WHAT WE BELIEVE
GOSPEL STATEMENT OF RHCC
There is one living and true God who is completely righteous,1 perfect, and holy. He is the Creator of all things and therefore ruler of the world. He created mankind in His image to love, know, and represent Him. 2
Mankind, was designed to live under God’s gracious rule and authority but instead chose to go their own independent way and sinned, rebelling against God and his good commands. As a result, we are not able to love, know, and represent God on our own. The deserved consequences of that rebellion is that we experience spiritual death and separation from God here and now, and will experience eternal punishment and separation from him after death. God will justly judge every person and our sin. 3
As mankind is completely unable to satisfy God’s holy and righteous standards to deserve present and eternal relationship with God, and because of his love for us, God sent his son, Jesus Christ to die in our place and take upon himself the just punishment for our sins. Jesus, being fully God and fully man,4 having lived a perfectly sinless life, is the only acceptable substitute and payment for our sin and purchase of our forgiveness.5 Jesus died on a cross for our sins, according to the Scriptures, was buried, and raised on the third day, proving that God the Father had accepted the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God.6
God offers us new life, both now and eternally.* He makes us a new creation and calls us to submit to Jesus as ruler of our lives and to rely on and trust in Jesus and his death and resurrection — to have faith in the sufficiency of his work on the cross and to repent, changing our minds about the sufficiency of our old way of living.
When we trust in Jesus, we are forgiven of our sin, credited with Christ's righteousness, adopted as sons or daughters of God, and given new and eternal life.7 We also receive the presence of God's Spirit in our lives, thus producing the fruit of the gospel and the character of Christ enabling us to love, know, and represent God as we were created to do.8
1 Genesis 1-2; Exodus 34:1-8; Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 11:7; Isaiah 6:1-3; 54:5; Revelation 4:8-11
2 Genesis 1:26-29; Deuteronomy 6:5; Psalm 8; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ephesians 5:1-2; Philippians 3:7-11
3 Genesis 3; Deuteronomy 24:16; Psalm 51:5; Romans 3:9-23; Romans 5:12-14; Romans 6:23
4 Isaiah 7:14; 9:6; John 1:1-14; 3:16; 10:30; 18:33-37; Phil. 2:5-11; Col. 1:15-19; 2:9; Hebrews 1:1-3
5 Isaiah 53; Matthew 16:21-23; Romans 3:21-26, 5:6-21; 1 Corinthians 15:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:17; Hebrews 4:14-5:10; 1 John 2:2
6 John 2:19-22; John 20-21; Acts 13:26-39; Romans 5:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8; 12-23; 1 Peter 1:3; 20-21
7 Luke 13:1-5; 15:1-7; John 3:1-15; 3:16; 8:24; 10:10; Acts 2:38; 3:18-21; Romans 2:4; 3:21-26; 2 Corinthians 5:17; 5:21; 7:10; Ephesians 2:4-8; Colossians 2:13-14
8 John 15:16; Romans 6:1-23, 7:41 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 5:20; Galatians 5:16-25; Ephesians 2:8-10
*2 Ways to Live, Matthias Media, 2003.
