Hartford Bible Church Statement of Faith

Section 1: Scriptures
We believe that all scripture, by which we understand the whole of the book called the bible, “is given by inspiration of God.” We do not take the statement in the sense in which it is sometimes foolishly said that works of human genius are inspired, but in the sense that the Holy Ghost gave the very words of the sacred writings, to holy men of old; and that His divine inspiration is not in different degrees, but extends equally and fully to all parts of those writings, historical, poetical, doctrinal, and prophetical, and to the smallest word, and inflection of a word, provided such word and inflection of a word, is found in the original manuscripts. (2 Tim 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:21; 1 Cor 2:9-14; Mark 12:26; Mark 13:11; Acts 1:16; Matthew 10:20)

Section 2: Godhead
We believe that the Godhead eternally exists in three person, the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that these three are one God, having precisely the same nature, attributes and perfection, and are worthy of precisely the same homage, confidence and obedience. (John 1:1-14; Matt 28:19-20; Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor 13:14; Heb 1:1-3; Rev 1:4-6; Luke 3:21-22)

1. Person of the Father: We believe that God the Father so loved the world that He gave His Son, Jesus Christ, to become our only means of salvation. We believe that He becomes the believer’s Father at the new birth. The Father sends the Holy Spirit to abide with the believer forever in response to the Son’s request and that this takes place at conversion. We believe that the Father answers believing prayer when asked in the name of Jesus. (John 3:16; John 8:42; Acts 4:10-22; John 6:37, 44; Acts 10:44, 45; John 16:23, 24; Romans 8:14-17)

      2. Person of Christ: We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ is the theme of all Scripture and all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for            doctrine, for reproof, and for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good              works. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Mary, in order that           He might reveal God and redeem sinful men. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through the shedding of His blood on           the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice; and that our justification is made sure by His literal, physical resurrection form the              dead. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, and is now exalted to the right hand of God, where as our High Priest, He fulfills the                ministry of Representative, Intercessor, and Advocate. (John 1:1, 2, 14; Luke 1:35; Rom 3:23,24; Eph 1:17; 1 Peter 1:3-5; Acts 1:9-10; Heb 9:11-15; Heb 7:25;Rom        8:34; 1 John 2:1,3) 
      3. Person of the Holy Spirit: We believe that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, not an influence, and is the source and power of all acceptable worship and          service, is our abiding comforter and helper, that He never takes His departure from the Church nor form the feeblest of Saints. He is ever present to              testify of Christ, seeking to occupy us with Him, and not with ourselves, nor with our experiences. (John 7:38, 39; John 14:16-17; John 15:26; John 16:13;                Acts 1:8; Rom 8:9; Phil 3:3)
 
Section 3: Total Depravity

1. We believe that man, originally created in the image and after the likeness of God, fell from his high and holy estate by eating the forbidden fruit, and as a the consequence of his disobedience, the threatened penalty of death was then and there inflicted, so that his moral nature was not only grievously injured by the fall, but he totally lost all spiritual life, becoming dead in trespasses and sin, and subject to the power of Satan. (Gen 1:26; Gen 2:7; John 5:40; Eph 2:1-3; 1 John 3:8; 1 John 5:11-12

        2. We believe that this spiritual death, or total corruption of human nature has been transmitted to the entire race of man, the man Christ Jesus alone                   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, being at enmity against God, and incapable , by any education process whatever, of subjection to His law. (gen 6:5; Psalm 14:1-              3; 51:5; Jer 17:9; John 3:6; Rom 5:12-19; 8:6,7) 

Section 4: Salvation

1. Necessity of New Birth

We believe that, owing to this universal depravity and death in sin, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless born again; and that no degree of reformation, however high; no culture, however attractive; no humanitarian and philanthropic schemes and societies, however useful; no water baptism or other ordinance, however administered, can help the sinner take even on step toward heaven; but a new nature imparted by the Holy Ghost through the Word, is absolutely essential to salvation. (Isa 64:6; John 3:5; Gal 6:15; Phil 3:4-9; Titus 3:5; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23)
     2. Redemption by the Blood
We believe that our redemption has been accomplished solely by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was made to be sin, and made a curse, for us, dying in our room and stead; and that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolution, no sincere efforts, no submission to the rules and regulation of any church, or all the churches that have existed since the days of the Apostles, can add in the very least to the value of the precious blood, or merit of that finished work, wrought for us by Him who united in His person though and proper divinity with perfect and sinless humanity. (Lev 17:11; Matt 26:28; Rom 5:6-9; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Eph 1:17; 1 Peter 1:18-19)
      3. Justification
We believe that Christ, in the fullness of the blessings He has secured by His obedience unto death, is received by faith alone, and that the moment we trust in Him as our Savior, we pass out of death into everlasting life, being justified from all things, accepted before the Father according to the measure of His acceptance, loved as He is loved, and having His place and portion as linked to Him and one with Him forever. (John 5:24; Eph 2:4-6, 13; 1 John 4:17; 5:11-12)
      4. How Obtained 
We believe:

