Declaration of Faith

THE BIBLE:
We believe that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God" by which we understand the whole Bible
is inspired in the sense that holy men of God "were moved by the Holy Spirit" to write the very words
of Scripture. We believe that this divine inspiration extends equally and fully to all parts of the writings--
historical, poetical, doctrinal, and prophetical- as appeared in the original manuscripts. We believe
that all the Scriptures center around the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work and in His first
and second coming, and hence that no portion, even of the Old Testament, is properly read, or understood,
until it leads to Him. We also believe that all the Scriptures were designed for our practical instruction.
THE GODHEAD:
We believe that the Godhead eternally exists in three persons-- The Father, The Son and The Holy
Spirit--and that these three are one God; having precisely the same nature, attributes, and perfections,
and worthy of precisely the same homage, confidence, and obedience.
GOD THE FATHER:
We believe that God the Father is eternal, holy, changeless, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. He is
also faithful, merciful, loving and infinitely concerned with all men. His works can be seen in creation;
in calling and caring for Israel; in providing a Redeemer; in His sovereign control of the universe; and
in His future fulfilling of all His coming promises.
GOD THE SON (JESUS CHRIST):
We believe that, as provided and proposed by God and as announced in the prophecies of Scripture, the
eternal Son of God came into this world that He might manifest God to men, fulfill prophecy, and become
the redeemer of the lost world. To this end He was born of the Virgin Mary and received a human
body and a sinless human nature. We believe that, in infinite love for the lost, He voluntarily accepted
His Father's will and became the divinely provided sacrificial Lamb and took away the sin of
the world; bearing the holy judgments against sin which the righteousness of God must impose. His
death was, therefore, substitutionary in the most absolute sense--the just for the unjust-and by His death
He became the Savior of the lost. We believe that, according to the Scriptures, He arose from the dead
in the same body, though glorified, in which He had lived and died, and that His resurrection body is
the pattern of the body which ultimately will be given to all believers. We believe that He became
Head over all things to the church which is His body, and in this ministry He ceases not to intercede
and advocate for the saved.
GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT:
We believe that the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the blessed Trinity, though omnipresent from all
eternity, took up His abode in the world in a special sense on the day of Pentecost according to the divine
promise; dwells in every believer, by His baptism unites all to Christ in one body; He, as the Indwelling
One, is the source of all power and all acceptable worship and service. We believe that He
never takes His departure from the church, nor from the feeblest of the saints, but is ever present to testify
of Christ, seeking to occupy believers with Christ and not with themselves. We believe that His
abode in the world in this special sense will cease when Christ comes to receive His own at the completion
of the church.
Declaration of Faith, Cont. Page 5
First Baptist Church
of Hood River
MAN - CREATED & FALLEN
We believe that man was originally created in the image and after the likeness of God, and that he fell
through sin, and, as a consequence of his sin, lost his spiritual life, becoming dead; in trespasses and
sins, and that he became subject to the power of the devil. We also believe that this spiritual death, or
total depravity of human nature, has been transmitted to the entire human race of man, the Man Christ
Jesus alone being excepted; and hence that every child of Adam is born into the world with a nature
which not only possesses no spark of divine life, but is essentially and unchangeably bad apart from divine
grace.
SALVATION:
We believe that, owing to universal death through sin, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless
born from above; and that no degree of reformation however great, no attainments in morality however
high, no culture however attractive, no baptism or other ordinance however administered can help the
sinner to take even one step toward heaven; but a new nature imparted from above, a new life implanted
by the Holy Spirit through the Word, is absolutely essential to salvation, and only those thus
saved are sons of God. We believe, also, that our redemption has been accomplished solely by the
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin and was made a curse for us, dying in our
room and stead; and that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no
submission to the rules and regulations of any church, nor all the churches that have existed since the
days of the Apostles, can add in the very least degree to the value of the blood, or to the merit of the
finished work wrought for us by Him who united in His person true and proper deity with perfect and
sinless humanity.
We believe that the new birth of the believer comes only through faith in Christ and that repentance is a
vital part of believing, and is in no way, in itself, a separate and independent condition of salvation; nor
are any other acts, such as confession, baptism, prayer, or faithful service, to be added to believing as a
condition of salvation. We believe it is the privilege of all who are born again by the Spirit through
faith in Christ to be assured of their salvation from the very day they take Him to be their Savior, and
that this assurance is not founded upon any fancied discovery of their own worthiness or fitness, but
wholly upon the testimony of God in His written Word.
THE CHURCH:
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, which is composed of all true believers,
and in Him is invested supremely all power for its government. According to New Testament commandments,
Christians are to associate themselves into particular ,societies or churches; and to each of
these local churches He has given needful authority for administering that order, discipline, and worship
which He has appointed.
We believe that a Local Church is a congregation of immersed believers associated by covenant of
faith and fellowship of the Gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by His laws; and exercising
the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word; that its officers and Elders and
Deacons, whose qualifications, claims and duties, are clearly defined in the scriptures. We believe the
true mission of the church is the faithful witnessing of Christ to all men as we have opportunity. We
hold that the local Church has the absolute right of self-government free from the interference of any
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First Baptist Church
of Hood River
hierarchy of individuals or organizations; and that the one and only Superintendent is Christ through
the Holy Spirit; that it is scriptural for true churches to cooperate with each other in contending for the
faith and for the furtherance of the Gospel.
THE ORDINANCES:
We believe that Christian Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water to show forth in a solemn
and beautiful emblem our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, with its effort in our death to
sin and resurrection to a new life. That it is pre-requisite to church membership. We believe that the
Lord's Supper is the commemoration of His death until He comes, and should be preceded always by
solemn self-examination.
THE LAST THINGS:
We believe in the personal, imminent and pre-millennial coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that this
"Blessed Hope" has a vital bearing on the personal life and service of the believer. In accord with our
beliefs we teach the following:
1. The next great event for the Church in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the
Lord in the air to receive to Himself into heaven His own who are alive and remain unto His
coming, and also all who have fallen asleep in Jesus, and that this event is the blessed hope set
before us in Scripture, and for this we should be constantly looking.
2. The coming of the Lord for His Church will be followed by the fulfillment of Israel's seventieth
week, during which the church, the body of Christ, will be in heaven. The whole period of Israel's
seventieth week will be a time of judgment on the whole earth, at the end of which the
times of the Gentiles will be brought to a close. The latter half of this period will be the time of
Jacob's trouble, which our Lord called the great tribulation. We believe that universal righteousness
will not be realized previous to the second coming of Christ, but that the world is day by
day ripening for judgment and that the age will end with a fearful apostasy.
3. The period of great tribulation in the earth will be climaxed by the return of the Lord Jesus
Christ to the earth as He went, in person on the clouds of heaven, and with power and great
glory to introduce the millennial age, to bind Satan and place him in the abyss, to lift the curse
which now rests upon the whole creation, to restore Israel to her own land and to give her the
realization of God's covenant promises, and to bring the whole world to the knowledge of God.
THE ETERNAL STATE:
We believe that at death the spirits and souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation
pass immediately into His presence and there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of
the glorified body when Christ comes for His own, whereupon soul and body reunited shall be associated
with Him forever in glory; but the spirits and souls of the unbelieving remain after death conscious
of condemnation and in misery until the final judgment of the great white throne at the close of the millennium,
when soul and body reunited shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, in everlasting punishment and
separation from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.