FOUR NECESSARY ELEMENTS OF THE GOSPEL
GOD
God the holy & righteous Creator is both the beginning and the culmination of the Gospel message. His desire in creating humanity was and is that we would, as bearers of His image, love, know and represent Him. Because God is a holy & righteous Creator sin cannot enter His presence. Therefore those who sin cannot partake in relationship with Him, nor can they enter His presence. (Genesis 1-2; Exodus 34:1-7)
HUMANITY
Contrary to popular opinion, humanity in and of itself is not good. Although created in God’s image, we have rebelled against Him, seeking out our own desires above Him and gratifying the sinful nature of our flesh. We are, at our core, deceptive and wicked. Apart from Christ, we are enemies of God and children of wrath. We desperately need to be saved from sin and only God could send a rescuer worthy to redeem us to Himself. (Romans 3:9-20, 23; Ephesians 2:1-3)
JESUS
In the Gospel, God redeems a people to Himself through the perfect sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, who becomes the propitiation for sin, thereby opening up a way for us to have relationship with God. Jesus came in the form of a man, fully God...fully human, showing us what the Father is like, reconciling us back to Him through His death and resurrection. He now sits at the right hand of the Father interceding on our behalf. (2 Corinthians 5:20-21; John 1:1-18, Ephesians 2:11-22; Hebrews 4-5)
RESPONSE
The redeemed in Christ respond in faith to the Gospel. They are now reconciled to God, meaning they are no longer dead to Him or His enemies, but instead they are alive to God and partakers of an unrestricted, peaceful relationship with Him. They are both free from the wages of sin and enabled to pursue intimacy with God the Father by the Spirit through the Son. They are filled with the Holy Spirit who leads them to understand the truth of God’s Word, convicts them of sin, and empowers them to live in obedience to God. God’s redeemed people are now his primary representatives in the world, declaring the gospel message in word and deed, living for the glory of God. (Mark 1:14-15; Acts 2:38; Hebrews 10:22; John 14-16; Matthew 28:16-20; 2 Corinthians 5)
DOCTRINAL STATEMENT
GOD
There is one God, manifest in three co-eternal persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), the same in their essence/substance and equal in power and glory. The Trinitarian godhead, by its very nature, is the church’s model of unity, community, love, and honor among its members. God has made himself known to mankind by natural and special revelation. (Gen 1:1, 26-27; Acts 5:4; Luke 3:22; Matt 28:19; Heb 1:2)
PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son and second person of the triune godhead, who, being sent as God’s special revelation is the Living Word, by which the Father has made Himself known. Jesus was supernaturally conceived by the Holy Spirit and physically born of the Virgin Mary. He is one in person, with both divine and human natures, united without confusion, the God-man. Jesus, having finished his earthly ministry and the work of his substitutionary atonement and propitiatory sacrifice, bearing and dying for our sins, bodily rising from the dead and ascending to heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He will imminently return, bodily, to rule and to reign as King and to judge mankind. Jesus is Lord and is alone worthy to rule the hearts and lives of all mankind, particularly those who are his followers. (John 1:1,14, Eph 1:20)
PERSON AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is the coequal third person of the triune Godhead. He is sent by the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement. He indwells every true Christian from the moment of spiritual birth, convicting the believer of sin and assuring the believer of his position as God’s child. He is the power for living and being transformed into the image of Christ. He is the believer’s guide into all understanding and application of God’s truth. He gives to every believer at least one spiritual gift as He wills it and for the good and edification of the Body. (John 14:26; John 16:8; Rom 8:11; John 16:7-13; I Cor 12:11)
THE BIBLE
The Bible, consisting of 66 canonical books contained in the Old and New Testaments, is God’s holy, inspired, and infallible word, communicated to mankind as God’s special revelation and preserved for us. It was inspired and written by men as moved along by the Holy Spirit, that we might actually and better know, love, obey and serve God. It is inerrant in its original manuscripts. Scripture is the final authority on all matters on which it speaks and for secondary matters by reasonable application of its principles. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
CREATION
The triune God, particularly the Lord Jesus Christ, being active, initiative, and purposeful is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. All things were created by Him and for Him out of nothing and without Him was not anything made. All of God’s creation was declared good. Adam and Eve were the literal and historical first human beings created in His image, bearing His immaterial likeness, for His purposes and glory. Mankind, being created in God’s image, fearfully and wonderfully made is called to live in a right and obedient relationship with Him and as such, as God’s ambassadors, to live for His purposes, with his chief end being to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. (Col 1:16-17; John 1:3; Heb 11:3; Gen 1:2; Gen 1:28; Psalm 139:14; 2 Cor 5:20; Psalm 73:24-28)
FALL OF MAN
