What We Believe
Bethesda Baptist Church’s beliefs are consistent with the 2000 edition of The Baptist Faith and Message of the Southern Baptist Convention. The following represents a summary of our core beliefs.
1. The Bible – We believe the Bible is the infallible, inerrant and inspired Word of God from Genesis to Revelation.
2. God the Father – We believe in only one, true living God who is perfectly holy, just, merciful and infinitely loving. Also, He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, who orders and disposes all things according to His own purpose and will.
3. The Son – We believe Jesus Christ to be the virgin-born son of God and in His incarnation He was perfect deity and humanity. His substitutionary death provided atonement for man’s sin. After His burial, He arose bodily from the grave and ascended to heaven where He makes intercession for the believer.
4. The Holy Spirit – We believe the Holy Spirit to be the third person of the Godhead, thus possessing all the divine attributes and thereby co-equal with the Father and the Son. It is He who convicts the world of sin, regenerates, indwells, baptizes, seals and sanctifies all who become children of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
5. Man – We believe that man was directly created in the image of God, but in sinning brought both spiritual and physical death to himself and his posterity who have within themselves no possible means of recovery or salvation.
6. Salvation – We believe salvation is the free gift of God to all who through repentance of sin and faith have placed their trust in Jesus Christ’s sacrifice as God’s ONLY remedy for their sinful condition.
7. Christian Growth – We believe that the believer is to live a life of increasing conformity to the image of Christ, which takes place through the exercise of faith, Bible study, prayer, meditation on the Word of God, obedience to Christ, fellowship with other Christians, and other spiritual disciplines.
8. The Church – We believe all who place their faith in Christ are immediately baptized by the Holy Spirit into one united spiritual Body of which Christ is the Head. The purpose of the Body is to glorify God by making disciples of all people through the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel.
9. The Future – We believe in the personal, visible and imminent return of Jesus Christ. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the saved and unsaved; the former to eternal fellowship with the Lord and the latter to eternal punishment and separation from God.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.