What We Believe

The Tri-une God

We believe in one God (1), eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (2). This one true and living God is infinitely perfect (3). He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible (4), and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.

(1) Deut. 6:4, (2) Matt. 28:19; (3) Matt. 5:48; (4) Gen. 1.

God’s Revelation

God has graciously disclosed his existence and power in the created order, and has supremely revealed himself to fallen human beings in the person of his Son, the incarnate Word (1). Moreover, this God is a speaking God who by his Spirit has graciously disclosed himself in human words: we believe that God has inspired the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments. These writings alone constitute the verbally inspired Word of God, which is utterly authoritative and without error in the original writings, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in its authority over every domain of knowledge to which it speaks (2). The Bible is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it teaches; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; and trusted, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises. We believe the Bible calls us to grace and Godly wisdom in areas of silence. As God’s people hear, believe, and do the Word, they are equipped as disciples of Christ and witnesses to the gospel (3). We use a literal translation of the Bible for all teaching and preaching.

(1) John 1:14; (2) 2 Tim. 3:16; (3) Rom. 10:17

The Creation of Humanity

We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image (1). Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women (2), such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. In God’s wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they assume distinctive roles which reflect the loving relationship between Christ and the church, the husband exercising headship in a way that displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church for her Lord. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential in the manifold ministries of the people of God. The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments (3).

(1) Gen. 1:26; (2) Gen. 2:24; (3) Eph. 5:22-33.

The Fall of Man

We believe that Adam, made in the image of God, distorted that image and forfeited his original blessedness—for himself and all his progeny—by falling into sin through Satan’s temptation (1). As a result, all human beings are alienated from God, corrupted in every aspect of their being (e.g., physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually) (2) and condemned finally and irrevocably to death—apart from God’s own gracious intervention (3). The supreme need of all human beings is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of all human beings is the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can rescue us and restore us to himself.

(1) Rom. 5:12; (2) Rom. 3:10; (3) Rom. 6:23.

The Plan of God

We believe that from all eternity God determined in grace to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe and language and people and nation, and to this end foreknew them and chose them (1). We believe that God justifies and sanctifies those who by grace have faith in Jesus, and that he will one day glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace (2). In love God commands and implores all people to repent and believe (3), having set his saving love on those he has chosen and having ordained Christ to be their Redeemer. We also believe that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (4). 

(1) Rom. 8:30; (2) Eph. 2:8; (3) Mark 1:15; (4) Rom. 10:13.

The Gospel

We believe that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ—God’s very wisdom. This good news is christological, centering on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ has not been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is "Christ died for our sins . . . [and] was raised”) (1). This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are according to the Scriptures), theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins, to reconcile us to God) (2), historical (if the saving events did not happen, our faith is worthless, we are still in our sins, and we are to be pitied more than all others), apostolic (the message was entrusted to and transmitted by the apostles, who were witnesses of these saving events) (3), and intensely personal (where it is received, believed, and held firmly, individual persons are saved) (4).

(1) Rom. 4:25; (2) Col. 1:22; (3) Matt. 28:16-20; (4) Psalm 119:41.

The Redemption of Christ

We believe that, moved by love and in obedience to his Father, the eternal Son became human: the Word became flesh, fully God (1) and fully human being (2), one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel (3), was conceived through the miraculous agency of the Holy Spirit, and was born of the virgin Mary (4). He perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father, lived a sinless life (5), performed miraculous signs (6), was crucified (7), arose bodily from the dead on the third day (8), and ascended into heaven (9). As the mediatorial King (10), he is seated at the right hand of God the Father (11), and is our High Priest and righteous Advocate (12). We believe that by his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute (13). He did this so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: on the cross he canceled sin, propitiated God, and, by bearing the full penalty of our sins, reconciled to God all those who believe (14). By his resurrection Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power of death and defeated Satan who once had power over it, and brought everlasting life to all his people (15); by his ascension he has been forever exalted as Lord and has prepared a place for us to be with him. We believe that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved (16).

(1) Titus 2:13 (2) Phil. 2:7; (3) Matt. 1:21-23; (4) Matt. 1:20; (5) Heb. 4:15; (6) John 2:11; (7) John 19:19; (8) 1 Cor. 15:4; (9) Acts 1:9; (10) 1 Timothy 2:5; (11) Mark 16:19; (12) Heb. 2:17; (13) Heb. 9:12; (14) Rom. 3:24-26; (15) Heb. 2:14-15; (16) Acts 4:12.

The Justification of Sinners

We believe that Christ, by his obedience and death, fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. By his sacrifice, he bore in our stead the punishment due us for our sins, making a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice on our behalf (1). By his perfect obedience he satisfied the just demands of God on our behalf, since by faith alone that perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance with God (2). 

(1) Matt. 20:28; (2) Eph. 2:8.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

We believe that this salvation, attested in all Scripture and secured by Jesus Christ, is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is present with and in believers (1). He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (2), and by his powerful and mysterious work regenerates spiritually dead sinners, awakening them to repentance and faith. The Holy Spirit is himself the down payment of the promised inheritance (3), and in this age indwells, guides, instructs, equips, revives, and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service (4).

(1) Rom. 8:26; (2) John 16:8-11; (3) 2 Cor. 1:22; (4) John 14:26.


The Kingdom of God

We believe that those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ by faith and through regeneration by the Holy Spirit enter the kingdom of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to be revealed (1). We believe that once this process of salvation occurs it is final, secure, and one cannot become lost again (2). 

(1) Rom. 8:16-17; (2) Rom. 8:1.

God’s New People

We believe that the church is the body of Christ (1), the apple of his eye, graven on his hands, and he has pledged himself to her forever. The church is distinguished by her gospel message, her sacred ordinances, her discipline, her great mission, and, above all, by her love for God, and by her members’ love for one another and for the world (2).

(1) Col. 1:18; (2) Rom. 12:10-13.

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

We believe that baptism (1) and the Lord’s Supper (2) are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The former is connected with entrance into the new covenant community, the latter with ongoing covenant renewal. Together they are simultaneously God’s pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, our public vows of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and anticipations of his return and of the consummation of all things. We believe that the Lord's Supper is a representation of the body of Christ and His suffering sacrifice.

(1) Matt. 28:19-20; (2) Luke 22:19; (3) Acts 2:41.

The Restoration of All Things

We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his role as final Judge, and his kingdom will be consummated (1). We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell (2), as our Lord himself taught, and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness (3).

(1) Matt. 26:64; (2) Matt. 25:41; (3) John 14:2-4.

These are the beliefs we hold tightly as Ransomed Church. We understand that these beliefs are shaped by the Holy Scriptures and the working of the Holy Spirit in us. We also understand that we do not know the mind of God. His ways are above our ways, and we have faith in His decisions, plans, and actions. We passionately and humbly attempt to follow Him as He leads.