The True God

Bylaws and Constitution: Articles of Faith

We believe that there is one and only one true God, an infinite sovereign Spirit and that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, equal in every divine perfection but executing distinct offices in the work of redemption.

Exodus 20:2; 2 Corinthians 8:6; Revelation 4:11; 1 John 5:7

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

The most important and urgent knowledge we can ever possess is the knowledge of the ONE true and LIVING God. HE is the beginning and end of all genuine knowledge, and knowing HIM is the highest privilege given to humanity.

The knowledge of God is the foundation of the Christian worldview, and sets the Christian worldview apart from all other worldviews.

Our concept of God and our belief that HE exists make all the different in the way we look at the world and our lives.

We cannot study the Lord without coming to the greatest, most profound mystery - the Trinity.

Trinity – three yet 1

God in 3 persons, blessed Trinity.

The Trinity is an essential principle of Christian truth, for without this doctrine of the trinity there is no true Christianity. The Bible reveals to us that there is only 1 God, and that HE is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 6:8 CSB

Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who will I send? Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.

Who shall I send?

Who will go for US?

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Matthew 28:19 CSB

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

This is why we baptize in the manner that we do.

As a matter of fact, we can go all the way back to Genesis and see from the very beginning that God is referenced as a plural and a singular.

Genesis 1:1 CSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

That is a verse to memorize and to teach your children. Especially in times like now when our education system has been hijacked by those who seek to deny the existence of God and teach the lie that is evolution!

In the Beginning GOD created the heavens and the earth.

We have many words for God. You can list them, buy pictures of them. We have plenty. The Hebrews had them as well, and just like each name has a specific meaning for us, each name has a specific meaning in Hebrew.

Right here the name for God used is ELOHIM. Why is this important to the Trinity? Because ELOHIM is PLURAL!

BUT in the context that it is used it does not allow for the translation “in the beginning gods created the heaven and earth”, NO NO – it is very specific!

It is the understanding of a Triune God right in the beginning!

ELOHIM is the name for GOD the creator – the one who creates OUT OF NOTHING!

There was no space debris, or anything else, plain and simple – God creates out of nothing!

As you continue in Genesis you find more Scripture that proves the Trinity.

Genesis 1:26 CSB

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…

God refers to Himself as a plural!

James Draper

Perhaps the most challenging truth about God for us to understand is the fact that in the Bible God reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each is a distinct person with specific roles; yet all three have the same essence, nature, and characteristics – they are all the same God. God is therefore one God in three persons. Such reality is beyond our ability to comprehend. However, we accept many mysteries in life as true even though we cannot explain them.

I am NOT going to be able to explain the Trinity. I know some of you were hoping that I was going to come up here today and lay the mystery out to you.

Every analogy used to illustrate the Trinity and help understand the doctrine will break down and fail.

Does this mean we cannot accept the Trinity and explain it in some form to the best of our abilities? Of COURSE we can accept the Trinity and explain it to the best of our abilities. BUT our abilities are finite and our minds are finite.

John Dagg

The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. There is BUT 1 God! Our finite intelligence cannot harmonize the last statement with the preceding 3. It is far wiser to admit, that none by searching can find out God; and to abstain from unavailing efforts to comprehend what is incomprehensible to our finite minds.

What we must accept, in this time of desiring absolute knowledge about everything, is that we cannot fathom the mystery, the complexity, the fullness of God. We must accept that God reveals Himself to us God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

AND THAT IS ENOUGH!

In Three Persons

The Father

God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving, and all wise. God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.

God the Father

One of the most amazing truths God reveals about Himself is the fact that He relates to us as Father!

Matthew 6:9 CSB

“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

Don’t underestimate the power of this relational image.

When Jesus taught us to pray in this way, OUR FATHER, He opened our eyes to the fact that God’s fatherly love is the foundation of our being and the assurance of our future with Him.

Think for just a moment: loving fathers, you love your children; even when they mess up you love them, even when they scream at you, you love them, even when all hope seems list, YOU LOVE THEM, and like a good loving father, even when they don’t listen, you love them. And listen up loving fathers, YOU ARE FLAWED – GOD THE FATHER IT PERFECT!

When the Bible describes God’s love and care for his creation, the term used is PROVIDENCE. Providence literally means that God provides for His own, giving us everything we need.

Matthew 6:26 CSB

Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?

Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?

Providence means that God is intimately involved in His creation and with His creatures.

This is important because there are movements out there like Deism, that suggest that God created everything, then left it alone to see what happened. What we believe leaves NO room for that. God the Father is not a stand off God, He is intimately involved! From the very first instant of creation, God has been intimately involved; and He will continue to be!

God’s providential care and the perfection of His creative purpose are demonstrated in the predictable, reliable operations of the natural order that HE established.