Mankind was created in God’s image and in a right relationship and fellowship with God. Having freedom and capacity to obey as well as to sin, God entered into a gracious Covenant of Works with Adam and Eve, on condition of perfect obedience. However, Eve, being deceived, and yet both having disobeyed, they were banished from God’s perfect Garden, bringing upon themselves and their posterity physical and spiritual death. All of mankind, being “in Adam” has a fallen nature, is corrupted in every part of his being, and is unable of himself to please God apart from redemption and the enabling of the Spirit. (Gen 3:23-24; Rom 5; Rom 3:10-18)
SALVATION
The gospel is to be preached to all nations and the offer of salvation is issued to all who would hear, believe, and repent. Salvation is the unearned rescue of a justly condemned sinner by the inward working and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and by the justifying act of God through the acceptable sacrifice of Christ. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Those who truly belong to Christ are kept and preserved by him in the faith unto eternal life. Those who do not believe and repent will be judged and punished for eternity. (Matt 28:18-20; Rom 10:8-13; John 3:18; Jn 6:37-44; Eph 2:8-10; Jn 10:28-29; John 17:2; Rev 20:12-15)
JUSTIFICATION
Justification is an act of God’s free grace whereby he pardons all our sins and by imputing the righteousness of Christ to the sinner’s account, declares that the requirements of his holy and perfect justice were fulfilled by Christ and judicially applied to particular mankind in his fallen spiritual condition. God satisfies his love by purchasing and offering forgiveness to man and fulfills his justice by paying the penalty of his own justice with the blood of Christ. Thus, the redeemed sinner, now in union with Christ and having Christ’s righteousness as his own may now stand holy and blameless before God. The satisfaction for man’s sin has been placed upon and borne by Christ. (Col 2:13-14; Rom 4:3-8; Col 1:22; Jude 24; I Peter 2:24)
SANCTIFICATION
Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, setting the believer apart for God’s purposes, and the process that God uses to renew the whole of man after the image of God and thus to reproduce the character/image of Christ in the life of the believer. Through sanctification, God positionally and then practically transforms man’s nature and practice that he may die more and more to sin and increase in righteousness. It is by obedience to and application of the Word of God and by responsiveness to the working and prompting of the Holy Spirit that the believer mortifies sin and progresses in sanctification.(2 Thess 2:13; Col 3:1; Rom 6:4, 6:14)
RESURRECTION
Without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no gospel and no eternal hope for the believer. There will be a bodily resurrection for all people; for those who in this life believed, a resurrection unto eternal life and the everlasting presence of God; for those who in this life did not believe in Christ, condemnation unto everlasting punishment and separation from the presence of God. (1 Cor 15:1-21; John 5:24-29; Rev 20:11-15)
THE CHURCH
The invisible Church or church universal consists of all true believers across all time, nation, and languages as those called out of darkness, saved by the blood of Christ, and placed into Body of Christ. The visible church as local bodies consist of all those who profess saving faith and gather in his name in a particular time and place. Jesus Christ is the head of his true church, his bride, for which he will return and claim forever.
Scripture directs that the church is to be led and governed and ministered to by qualified men called to the offices of Elders, and Deacons with the particularized role of pastor included in the office of Elder. (Col 1:18; 1 Tim 3:1-13; 5:17)
ORDINANCES
Jesus Christ instituted two ordinances for his church that are to be practiced by and in the corporate context of the church until he returns, those being water baptism and the Lord’s Supper/Communion.
Baptism is to be performed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit upon those who publicly profess saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As a sign and seal of the believer’s union with Christ, it is an outward expression of an inward and spiritual reality of one’s solidarity with him in his death, burial, and resurrection. It symbolizes the believer’s death to sin and resurrection to newness of life in Christ.
The Lord’s Supper, as inaugurated by Jesus with his disciples on the night before his death, is not merely a commemoration of his sacrificial death until he comes but also a spiritual nourishment and strengthening of the believer through the spiritual presence of Christ. (Rom 6:3-5; 1 Cor 11:13-26)
GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
God has placed His Spirit within each believer and has gifted each believer with one or more spiritual grace-gifts for the benefit of the body or church. The Spirit gives these gifts as He wills and the believer may not choose the gift/s he wants but should mature in his unique giftedness. Not all persons have the same gifts and thus no particular spiritual gift may serve as evidence of salvation. The exercise of such gifts must be done decently and in order and according to God’s designs to build up His church and expand His kingdom. (Rom 12; 1 Cor 12)
LAST THINGS
We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ when he will sit in judgment and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust. The unjust, who do not know God, will go to judgment and eternal, conscious punishment in hell away from the presence of the Lord. The just, who have believed, will be rewarded with eternal blessedness and joy in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth. (2 Corinthians 5.10; 1 Corinthians 15; Matthew 25.31-46; 2 Thessalonians 1.7-10)