Doctrinal Statement
The following doctrinal statement of the Clay-Platte Baptist Association is based on the 1925, 1963 and 2000 versions of The Baptist Faith and Message.
Our sole authority for faith and practice is the Bible. While we affirm the soul’s competency before God, freedom in religion and the priesthood of the believer, we offer this statement as a consensus of historical doctrines that we believe and by which we are identified.
Scripture:
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired by God. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error, for its matter. All Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.
God:
There is one and only one living and true God. The eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being. God is all powerful, all knowing, all loving and all wise.
Jesus:
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Through His death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of people from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man.
Holy Spirit:
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church.
Man:
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship.
Salvation:
There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. Salvation is offered freely to all who respond in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. All true believers persevere to the end.
The Church:
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Baptism:
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.
The Lord’s Supper:
The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.
The Second Coming:
Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all people in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to hell, the place of everlasting punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in heaven with the Lord.
Evangelism:
It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and of every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to win the lost and make disciples of all nations.