Statement of Faith
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CBMW Statement of Faith

  • We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings, and that they alone are of supreme and final authority in faith and life.
  • We believe there is one true God, eternally existing in three persons as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of whom possesses all of the attributes of deity and divine personality.
  • We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, and is perfect deity and true humanity in one person forever. He lived a sinless life, died for our sins according to the Scriptures as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and rose from the dead in the same body in which he lived and died. He is now seated in glory at the right hand of God the Father.
  • We believe that God, the transcendent Creator or all things in heaven and earth, created Adam and Eve in his own image; that they sinned, and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is alienation from God; the universal sinfulness and guilt of all men and women since the Fall renders them subject to God’s wrath and condemnation. Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons and distinct in their manhood and womanhood. Adam’s headship in marriage was established by God before the Fall and was not a result of sin. The Fall introduced distortions into the relationship between men and women but redemption in Christ restores this relationship. In the home husbands are lovingly to lead their wives and wives should intelligently and willingly submit to their husbands. In the church, some governing and teaching roles are restricted to men.*
  • We believe all who trust in Jesus Christ receive his sacrificial work on their behalf, are justified before God, and regarded as righteous in Christ. This justification of the sinner is by the grace of God alone through faith alone by Christ alone. All whom God graciously saves are born again of the Holy Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, and adopted as children of God.
  • We believe in the blessed hope of the personal, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth, and that he will judge the living and the dead.
  • We believe in the bodily resurrection of all human beings, the redeemed to eternal life and the unrepentant to eternal conscious punishment.

*For an elaboration on the CBMW position on manhood and womanhood, please see the Danvers Statement.

Approved by CBMW Board of Directors on September 8, 2003/Approved by CBMW Council January 2004.

 

ADDENDUM: When the CBMW Statement of Faith was adopted in 2003-2004, its article on the Trinity was intended to affirm Nicene trinitarianism. In January 2017, the Board of CBMW approved a resolution reaffirming “The Nicene Creed (see below) as reflecting the intent and meaning of the Trinitarian article in the CBMW doctrinal statement.”

THE NICENE CREED (AD 381)

I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God; Begotten, not made; Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father: And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets: And I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church: I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins: And I look for the Resurrection of the dead: And the Life of the world to come.