of Holy Scripture and to seek to proclaim the Gospel to all mankind (Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, II Cor. 5:19-20, Matt. 28:19-20).

THE CHURCH
We believe that the universal church is the spiritual organism made up of all born-again persons of this present age and is the body and espoused bride of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23,; 5:25-27, I Cor. 12:12-14, II Cor. 11:2, Acts 2), and that the true universal church began on the day of Pentecost and could not have existed until Christ died, for she must be redeemed by His blood, and it could only be formed by the present ministry of the Spirit in baptizing all members into one body.
 
DISPENSAIIONALISM
We believe in the dispensational view of Biblical interpretation but reject the extreme teaching known as "Hyper-Dispensationalism" such as that teaching which opposes either the Lord's Table or Water Baptism as a Scriptural means of testimony for the church in this age (Matt. 28:19-20, Acts 2:41-42; 18:8, I Cor. 11:23-26, Matt. 13:49, Eph. 3:2).
 
THE SECOND ADVENT OF CHRIST
We believe in that "Blessed Hope:, the personal, imminent, pretribulational and premillennial coming of the Lord Jesus for His Church, and His subsequent return to earth, with His saints, to establish His millennial kingdom (I Thess. 4:13-18, Zech. 14:4-11, Rev. 19:11-16, I Thess. 1:10).

THE ETERNAL STATE
We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men---the saved to eternal life and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment (Matt. 25:46, John 5:28 -29; 11:25 -26, Rev. 20:5-6; 12-13).

We believe that the souls of the redeemed are at death absent from the body and present with the Lord, where in conscious bliss they await the first resurrection when spirit, soul and body are reunited to be glorified forever with the Lord (Luke 23:43, Rev. 20:4-6; II Cor. 5:8, Phil. 1:23 ; 3:21 , I Thess. 4:16-17).

We believe that the souls of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery until the last resurrection when with sould and body reunited they shall appear at the Great White Throne Judgment and shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting conscious punishment (Luke 16:19-26, Matt. 25:41-46, II Thess. 1:7-9, Mark 9:43-48, Rev. 20:11-15).