THE CREED - BASIC STUFF

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, one in being with the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one, holy, universal, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge immersion into Christ for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. AMEN.


SALVATION

We believe that all people are born in a state of separation from the active life of God. This means that in the core of our being - in our spirits (pneuma) we are without the life essence of our creator - without our intended nature because of the communal fall of mankind described in the Bible. It is because of this internal state that our outer nature, that which is located in our souls (psyche) and manifested through our bodies, does not coincide with God's intended way of living. This "inside-out" view of the human condition is why there is need for what we call "Salvation."

The reason that Jesus came to earth as a man was far more than to be an example outwardly to people about how to live their lives. He became one of us so that we could come back into union with God inwardly. This inward, spiritual connection and, indeed, commingling of our nature (our spirit) with God's nature (His Spirit) is the essence of Salvation. If we are not unified spiritually with God through Jesus, we are not Christians. This inner union of spirits happens at once when we receive the gift of what Jesus did in His life on earth and in dying on the cross as a sacrifice of atonement for our sin nature as well as our sinful behaviour.

Jesus took upon Himself, willingly, the punishment for all the sin of mankind and experienced, in a very real sense, separation from His Father God as he died on the cross and descended into hell. He then was raised from the dead by the power of God as having eternally conquered death and hell. He has conquered for us what we could not conquer, and has offered to us freely a great "exchange." He exchanged His eternal life for our pitiable and limited sinful and merely human existence, so that we might be able to receive, again, that eternal "God-Life" in us. God's Love was the motive and cause of this great gift of Salvation. So it is only by receiving God's free gift of Love as a FREE gift that we are able to participate in what He has given us. What He has given us is nothing less than His own Life. In the beginning, God breathed His own life's breath into man. Now, He is doing so again, through the life and sacrifice of Jesus. When we accept the gift, freely, He breathes His eternal life essence (the Holy Spirit) into our spirit. This is "regeneration," the initialization of the whole salvation process. In this act, we are made new, re-created, as it were - born from above. The adventure then begins.


SANCTIFICATION

Sanctification is the process of "working out your salvation." The process by which this new nature now living inside your spirit grows outward through the soul and is manifested in the works of the body. We established above that regeneration, or spiritual union, is not related to outward actions. In fact, we hardly mentioned them. Again, "inside-out." The wonder of our salvation is hidden inside us under layers of "muck." Muck that is a result of living our lives in a state of disconnection from God so that our only recourse was to look and be influenced by what is outside us. So, the mirror of our soul is dirty and we cannot see what we look like. This is the purpose of the process of sanctification - that we become holistically what God created for us to be. We were created to be His children, reflections of His being... just like Jesus.

Now, in an eternal and inwardly spiritual sense, we already are that. It is true of us that we are God's child if we have received the gift of regeneration and have been born from above. We can only know and do what our soul (psyche) has been programmed to do, though. Just because we have come from our Father's loins doesn't mean that we necessarily know or act like our Father. That takes time. We must be raised by Him, formed by Him, be around Him and get to know Him. This is sanctification - growing into union with God in our souls.

Just as we cannot regenerate ourselves, or bring ourselves back to life in the spirit, we also cannot sanctify ourselves, or fully align ourselves (mind, will, and emotions) with God. What we can do is respond. We have response-ability, the ability to respond to God as He acts. As He sends His ability to work in us, we have the ability to respond positively or negatively to that action. As we respond positively, our "mirror" is cleaned off and we are able to see more clearly who we are and who God is in us, and so, we become more like Him. We are transformed. Transformed, as opposed to con-forming ourselves to some outward mold. We may be able to conform ourselves to some extent, but unless our change is initiated and held up by the eternal essence of God within us, it will never stand. In fact, it is not truly "change" at all, only an illusion.

So, we have a relationship with God. He has re-opened the door to us through Jesus and we have walked through. We have come into His house and He has made it our new home. Now, we must spend time with our "host" and allow Him to fully familiarize us with our new surroundings so that we can live there effectively and with great comfort. It is as we grow in our relationship with Him that we become more like Him; knowing what He knows, acting as He acts, thinking as He thinks. This is the fullness of our Salvation. Not just assenting mentally to some doctrinal position, but in eternal reality being joined together with God in every part of ourselves.


THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

The spiritual life. Our life in Christ. Living as a Christian. It is a "spiritual" life because it has to do with the Spirit - God's Spirit and our spirit. As was explained briefly earlier, this spiritual connection that we have with God is what makes us a Christian. It is a metaphysical reality, not just an idealogical agreement. We are Christians because God's Holy Spirit, His life essence, lives in us. And not merely as a seperate entity moving around inside us as a shell, but as merged with our own life essence, our spirit. God has told us in 1 Corinthians 6:17 that "...whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him." This is a most awesome statement. A statement which succintcly tells us the nature of our salvation, what it is. It is spiritual union with God, no less.

We must understand in the midst of this great truth, though, that the power for the life we will now go about living as Christians has not originated with us. It has come from God. Indeed, it is God - God the Holy Spirit. We live the life of God by the Spirit of God. This is the key to our whole existance as Christian people. First that we know this and then that we look to it constantly as the source of our doing anything good. Of course we were physically alive and moving about doing things even before we became Christians, but the eternal life of God was not in us and the life we lead was not the life He intended for us - it was not His life. Now, though, that the Spirit of God dwells in us, we are more than merely human. We have an eternal mingling with the nature of God Himself and so, are able, by His ability in us, to live a life full of LIFE. God's life, God's love, God's power!

Because of this we not only want God's Spirit and all that He is to reside secretly inside us, but to overwhelm our whole being, overflowing into every part of our lives, giving us the manifested ability to do all the things He calls us to do. We want to be immersed in the Holy Spirit, engulfed by Him in our thoughts and in our senses so that the fragrance of God is smelled by all around us not necessarily because we preach with words, although at times we will, but simply because He is there.

We affirm as true and legitimate all the ways in which the Holy Spirit may manifest Himself to us and through us as the Body of Christ, for our mutual edification and the edification of the world around us, just as He did through Jesus when He lived on the earth and through the early church as described in the New Testament.