As a Presbyterian and Reformed Church, we ground all we believe upon the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God—the Holy Bible, our only rule of faith and life. We hold without reservation to the truth of that Word as expressed in the historic creeds of the church (e.g., the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed), and the great truths and confessions/catechisms of the Reformation (e.g., the so-called Doctrines of Grace, the Five ‘Solas,’ the Five Points of Calvinism, the Three Forms of Unity, the Westminster Confessions and Catechisms). Below are summaries of some of these truths and links in particular to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, which are the official doctrinal standards of the family of Presbyterian churches worldwide.

A Brief Summary of Our Beliefs

God’s will, not human opinion, culture or tradition, must govern all our thoughts, words, and actions.

God’s will is perfectly revealed in the Bible and defines what we are to believe about Him and how we are to live before Him.

The Bible teaches that there is only one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Who has existed from all eternity as three persons.

God created the universe out of nothing in six literal days and governs every detail of His creation according to His unchangeable plan.

Man, male and female, was directly created by God in His image but through Adam’s fall all of us are sinners, justly deserving Hell, and powerless to achieve our own salvation.

Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, became man through the virgin birth, lived sinlessly, died sacrificially, and rose bodily, to atone for the sins and accomplish the salvation of all whom God has chosen for salvation.

Man is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—He is the exclusive way to God. Good works are necessary evidences of true faith but contribute nothing to salvation.

God the Holy Spirit applies salvation to all who repent and believe, working true faith, equipping and keeping every Christian unto eternal life.

Jesus Christ shall return personally, visibly, and bodily to judge all mankind, put an end to all God’s enemies, and perfect His people in resurrection unto final glory.

What are the Doctrines of Grace?
The Doctrines of Grace are a summary of the great teachings of the Bible regarding God and His ways with man, centering in the truth of the Gospel of God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ, and taught in the great creeds and catechisms of the Reformation. They have been expressed in a variety of ways:

The Five ‘Solas’ of the Reformation—the five truths that where at the heart of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century when men such as Martin Luther, John Zwingli and John Calvin lead the church in revival and reformation as it recovered the great truths of biblical faith:

· Sola Scriptura—Scripture Alone. The Bible is our only infallible rule of faith and life (not Scripture plus Papal authority, church tradition, or creeds and confessions). It alone can bind man’s conscience.

· Sola Fide—Faith Alone. We are justified (declared and accepted as righteous) before a Holy God by the righteousness of Christ alone, received solely through the instrumentality of faith.

· Sola Gratia—Grace Alone. We are saved through faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone—our own works contributing nothing. The gospel is not a product for health and wealth, or self-esteem, or something that is true because it works. It is the message of rescue from the power and curse of sin and the wrath of a holy God, and the gift of forgiveness and eternal life and adoption by a loving Father—because of sheer, unmerited grace!

· Solus Christus—Christ Alone. In contrast to the secularization of the church in our day, the Christ and the cross are central! Salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of Christ alone—His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation with the Father.

· Soli Deo Gloria—God’s Glory Alone. God alone saves; for His glory; and the great purpose and the great good for man is to know just that (Rom. 11:36: For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.)!

The Three Foundational Truths of the Doctrines of Grace:

· God’s Absolute Sovereignty Over Everything. This is the fundamental tenet of the Doctrines of Grace, teaching that all things exist by, through, and for the Triune God; that nothing happens apart from His plan and purpose; and that man, uniquely created in God’s image, is responsible to confirm all aspects of his life to the purposes and commands of God.

· Man’s Utter Depravity and Lostness in Sin. This is man’s fundamental problem—though created perfectly good, his first ancestors (Adam and Eve) fell from their innocence through their own sinful act, and brought sin, guilt, corruption, ruin, and sin, upon the whole human race. As a result, all men by nature are morally and spiritually dead, unable to do anything to save themselves, and justly under sentence of God’s wrath, eternal punishment and condemnation to Hell.