1. That in order to be saved, sinners must be born again.
2. That the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus.
3. That it is instantaneous and not a process, that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and in sins is made a partaker of the divine nature and received eternal life, the free gift of God; that the new creation is brought about in a manner above our comprehension; not by culture, not by character, not by the will of man, but wholly and solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in connection with divine truth, so as to secure our voluntary obedience to the Gospel, that its evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance and faith in newness of life. (John 3:3; 2 cor 5:17; Luke 5:27-28; 1 John 5:1; John 3:6-7; Acts 2:41; Acts 15:30-33; 2 Peter 1:4; Rom 6:23; Eph 2:1; 2 cor 5:19; Col 2:13; John 3:8; John 1:12-13; Gal 5:22)

 
Section 5: Assurance
We believe that it is the privilege, not only of some but of all who are born again by the Spirit thought faith in Christ as revealed in the Scriptures, to be assured of t heir salvation from the very day they take Him to be their Savior; and this assurance is not founded upon and fancied discovery of their own worthiness, but wholly upon the testimony of God in His written Word, exciting within His children filial love, gratitude, and obedience. (Luke 10:20; 12:32; John 6:47; Rom 8:38-39; 2 Cor 5:1; 2 Tim 1:12; 1 John 5:12)

Section 6: The Eternal Security of the Believer
We believe that all redeemed once saved, are kept by the power of God, are thus secure forever in Jesus Christ, but that such assurance should never be used as a license to indulge in fleshly desires. (John 6:37-40; John 10:27-30; Rom 8:1; 38-39; 1 John 5:10-13; 1 Cor 1:4-8; 1 Peter 1:5; Rom:13:13-14)

Section 7: The Church

1. We believe that the church is composed of all who are united by the Holy Spirit to the risen and ascended Son of God, that by the same Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, and thus being members of one another, we are responsible to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, rising above all sectarian prejudices and denominational bigotry and loving one another with a pure heart fervently, and that we are to witness by life and by word to the truths of the Holy Scriptures and to seek to proclaim the gospel to all mankind. (Matt 16:6, 18; Acts 2:32-47; Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:12-27; Eph 1:20-23; 4:3-10; Col 3:14-17; Acts 1:8)

          2.   We believe that the establishment and continuance of local churches is clearly taught and defined in the new Testament Scripture. (Acts 14:17; 20:17,                  28-32; 1 Tim 3:1-13; Titus 1:5-11) 

Section 8: The Walk of the Believer
We believe that we are called with a Holy calling to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, and so to live in the Spirit that we should not fulfill the lusts of the flesh; but the flesh, being still in us to the end of our earthly pilgrimage, needs to be kept constantly in subjection to Christ or it will surely manifest its presence to the dishonor of His name. (Rom 8:12-14; Gal 5:16-25; Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:1-10; 1 Peter 1:14-16; 1 John 3:5-9)

Section 9: The Eternal State
We believe that the souls of those who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation do, at death, immediately pass into His presence and there remain in conscious bliss until the resurrection of the body at His coming, when soul and body reunited shall be associated with Him forever in Glory; but the souls of the unbelievers remain after death in conscious 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, not to be annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction from presence of the Lord and from the Glory of His power. (Luke 16:19-26; 23;43; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:23; 2 Thess 1:7-9; Jude 6-7; Rev 20:11-15)

Section 10: Future Things
We believe that the world will not be converted during this present dispensation, but is fast ripening for judgment, while there will be a fearful falling away in the professing Christian body, and hence that the Lord Jesus will come in person to introduce the millennial age when Israel shall be restored to their own land, and the earth shall be full of knowledge of the Lord, and that this personal and premillenial advent is the blessed hope set before us in the Gospel for which we should be constantly looking. It is also our belief that the Christians will be caught up in the air to meet the Lord prior to the time of judgment know as the tribulation period, and that those who have already passed into eternity will be resurrected from the grave to receive their incorruptible body, and that together, we will ever be with the Lord. (Luk 12:35-40; 17:26-30; 18:8; Acts 15:14-17; 1 Thess 2:3-8; 2 Tim 3:1-5; 1 Cor 15:51-58; 1 Thess 4:13-18)

Section 11: The Personality of Satan
We believe that Satan is a person, the author of sin and the cause of the fall of man; that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man, and that the shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire. (Job 1:6-7; Isaiah 14:12-15; Matt 4:2-11; Rev 12:10; 20:10)

Section 12: Ordinances
We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, being head over all of the church, (Eph 1:22) left us the following commands:

1. “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Matthew 28:19)
2. “The Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, take eat; this is my body which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner He also took the cup, when He had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood; this do as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)

       3. We believe this commemorative applies to all true Christians and should be preceded by solemn self-examination lest anyone participate unworthily.
 
Section 13: The Ministry of Special Gifts

1. We believe that God is sovereign in the bestowment of all His gifts and that the gifts of evangelists, pastors, and teachers are sufficient for the perfecting of the saints today, and that speaking in tongues and the working of sign miracles gradually ceased as the New Testament Scriptures were completed and their authority established. (1 Cor 12:4-11; 2 Cor 12:12; Eph. 4:7-12; 1 Cor 13:8-12)

      2. We believe that God does hear and answer that prayer of faith, in accord with His own will, for the sick and afflicted. (John 15:7; 1 John 5:14-15)