Attributes

1. Omnipotent - all powerful – The Father’s power is not restricted in any way. The Bible describes God al almighty, meaning that he holds ALL the power! In the OT, they sang El Shaddai – GOD ALMIGHTY. He is the source of everything, is all powerful, and there is no power on heaven or earth that can thwart His plans, frustrate His will, or force His hand!

a. God’s omnipotence is a source of comfort and security for His people. No one, not even the devil with all his schemes, can defeat or frustrate God’s purposes. What God sets out to do – He does.

2. Omniscient – ALL Knowing – The Bible reveals that God’s Knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows what you are going to do before you do it.

a. God’s infinite knowledge includes foreknowledge – God knows what is going to happen – this is comforting to God’s people because OUR FATHER knows and rules the future.

3. All loving – 1 John 4:8 – Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

4. All wise – not the same as all knowing – wisdom exceeds knowledge - the Bible places wisdom as the right ordering and the understanding of knowledge

a. The Bible places wisdom in a moral context

i. Not just accurate knowledge

b. It is linked to accurate knowledge

c. Right behavior

d. Right action

e. God’s Character and knowledge are perfectly combined and are never separated.

The Son

Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. He now dwells in all believers as the living and ever present Lord.

God the Son

John 1:1–3 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

Scripture is the Word of God – the written word

Right here the WORD refers to the Living Word – Who is the Living Word? – Jesus Christ!

Yes Jesus was there at the beginning – what Beginning? The creation!

Jesus is the agent of Creation!

“Through Him all things were made; without Him noting was made that has been made”

Jesus Christ is the eternal SON of God – This great truth is the first principle of Christianity – all truth on which all other truths are grounded. The fact that Jesus is the Son of God explains the very essence of Christianity – for to know Christ is to know God!

John Broadus – Jesus is the center of the Scriptures. Everything in the OT points to Him; everything in the NT proceeds forth from Him

Though He was born of a virgin – He existed before the creation of the world

John 17:5 CSB

Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

There was never a time when Christ did not exist, and there will never be a time when HE does not exist.

And though He is eternal, though He holds highest glory, though HE created EVERYTHING – He humbled Himself, an example we are encouraged to follow:

Philippians 2:5–7 CSB

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man,

And HE who made the universe, all of Creation came to His creation to save His people!

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

THIS is the distinctive truth of the Christian faith: In Jesus, God came and dwelled among us; and paid the price for our failings!

And he did it, not because we deserved it, but because Jesus is full of love for His creation, and He is full of Grace

Ephesians 1:7 CSB

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

OH we could go on for YEARS talking about Jesus Christ and we would never be finished talking about His greatness and His glory!!!!!

Not only did Jesus come and dwell upon us, not only did He live a perfect, sinless, obedient life; not only did He willingly go to the Cross and die for OUR sins; not only was He placed in a tomb and rise 3 days later; not only did He ascend to heaven in GLORY where He sits at the right hand of the Lord; OUR LORD AND SAVIOR IS GOING TO RETURN, HE IS GOING TO COME AGAIN!!!!! AMEN!!!!

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. At the moment of regeneration He baptizes every believer into the Body of Christ. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church. He seals the believer unto the day of final redemption. His presence in the Christian is the guarantee that God will bring the believer into the fullness of the stature of Christ. He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, equal with God, the Father, and God, the Son. John 14:16-17•, Matthew 28:19•, Hebrews 9:14; John 14:26

John 14:26 CSB

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

The Holy Spirit is the one aspect of God that many Christians know very little about. This is a tragedy because throughout the Bible the Holy Spirit is identified as the divine agent behind many of the most important events in God’s dealings with mankind! The Holy Spirit is Omnipresent – meaning He is with us everywhere at all times! Even right now the HS is among us, working just as He has been working since before the creation of the world.

It is by the Holy Spirit that we are given the WORD of God

2 Peter 2:21 CSB

For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy command delivered to them.

It is by the HS that we are regenerated

John 3:6 CSB

Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.

NOW some people believe that there is water Baptism and there is Spiritual Baptism at some other time – often called the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The Baptist Faith and Message clearly excludes this teaching because it is not found anywhere within Scripture.

We believe that the HS dwells within us at the moment of our regeneration - the moment of our Baptism.

Acts 2:38 CSB

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Each and everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ is given, by the HS, spiritual gifts for the furtherance of the kingdom. ARE YOU USING YOURS?

AND

The HS seals believers salvation. Look if you believe that you can lose your salvation, you need to listen close.

Ephesians 4:30 CSB

And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.

YOU WERE SEALED FOR THE DAY OF REDEMPTION!

Look you didn’t do anything to receive your salvation, it is a FREE GIFT FROM GOD! You didn’t earn it – it was given by God’s grace!

So if you didn’t do anything to earn it, you can’t do anything to lose it!

Closing