Grace Reformed Baptist Church is a Particular or Calvinistic Baptist church, confessing that system of doctrine expounded in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. We believe that this Confession of Faith gives a succinct summary of the great doctrines of Scripture and we accept it as the doctrinal standard of the church subordinate to the Word of God, which is our ultimate authority in matters of doctrine and practice.
1689 Baptist Confession of Faith
Statement of Faith
The following statement of doctrine is to be interpreted in the light of the fuller statement of the 1689 Confession.
- The inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures as originally given, their verbal inspiration by God and their supreme authority as the only rule of faith and practice.
- The trinity of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are the same substance, equal in power and glory.
- The absolute sovereignty of God in creation, providence and salvation. The Genesis account of creation and the fall as historically accurate and the only adequate explanation of human history.
- The essential, absolute and eternal Deity and Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ; His conception by the Holy Spirit; His birth of the virgin Mary; His real but sinless humanity; His voluntary humiliation in life as the Man of Sorrows culminating in His substitutionary and atoning death as a sacrifice for sin; His resurrection from the dead on the third day in that same body that had lain in the tomb; His ascension into heaven as the only Mediator between God and man and His coming again in power and glory.
- The personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit through whom the soul is born again to saving repentance and faith and by whom the saints are sanctified through the truth.
- Man’s total depravity and inability to please God as a result of the Fall. His salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, whose righteousness imputed to him is the only ground of his acceptance before God.
- The duty of the church to preach the gospel to all men calling upon them to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour.
- The resurrection of the body, the judgement of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlasting punishment of the lost.
- The sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper which have been instituted by Christ for the benefit of His people and are of perpetual obligation in the Church of God.