Richmond Hill (Chinese) Baptist Church

STATEMENT OF FAITH

1. BIBLE
We believe the Bible to be the complete Word of God; that the sixty –six Books, as originally written, comprising the Old and New Testaments were verbally inspired by the Spirit of God and therefore entirely free from error, that the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and the true basis of Christian union.

2. GOD
We believe in one God, Creator of all, holy, sovereign, eternal, existing in three equal Person – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

3. CHRIST
We believe in the absolute and essential deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, in His eternal existence with the Father in preincarnate glory, in His virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, triumphant ascension, mediatorial ministry and personal return.

4. THE HOLY SPIRIT
We believe in the absolute and essential deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, Who convinces of sin, or righteousness and of judgement; Who regenerates, sanctifies, illuminates and comforts those who believe in Jesus Christ.

5. MAN
We believe that man was divinely created in the image of God; that he sinned, becoming guilty before God, resulting in total depravity, thereby incurring physical and spiritual death.

6. SALVATION
We believe that salvation is by the sovereign, electing grace of God; that by the appointment of the Father, Christ voluntarily suffered a substitutionary and redemptive death; that justification is by faith alone in the all sufficient sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and that those whom God called shall be divinely preserved and finally perfected in the image of the Lord.

7. FUTURE THINGS
We believe in the personal bodily and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust; in the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and in the judgment and eternal conscious punishment of the wicked.

8. THE LOCAL CHURCH
We believe that a local church is a community of believers, called out from the world, separated unto the Lord Jesus, voluntarily associated for the ministry of the Word, the mutual edification of its members, the propagation of the faith and the observance of the ordinances. We believe it is a sovereign, independent body, exercising its own divinely awarded gifts, precepts and privileges under the lordship of Christ, the Head of the Church.

9. ORDINANCES
We believe that there are only two ordinances for the Church regularly observed in the New Testament in the following order:
(1) Baptism which is the immersion of the believer in water, whereby he obeys Christ’s command and sets forth his testimony in identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.
(2) The Lord’s Supper which is the memorial wherein the believer partakes of the two elements, bread and wine, which symbolize the Lord’s body and shed blood, proclaiming His heath until He comes.

10. MARRIAGE
We believe that marriage is a lifelong covenant ordained by God between a man and a woman. Marriage is designed to be the exclusive domain for sexual intimacy and procreation of children.