GRACE BIBLICAL

Statement of Faith

Grace Biblical Institute of Theology and Graduate School – Part 1

 

As Grace Biblical Institute of Theology and Graduate School president/founder, students and alumni, we have an obligation to bear a faithful Christian witness to Jesus Christ, the living reality at the center of the Church’s life and witness. To fulfill this obligation, we reflect critically on our biblical and theological inheritance, striving to express faithfully the witness we make in our own time.

 

Our Christian Roots

Grace Biblical Institute of Theology and Graduate School president/founder, students and alumni share a common heritage with all Christians. According to our Foundational Statement of Beliefs in The Book of Discipline, The Holy Bible, we share the following basic affirmations in common with all Christian communities.

 

Who God is

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:4-5)

We believe and join with millions of other persons in the Christian faith in an understanding of God as three persons in one: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that God is one and indivisible, but is revealed in three distinct ways. "God in three persons, blessed Trinity" is one way of speaking about the several ways we experience God.

 

We also make an attempt to describe God’s divine nature through our belief that God is over and beyond all that is, yet at the same time is present in everything. God is omnipresent (everywhere at once), omnipotent (all-powerful), and omniscient (all-knowing). Because there is no way to fully describe all that God is, we can only speak literally about God who has been revealed to us and the God we have come to know in Jesus Christ. Because of our human limitations in trying to describe God, we resort to the use of metaphors, often found in the Bible. Terms such as the Good Shepherd, a Bridegroom, the Chief Cornerstone, the Bread of Life, and Potter are all metaphors used to give description to God, also described as Love, Light or Truth.

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What God Does

We only describe what God does after God has done it. It is at times referred to as a Holy mystery. However, we try to capture with words what God does through our personal experience of God’s activity in our lives. There are many ways that God has been experienced. Some of them are:

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• God as Creator: God continues to act in a creative ways. From the beginning God created all there is and continues in that creative process. Science has been one of the greatest revealers of God’s creative wisdom and genius.

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• God as Sustainer: We continue to experience God as the One who holds all things together, particularly as a part of our human history. We experience God as the one who was (the past), the one who is (the present) and the one who is to come (the future).  We perceive God as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

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• God as Love: We experience the height, width, depth and breadth of God’s love through God’s acts of mercy and forgiveness. While this love is revealed in Jesus Christ, God’s love is so profound that we affirm with the Apostle Paul that through life and the suffering we experience, We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

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• God as a Suffering God: Because God is present and a vital part of all creation, especially our human experience, God is hurt when any aspect of creation is hurt. We believe God is especially sensitive to our injustice to one another. When poverty, indifference, hatred, prejudice, abuse, or any forms of violence against one another are practice, our God suffers with us in the midst of such atrocities.

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• God as Judge: We live with varying standards of behavior, but all human behavior is ultimately weighed against the righteous and just standards of God. Because God is all-knowing, it is not just our actions that are judged, but the motive, or intent of those actions. And because the intentions of our hearts is a factor, God’s judgments are righteous and are able to absolve us from sin, as well as hold us accountable.

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• God as Redeemer: Because we can never be separated from God’s love, God forgives our inclination to be self-destructive, and invites us into a renewed relationship with God and with each other through the act of forgiveness. This forgiveness redeems us within, and allows others to experience redemption. This forgiveness leads to reconciliation for all people who have experienced separation from each other or from God.

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• God as One who Reigns: Our faith springs forth from the believe that God existed prior to all understandings of time and creation. While it may, at times, seem that there is disorder and chaos in the world, we affirm that the God who was, still is. We affirm that God is always present, and that the God who was and is, and is over all that has been created, will also be the God who will come and dwell among humanity as God.

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We recognize that trying to capture all aspects of God is difficult. We also believe that God has remedied our lack of understanding in and through Jesus Christ.

 

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

 

Who Is Jesus?

• Son of God: Our faith is that Jesus is God’s only begotten son, born not of the flesh alone, but of the Spirit. To that end, Jesus was the incarnate God, i.e., God was present in the world in the person of Jesus Christ. His purpose was to reconcile humanity back to God through his sacrificial death on the cross. In completing this act of faith, he became the Savior of humanity.

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Statement of Faith

Grace Biblical Institute of Theology and Graduate School – Part 2

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• We believe the Bible to be the inspired and only infallible written Word of God.

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• We believe that there is only One God, eternally existent in three persons: God the Father, God the Son and, God the Holy Spirit.

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• We believe in the blessed Hope, which is the rapture of the Church of God, which is in Christ, at His return.

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• We believe that the only means of being cleansed from sin is through repentance and faith in the precious Blood of Jesus Christ.

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• We believe that regeneration by the Holy Ghost is absolutely essential for personal salvation.

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• We believe that the redemptive work of Christ on the Cross provides healing for the human body in answer to believing prayer.

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• We believe that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, according to Acts 2:4, is given to believers who ask for it.

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• We believe in the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a holy and separated life in the present world.