· The Glory of Sovereign Grace. This is the great, amazing, Good News of the Gospel—that God, out of sheer love and mercy, has sent His only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to do what man cannot do—to save dead, lost sinners from Hell; to accomplish the salvation of His people through His substitutionary death and perfect life; to sincerely offer His saving grace to any and to all undeserving sinners who will repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as He is offered in the Gospel; and to actually and eternally confer the grace of forgiveness and faith by the effective working of the Holy Spirit through the proclamation of the Scriptures to forever save all appointed unto eternal life.

What Is Reformation?

Reformation, by definition, is a formation over again, a matter of returning something to its original form or condition. In the case of the church, reformation involves restoring beliefs and practices which have drifted away from the norms of God’s authoritative Word—the Holy Scriptures—back into conformity with the teachings and practices God intends us to follow as He revealed them in the Bible.

Implications of the Doctrines of Grace

There is not an inch in the whole area of human existence of which Christ, the sovereign of all, does not cry, ‘It is Mine.’ —Abraham Kuyper

When we truly understand the comprehensiveness of God’s sovereignty over all things, the abiding weakness and wickedness of fallen man, and the glory and wonder of God’s sovereign grace in the Gospel of Christ, our understanding and application of God’s Word will be affected in every area of our lives. For example:

· The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture. Since God is absolutely sovereign, we will allow God to speak to us His way—we will come to understand that Scripture alone, not Scripture plus something else (reason, tradition, dreams, tongues, so-called revelations of the Spirit, etc.), is God’s infallible and sufficient rule to direct every aspect of our faith and life (the Christian life, worship, church government, male/female roles, family, evangelism, ethics, etc.). Our great task, and often our great failing, is to understand, teach and preach, and order our lives and churches and culture, by the principles taught in this great gift of God to His Church. When individuals and churches truly do come to fully embrace the Scriptures, reformation and transformation results as worldliness, superstition, false doctrine, and poor teaching are exposed and expunged. In addition, tender consciences are delivered from the abuse of the unscrupulous, and help captive by the liberating authority of God’s Word, the sixty-six books of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

· The Worship of God. No longer will we see worship as entertainment or an evangelistic event to reach the lost. God and His glory will become central, and what pleases and glorifies Him as revealed in the Holy Scriptures will be our great passion. Awe and reverence, coupled humble but exuberant faith, will become our delight in praise, prayer, the reading and preaching of God’s Word, and the sacraments, as God is worshipped in the fullness of His attributes and centering in His Son, Jesus Christ. Also, we will be loath to include in God’s worship elements or practices not sanctioned by the Scriptures.

· The Gospel and Evangelism. We will no longer see the Gospel as a message about what I must do to get saved, or how we get right with God through religious rites, but rather see it as the Good News of what Christ did on behalf of sinners through His perfect life, atoning death, and death-conquering resurrection. Gospel proclamation will include exposing human sin and guilt by teaching God’s law, highlighting the futility and worthlessness of human effort and religious practices, and pointing the way to true forgiveness and eternal life through repentance of sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, plus nothing else on our part. We will be freed from manipulative techniques, insistence on instant decisions, dispensing premature assurance, and the like; and freed to fulfill our responsibility in evangelism—to proclaim the gospel to the lost and adorn it with personal godliness, and to trust God to His part in evangelism—to sovereignly and graciously open the hearts of those He has appointed unto eternal life to hear, believe, and obey the truth and obligations of the Gospel.

· The Christian Life. God’s glory will become our passion. Humility will become our clothing. Prayer; knowing God through His Word; worship and fellowship with other Christians in a Bible-believing church; witness through holiness and evangelism; fulfilling our obligations in home, vocation, and community; heads of families nurturing family members in the ways of Christ; these matters will be our life-long ambition and pursuit. Heaven will be seen as our home and the world our place of pilgrimage and service. Loving God and loving others; hating sin and denying self; will be our hallmarks. Personal peace, prosperity, health, wealth, and worldly success will be seen as less important than honoring and obeying Christ. Suffering and adversity we will count “pure joy” because we know they are from the hand of a sovereign God Who works all things for the good of His people.

