table of contents 🌿Stance on Scripture 🌿About the Creator 🌿About Creation 🌿Salvation / Restoration 🌿God's Expectations of Believers 🌿Man's Death, Resurrection, and Judgment Day
       note: this is a new topic.
In light of verses previously not taken into account, the Statement of Faith has been revamped/refined and diction strengthened to reflect more Biblical accuracy. However, like any summary, nothing does Scripture justice like reading the verses directly. Clicking the cited verses is highly encouraged.
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 3:46 pm
🌿 Stance on Scripture
We believe the Bible, comprised of the Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired, infallible, and the authoritative Word of God [2 Timothy 3:16-17, Matthew 4:4, Matthew 5:18]. In faith we hold the Bible to be inerrant in the autographs (original Hebrew and Greek writings), God-breathed, and the complete and final authority for faith and practice [2 Timothy 3:16-17]. While still using the individual writing styles of the human authors, the Holy Spirit perfectly guided the writers to ensure they documented precisely what He wanted written, without false statements in all its claims [2 Peter 1:21; Titus 1:2].
God made visible appearances, in bodily form, across the Old Testament [Genesis 17:1, 18:1, Exodus 6:2-3], but, because no one—except the Son—has seen the Father [John 1:18, John 6:46], and yet those Old Testament examples describe interactions with the visible, bodily manifestation of God, the one appearing in bodily form was the Son.
One appearance of the Son was unlike the rest: brought forth into the world through a unique incarnation by way of miraculous conception of the Holy Spirit, and a virgin birth, through a woman's womb, and this incarnation was named Jesus (Yeshua/Yehoshua meaning “Yah is salvation / Yah saves”) [Matthew 1:18, 21]. Jesus, the Christ / the Messiah, is the Creator a.k.a. YHWH-incarnate [John 1:1, Isaiah 44:6, Revelation 1:7-8]. Thus, the person of Jesus is both fully Deity and fully man forever. [Revelation 1:18, Isaiah 9:6-7]
The Holy Spirit reveals and glorifies Christ [John 16:14] and applies the saving work of Christ to men [Ezekiel 36:27;Romans 8:7-9]. He convicts people of sin, righteousness, and judgment [John 16:8-11]
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are still active today, which are given to every believer as He determines [1 Corinthians 12:11], and made active through Him in order to fulfill the purpose that He has for the life of the believer [Romans 12:4-8; 1 Corinthians 12].
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2016 3:48 pm
🌿About Creation
In the Beginning
All of God's creations—the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that inhabits them—were good, the way He originally created them. [Genesis 1:3-4, 10, 12, 16-18, 21, 25, 31]
Angels rebelled against God and some are imprisoned until the ultimate judgment day [Job 4:18; 2 Peter 2:4].
An angel, Satan, enticed the first woman, Eve, to sin/violate the Creator's Instructions (specifically, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). She in turn enticed her husband, Adam, to violate God's Instruction along with her [Genesis 3:1-6; Revelation 12:9; 2 Corinthians 11:14]; they sinned out of their own willful choice—by obeying the instruction of a rebellious creation, and their own reasoning—in contradiction to their Creator's Command.
Jesus rose from the dead in the same body [Mark 16:6; John 20:24-28], though glorified [Philippians 3:21], in which He lived and died. Without His physical death and physical resurrection we would have been left in our sins [1 Corinthians 15:17].
The salvation of man's inner-being is wholly a work of God's grace (in the form of the atonement sacrifice He provides, the Revelation/divine information He provides, and the Holy Spirit He provides working upon one's mind and heart [1 Peter 1:23, John 3:6, Titus 3:5, Colossians 2:11])—all of this comes from a source outside of man, that man cannot give himself, and is nothing made up by man [Exodus 20:1; Galatians 1:11; John 1:32]; ergo is not the work of man's own, self-imposed definitions of right or wrong, man's own power to change, nor due to religious ceremony [Romans 3:24, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8, Galatians 2:16; Romans 9:31-32]. But derived from God's written message, read or heard, placing faith/trust in it (and in Him) prompted by the Spirit's conviction working upon your heart and mind.
God considers as righteous those who trust in Him and in His message as He actually spoke it through His Law and Prophets [Romans 4:22–25, Romans 3:21-22], thus credits as righteous those who put their faith in the prophesied Christ for their salvation [Luke 24:44-47, Acts 4:12, John 14:6; Revelation 7:14], and thereby justifies them in His sight. Placing faith in Christ entails: trusting His teachings, which we put into practice if we do trust them, and trusting in His atonement sacrifice, which we accept. That justification endures if their faith in Him endures and produces fruit [Romans 11:19-22, James 2:20-24; John 15:1-8; Matthew 3:8; 1 John 3:7].
