Our Beliefs
At Christ the King Reformed Baptist Church, we affirm the historic orthodox Christian creeds and find them to be very important, edifying and helpful insofar as they agree with God-breathed Scripture, our ultimate, final, and only perfect source of authority. These include the Nicene Creed, the Apostle’s Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed. The unique and only final, supreme, and inerrant source of authority however is God-breathed Scripture.
On Salvation…
"Salvation comes from the Lord." Jonah 2:9
The formal principle of the Protestant Reformation was the belief that Scriptures alone are the final authority for all faith and practice. The Bible tells us what we are to believe about God and what duty he requires of us. It is God's complete and final revelation to us; therefore, we must not add to it or subtract from it.
We believe that the Bible is sufficient to "thoroughly equip" us for every good work. However, we live in a day of doctrinal vagueness and confusion, so we need to be clear about what we believe the Bible teaches. Therefore, we are a confessional church, i.e., we have written confessions of faith that clearly state what we believe the Scriptures teach.
We find these best represented by two confessions in particular: the 1833 New Hampshire Baptist Confession of Faith and the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. We do not hold our Confessions as equal to or above the Scriptures but as an accurate expressions of the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. As such, it is a great help in our faith, both as assistance in controversy and as an instrument of edification and instruction.
One particular doctrine we believe is that God is absolutely sovereign over all things.
"He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, 'What have You done?'" (Daniel 4:35)
“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36)
“…there is but one God, the Father from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through Him” (1 Corinthians 8:6)
“…In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory” (Ephesians 1:10b-12)
“For by Him, all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17)
“…in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:2-3b)
We believe that He is also sovereign in the salvation of men. The Bible teaches that man, because of sin, stands guilty and condemned before God's Law; he has a corrupt heart and is alienated from God; and, worst of all, he can do nothing to save himself from God's wrath or to reconcile himself with God.
The good news of the Gospel is that God alone has undertaken to do all that is necessary to deliver man from his awful condition. The Triune God plans, accomplishes, and applies redemption. God the Father unconditionally elects— Jesus Christ, the Son of God willing comes and redeems by his sin-atoning death on the cross — the Holy Spirit effectually calls and enables sinners to come to saving faith in the risen, ruling and one day returning Lord and the only Savior Jesus Christ the righteous. Salvation from beginning to end is "of the Lord" (Jonah 2:9), and therefore, God receives all of the glory. Man receives none. As some pastor theologians have helpfully put it, “Man contributes nothing to his salvation except his sins.” Indeed even our faith in Christ is a gift of God’s grace so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). To God alone be all the glory or as it was said in latin among true Reformational churches as well as the grateful people of God: Soli Deo Gloria!