Salvation
All people are created with dignity and value in the image of God, to live in a vital relationship with God. We believe that in the beginning, man was created good and upright, but man disobeyed and fell. Man has now incurred not only physical death, but also spiritual death, which is separation from God. We believe that all mankind is born into this spiritual death, and because of the sin nature that we are born into
and through our sin (failing to live by God’s moral standards), we break our intended relationship with God and we experience the destructive consequences of that
broken relationship, spiritually and socially, in this life and beyond. However, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from those consequences and to restore our
broken relationships with God and others, through Christ’s death on the cross, a perfect act of redemption for each of us. Salvation comes to people on the basis of God’s grace through their faith in Jesus alone. They receive the free gift of
forgiveness and are spiritually reborn through repenting of their sin and believing in Jesus Christ. Good works and a holy life, although totally unable to save anyone, are the natural product of repentant, believing people.
Scripture references for further information:
1 Peter 2:24 and 3:18; Romans 3:9-28, 6:23, and 10:9-10; John 3:16 and 5:24; Ephesians 2:1-10; Titus 3:3-8; James 2:14-26