· The Government and Ministry of the Church. We will see the importance of God’s church in His plan of redemption and support its worship and work to the best of our ability. We will submit to His plan for governing and instructing His church by Holy Spirit-qualified male leaders and preacher/teachers. We will see the Church as a Spiritual institution where all are called to: serve according to their gifts and calling; promote its peace and unity through godliness and adherence to sound doctrine; be willing to reform or abandon any traditions, beliefs, or practices not sanctioned by the Scriptures.

· The Family. God’s will that husbands, wives, and children have distinct but interrelated God-given roles and responsibilities will be received with gladness and obedience. Family goals, jobs, education, leisure, discipline, and relationships will come to center on Christ and His honor and will. Worship and service, love and hospitality, order and peace, stability and respect, will displace the angst, confusion, disharmony, and brokenness of the typical modern family.

Perhaps B. B; Warfield, the great teacher and defender of these doctrines in the early 20th century, put it best. The Doctrines of Grace are “just religion in its purity.” They encapsulate the “attitude of mind and heart” that is expressed “when we kneel before God [in prayer], not merely with the body, but with the mind and heart … the attitude of utter dependence and humble trust.” He is the person “who is determined to preserve the attitude he takes in prayer in all his thinking, in all his feeling, in all his doing… Other men [embrace the Doctrines of Grace] on their knees; the [person who fully holds to the Doctrines of Grace] is the man who is determined that his intellect, and heart, and will shall remain on their knees continually, and only from this attitude think, and feel and act.”


The Five Points of Calvinism (T.U.L.I.P.)—a response by the Churches of Holland by its internationally-delegated Synod of Dordt (1618-19) to a five-pronged doctrinal protest (a ‘Remonstrance’) by followers of Jacob Arminius, to establish biblical and confessional doctrines of the Protestant (Evangelical) Church:

1. Total (Radical) Depravity (Corruption; Inability). The totality of man’s nature—body and soul, including the faculties of mind, heart, will—is so corrupted by sin that he is unable to do anything spiritually or morally good or contribute anything toward his salvation. (Gen. 6:5;

Ps. 14:1-4; Jer. 17:9; John 3:5-7, 6:65; Rom. 5:12; Eph. 2:1-3)

2. Unconditional (Gracious; Sovereign) Election. God has, by sheer grace and solely in His own sovereign will (not based upon anything in, or foreseen to be in or done by, man), chosen certain individuals for salvation from the foundations of the world. (Ps. 33:12, 65:4; Matt. 11:27; Rom. 8:28-30, 9:10-24; Eph. 1:4, 12, 2:10; 2 Thes. 2:13-14)

3. Limited (Definite) Atonement (Definite Redemption). Christ’s substitutionary death on Cavalry’s cross atoned for all the sins and actually secured (not just made possible!) the salvation of all those God has chosen to be saved, giving the gift of faith to for whom He died and thus to all who believe unto everlasting life. (Mat. 1:21; John 6:35-40, 10:11,14-18,24-29, 17:1-11, 20, 24-26; Rom. 5:8-10,12,17-19; Eph. 1:3-12; 1 Pet. 3:18)

4. Irresistible (efficacious) Grace. God’s grace to call sinners to repentance, faith and everlasting life through the proclamation of the Gospel is a sovereign, always effective, invincible work of the Holy Spirit by which He alone enable those who hear to believe, repent, and come freely and willingly to Christ. (Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 36:26-27; John 1:12-13, 3:3-8, 5:21, 6:37,44,45,64,65; Acts 5:31, 11:18, 13:48, 16:14; Rom. 8:30, 9:16, 23,24; 1 Cor. 12:3; Eph. 2:1,5,8,9; Col. 2:13)

5. Perseverance (Preservation) of the Saints. All those who are chosen by God to be redeemed by Christ and given the Holy Spirit, are eternally saved, kept in faith by the power of almighty God, and persevere in godliness and a lively faith in Christ. (Isa. 43:1-3, 54:10; Jer. 32:40; John 3:16,36, 6:35-40, 10:27-30, 17:11,12,15; Rom. 8:29,20,35-39; Eph. 1:5,13,14; Col. 3:3,4; 1 Pet. 1:3-5)



"For the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ"
- Revelation 1:9