The physical salvation of man's body into one that is incorruptible comes later, along with the restoration of all of creation, restored to its good condition like God created in the beginning—no decay, death, nor disease, and no more physical separation from God [Romans 8:21-23; 1 Corinthians 15:50-53; Revelation 21:1-4].
Servants of Jesus who go back to their mud / worldly ways after being washed and freed from it by knowing Christ, will be rejected, and assigned a place with those unbelievers as well [2 Peter 2:20-22; Luke 12:42-46]. Needless to say, after God has saved your inner-being by softening that stony, undiscerning, unbelieving heart to one that is soft, malleable, and willing to believe and obey, it is still possible to re-harden one's heart in unbelief and disobedience [Zechariah 7:12, Ezekiel 36:25-27, Hebrews 3:7-8, 2 Peter 2:20-22, Matthew 24:48-51], ergo why these servants, who knew Christ and escaped the world at one point, are getting physically cast out (and why we need to encourage one another daily so we don't become that [Hebrews 3:13]).
The Lord Jesus Christ commanded all believers to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and to disciple men of every nation teaching them to obey everything He commanded [Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 1:8] The fulfillment of that Great Commission requires that all worldly and personal ambitions be subordinated to a total commitment to "Him who loved us and gave Himself for us." [Galatians 2:20, John 14:15, 2 John 1:6, 1 John 2:6]
At physical death, unbelievers also enter the realm of the dead, albeit separate from the believers [Luke 16:26], they too consciously, aware of their surroundings, wait for their resurrection (back to life from death) on judgment day, at which point they will be judged for their deeds and words. This is when God will condemn them into the Lake of Fire / Gehenna (after they have had their court date so to speak) [Daniel 12:2, John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:13, Matthew 16:27], but as they wait in death, just like the righteous / the believers, they receive back how they treated others in life [Luke 16:19-31]. However because they were uncaring, unjust, unloving, ruthless, merciless, (ergo receiving that in return) their wait is not comfortable.
If you've never realized this about the account of what happened to the rich man and Lazarus in death (Luke 16:19-31), notice: once you analyze the rich man's relation to Lazarus in life, on earth, to their relation in death, in Hades, you realize that the rich man was put in spiritually-equivalent circumstances so that he experiences and comes to know how he treated Lazarus in life. The roles are switched. In life, Lazarus was in total agony under the sun, at the rich man's gates (ergo at a distance, but could see him) in total agony under the heat of the sun, naked, diseased, hungry and thirsty, while the rich man lived in total comfort further away. But the rich man never brought a drop, a crumb, of alleviation to Lazarus—despite being wealthy and having more than enough to spare. So, in death, God makes the rich man feel what he made Lazarus feel. A taste of his own medicine. Lazarus' discomforts were never alleviated by you. So now, in death, no one will alleviate yours (most of all Lazarus will not come to alleviate your thirsts, hungers, and pains, just like you didn't come to alleviate his. Difference being: you were not willing, while Lazarus can't, perhaps can't even see you—because he doesn't even respond [perhaps to make it equivalent to how the rich man ignored Lazarus on earth]).
This isn't Gehenna / the lake of fire, but Hades, as verse Luke 16:23 says in the Greek. They're both waiting for their resurrection—ergo not there forever—as evidenced by the rich man asking Abraham to resurrect Lazarus from the dead and send him to the rich man's family as warning to repent, so that they don't come to the same place the rich man did. All of them (Abraham, Lazarus and the rich man) are dead, not resurrected. The flames in Luke 16 have nothing to do with the lake of fire (the eternal place), but the rich man's specific treatment of Lazarus, leaving him, un-alleviated, ignored, under the heat of the blazing fire of the sun. The same heat Lazarus felt is now being felt by the rich man.
Resurrections
There are two resurrections man could possibly participate in at end times (assuming they're not already alive at Jesus' return), and they're separated by Jesus' 1,000-year reign on earth (one resurrection at the start of His 1,000 year reign and the second resurrection at the end of His 1,000-year reign) [Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 20:7, 11-14]. Those who partake of the first resurrection proved their loyalty by martyrdom, dying at the hands of the enemy, decapitated, for refusing to disobey Christ / refusing to be disloyal to the Word of God.
When Jesus returns to earth to reign for those 1,000 years, Satan is imprisoned for the full length of those 1,000 years of Jesus' reign [Revelation 20:1-3]. After those 1,000 years of Jesus' reign, Satan is let out one last time to deceive the nations, but is defeated and thrown into the lake of fire along with his angels [Revelation 20:7-10] It's after this that the second resurrection takes place.
Judgment
This current earth with its heavens disappears at the Great White throne judgment (after Jesus' 1,000 year reign) [Revelation 20:11], and the New Heavens and the New Earth appear after that final judgment of people getting cast into the lake of fire [Revelation 21:1].
